BALTIMORE, Maryland May 18, 2014 - Ukraine the country finds itself existing in a condition akin to a land along an earthquake fault line. No matter how stable it looks at any given time, it is only the snap of a finger away from total bedlam. In a way, it has taken over this role from its neighbor, Poland. For hundreds of years the Polish people lived at the place where Russia met Europe, where northern nations and empires like Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic League and Lithuania met central and southern empires like the Austro-Hungarian, the Holy Roman, and the Ottoman. The Polish people preferred, frantically, not to be involved in those disputes turned wars, but they existed where the powers met and fought. Now, in these early years of the third millenium after Christ, the fault line, war zone, or whatever, has drifted further east. Now, Poland has become firmly entrenched in the Western Block, and it wears its NATO membership on its sleeve. Now, the east and the west collide in the Ukraine.
Ukraine also has pulled hard and gotten somewhat loose from the Russian yoke. Make no mistake, they are not completely free. Ukraine has not yet managed to cloak itself in the West's umbrella of protection. It is not in NATO, and there are no meaningful treaties that supposedly compel the Western Alliance to come to their aide. In fact, the West will not even send military supplies to Ukraine. USA President Obama says he cannot send enough military supplies to Ukraine to give them a fighting chance to defend themselves against Russia, and anything less might cause a massacre. The EU and individual European countries are following suit, although one wonders what the real motives are for their refusals. Russia feels no military danger in attacking anyplace in Ukraine when and how they choose.
And not only has Ukraine not gotten free of Russia's yoke, Russia is pulling hard to get the ancient nation back into their insular orbit. Some of the sinister tricks Russia has pulled in recent years - poisoning one President who wanted to free his country of Russia's pull, annexing part of Ukraine, Posting an invading army on Ukraine's border - make clear that Russia feels completely free to whack away at Ukraine without fear of any meaningful push back. For months now, as Russia has annexed Crimea and sent thousands of military operatives "undercover" into Eastern Ukraine to destabilize it, the West has threatened tough sanctions. They have threatened and they have threatened, and then, they have threatened some more. They have threatened meaningful sanctions so much that it has become an international joke.
A check of the news in and around Eastern Europe finds that Ukraine is the story, or, in some cases, Ukraine is the catalyst for events happening elsewhere. Reuters reports that NATO's outlook for the last 20 years has not been to the east of the Alliance's middle; i.e., Western Europe. Not since the Cold War has Russia been the focus of NATO's military chiefs. It is now. The crisis, called a "game changer" by Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, will dominate the alliance's agenda as it prepares for a summit in Wales in September, which will mark the imminent end of the NATO-led combat mission in Afghanistan.
The U.S., Britain, Denmark, France, Canada and Germany have sent or promised extra fighter aircraft to increase patrols and training over the Baltics, Poland or Romania.
A fleet of nine minehunters from NATO countries has been dispatched to the Baltic and another task force of five ships to the eastern Mediterranean, according to Reuters.
In the longer term, Reuters says, NATO will consider permanently stationing forces in Eastern Europe, something it has refrained from doing in the 15 years since the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined the alliance after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In Canada, the Ottawa Citizen reports that critics of the Harper Government are so upset at the weakness of Canada's response to the Ukraine situation that they believe the long term effect will be the country's long-term marginalization on the world stage.
In the United States Congress conservative senators are pushing hard for more intense and meaningful sanctions against the Russian Government of Strong Man Vladimir Putin. They have been constant in the criticism of President Obama over the USA's weak response to the crisis. Putin, meanwhile, is off to Shanghai to meet with the leaders of Eastern Asia nations such as China.
A CNN poll of Ukrainian Citizens finds by a wide majority the Ukrainian people desire closer ties with the West and more distance between themselves and the Putin government. A recent poll of Eastern Ukraine found that 70% of all citizens did not want to become part of Russia or be independent, but, rather, preferred to stay part of Ukraine.
No comments:
Post a Comment