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Are We the Baddies, Part 2: US Meddling in Ukraine and Crimea
I’ve been holding out on you since September when this issue of Hillsdale’s Imprimis came out: Complications of the Ukraine War, by Christopher Caldwell, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. Now that I have time to clear out my tabs, you get to learn what I did back then.
If you had to give a one-word answer to what this Ukraine War is about, you would probably say Crimea. Crimea is a peninsula jutting out into the middle of the Black Sea. It’s where the great powers of Europe fought the bloodiest war of the century between Napoleon and World War I. It is a defensive superweapon. The country that controls it dominates the Black Sea and can project its military force into Europe, the Middle East, and even the steppes of Eurasia. And since the 1700s, that country has been Russia. Crimea has been the home of Russia’s warm water fleet for 250 years. It is the key to Russia’s southern defenses.
I admit, I’m not following events in Ukraine as closely as many here on Ricochet. But, as I understand it, Ukraine is committed to fighting not just to repel the Russian invasion, but to recover Crimea. This is a solid guarantee for the prolongation of the war indefinitely. Russia simply cannot — will not — let go of the all-important strategic peninsula of Crimea.
Much of the turmoil began under the Bush 43 administration — surprise! — with US election interference, and exacerbated by the Obama administration — surprise, surprise!! — by meddling in the trade deal negotiated between Ukraine and the EU, and vehemently opposed by Russia.
The previous year (2013), Ukrainian diplomats had negotiated a free trade deal with the European Union that would have cut out Russia. Russia then outbid the EU with its own deal—which included $15 billion in incentives for Ukraine and continued naval basing rights for Russia—and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich signed it. U.S.-backed protests broke out in Kiev’s main square, the Maidan, and in cities across the country. According to a speech made at the time by a State Department official, the U.S. had by that time spent $5 billion to influence Ukraine’s politics. And, considering that Ukraine then had a lower per capita income than Cuba, Jamaica, or Namibia, $5 billion could buy a lot of influence. An armory was raided, shootings near the Maidan left dozens of protesters dead, Yanukovich fled the country, and the U.S. played the central role in setting up a successor government.
The other tidbit that stands out in this piece is this:
In a referendum in January 1991, 93 percent of the citizens of Crimea voted for autonomy from Ukraine. In 1994, 83 percent voted for the establishment of a dual Crimean/Russian citizenship. We’ll leave aside the referendum held after the Russians arrived in 2014, which resulted in a similar percentage but remains controversial.
As long as Ukraine insists on controlling Crimea and even the Russophilic eastern Ukraine, I don’t see a possible resolution to the conflict. I oppose another (Bush) forever war and believe if the US meddles further, it should be to force Ukraine to the negotiating table. For its own sake, as well as ours.
Published in General
https://www.cato.org/commentary/americas-ukraine-hypocrisy#
https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
https://progressive.org/latest/us-reaping-sowed-in-ukraine-benjamin-davies-220201/
None of this is out of the ordinary for a great power, in fact the opposite.
I think his #175 covers it well. The waters were already muddied – how much land would each % of the “dissent” agree to give up for “peace,” it’s not likely to be uniform – before he pointed it out. The “dissent” is not unified. That condition existed previously, even if you and others didn’t notice it before.
I provided you several articles at the beginning of this thread. Surely you read them?
EDIT: I see Zafar offered some more. His are from leftist sources. Mine are from righties.
Are you referring to your links in comment #91? Well I looked through them. First of all they are opinion pieces. They are not hard fact articles.
The first one (the opinion of Pedro L. Gonzalez, whoever he is) brings up the same old canard that NATO expansion provoked Russia. The fact is these countries all wanted to join NATO, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union happened 30 years prior. That’s over a generation of new leaders in those countries. You cannot tie the hands of countries for more than a generation and expect they will go along with prior deals. In fact from that very article you posted:
Those countries wanted to join and they had good reason to join. Frankly to blame America for those countries addressing their national interests does fall into the “Blame America First” crowd.
As to the second article (again a Pedro Ganzalez opinion piece. You must like Pedro.) brings up the Ukraine corruption angle. I’m sure some of it is true. But neither you nor I know what is true and what isn’t. No one is claiming that Ukraine was not corrupt. The corruption has nothing to do with the illegal invasion and subsequent tens of thousands of people killed.
I can match opinion pieces with opinion pieces. They prove nothing. The raw facts are all former soviet states wanted to join NATO, had a right to join NATO, all are defending Ukraine, and Putin illegally invaded Ukraine and is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. I’m still waiting for Putin to prove the Nazification of Ukraine. If you tell me any of those facts are not true, then the moral calculation may change. Otherwise you’re just speculating.
And I’m still waiting on someone to address my points of American meddling in comments #50 and 70.
Uh, nope, there’s a lot of history in them. I get that it’s uncomfortable, but you need to know all about what the U.S. has been doing over there.
You’re essentially saying the truth cannot be known. If that’s so, why are you convinced that what you think you know about Ukraine is true? If the truth cannot be known, then there’s no logical reason to support our actions in Ukraine.
Rather, I think that you believe that you know what’s true and reject anything that runs counter to it.
If you think so. Did Putin find Nazification in Ukraine? What was the American “meddling” that caused him to invade?
Not only that, Western media was reporting on it for years prior to the invasion.
And already the vulture (capitalists) are circling . . .
Sure. This is long, and has ze funny akzent, but it goes into it
Supporting the Russophobe Right in the violent Maidan protests which basically caused the elected (Russophile) leader of the country to flee (to Russia). Regime change, if you will.
There’s also this great interview with Mearsheimer on the subject. From which:
You could buy them out of their homes and businesses. The $200B spent could pay 5m Russian speakers $40,000 each to move east. Even if you skim off 10% for the Democrats, it would still be an attractive offer.
How many people there would claim to be Russian speakers for the cash?
Mearcheimer is saying that the human rights of the Ukrainians should take a back seat to the desires of the dictator Putin. He’s way off base here.
I hate to break it to Mearsheimer. But what he is describing is imperialism. Mearcheimer is advocating that a single person, Putin, should be allowed to deny representative government to millions of people.
I tend to agree. Great powers do act imperially :-) [imperiously?]
Mearcheimer fails to distinguish an is from an ought.
It’s one thing to point out the existence of imperialism. It’s another thing to advocate for imperialism, which is what Mearcheimer is doing.
I don’t think he’s arguing the morality (or the oughts) of it.
So, Meaercheimer is saying that we ought to give our ascent to Putin’s imperialism?
Perhaps that we ought to be realistic about what to expect from a great power? So there is an ought in there.
And maybe that’s at the heart of it. Is Russia a great power or not? The Soviet Union was. Is Russia?
France, Britain and Germany used to be – but not really any more.
From Britannica, a great power is a “sovereign state with significant diplomatic, economic, and military strength to exert power in international affairs”.
A suitably vague definition.
We ought to assist those who are resisting Putin’s imperialistic ambitions. So there is an ought in there too.
Ya govoryu po-Russki.
I’m good with much of Great-Power-ism. Until the day of the invasion, I figured that Ukraine had just lost two, maybe four provinces.
Then Rootin’ Tootin’ Yosemite Putin shot the place up and struck for the whole damned country.
Putin could probably have simply had “what he wanted”, but instead he reached for what he really wanted, brutally. We cannot have this sort of thing.
Not for Putin-and he is calling the shots
Aren’t these the same guys who, in February, said Kyiv would fall in 72hours? Perhaps Zelensky has a better grasp of the situation than the Biden administration-not hard to believe.
I don’t know who these “anonymous officials” are. Ask the Washington Post.
She says it’s the worst covered war ever? I think it’s pretty well covered. She seems like a complete dimwit. Not wasting my time.
I’ll give Russia a “regional power” label. The region is between the Ural Mtns and the Siberian Plateau.
They aren’t asking you, it seems to me.
It’s extensively reported on – which is not the same as well covered. GIGO, right? Which I think is her point.