My Idea For Ukraine
I look at the contest in the Ukraine as a continuation of the Cold War. I do that because I was born in 1963. If I were younger, I might not see it that way.
During the Cold War, the Soviets went into places to squash revolutions with absolute impunity. The Russians are just treating the current Ukrainian government, which isn’t the one that got thrown out years ago for being too pro-Russian, the same.
They are still thinking in Cold War spheres of influence, reaching to still think in that East/West mentality. I think the West gave up on thinking that way. The only people left who think that way are from my generation.
I used to think that way. I was dissuaded by a clear thinking fellow student I had a conversation with one day. He detailed how the Soviets were due for a fall. He rudely, yeah, one of those chip on the shoulder, competitive types, presented his information, grouped, so that I knew he was up on his stuff.
He was ahead of the fall of the wall. It took a while, probably because of how rude the guy was, but I came down off of my high horse that I needed to be so afraid of the bogey man to begin with. Because, at the time, I was deep into more defense spending, and how strong the Soviet Army must be.
I was ready to believe that the enemy was strong, even though the evidence said otherwise. But there was no internet back then. I hadn’t seen the evidence. Getting schooled like that was one way somebody as lazy as me used to get it. Humility is the lazy man’s way out. It provides incentive to keep up on your stuff. It hurts to get schooled.
With the idea of the conflict being an extension of the Cold War, we need to also consider what the US has been doing that has any impact upon Russia during that time. We could talk about Europe here, but it isn’t necessary. I am keeping it simple. Just the US.
There is definitely something about the Russians that they don’t want to be just another European country. They don’t want to blend in, becoming indistinguishable from the others, like the other European countries do in order to get along in a social whole. I don’t know if they need an enemy, and the best one is NATO? They, instead, need a buffer zone?
Because imagine being able to traverse across that vast whole as a European. I’m not European, but I can imagine the proximity this would give the individual to so much. The Russians don’t understand, where they live is ideal stomping grounds for people who like to visit nature. Europe still has some of that, but Russia has more. You know what though, you can’t get around very well within it because the only means of transportation they’ve ever invested in was rail. They don’t have much of a highway infrastructure. Nothing the US is doing anywhere in the world can change that.
Because the US has been pestering Russia. I don’t think that the Russians can take the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in succession as anything other than that, especially since it came with a dose of sanctions upon Russia’s more immediate proxy, Iran. It looks like an operation in the West’s playbook, from when they believed that the Caspian Sea region was going to be big for oil, and they had to strategize for monopolizing it.
When they were making those plans, they knew how weak the Soviets really were. Like everything else about the Cold War, all of the flashy stuff, like the fastest jets, was already thought of by somebody else years ago. The people who planned that there might be a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan, if the Caspian turned out, knew that the Soviets would be no threat to it. The tech of how they could think like that was the equivalent of having a fast jet, or other. They had the same information to go by as that rude fellow student. All they had to do was be brave enough to let that information chase away the demon of fearing their enemy so much that it caused them to miss out on opportunity.
The Caspian did not pan out. The ideas concerning how to exploit it seem to still be flustering the Russians? Who knows, there may be a great power game of containment going on in that region as well.
Russia is also on Assad’s side. Assad is an ophthalmologist from London. He was dropped into a power vacuum when his father died. He wasn’t guilty of any past sins when he got in. That’s both helped and hurt him, I think. That is to say, I think he, along with most of Syria, would prefer Syria to be a completely secular state. Not just secular in terms of not being religious. Secular, also, in terms of seeking the best form of governance for its self-understanding. Secular, in terms of favoring a fair rule of law that doesn’t chop limbs or otherwise encourage exclusion. Their military is too strong, or he could say fair in terms of the law not favoring it, or its relatives.
I know, Putin could step back right here and criticize America for its failure to appear warrant industry. It shows how they can get away with things when the people become complacent. The US is like that.
But, you know, if he did that, then he would have to explain how nobody can do anything in his country without greasing somebody’s skids. He isn’t the world’s richest person for no reason. I know he isn’t listed as such, but that’s because he can say his two hundred million dollar get away home belongs to the state. And he can’t even go jet-skiing there. Well, the indoor pool is big enough, but not big enough to go about and have much fun. The jet skier winds up becoming a waiter. It depends upon the political interests and who is attending that particular weekend.
The Americans can’t let the Russians win in Ukraine because it would be a failure of the sort of containment they have been using toward Russia since the Cold War. The Russians can’t lose in Ukraine because that land is really the only thing that has stopped any invader. Napoleon choked on that mud. They need a buffer. They need an enemy, or a buffer with one that can make them happy for a while.
What I propose has to do with overcoming seeing each other as enemies. If we want to find a peaceful solution, it may be that there will need to be concessions. The West, America, could make the concession of investing in Russia.
In an area of land where you could drop Texas in and it would seem to be swallowed up, they need roads. The US could gather itself to help form an international road building consortium of some sort. In exchange for Russia backing off of Ukraine, the road building consortium could help bring the more hidden parts of Russia into the Twenty First Century.
After the consortium had learned from Russia, it could help knit Africa together, or assemble the Americas all together, from the US border all the way to Patagonia.
When Putin first decided to invade Ukraine, I thought he might be engaging in some sort of long game against the corruption in his country. I thought he might be going after the oligarchs. He could blame their siphoning off of state resources to their own ends for his military’s failures. Heads would roll.
Well, we have heard about some oligarchs falling unexpectedly out of hotel windows, but they haven’t always been the “right” oligarchs. Turns out, some oligarchs stand publicly opposed to Putin in some way, some only in one place or another, and they can more easily wind up in that category. Putin is cleaning house, but in the wrong direction. That’s what it seems like, when I had a different initial hope, anyway.
I mean that Russia does need to consider how they are going to make the transition to being a tourist economy. They learned, hopefully, from the Sochi Olympics that you can’t cram the sort of corruption they want down everybody’s throat? Because being more successful would have indicated they were further along. As it was, the games cost them more than anyone had ever paid for any other Olympics. That’s not an indication that markets which favor your average Russian over some oligarch are in effect.
It’s interesting for the difference in the orientation, and what sort of different results you get with each approach. On the one hand, you can choose to invest in the sort of thing which indulges the king, gives him everything he wants, therefore providing for so many ordinary Russians. Or you can choose to look upon the whole of Europe as the king, appealing to them as to a market that much larger than the king can ever form.
But to do that people who find need for financing in places the king doesn’t frequent, but the rest of Europe may, will need to be able to obtain financing, without paying for “protection” also. That’s how Europe can keep skiing, in the Urals, when global warming may have taken it away elsewhere.
It’s like the English realizing you can get what you want across the Channel for half the price. Up until Brexit, that was a good deal. They had TV shows about it. Imagine what Grand Designs could do with some of the projects that would be built in a wide open to the rest of Europe Russia. I’m certain the architecture would be some exquisite stuff. It might appeal to the same things that tiny homes do in me, some of it, while being big. You know, organized. Features have meaning and aren’t just there.
growsomeart 