Crimea is No Justification for a War (El Diario
Exterior, Spain)
"Putin knows that the use of brute force to keep Ukraine within
Russia's sphere of influence may be contradictory. NATO also knows that curbing
Russia with force is a match that could ignite a fire of unpredictable
dimensions. There will be tensions. Ukrainians will suffer the wound of
national domestic division. What is very unlikely is that a new European
conflict will arise over Crimea. Perhaps one will emerge over the rest of Ukraine,
but no one wants to play with fire."
Communist Party General Secretary Nikita Khrushchev: He gave Crimea back to Ukraine in 1954 when both were Soviet republics. Now that decision - one way or another - may be reversed.
Berlin
1953; Budapest 1956; Prague 1968; Georgia 2008 ... Soviet or Russian troops have resorted to
force whenever their spheres of influence have shifted away from the obedience
to the Kremlin. Russia is the largest country in the world spanning eleven time
zones, and with natural resources indispensable to most of its neighbors. Despite
its remarkable strength and superiority in many fields, Russia is historically insecure
and has sought territorial rings of security to protect its uncertain influence.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
With
the collapse of the Soviet empire, the Czarist imprisonment of peoples was, in
the words of Lenin, a still undigested humiliation. The great Russian
territorial critical mass had exits to the sea in the north Pacific - in St. Petersburg
and the Black Sea. The first is within the confines of the empire; the second freezes
in winter and is in Crimea, which runs along the Dardanelles and the
Mediterranean.
To
possess Crimea, one of the great wars of the 19th century was fought between 1853 and
1856, and it was in Crimea that the Yalta Conference was
held. Secretary General Khrushchev
was a Ukrainian, and it was the man of iron, Stalin, who purged its dissidents
and facilitated a famine in this, the breadbasket of Russia. Stalin ceded Crimea
to Russia like a man leaving a gift to his people.
Putin
will not compromise and cede maritime control of Crimea, and he is not going to
abandon Russian-speaking Ukrainians who feel more protected by Moscow that they
do by Brussels or Washington.
Europe
has no army and Obama is cutting the U.S. military budget to levels unseen
before the last world war. Putin has troops and they are very close to the border
with Ukraine. In Crimea they parade around as if they were home, with or
without identification and with little internal opposition.
Putin
knows that the use of brute force to keep Ukraine within Russia's sphere of
influence may be contradictory. NATO also knows that curbing Russia with force
is a match that could ignite a fire of unpredictable dimensions. There will be
tensions. Ukrainians will suffer the wound of national domestic division. What
is very unlikely is that a new European conflict will arise over Crimea. Perhaps
one will emerge over the rest of Ukraine, but no one wants to play with fire.
