There is nothing in Henry Kissinger’s advice for handling the crisis in Ukraine that I disagree with, but I think it’s incomplete. He explains the historical, sectarian, ethnic, linguistic, and regional issues very well, but he doesn’t touch on the economic considerations that touched this crisis off, nor does he mention the energy issues that inform every step that each side takes in response. It was the failure of the Ukrainian government to sign an association agreement with the European Union that put protestors in the streets in the first place, and it was heavy Russian pressure that influenced the Ukrainians’ decision-making.
Here is how the BBC reported on it back when the decision was made before the November conference in Vilnius, Lithuania:
The EU’s Eastern Partnership is designed to improve trade and political relations with six former Soviet Republics – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – caught in that awkward space between the European Union and Russia.
Ukraine is the biggest country and hence the biggest prize.
So when the Ukrainian government suddenly announced last week – under pressure from Moscow – that it was freezing its plans to sign an association agreement with the EU, the centrepiece of the Vilnius summit disappeared rather abruptly.
Russian threats of economic retaliation ought to be addressed in any advice piece on Ukraine policy.
I am definitely losing sight of why we should care about any of this. Starting to seem more like the drama de jour on a slow news day.
First of all $5 billion of US taxpayer money to set up and $1 billion of loan guarantees as a bridge to get the Ukrainians locked onto the IMF. And then of course we have keep our large, forward deployed military the most expensive in the world in order to deter the Russians for doing something aggressive. Counting the intelligence community and veteran benefits and interest and everything, that’s probably a trillion-dollar-a-year load on taxpayers.
Like getting a bill for services you didn’t order.
More like getting a bill for services you you not only didn’t order but were counterproductive.
AG
And Ukrainians want some of that Western “medicine” for their economy?
I have to admit it, but Kissinger understands the history of Central Europe and his principles are the only way forward for a diplomatic solution.
However, today the rhetoric has escalated and followed up by actions on both sides and by all global power players. By any US sanction on Russia, Europe will get the backlash as the largest trading partner. Ukraine got a much better offer from Putin’s Russia as EU “austerity” minded policy made a poor offer. Once the EU and IMF team up for austerity measures, the Ukrainian people wil rise up in protest again.
Ukraine as a state is most corrupt for its 23 years of existence and absolutely bankrupt. Ukraine is in a much worse economic state than Greece. The state needs €35bn in the next two years. To get the country moving forward, I understand it needs €200bn over a period thru 2020. Ukraine likely owes most debt to Russia! The gas prices discount has been reversed and the €15bn offer has been put on hold.
As far as Crimea is concerned, watch Turkey. Erdogan is in a bad spot with his domestic troubles and a failed foreign policy towards Assad and Syria. Large parts of the region, including Crimea, was part of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey has a close and historic relationship with the Crimean Tatars (Muslim). The Tatars have participated in fighting the Russians in Chechnya. One of the right-wing politicians in Kiev recently asked for Usmarov to act against Russia, meaning acts of terror like Volvograd.
See – Aleksandr Musytschko, and who in Kyiv made the call for ‘friend’ Usmarov to act against Russia?
US Navy destroyer heads to Black Sea for pre-planned exercises and more U.S. fighter jets on a NATO air patrol mission in the Baltics – Hürriyet Daily News. Why is Vicky Nuland [married to Robert Kagan] US emissary to the Ukraine?
○ Turkey scrambles eight F-16 fighter jets to intercept Russian aircraft
○ EU Ashton and Estonia’s FM Urmas Paet in bugged call, Ukraine protesters were shot on the orders of their own leaders
Will Obama and Putin attend this important conference in The Hague? @NSS2014 : Nuclear Security Summit on 24/25 March 2014. Preparations are well under way – two miles of 10 ft. fencing are being constructed in the North Sea resort.
I’m sure there are ways other than Kissinger’s towards a diplomatic solution. His suggested compromise is 1) Putin back off, go home, Crimea forever belongs to Ukraine and 2) NATO agrees not to add Ukraine. Putin probably remembers that the west had agreed not to sign up any former Warsaw Pact countries to NATO; so, who could blame him for not taking such a deal?
Did Kissinger overlook the Yanukovych/Tymoshenko alliance that ousted the other guy?
Kissinger’s solutions are exactly backward. The parts of Ukraine that have allegiance to Russia should go to Russia and the rest should form a Western state with eventual entry to the EU and NATO.
What exactly makes you and expert on what Ukraine and Russia should do? And by what rights does anyone have any say in how those two countries and their residents resolve their disputes?
The only thing US citizens should have a right to speak out about is to demand an accounting of the $5 billion our government spent in Ukraine and the reasons for those expenditures.
It’ll never happen, though. Not as long as we live under a Permanent Government it won’t. The international porkbarrel is too rich.
Bet on it.
AG
I think you meant that we won’t get answers. Doesn’t mean we can’t demand. And continue to demand which will force “them” to either give us what is ours or take away our right to demand. Either of those outcomes is preferable to this faux democracy and secret government. Real may be horrible but fake drives humans nuts.
What we have to “demand” is an end to the PermaGov. No amount of demands for information will render anything different than what has happened for 50+ years. Flat-out lies, from JFK’s assassination right on through the current administration’s set of lies and half-truths regarding foreign affairs, the security state and the condition of the domestic financial system. Only a radical change in the government itself will change things. Until then? Just Preznit after Preznit, spokesman after spokesman on the bully platform, half-truthing us to death.
When will it end?
When a large portion of the American public wakes the fuck up is when it will end. When their eyes wide closed are finally opened. And when will that happen? When the system so breaks down that people who have become accustomed to having food and shelter begin to feel the pain that the permanently poor have felt here for countless generations.
Soon enough, I think.
We are walking on the edge now.
Watch.
AG
Hence, “Never”
By the same right that Kissinger does it.
Kissinger doesn’t rely on rights for his speech — it’s a business and he gets paid to speak and front for elites.
If you don’t get paid you don’t have the right to an opinion? Has America come to that?
I keep telling you that Obama is a closet Republican.
No.
They are all closet PermaGov members. DemRats? RatPubs. Just different wings of the same team.
AG
Vicky Nuland is Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, not just emissary to the Ukraine. Geoffrey Pyatt is Ambassador to Ukraine.
Still doesn’t explain what a Republican is doing at State in an appointed position. I don’t recall W or his father appointing Democrats.
Who was SOS when Nuland was appointed?
Hillary Rodham Clinton.
It was 2011, the year after the Tea Party deluge and Obama was begging for a confirmation of an appointment, any confirmation of an appointment, and putting up GOP toadies (which were even being voted down–except Nuland got through).
Her first big job was as chief of staff to Strobe Talbott during the Clinton administration. It’s hardly surprising that she was promoted by Hillary.
No excuse for hiring a key Cheney aide. None. Nada. Better a position go unfilled than occupied by anyone that worked for Cheney. And that doesn’t even address the fact of who she’s married to.
Then there’s the TX DEM primary run-off candidate competing in the word-salad-bowl with Palin and Bachmann:
Unlike Palin and Bachmann, Rogers isn’t supported by any recognizable faction of the Democratic Party. That might be an asset in Texas.
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I’ve only heard one pundit mention it but the nationalism aspect, for Russia, has to come into play. The woman I listened to on Al Jazeera pointed out that the fall of the USSR, the Wall, was a severe blow to the pride of Russia and much of that lost pride is what is driving Putin. He’s playing Humpty Dumpty. Maybe it’s partly mid life crisis as well but then even as younger ruler he was never so much in touch, nor a good chess player as he was addicted to ruling with an iron fist.
Vietnam was a severe blow to the pride of the USA. (Imagine how massive that blow to US pride would have been if that loss included the closing of US military bases in Japan, independence for Guam, Hawaii, and Alaska.) What did we do about that (called the “Vietnam syndrome”)? We invaded several sovereign and unrelated countries.
9/11 was another “severe blow to the pride of the USA.” So, we bombed and invaded two countries — one hosting the alleged supporters of 9/11 and the other completely innocent. Countries that not so many Americans could find on a map.
By US standards, Putin and Russians appear rational. How many Russians can’t identify Ukraine on a map?
Your comparison is a bit skewed. The fall of the wall and the break up of the USSR pitted families and their cultures against each other. The Vietnam War has been called a failed war and we lost 50,000 good men and women but it’s not the same thing nor was the shame and horror of 9/11.
Putin is instead looking to return what he sees as Russian limbs back to his body. It’s a very different experience.
Not skewed — probably not worded precisely enough. Intended to remind Americans what we as a nation did in response to blows to our pride that were minor compared to the blow experienced by Russians in the break-up of the USSR. Although those feelings of hurt and sadness could have dissipated quickly if the Soviet socialism had been replaced with Swedish socialism. Instead, their collective wealth became privatized and life expectancy plummeted.
I’d like to see a complete explanation of that intercepted phone call about the snipers shooting both the police and the demonstrators. Wasn’t there something similar in Syria before the hellhounds of war were released there?
Not a phone call, but snipers accused of shooting at both sides (or each side accusing the other of being the snipers). And it came at a similar type of moment after the suppression of demonstrators. And was followed by armed men acting as the the protectors of the opponents of the government coming into heavy armed conflict with government authorities.
They are all working out of the same book.
Same tactics, different owners. When you get right down to it, same owners at the end of the line as well. Money talks. Nobody walks.
AG
Not sure about the different owners. The “Agency” has been implicated in both.
Liked I said:
“…same owners at the end of the line as well. Money talks. Nobody walks.”
It’s the same game as big-time political donations.
Money to the DemRats, money to the RatPubs. Where does the money really come from? It comes from the controllers. No matter who wins, it’s the controllers who really win.
Ditto in this case.
Ditto in almost every case that has to do with big, international money and power.
The fix is is all over the place.
Even the so-called losers win.
Bet on it.
AG
So Kissinger is now jockeying for that “elder statesman” label by being even-handed.
And Ukraine signs a contract with Shell to allow fracking for natural gas in Ukraine (likely for export to the EU).
Nobody is asking about what happens to the work that was to be done on Chernobyl.
US cable news is reporting about “massive” (35,000 troops) Russian military exercises 280 miles for the border with Ukraine as if it’s some impending calamity.
The US and EU slap the wrists of a few Ukrainians and Russians.
Yes, Russia wants to continue to be able to blackmail the EU with shortages of Gazprom provided natural gas. Yes, western strategists and energy corporations want to break Gazprom’s stranglehold in that area and get some European business for themselves.
And no one asks, “Why can’t we just reduce demand for fossil fuels?” Well that is not true as Germany and Denmark have dramatically increased their use of renewables to do exactly that.
However, threatening Sevastapol–as the presence of Ukrainian nationalists in the new government does–puts Russia on a serious military footing that the West must talk down carefully. And the cliche Russia only understands strength might not be helping, nor the nostalgia for the Cold War.
The continued US climate denialism and failure to move the US military from fossil fuel dependence has put us in this condition, which is convenient for a US military looking for new relevance after Afghanistan.
How much more are the American people expected to squander on this nonsense?
So the struggle is not between Ukrainian nationalist and Russia, but between Shell and Gazprom.
I can see that. It makes much clear.
Except…Shell uses Ukrainian nationalism as extorters…but the Russian government uses Gazprom for extortion.
They’ll squeeze to the last drop, Tarheel. Hustlers don’t stop until the marks are either bled dry or get wise. “The American people” are getting wise very slowlyand in insignificant numbers. Until they stop listening to the hypnomedia the trancing will continue. How will an effective number of those Aericans “get wise?” When they hit rock bottom. Until then? Fuggedaboudit.
AG
It’s Henry Kissinger fer chirssake!!! Even when he’s right it’s for all the wrong reasons.
He is about as honorable as Karl Rove.
Only smarter.
AG
Thanks, but I don’t know if I have the patience to read about Great American “solutions” to (another) global crisis that the “sole superpower” had its hand in generating.
Not every catastrophe has a “solution”. In fact, it might even be best to try to avoid foreseeable crises! Ukraine is/was a very fragile national polity and democracy, obviously deeply divided politically, and in a very difficult geopolitical situation. And it now appears very clear that the US thought that the best path to take was to exacerbate the divisions, and encourage an uprising against a legitimately elected president, apparently because he was inconveniently too pro-Russian.
And then we are “surprised” at Putin’s aggressive response? What the hell did we think Russia would do in the face of this? Nothing?
It’s highly doubtful we or the EU could actually “cause” hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to engage in revolution and extra-constitutional measures. But we needn’t have been enthusiastically helping and encouraging the (anti-democratic) approach along. Why on earth wouldn’t we advocate to protesters and opposition leaders that they patiently work to get the corrupt Yanukovytch and his compliant parliament voted out of office, since he was so deeply despised across Ukraine? Isn’t this a no-brainer?
And now this “democracy” is in even worse tatters, with the citizenry more bitterly divided than ever, and the US/Russian relationship accelerating toward a possible military confrontation. Yes, indeed, NOW let’s hear the (American) “solutions” to the crisis! And let’s close the barn door, too, now that the horse is out…
If Repubs had any brains, it looks like they could find an actual foreign policy scandal here, since the only possible options are that the Obama State Department was stupid or incompetent. Which is it?