Men rise
from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against
attack, and then they attack others.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Republican hawks, including the inimitable John McCain, are dyspeptically belching
bellicosity over the expected Russian annexation of the Crimea and possibly
Eastern Ukraine.
"Obama is weak," they all sing, cacophonously. "Obama
has sapped the strength of the United States.
The North Koreans and the Iranians sense it. And we will pay the price for his gutting our
military."
"We are in danger of losing all our geo-strategic
power." They make no mention of our
invasions Iraq and Afghanistan having increased American influence.
The fact is that the US has lost much of its global empire,
just as did the British. But now we are
gaining a new empire--energy independence.
Globalization does not function through territorial conquest or
dominance and those who think so are residing in the last century, including
the prominent senior senator from Arizona who, despite his heroism and
captivity has never seen a war he does not like.
Global strength lies in homegrown economic success, but that
is not to imply that the world should not speak out and sanction Russian
thuggery, a naked power-grab by a latter-day Cossack.
The world, however, has changed since 1939, rendering the
Munich--Chamberlain--Hitler appeasement analogies no longer the paradigm of
international puissance. Angela
Merkel, speaking to the Bundestag, voiced Germany's concern about Russian
aggression, not speaking only for Deutschland, but speaking for 27 members of
the European Union. Students of the
alliances that led to the First World War (one hundred years ago) understand
that alliances that led to that war and to World War II are no longer de
rigueur. The United States, a reluctant
entrant to that war as well as a semi-reluctant entrant to World War II twenty
years later, should understand that nation-states no longer have the influence
over their populace they once had.
"Putin is engaging in 20th century politics," Merkel said
angrily. She ought to know, her
forebears were champion malefactors of the art.
The lessons of Iraq, Viet Nam, Afghanistan, and other failed
wars costing thousands of American lives, garnished by trillions of lost
dollars, have soured Americans on the unexpected consequences of poorly chosen
battles. The empowerment of "everyman"
through information technology enables people to clearly and more quickly see
the misfeasance of their leaders.
Putin, despite his attempts at suppressing internal dissent, is seen by
most of the world community as the thug that he is, his preening Olympic strut
in Sochi having vanished with the melting snows. Even if he annexes the Crimea and the dubious
referendum provides a pretext to do so, he is
going to pay the price with the world community, despite Republicans in
congress heaping blame on the President for American "weakness."
There will be sanctions, served up by the world community
for Vladimir Putin. But let's take a
deeper look at his worldview. Historically part of Russia, and always an
obsession since the Czars, the Russians enjoy contractual rights to the
Crimea's warm water ports because the rest of the Russian northern ports are locked
in ice for most of the year. Without
warm water ports, Russian influence and global shipping diminishes
exponentially, obliging them to rely on land transport, and even worse, needing
access through other countries for a route to the seas. But these ports were not in jeopardy. And now, the war waged by the European Union
and the United States will be economic and not military.
What some are forgetting that it is the Ukrainians
themselves who are to blame for much of the current crisis. Their Slavic Polish brethren have managed to
straighten out their economy as a prerequisite to having been admitted to the
European Union, frightening Putin. Happy
consolidating his power because of the Ukrainian government's incompetence, he can
divert attention from the growing perception by his own people about manifold
problems within Russia itself. Obsessing about NATO and the EU moving toward
the Russian borders, Putin promulgates a Western conspiracy to undermine
Russian hegemony. He is partially right;
the West does seek incorporation of most of Europe into the EU, both as a war
preventative and, just as importantly, as a key to growing the European Union
economic sphere. This is not
necessarily contrary to Russian interests, unless the leadership fears more
transparency and integrity in government, the latter not a lesson taught in the
KGB.
What Putin does not realize is that the same nationalist
forces that caused the break up of the Soviet Union are still extant in Ukraine
and even in the Crimea. Having not disappeared,
those forces are simply exacerbated by a failing economy, the key to Western
influence that Putin ignores in his imperial quest. The disparate forces in
Ukraine, ethnic Russian speakers and ethnic Ukrainians are still going to
clash, unless the basket case Ukrainian economy shows dramatic improvement, a
process that will take years. The
Russian economy, meanwhile, now dependent more than ever on energy and gas
prices, will be obliged to sustain more impoverished geography without the
wherewithal to do so, especially if energy prices tumble and sanctions bite. (This principle also applies to places like
Venezuela, shoring up the sputtering Cuban economy with subsidies from oil revenues,
whilst restless Venezuelans riot in the streets.)
Putin may find himself in an economic dungeon, sanctions
operating against him; more discontented Russians, and no way out.
Russian natural gas is propping up an essentially gangster
regime--a regime that suppresses dissent, stifles free expression and needs an
external diversion to coalesce the Russian public over foreign
"enemies." A classically
cynical maneuver, it was the policy of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Lenin,
Castro, Chavez, Arafat and even Assad and Saddam Hussein. Often this policy is successful in the short
term but ultimately masks a deep, corrosive interior. It is said that Putin has become one of the
world's wealthiest men with a fortune in excess of $100 billion. His efforts to rescue his comrade, Viktor
Yanukovych, demonstrably a satiric clone of Putin himself, as depicted by the
deposed Ukrainian President’s opulent palace, festooned with stuffed animals and
ornate Sevres vases reminiscent of Versailles devolved into Las Vegas. No one ever said that dictators are
tasteful.
One can hardly imagine Mr. Putin living in less Nero-like
splendor.
