Friday, June 20, 2014

Uprising in Ukraine has no cause you think it has



Only a lazy political blogger had not thought and written about the causes of the current security conundrum originating in Ukraine. A lot of reading materiel out there explains how the West upset, made Russia angry. This anger and frustration made Russia lash out causing lots of trouble.

The list of things went wrong include the following favourites:
·         Extending NATO close to the Motherland’s borders. This created insecurity among Russia’s elites. Hence beating up the weird boy Ukraine, to prevent it from joining NATO;
·         Extending the EU into Ukraine via trade deal, with something mostly ineligible added about disrupting a bunch of obscure former USSR integration projects;
·         Americans doing wrong things. Though Ukraine and the USA are not really close friends, the former is much easier to beat;
·         Kosovo, a frequent guest in “West against Russia” debate;
·         Oil/gas, predictably in the sense of controlling the flows”.

 Those reasons are mostly bogus.

Let me give you an example concerning the wide-spread notion of NATO expansion. Allegedly, NATO, with its relentless encroachment to Russia's borders is what upsets Russia.
Indeed, not a day went by during the last 20 or so years when Russia wouldn’t complain about “NATO expanding to its borders”. While the complaining was deafening, the thinking behind it was something else entirely. Russia had never been truly concerned about NATO. Just consider the USSR. Bear in mind that the Soviet Union is just extinct and oversized original to what is today Russia, like a cave bear. The USSR used to survive NATO extending to its borders just fine when Turkey accessed the Treaty in 1952 in a huge, World changing event in military terms about doubling NATO on this side of the Atlantics. Stalin was still alive. The USSR tolerated having enormous stretches of border with NATO countries. The Warsaw Pact was at the same time completely surrounded by armed to the teeth NATO in Europe. If you believe USSR was essentially any softer, more humane or friendlier to the West than Putin’s Russia today, you are gravely mistaken. Having NATO just outside borders of Soviet and former Soviet countries like today Russia has been a standard for decades. When Russia complains about NATO expansion she has reasons. But they are not “security concerns”.
 
I could go on explaining why everything else on the list of most common explanations on what went wrong with Russia is useless. Whatever everyone else wants to think, the fact is that there’s nothing tangible you could grab and squeeze or point a finger at. Nothing the West, Ukraine, Obama or bunch of random politicians did caused the conflict. But even though there is no cause, there is an explanation.

Russia has been evil for a long time. Until recently she lacked the strength to make others’ life miserable. Things changed in the year 2005, give or take, when the energy-benchmark oil prices went up. Suddenly, Russia did not have to hold herself back anymore and could - if she so chose - unleash her true self. Since then she did, in spectacular manner. You can make a timeline if you want, piling events like Putin’s Munich speech, War in Georgia, assassinations of opposition figures and cyber-gas on-and-offs. This would be timeline of Russia resurging hand in hand with oil prices. But when I say Russia did hold back until the time was right I don’t mean she hid what she is. She was honest about it.

She had us warned during early Putin’s and even during Yeltsin’s time. We just wouldn’t listen. She always maintained networks of spies, assassins, corrupt politicians and greedy businessmen in the near and far abroad. She always broadcasted anti-western hate to the public. She always held troops, uninvited and barely masked as “local insurgents” in a bunch of countries Russia did not like and could get to.

For the time being things were kept local. There was just enough on the table to go on.

For the time being the assassins would not strike Hollywood-style for the Motherland. For the time being the bought off politicians and businessmen in your country would not open up a choir of praise for the Motherland. For the time being the Motherland’s hate TV would not explode in a bizarre-billion-dollars global conspiracy channel. For the time being the “insurgent” troops would stay ragtag occupying ridiculously named off-the-map countries. Everything Russia brewed were just starter courses in imaginary Cookbook of Evil. For the time being.
 
Now it is time for you to get out in front of your house and check if Russia has her hate-list pinned at your door. If one is there do not think Mother-Russia is just kidding. If Russia is not around to get you, it is not because she doesn’t want to, but because she does not know how.

No comments: