ANTI-STATE•ANTI-WAR•PRO-MARKET
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February 28, 2014
The surging crisis in Ukraine is a
dramatic example of how wars begin. Take arrogance, toxic nationalism,
tribalism, moral outrage and profound miscalculation, mix thoroughly, and,
voilà !, another great leap forward in the march of human folly.
Russia just mobilized its western
regions armed forces, an inevitable response to the growing turmoil in Ukraine.
Most westerners are unaware that Ukraine is the cradle of Russian civilization
and, when properly run, one of the world’s great producers of grains.
Now that western Ukraine has fallen to
anti-Russian, nationalist groups, Russia-oriented eastern Ukraine is also
threatening to explode. This nation of 44 million is already de facto split
into two parts. How Ukraine’s armed forces respond remains an important
question. On Thursday their command vowed to resist any incursion by Russian
troops, but loyalties remain uncertain.
Unrest and some violence have now
erupted in Crimea. Though 80% ethnic Russian, this highly strategic peninsula
was given by the Soviet leadership to the Soviet Ukrainian Republic in 1954.
The result, some say, of a grandiose, drunken gesture by Kremlin leader Nikita
Khrushchev, a former Ukraine party boss. Back then it mattered little.
Today, Khrushchev’s gift has become a
poisoned chalice. On my last assignment in Crimea, it was clear that most of
its people desired reunification with Russia.
Equally important, Sevastopol is
Russia’s second most important naval base, and its gateway to the
Mediterranean.
Adding complexity, Crimea’s remaining
Muslim Tatar population is now calling for their own state independent of
Russia. Crimea was once primarily Tatar, the descendants of the 13th century
Golden Horde of primarily Kipchak Turkic nomads. The Khanate of Crimea lasted
five hundred years until crushed by the expanding Russian Empire.
In the 1940’s, under Stalin’s orders,
southern Russia’s Muslim peoples suffered a holocaust in which 3 million were
murdered by NKVD secret police firing squads or from starvation and disease in
the gulag.
Tatars who survived Stalin’s murderous
reign, filtered back to Crimea, only to find their homes and land had been
seized by ethnic Russians. Tatars remain a partly homeless internal refugee
population calling for redress from the uncaring Russian state. Many Tatars
want no part of Russia – like their fellow victims of Stalin, the Chechen.
For Russians, Crimea is not only the
principal base of the Black Sea Fleet, the peninsula also was the scene of the
epic 250-day siege siege of Sevastopol in 1941.
In a brutal battle for the port and
rest of Crimea, the Germans employed monster 800mm and 600mm guns against
Sevastopol’s forts that fired 6-7 ton shells that had been built to destroy
France’s Maginot Line forts. Sailors of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet played a
notable role in the defense. Sevastopol was rightly proclaimed a Hero City of
the Soviet Union.
Sebastopol has been Russia’s gateway to
the south since the days of Catherine the Great. Crimea is renowned for its
sweet wines and the historic resort of Yalta where the doddering fool Franklin
Roosevelt, surrounded by Soviet spies and hidden microphones, gave half of
Europe to the gleeful Stalin.
Crimea was the epicenter of the
1853-1856 Crimean War in which Britain, France and Turkey combined to block
Russian expansion into the Balkans. Most famous, of course, was the disastrous
charge into the face of massed Russia guns of the British Light Brigade near
Balaclava. Just to the south is a remarkable former Cold War Soviet submarine
base hewn into a mountain large enough to hold six-eight u-boats.
The
Cold War seems to be resuming, at least in Ukraine. Unrest is also brewing in
neighboring Belarus, a nasty Stalinist dictatorship closely aligned with
Moscow.
The West and Moscow are trading
accusation of meddling in Ukraine. In truth, both are busy stirring the pot, a
dangerous game that has brought NATO and Russia to the brink of armed
confrontation. The neocon Undersecretary of State for Europe, Victoria Nuland,
said US has spent $5 billion promoting anti-Russian groups in Ukraine. Chances
of a Ukrainian civil war are also rising.
Ukraine is flat broke. Kiev needs at
least $35 billion in immediate loans. Russia has withdrawn its offer of $15
billion. Who wants to lend money to a bankrupt, chaotic Ukraine filled with
restive, angry people?
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