Returning to the Cold War; dividing the spoils

Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Troops wearing uniforms without identifying insignia took control of key instillations in Crimea in the east of Ukraine yesterday; they are very probably Russian. And as President Putin is rattling sabers just across the boarder in an ostensibly 'long-planned military exercise', assurances from Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that Russia will not interfere stretch credulity.

I'm old enough to remember the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, not forgetting its military intervention in Georgia. Putin is a product of the KGB and the Cold War and his thinking seems stuck there; he sees perestroika and glasnost as terrible mistakes, and wants a return to the former glories of the USSR. The only difference being that today it's not about ideology but power, national pride  and international influence.

He has little to lose in behaving 'badly' (i.e., not paying nice with the West); the US and Europe on the other hand do. Europe relies heavily on Russian natural gas for its energy needs. The US wants, at a minimum, Putin's acquiescence in dealing with Syria, Iran and North Korea where Russia's veto on the UN Security Council gives it considerable leverage. Russian isn't about to give up it's naval base in Sevastopol by letting a Westward looking government control  Ukraine's destiny.

Since historically half of the country is mostly ethnically and Russian religiously Russian Orthodox, it seems inconceivable that the Ukraine will remain a single entity; a 'two state' solution, seems inevitable. Yugoslavia, a manufactured amalgam of peoples, splintered in the 1990s. The Ukraine will probably follow the same path. And the sooner everyone acknowledges that the less traumatic the country's future will be.