This afternoon, I called mom at the beginning of my workday. I had just arrived, and I was doing the preliminary walkabout with my feline coworkers, so I had a quiet moment to talk with mom. After the usual discussion of family news, my mom asked me what I thought about the situation in the Crimea. I confessed that I was stymied, and merely expressed a desire that violence can be averted. Khrushchev felt an affinity with the Ukraine and transferred the Crimea from the Russian republic to the Ukraine, and there seems to be considerable intermarriage between the two populations. The Crimean Tatars, forcibly relocated elsewhere by Stalin, are understandably apprehensive at the prospect of a crackdown. Hell, I just hope they can avoid ethnic cleansing, and immediately a line from the Clash's Cold War plea The Call Up leapt to my mind:
Maybe I wanna see the wheat fields over Kiev and down to the sea
The song itself, sung in a plaintive growl by the late, lamented Joe Strummer, is a plea to the better angels of the youths who would be called upon to slaughter each other in a clash between the USSR and the West:
It's up to you not to heed the call-up
'N' you must not act the way you were brought up
Who knows the reasons why you have grown up?
Who knows the plans or why they were drawn up?
The song also excoriates the policymakers who have always sent them of to the meatgrinder:
All the young people down the ages
They gladly marched off to die
Proud city fathers used to watch them
Tears in their eyes.
I have no answers to the growing tensions in the Black Sea region, and I feel that the U.S., having decided upon a policy of pre-emptive war, has no moral standing in this conflict. I just hope that our diplomatic corp is working like hell to ensure that our response doesn't devolve into gunboat diplomacy. I'm not optimistic, though.
Joe, Joe, Joe, you left the world too young. We need you more than ever now:
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5 comments:
This really isn't that challenging. Russia has a border with Ukraine, and a longstanding investment in Crimea purchased with gallons of blood over the last couple centuries.
Here's one way to think about it: What if there was a civil war in Mexico and Russia was actively supporting the anti-American faction. What would we do, and would we really be so awful for doing it?
The question is about regional powers and their 'near abroad'. The US has very little standing arguing that Russia has very little standing protecting their naval installations in their own near abroad.
The US won't act because the US wants to retain the authority to operate with impunity in our own near abroad. It's a story told by a thug to justify criminal behavior, but you've got to understand what the whole question is, and how it relates to modern geopolitical realities...
Pretty much, if we're staying out of Syria, we're sure as hell staying out of this. Like Mikey says--it's Russia's backyard, not ours. I think the saying is "Good fences make good neighbors". We recognize the Russian fence, they recognize ours, if the situation is complicated we flip for it.
I like foreign policy because of all the stark moral choices but then, I also drink a fair bit.
There aren't any happy endings, just further exposition. You know, like when Putin says Russia hasn't invaded Ukraine whatever your eyes tell you. He has an explanation. Who doesn't? Only what would the US explanation sound like? Not so good, I think.
Y'know,it's also worth mentioning that while Russia, Europe and the US jab and feint and circle for position, the REAL threat that Joe would be singing about today is the South and East China Seas. Too many players, too many weapons, too much history, too much at stake - it seems a virtual inevitability that somebody's gonna do something stupid at some point...
The question is about regional powers and their 'near abroad'. The US has very little standing arguing that Russia has very little standing protecting their naval installations in their own near abroad.
It would be the equivalent of Russia trying to help the Cubans retake Guantanamo.
Pretty much, if we're staying out of Syria, we're sure as hell staying out of this. Like Mikey says--it's Russia's backyard, not ours. I think the saying is "Good fences make good neighbors". We recognize the Russian fence, they recognize ours, if the situation is complicated we flip for it.
It's weird to think that another Cold War could be a result of this issue.
Y'know,it's also worth mentioning that while Russia, Europe and the US jab and feint and circle for position, the REAL threat that Joe would be singing about today is the South and East China Seas. Too many players, too many weapons, too much history, too much at stake - it seems a virtual inevitability that somebody's gonna do something stupid at some point...
With shipping routes from the Persian Gulf at stake, this is a distinct possibility.
It's always raining over the border
There's been a plane crash out there
In the wheat fields they're picking up the pieces
We could go and look and stare.
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