3/14/14

Sect. Kerry Pushes for Sanctions to Assert Post-Cold War Takeover of Russian Ukraine

For most of human history power has determined borders. Genghis Khan had no respect for the forest Slavs of Russia and raged his global warming and rainfall advantaged horse riders to within 30 miles of the Baltic Sea. For several centuries Russia fought back against the evil empire and of course the Stroganov mercenary Yermak rode past the Urals under Ivan the Terrible to retake those lands eventually. Yet Russia and Russian Ukraine would be attacked repeatedly from the west as well. No matter, Napoleon and Hitler invaded Moscow and under several forces the Ukraine was captured for a time. If there is a lesson to be learned from the history of hostile takeover of Russian land such as the Ukraine it is that war is the ultimate ratio for determining borders. The Obama administration has the most powerful military on Earth so it feels right to declare its will as existential law.
Consider Britain's history of invasion and the British Empire's use of force and military skill to create a global empire; violence or the threat of violence determined political and economic power. Not that any of that is good of  course. When the Aztecs purged Mexico of rivals and sacrificed their hearts it was a painful experience for the losers of history. When Attorney General Holder cites Missoula Montana as a place where the county prosecutor is to easy on rape he probably is unaware that Missoula mean place of skulls and was a place where Crow and Blackfoot met in conflict and where Lewis and Clarke encountered troubles on the West Fork of the Clark River. Even with a majority of female prosecutors it may be difficult to reduce crimes from people wandering through Missoula-geomancy maybe, yet the administration can probably apply some logic to the land grab of the eastern Ukraine from Russia when it was weakened by transition to a new government  at the end of the Soviet Union that won't sound like naked aggression to U.S. voters.
 For most of America's history it had no significant external enemy able  to make a land invasion. When the British, French and Spanish learned holding America without American cooperation wasn't practical they at least stopped the effort to take lands that would be the U.S.A. Even Russia recognizing the expanding American power and win in the U.S. civil war over the British supported Confederacy sold Alaska to America in 1867. The post cold war chaos resulting in the taking of land from the traditional Russia was done without even a token payment.  Sect. Seward at least paid something to the Tsar.
Since the end of the cold war U.S. political leadership has failed to transition to a post cold war economic relationship with Russia that was just friendly. Russians had a monumental challenge of changing from a Stalinist structure to one with free enterprise. That was a challenge America has never had. U.S. leadership can't even create full employment or eliminate its own public debt. Instead it seems to go from one cheap Wall Street and public policy scheme to another for short term economic policy.
 Keeping the spirit of the cold war era going was too easy and beside the U.S.A. has all that military and economic power to intimidate with. American leadership ought to have been more understanding with Russia and not gone to the cold, hard viscous capitalist mode of taking maximum advantage of the weaken Russian Federation, for there is a traditional Russia seemingly, and that included the Eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The economy doesn't need the instability created by the Obama policy of belligerence right now. While the millionaires and billionaires of Boston are contemplating their global profits and prospects millions of Americans are experiencing seriously degraded lives financially with diminished life prospects. yet with the broadcast media owned by the rich the Ukraine must look like an easy whale for the harvest.
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