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WITH RUSSIA, FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE
Voice of America
March 14 2014
James Brooke
Posted March 14th, 2014
Vladimir Putin is right.
The West has interfered massively in Ukraine.
Let me explain.
Last year, about 15 percent of Russian adults traveled outside the
former Soviet Union.
By contrast, about one third of Ukrainians between ages of 20 and 50
have traveled to Western Europe - to work.
That is the difference between peeling off a 10 Euro note to pay for
a caffe latte in Prague, and waiting tables for tips in a Czech coffee
shop. Or hailing a cab in Vienna, and cruising for fares in Vienna. Or
enjoying a modern shopping center in Berlin, and building it.
When residents of Moscow, capital of Saudi Arabia of the North,
sneer that all the EU offers the Ukraine are jobs as bellhops,
chamber maids and construction workers, many Ukrainians respond -
fine, that is a start. As a former bellhop in a Swiss hotel (Hotel
Elite, Bienne, 1974), I wholeheartedly agree with them.
Since the Berlin Wall fell, Ukrainians have watched the economy of
neighboring Poland increase three fold, while Ukraine's economy flat
lined for a generation. The difference? Poland joined the EU and got
a massive influx of capital from neighboring Germany. Ukraine suffered
under a generation of misrule (including by Saintly Yulia Tymoshenko).
Oligarchs created monopolies and then drained billions out of Ukraine.
Labor followed this capital outflow to the West.
So Ukrainians have lived and worked in the European Union. Unlike
Russian tourists, they have not skated over the surface, skipping from
Florence to Barcelona to the Riviera. Ukrainians like what they saw,
starting with the rule of law.
As a result, Putin has lost the hearts and minds of the majority of
Ukrainians to the West. They are not coming back.
A worker puts up a poster that reads, "Together with Russia" in
Simferopol, Ukraine.
A realist, Putin now settles for second best - destabilizing Ukraine
by laboring to exacerbate linguistic and ethnic tensions.
The Kremlin's strategy is to surround itself with weak and divided
states. Ever wonder why there is no solution in sight for Moldova's
breakaway region of TransDniester Republic? For Georgia's secessionist
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia? For the Azeri-Armenian dispute
over Nagorno Karabagh?
Very simple: the EU and NATO will not accept as members countries
with territorial disputes. So now, Ukraine joins the list of former
Soviet republics kept weakened and on the defensive by Kremlin policy.
Crimea exemplifies a zero sum view of the world that Russian foreign
policy makers have adopted without much change from their Soviet
predecessors. If you are up, I am down. If I am up, you are down.
In North American terms, Russia's work in Crimea would be comparable
to Washington fomenting separatism in Quebec to split up and weaken
Canada, or funding the rebellion in southern Mexico, to put Mexico
on the defensive. Instead, the American people and their policy
makers believe that the successes of Canada and Mexico are pluses
for the United States. Hence the North American Free Trade Agreement,
a voluntary association of democracies that, like the European Union,
is designed to raise all boats.
Which leads to Putin's Eurasian Union, a Moscow-led Dictators 'R Us
club. Maybe after gobbling up Crimea, Putin will grab parts of Eastern
Ukraine and create a rump Ukrainian state that can bring Ukraine's
industrial heartland into the Eurasian Union. Inside Russia, Putin
is tightening controls on the press and on the dwindling right to
protest, turning Russia into a big Belarus. The last thing Putin's
authoritarian regime wants is a Slavic success story on its Western
border - a thriving democratic Ukraine.
Rather than trying predict the future, watch the imposition of
Putinism in Crimea: the independent press is shut down, YouTube videos
show masked men beating up journalists, and pro-Ukraine rallies are
banned. This is to culminate on Sunday with a modern version of the
various post war votes in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia that
"endorsed" forced transitions to communism.
After 7.5 years living in Moscow, my conclusion is that the only
language the Kremlin understands is the credible threat of force.
It is no accident that Russian was not the foreign language taught
on the eastern bank of the English Channel from 1950 to 1990. Boring,
but true, it was NATO that stopped Moscow's expansion westward.
Without the credible threat of counterforce, a stop sign is just an
annoyance to a Russian tank. Just look at Crimea. Today, were it not
for NATO, the Russian bear would sneeze and blow the democracies of
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Baltic Sea.
As a New Englander, I know that good fences make good neighbors,
(See Robert Frost poem). But the Russian people largely inhabit a
large plain, with few mountain ranges (fences) to protect them. Over
the centuries, Russia's borders have expanded and contracted like
an amoeba.
With Russia's occupation of Crimea, a new chapter opens in the
relations between Russia and the West.
http://blogs.voanews.com/russia-watch/2014/03/14/with-russia-fight-fire-with-fire/
From: A. Papazian
Voice of America
March 14 2014
James Brooke
Posted March 14th, 2014
Vladimir Putin is right.
The West has interfered massively in Ukraine.
Let me explain.
Last year, about 15 percent of Russian adults traveled outside the
former Soviet Union.
By contrast, about one third of Ukrainians between ages of 20 and 50
have traveled to Western Europe - to work.
That is the difference between peeling off a 10 Euro note to pay for
a caffe latte in Prague, and waiting tables for tips in a Czech coffee
shop. Or hailing a cab in Vienna, and cruising for fares in Vienna. Or
enjoying a modern shopping center in Berlin, and building it.
When residents of Moscow, capital of Saudi Arabia of the North,
sneer that all the EU offers the Ukraine are jobs as bellhops,
chamber maids and construction workers, many Ukrainians respond -
fine, that is a start. As a former bellhop in a Swiss hotel (Hotel
Elite, Bienne, 1974), I wholeheartedly agree with them.
Since the Berlin Wall fell, Ukrainians have watched the economy of
neighboring Poland increase three fold, while Ukraine's economy flat
lined for a generation. The difference? Poland joined the EU and got
a massive influx of capital from neighboring Germany. Ukraine suffered
under a generation of misrule (including by Saintly Yulia Tymoshenko).
Oligarchs created monopolies and then drained billions out of Ukraine.
Labor followed this capital outflow to the West.
So Ukrainians have lived and worked in the European Union. Unlike
Russian tourists, they have not skated over the surface, skipping from
Florence to Barcelona to the Riviera. Ukrainians like what they saw,
starting with the rule of law.
As a result, Putin has lost the hearts and minds of the majority of
Ukrainians to the West. They are not coming back.
A worker puts up a poster that reads, "Together with Russia" in
Simferopol, Ukraine.
A realist, Putin now settles for second best - destabilizing Ukraine
by laboring to exacerbate linguistic and ethnic tensions.
The Kremlin's strategy is to surround itself with weak and divided
states. Ever wonder why there is no solution in sight for Moldova's
breakaway region of TransDniester Republic? For Georgia's secessionist
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia? For the Azeri-Armenian dispute
over Nagorno Karabagh?
Very simple: the EU and NATO will not accept as members countries
with territorial disputes. So now, Ukraine joins the list of former
Soviet republics kept weakened and on the defensive by Kremlin policy.
Crimea exemplifies a zero sum view of the world that Russian foreign
policy makers have adopted without much change from their Soviet
predecessors. If you are up, I am down. If I am up, you are down.
In North American terms, Russia's work in Crimea would be comparable
to Washington fomenting separatism in Quebec to split up and weaken
Canada, or funding the rebellion in southern Mexico, to put Mexico
on the defensive. Instead, the American people and their policy
makers believe that the successes of Canada and Mexico are pluses
for the United States. Hence the North American Free Trade Agreement,
a voluntary association of democracies that, like the European Union,
is designed to raise all boats.
Which leads to Putin's Eurasian Union, a Moscow-led Dictators 'R Us
club. Maybe after gobbling up Crimea, Putin will grab parts of Eastern
Ukraine and create a rump Ukrainian state that can bring Ukraine's
industrial heartland into the Eurasian Union. Inside Russia, Putin
is tightening controls on the press and on the dwindling right to
protest, turning Russia into a big Belarus. The last thing Putin's
authoritarian regime wants is a Slavic success story on its Western
border - a thriving democratic Ukraine.
Rather than trying predict the future, watch the imposition of
Putinism in Crimea: the independent press is shut down, YouTube videos
show masked men beating up journalists, and pro-Ukraine rallies are
banned. This is to culminate on Sunday with a modern version of the
various post war votes in Hungary, Poland and Czechoslovakia that
"endorsed" forced transitions to communism.
After 7.5 years living in Moscow, my conclusion is that the only
language the Kremlin understands is the credible threat of force.
It is no accident that Russian was not the foreign language taught
on the eastern bank of the English Channel from 1950 to 1990. Boring,
but true, it was NATO that stopped Moscow's expansion westward.
Without the credible threat of counterforce, a stop sign is just an
annoyance to a Russian tank. Just look at Crimea. Today, were it not
for NATO, the Russian bear would sneeze and blow the democracies of
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania into the Baltic Sea.
As a New Englander, I know that good fences make good neighbors,
(See Robert Frost poem). But the Russian people largely inhabit a
large plain, with few mountain ranges (fences) to protect them. Over
the centuries, Russia's borders have expanded and contracted like
an amoeba.
With Russia's occupation of Crimea, a new chapter opens in the
relations between Russia and the West.
http://blogs.voanews.com/russia-watch/2014/03/14/with-russia-fight-fire-with-fire/
From: A. Papazian