Commies, Russians, Nazis and Ukraine

Commies Russians Nazis and Ukraine



When I was a kid, the MSM tried to teach us to fear the Commies--and people sympathetic to them, like Pete Seeger (a local hero). The Commies were Russians, of course, and even though they'd fought courageously on the same side in World War II, and had more fatalities than any other combatant, they quickly became the enemy, because Stalin had taken over half of Europe and was pushing outward in the East as well, in Korea, and Vietnam.

I remember being told by an anti-Communist that the Communists were going to take over, the only question was when. That was before Khrushchev banged his shoe on the UN table, long before Brezhnev.

JFK probably owed his election to his manufactured missile crisis (the Reds had more missiles, he claimed).

History has not been kind to the anti-Communist scares. The USSR was never really a match for the US, except for its massive tank forces ready to drive west into Europe. The talk of the missile gap, and of the USSR gaining advantage turned out to be false: even up to the collapse of the Soviet Union, our "intelligence" services were way over-estimating Soviet capabilities.

Why did they do that so consistently? Defense is a huge business, earning high (and often easy, cost-plus) profits. Pretending that the Soviets were 7 feet tall was good business.

When the USSR collapsed, US intel did a somersault. Russia was suddenly a basket case and could be ignored. American military pushed NATO expansion into ex-Soviet states, even though the new Russia was supposed to be our friend and we'd promised not to expand NATO to ex-Soviet states: first exceptions were the Baltic states.

What American military policy makers neglected to remember, however, was the Russian view of the world. Unlike the US, Russia never had well-defined, easily defended boundaries. The Muscovite state emerged to defend Russians from almost continuous invasions (on average about one every other year for 300 years). That's why the Tsarist political idea held that all power had to be owned by the Tsar: separation of powers was unthinkable. That's also, why Russia expanded in all directions; there were no boundaries until they reached the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific: Russians had a felt need to defend themselves against all comers. And still do.

Russians have had an historical experience that is totally foreign to Americans. At the beginning of WWII, they fought the Winter War against Finland. They fought to a settlement in which Finland has been neutral ever since.

They and others have suggested that Finland be a model for Ukraine. During WWII, Ukrainian nationalists fought for the Nazis, and welcomed their invasion; they were even more enthused about killing off Jews and Poles than the invaders.

What does Putin and the Russians see today: right-wing (neo-Nazi) Ukrainians spearheading the overthrow of the elected government, gaining power, initially, over defense and security in the new government, and even ramming through legislation to outlaw the Russian language. The new executive quickly rescinded the latter, when it became clear it was politically disastrous.

Ukrainian nationalists promoted EU and NATO membership, and their enthusiasm for both was only dampened when Americans and Europeans couldn't promise either. But think of the Russian reaction: NATO was organized to defend Europe against the USSR and was a creature of the US. Ukrainian nationalists want to establish both on the main Russian border, over lands where most invasions have come for more than 1000 years.

The east of Ukraine is largely Russian speaking: its people supported the overthrown President, Yanukovich, and were justifiably paranoid of the anti-Russian coup majority. They may have been encouraged to rebel by Putin's media, then equipped by the Russian military, and further, joined by "volunteers" from the Russian Army. The new Ukrainian revolutionary government did not treat the Russian rebels as dissidents but as traitors and labeled them Fascists and terrorists.

That was bad enough, but under Poroshenko, the new Ukrainian President, the rebels and the cities they occupied were shelled and bombed. We were outraged when Assad did something similar, but Europe and the US only mildly objected when the Ukraine bombed its own people. That's when Putin, apparently, sent in Russian soldiers to turn the tide.

But notice: with the exception of the special case of Crimea (host to the Russian Black Sea Navy, ethnically heavily Russian), Putin has not moved to take over Eastern Ukraine, only to stop Poroshenko's brutal "anti-terrorist" campaign against ethnic Russians. Since the ceasefire, Putin has pushed for a weak federal state for Ukraine, which would create a neutral country, much like Finland.

The US should not be promoting NATO expansion to Russian borders, and rather than entering a new Cold War, we should collaborate with Russia, on both ISIS and Ukraine, and should welcome Russian aid in settling our differences with Iran, if not with Assad in Syria. Putin is not really setting out to recreate the USSR; he's attempting to protect Russia the way Russians always have, unless we force his hand. Remember: Russia still has enough nukes to devastate the world.

Do we really want to have a nuclear confrontation even more dangerous than the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962? We came close to blowing up the world then: it still could happen.