Why is the West Enraging Russia?

Henry Srebrnik, [Halifax] Chronicle Herald 

A cease-fire between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian fighters went into effect on Feb. 15, but no one knows whether it will last. Previous ones have been broken, and in any case some fighting continues.

The United States has apparently been considering sending “lethal aid” to Ukraine should the war resume, which some military analysts believe is the only way to deal with what they see as belligerence from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The incoming U.S. defence secretary, Ashton B. Carter, has said he is inclined to provide arms to the Ukrainians.

But this is madness. If anything, the belligerence comes from the other side. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich recently said that a U.S. decision to arm Ukraine would not only escalate the situation but “threatens the security of the Russian Federation.”

Of course it does. This is part of Russia’s “near abroad,” an area for centuries under Moscow’s control (and in large parts of Ukraine, remember, inhabited by ethnic Russians and Russophiles). 

The western boundaries of Russia have since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 been pushed back to where they were in the 17^th century. What if the U.S. kept losing state after state, with California and the southwest deciding perhaps to rejoin Mexico – aided by Moscow?

When the USSR fell apart, and the internal Soviet boundaries of the republics suddenly became international frontiers, trouble was bound to follow. 

This is true anytime, when a region that breaks away from a bigger state itself includes a minority that is ethnically related to the larger one. Remember the anglo-Quebec slogan at the time of the 1995 referendum on separation in Quebec? “If Canada is divisible, Quebec is divisible.” 

In other words, non-francophone areas might have chosen to break away from an independent Quebec and remain in Canada.

In 1991, when the Soviet state collapsed, Ukraine should have been subject to plebiscites to determine whether its people wanted independence, or to join Russia, or to split into two states. The eastern regions now in revolt would no doubt have chosen to unite with Russia, and the same is true for the Crimea.

The rest of Ukraine could have become a smaller, but homogenous – and peaceful -- country. There’s nothing wrong with a political divorce for peoples who don't want to stay together, where one feels oppressed by the other! 

Why is territorial integrity such a sacred cow? After all, these Soviet republics weren’t even sovereign states, and their borders were often changed; they were the products of Communist manipulation. The same issues we see in Ukraine also plague Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova, among other former parts of that defunct Communist empire.

Yet now we see the western powers attempting to force Russians who had been living in these regions for centuries and considered themselves, in effect, really part of Russia, to now remain part of Ukraine -- a country which they never considered themselves part of. Why are Donetsk and Luhansk all of a sudden more “Ukrainian” than “Russian?”

Whatever became of the principle of self-determination? Why is it suddenly so important for NATO to make sure that frontiers that a mere 24 years ago were simply internal Soviet boundaries are now so sacrosanct that it is willing to risk war with Russia?

 “This is not about Ukraine. Putin wants to restore Russia to its former position as a great power,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former secretary-general of NATO, told Britain’s Daily Telegraph. 

But Russia has always been a great power! Would anyone deny that status to the U.S.? Why the attempt to humble the Russians?

Since it makes no geopolitical or ethnic sense, is it a wonder Vladimir Putin sees this as little more than American imperialism designed to weaken his country? 

Remember, this all started, not with Russian intervention in Ukraine, but with last February’s overthrow of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

We might forget, but Russians remember, that they have been attacked from the west numerous times in their history, including major invasions by Napoleon and Hitler, the latter killing many millions of people. Nor did the Cold War do much to improve their opinion of America.

When the Russians intruded into the western hemisphere by aiding Communist Cuba, it almost led to a world war in 1962. Now Washington is threatening Russia in its own back yard.

It might be time to heed a piece of advice from John Mearsheimer, co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago: “Any time a great power armed with thousands of nuclear weapons is backed into a corner, you are asking for really serious trouble.”

France and Germany, who oppose arming Ukraine, have heeded this warning.