I get the whole spread of democracy, the cold war nostalgia, etc.
But at the risk of reading like some anti-democractic flower child, I just do not get why we care SO much. I know it is in our countries DNA (see Vietnam, Egypt and the middle east just to name a few) and maybe that is the only answer, but isn’t it time we stop being the world police and worry about people at home?
Our efforts each time generally fail (North Vietnam being the best example) and I suspect that if we applied even half of the “economic support” we offer aboard to our own country, many improvements in the lives of our citizens could be realized (bungling government officials notwithstanding).
Yes we would prefer democracy everywhere, but its cost is in the billions.
I think it’s political posturing. See, in reality the U.S. can do nothing meaningful if Russia is serious. We cannot risk an escalation to a world war, and historically that part of Europe “belongs” to Russia/the Soviets.
Basically, all we can actually do is sit back and threaten to take some money away from Russia for being a naughty boy.
Nevertheless, this lets the Republicans safely pound the president, calling him “weak” because he is not willing to do anything that would ultimately escalate to nuclear weapons…
In all reality, while the Repubs will lovingly take any opportunity to pound the President, there is another factor at play here as well. The media themselves love this story and they add a certain amount of posturing as well. I miss the days when the news was news and I had never heard of a ‘pundit’.
It looks like all Western Europe and the U.S. will be doing about Crimea is speeches and some minor sanctions (they are looking for sanctions which will cost Russia something but which won’t cost Western Europe and the U.S. anything–and these sanctions are few and far between), so it really won’t have significant impact on the U.S. like Vietnam or Iraq did.
The major concern about Crimea is that if nothing is done there that Russia which initiate other similar expansions elsewhere (starting with the Eastern Ukraine). See this map about Ethnic Russians in Post-Soviet States:
There are 25 million ethnic Russians in post-Soviet states.
The biggest question I see here is what are Putin’s actual overarching goals? I don’t think that anyone in the US or Europe really understands Putin right now. Is the protection of Russia’s bases in the Crimea his only goal or is this the start of a long process to rebuild the Soviet satellite states? Nobody really knows. In the end, I am not entirely sure that the west is in a position to challenge Putin unless he were to invade an actual NATO country.
Because the “Russian-ness” of Crimea is nothing but a flimsy excuse for Putin to interfere in Ukraine’s internal politics. He didn’t invade because he felt Crimea should be Russian territory, he invaded because he wants to stop Ukraine from progressing toward joining the EU, which clearly the majority of Ukranians want. When invasion becomes an allowable tool for one nation to impose its will on another, well, that’s a very bad thing.
Let me change the trajectory of my question; Am I completely off base for thinking that all the money we spend abroad is wasted and would be much better spent at home?
What do we REALLY get from sending money, debt relief and really any support (outside of humanitarian aid of food and medicine) to countries in the middle east, Africa and Russia (among others)?
I would love to know what amount of this money that does NOT go into the coffers of the corrupt leaders of those regimes.
Well of course it is. We, (the US), just gave Ukraine one billion dollars in financial aid. This money will likely go directly to pay Russia for the Ukraine gas bill. Sounds nice to give the aid to Ukraine, but in actual practice the money will go to Putin. Might just as well have sent the check directly to him. Read this article from The Moscow Times.
So then why do we send the money. As much as we love to say how incompetent government officials are, the fact is they know at least that much. So why do it? Take that billion dollars and create a nationwide fiber network that Singapore would envy so I can stream my netflix faster
But seriously, if we know we are lining Putin’s pockets and the guy hates us anyway, what is the justification?
Why is this complicated? You send money to influence and prop up people. To get people on your side for various trade and diplomatic issues. To make sure the right people have a strong voice. To make sure the “right” foreign government can continue on.
eta: and to combat issues that are in your national interest but aren’t happening locally. IIRC, the AIDS epidemic in Africa is seen as a national security issue for the USA. They don’t want a a section of the planet incubating a hot bed of a deadly communicable disease.
When Hitler occupied the Rhineland in 1936 (I believe) and then he saw there was no consequences it just made him bolder and 3 years later the world was at war and that lasted 6 years.
I am not saying this is an exact situation but there are a lot of similarities. So is the Crimea the end, or the beginning and the eastern provinces of Ukraine next ?
Many variations on the saying that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. I believe that is true. I also believe that it is true that Putin has taken the measure of Obama and likes his chances very much.
Hitler was so bold that he later invaded Russia. What did Russia do to embolden him, may I ask? Maybe he just did crazy shit cuz he was crazy, not because the world was too soft on him. Everyone remembers Hitler lost and committed suicide in hiding, right?
I was discussing the build up to WW2, not the events in WW2.
I agree that Hitler was a crazy nasty sort. However in the early days he made some logical calculations on the mind set of those in power of other countries and rightly concluded they were not serious to oppose him.
We in the west constantly make the mistake of assuming that others in the world think as we do. That is not the way the world works.
From what I read Obama was on the phone with Putin telling him that invading the Crimea was not in his (Putin’s) best interest. Well apparently Putin concluded it was.
I agree, it is. And perhaps in the post-Soviet era we might have put such things in the past had not a certain superpower decided that what was wrong for everyone else was right for it. Russia is simply following the well-worn path that the US has beaten out.
As a Brit, I would be horrified if the US retreated into isolationism. It may not be perfect, but it’s the military, diplomatic and economic might of the US that is needed to discourage Russia from trying this type of thing too many times. I dread to think how much more feeble Europe’s response to this would be without the US behind it. Russia would over the course of years take tiny nibbles out of its neighbours without any fear of reprisal.
How did the invasion of Iraq discourage Russia? I don’t want the US to become isolationist either, but I certainly don’t want it to revert to 19th century gunboat diplomacy either.
I don’t see this. Previously Ukrainian politics were roughly split between pro-Russian and pro-European. With the invasion/removal of Crimea I see Ukrainian politics going overwhelmingly pro-European.
