Here are some comments by others, some prominent others, collected over the last week:
Thomas L. Friedman
"I opposed expanding NATO toward Russia after the Cold War, when Russia was at its most democratic and least threatening. It remains one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done and, of course, laid the groundwork for Putin’s rise."
As long-time readers of Public Occurrences know, I've always been in agreement with Mr. Friedman.
Roger Cohen (second column)
Mr. Cohen is really struggling. In this one column, look at how many different ways he describes what Ukrainians are fighting for:
1. the fight in Crimea is about a simple issue: the freedom of Ukraine to set its course as a European democracy
...
[T]he spread eastward of NATO and the European Union — the greatest of post-Cold-War achievements — has allowed the Baltic states to begin disentangling truth from lies in the carnage of their histories.
...
2. That is what westward-gazing Ukrainians are fighting for at the most basic level: truth over lies.
...
3. The reason people in this part of Europe crave the framework of NATO and the European Union is for security and prosperity, of course
...
4. Above all, however, they seek a guarantee that the torment of their history, with its lies, is behind them...Ukraine is fighting for its right to remember, accurately and truthfully...No right should be more important to the United States and Europe. Societies based on lies fail.
"Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going?"
...
"The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 , were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia."
...
"The Ukrainians are the decisive element.They live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939 , when Stalin andHitler divided up the spoils. Crimea, 60 percent of whose population is Russian , became part of Ukraine only in 1954 , when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks."
...
"Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years; it had previously been under some kind of foreign rule since the 14th century."
...
"For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one."
...
"For its part, the United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught
rules of conduct established by Washington. Putin is a serious strategist — on the premises of Russian history. Understanding U.S. values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point of U.S. policymakers."
"While Western leaders have loudly denounced President Vladimir Putin's moves to take over the breakaway Ukrainian region of Crimea, at home, even some of his critics seem to welcome the prospect.
"If Putin returns Crimea to Russia without blood, he will go down as in history as a great, and there's nothing you can do about that," Kseniya Sobchak, a Russian television anchor and opposition figure, wrote on Twitter on Thursday, just after the Moscow-backed authorities in Crimea approved a referendum to confirm their decision to make the region part of Russia.
According to new data released Thursday, Mr. Putin's approval rating climbed to two-year highs over the weekend as Russian troops began fanning out across Crimea. Mr. Putin's approval rating rose to 67.8% in a poll conducted by state pollster Vtsiom March 1-2, just as Mr. Putin received permission from Russia's upper house of parliament to deploy troops in Ukraine."
"If Crimea actually becomes part of Russia, he will be very popular," said Yevgeny Gontmakher, an
economist who works at a prominent liberal think tank in Moscow. "They are thirsty for actions that
highlight the great status of Russia."
"Business groups are pushing to ensure that any economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States are joined by as much of the rest of the world as possible, warning Congress and the Obama administration that unilateral U.S. action would put tens of billions of dollars of American investment and trade at risk of retaliation."
...
“What we’ve been hearing from our members is a lot of concern that there are two ways America gets hurt in a game like this. One is by American sanctions, that put them out of business, and the other is by Russian retaliation, regardless of what we do,” said William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. In meetings with the administration and members of Congress, “we have not been shy about telling them . . . if it is not multilateral, it is not going to work,” he said.
...
"Broad sanctions face not only pushback from U.S. business but also practical problems, given Russia’s deepening connections to world energy and financial markets. Sanctions that target the energy sector, for example, might damage Russia the most, but they could also drive up global prices and undermine an already weak global economic recovery. Targeting the financial sector, similarly, could damage U.S. and European banks with hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian loans and investments on the line — and even then prove ineffective unless major Asian financial centers also abide by sanctions."
"For companies that trade with or invest in Russia, recent events are a shock that comes only a year after top business leaders lobbied intensively for Congress to lift the last Cold War-era trade restrictions on the country — a step they wanted in order to take advantage of Russia’s new membership in the World Trade Organization."
"Former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, in a conference call Friday, mentioned companies vulnerable to sanctions. He said for Severstal, “a well-respected [Russian] steel company with lots of investments in the U.S. and Europe, this can’t be good news for you.” And he noted that Exxon Mobil “has just signed up for what would be the biggest venture in the history of capitalism” with Russia’s Rosneft and said the company has “got to be very nervous.” But, McFaul added, “having said all that, I also think that Putin will be ready to make those economic sacrifices if he wants to go forward with this annexation strategy.”
...
"Several business officials said there is a sense that broad sanctions will not be imposed, if only because U.S. allies in Europe will probably resist it. Europe’s economic interests in Russia are far larger than those of the United States, from a reliance on Russian gas and oil to the nearly $200 billion in Russian loans and investments carried on the books of Western European banks."
...
“If we are unable to expand our businesses in emerging market and developing markets . . . as a result of our investments, particularly in Russia, as a result of economic and political conditions . . . our financial performance could be adversely affected,” PepsiCo said in its 2012 annual report."
"I'm stunned by the lack of perspective and breathlessness in the discussion."
...
"[H]ere are several things about the recent coverage and discussion on Ukraine that even my lack of expertise won't allow me to accept:
1. We're back in the Cold War
...
"Nor are we still in that unique period when two superpowers with contrasting ideological systems under the threat of nuclear war clashed and fought by proxy from one end of the globe to the other.
There's no doubt that the United States and Russia have major differences. But the issue is no longer ideological. Russian capitalism is here to stay, state-controlled and monitored though it may be. And what ideology exists has more to do with asserting Russian national interests than anything Marx or Lenin would have recognized."
...
"[T]he world's too small, the Europeans too dependent on Russia, and the realities of global interdependence too deep to imagine hitting the rewind button and turning the planet into an arena of conflict and competition. Would it make for a good video game? Yes."
2. Putin is Hitler
"When we can't think of intelligent parallels in analyzing nations who do things America cannot abide, it seems we're drawn irresistibly to the Hitler trope."
...
"[T]o bring up Hitler not only trivializes the monstrosity of the evil and the magnitude of the crimes in his time, it imposes unrealistic challenges in ours.The unique challenge of Hitler demanded that he be stopped and the Nazi regime destroyed. We don't have to like the Putin government in Russia...to recognize that the magnitude of the threat is different."
Thomas L. Friedman
"I opposed expanding NATO toward Russia after the Cold War, when Russia was at its most democratic and least threatening. It remains one of the dumbest things we’ve ever done and, of course, laid the groundwork for Putin’s rise."
As long-time readers of Public Occurrences know, I've always been in agreement with Mr. Friedman.
Roger Cohen (second column)
Mr. Cohen is really struggling. In this one column, look at how many different ways he describes what Ukrainians are fighting for:
1. the fight in Crimea is about a simple issue: the freedom of Ukraine to set its course as a European democracy
...
[T]he spread eastward of NATO and the European Union — the greatest of post-Cold-War achievements — has allowed the Baltic states to begin disentangling truth from lies in the carnage of their histories.
...
2. That is what westward-gazing Ukrainians are fighting for at the most basic level: truth over lies.
...
3. The reason people in this part of Europe crave the framework of NATO and the European Union is for security and prosperity, of course
...
4. Above all, however, they seek a guarantee that the torment of their history, with its lies, is behind them...Ukraine is fighting for its right to remember, accurately and truthfully...No right should be more important to the United States and Europe. Societies based on lies fail.
Another "right:" Ukrainians, all Homos presumably, have the "right to remember, accurately and truthfully." And, no right other than Ukraine's "right to remember" should be more important to the U.S. and E.U. That's bizarre. There is no such right and if there ever is it would not be the most important right and it would not be America's responsibility to guarantee Ukraine's right to anything, much less a "right to remember." Bizarre.
Henry Kissinger.
...
"The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709 , were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia."
...
"The Ukrainians are the decisive element.They live in a country with a complex history and a polyglot composition. The Western part was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1939 , when Stalin andHitler divided up the spoils. Crimea, 60 percent of whose population is Russian , became part of Ukraine only in 1954 , when Nikita Khrushchev, a Ukrainian by birth, awarded it as part of the 300th-year celebration of a Russian agreement with the Cossacks."
...
"Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years; it had previously been under some kind of foreign rule since the 14th century."
...
"For the West, the demonization of Vladimir Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one."
...
"For its part, the United States needs to avoid treating Russia as an aberrant to be patiently taught
rules of conduct established by Washington. Putin is a serious strategist — on the premises of Russian history. Understanding U.S. values and psychology are not his strong suits. Nor has understanding Russian history and psychology been a strong point of U.S. policymakers."
Wall Street Journal report
"While Western leaders have loudly denounced President Vladimir Putin's moves to take over the breakaway Ukrainian region of Crimea, at home, even some of his critics seem to welcome the prospect.
"If Putin returns Crimea to Russia without blood, he will go down as in history as a great, and there's nothing you can do about that," Kseniya Sobchak, a Russian television anchor and opposition figure, wrote on Twitter on Thursday, just after the Moscow-backed authorities in Crimea approved a referendum to confirm their decision to make the region part of Russia.
According to new data released Thursday, Mr. Putin's approval rating climbed to two-year highs over the weekend as Russian troops began fanning out across Crimea. Mr. Putin's approval rating rose to 67.8% in a poll conducted by state pollster Vtsiom March 1-2, just as Mr. Putin received permission from Russia's upper house of parliament to deploy troops in Ukraine."
...
"Many Russians feel special ties to Ukraine, where a large portion of the population speaks Russian and shares a common religion. Ukraine also was home to the first east Slavic state, Kievan Rus."If Crimea actually becomes part of Russia, he will be very popular," said Yevgeny Gontmakher, an
economist who works at a prominent liberal think tank in Moscow. "They are thirsty for actions that
highlight the great status of Russia."
...
"In a recent poll, conducted before the conflict in the region arose, more than half of Russians said they consider Crimea part of Russia."
Washington Post report
This article points up the difficulty, maybe the fallacy, of relying on economic ties to safeguard peace. Capitalism is neither moral or immoral, it is amoral. It is a money producing machine, the greatest the mind of man has ever created, but it is a machine, it has no sense of the moral. It produces money amorally and asymmetrically. The only function of multi-national capitalist corporations is to make money. The "morally good" do not only get rich, some of those who do get rich make googles of money more than others. Therefore, to the extent (and it is a very great extent) that money=power, capitalism creates asymmetries of power not based on morality. When, in an integrated economic world, an economically powerful national actor, Russia, acts for other than economic reasons, other nations in the economic web struggle to respond. When military power is ruled out, as it is here, economic sanctions meet resistance from the corporations whose only purpose is to make money, and from the political leaders of capitalist countries who know that economic sanctions will hurt their own economies. Finally, since capitalism creates asymmetries of power, the less powerful economic countries, like here in Europe, will suffer economic sanctions asymmetrically and will oppose them.
...
“What we’ve been hearing from our members is a lot of concern that there are two ways America gets hurt in a game like this. One is by American sanctions, that put them out of business, and the other is by Russian retaliation, regardless of what we do,” said William Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council. In meetings with the administration and members of Congress, “we have not been shy about telling them . . . if it is not multilateral, it is not going to work,” he said.
...
"Broad sanctions face not only pushback from U.S. business but also practical problems, given Russia’s deepening connections to world energy and financial markets. Sanctions that target the energy sector, for example, might damage Russia the most, but they could also drive up global prices and undermine an already weak global economic recovery. Targeting the financial sector, similarly, could damage U.S. and European banks with hundreds of billions of dollars in Russian loans and investments on the line — and even then prove ineffective unless major Asian financial centers also abide by sanctions."
"For companies that trade with or invest in Russia, recent events are a shock that comes only a year after top business leaders lobbied intensively for Congress to lift the last Cold War-era trade restrictions on the country — a step they wanted in order to take advantage of Russia’s new membership in the World Trade Organization."
"Former U.S. ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul, in a conference call Friday, mentioned companies vulnerable to sanctions. He said for Severstal, “a well-respected [Russian] steel company with lots of investments in the U.S. and Europe, this can’t be good news for you.” And he noted that Exxon Mobil “has just signed up for what would be the biggest venture in the history of capitalism” with Russia’s Rosneft and said the company has “got to be very nervous.” But, McFaul added, “having said all that, I also think that Putin will be ready to make those economic sacrifices if he wants to go forward with this annexation strategy.”
...
"Several business officials said there is a sense that broad sanctions will not be imposed, if only because U.S. allies in Europe will probably resist it. Europe’s economic interests in Russia are far larger than those of the United States, from a reliance on Russian gas and oil to the nearly $200 billion in Russian loans and investments carried on the books of Western European banks."
...
“If we are unable to expand our businesses in emerging market and developing markets . . . as a result of our investments, particularly in Russia, as a result of economic and political conditions . . . our financial performance could be adversely affected,” PepsiCo said in its 2012 annual report."
Aaron David Miller
...
"[H]ere are several things about the recent coverage and discussion on Ukraine that even my lack of expertise won't allow me to accept:
1. We're back in the Cold War
...
"Nor are we still in that unique period when two superpowers with contrasting ideological systems under the threat of nuclear war clashed and fought by proxy from one end of the globe to the other.
There's no doubt that the United States and Russia have major differences. But the issue is no longer ideological. Russian capitalism is here to stay, state-controlled and monitored though it may be. And what ideology exists has more to do with asserting Russian national interests than anything Marx or Lenin would have recognized."
...
"[T]he world's too small, the Europeans too dependent on Russia, and the realities of global interdependence too deep to imagine hitting the rewind button and turning the planet into an arena of conflict and competition. Would it make for a good video game? Yes."
2. Putin is Hitler
"When we can't think of intelligent parallels in analyzing nations who do things America cannot abide, it seems we're drawn irresistibly to the Hitler trope."
...
"[T]o bring up Hitler not only trivializes the monstrosity of the evil and the magnitude of the crimes in his time, it imposes unrealistic challenges in ours.The unique challenge of Hitler demanded that he be stopped and the Nazi regime destroyed. We don't have to like the Putin government in Russia...to recognize that the magnitude of the threat is different."
...
"As best I can figure, Putin is a clever and easily riled Russian nationalist who presides over what remains of an empire whose time has come and gone. He lives in reality, not in some megalomaniacal world. But he is prepared to assert Russia's interests in spheres where it matters, and to block the West's intrusion into those areas as best he can. Russia is his "ideology." And on Ukraine, history and proximity give him cards to play."
"This man isn't a fanatic. Money, pleasure and power are too important to him. Any leader who is willing to be photographed shirtless on a horse, like some cover of Men's Health magazine, isn't going to shoot himself in the head or take cyanide in a bunker. This guy is way too hip (Russian style) and attached to the good life to be Hitler. And given Russia's own suffering at the hands of the Nazis, saying he is just makes matters worse."
3. It's all Obama's fault
...
"[T]he notion that Obama, through weak and feckless foreign policy, was responsible for Putin's move into Ukraine strains credulity to the breaking point."
...
"This urban legend that because of Benghazi and the "red line" affair in Syria, Putin was compelled to do something in Ukraine that he wouldn't have done had Obama acted differently, is absurd. The administration's foreign policy has often resembled a blend between a Marx Brothers movie and the Three Stooges. But on this one the charge is absurd, as is the notion that somehow Obama could have stopped him.
"This man isn't a fanatic. Money, pleasure and power are too important to him. Any leader who is willing to be photographed shirtless on a horse, like some cover of Men's Health magazine, isn't going to shoot himself in the head or take cyanide in a bunker. This guy is way too hip (Russian style) and attached to the good life to be Hitler. And given Russia's own suffering at the hands of the Nazis, saying he is just makes matters worse."
3. It's all Obama's fault
...
"[T]he notion that Obama, through weak and feckless foreign policy, was responsible for Putin's move into Ukraine strains credulity to the breaking point."
...
"This urban legend that because of Benghazi and the "red line" affair in Syria, Putin was compelled to do something in Ukraine that he wouldn't have done had Obama acted differently, is absurd. The administration's foreign policy has often resembled a blend between a Marx Brothers movie and the Three Stooges. But on this one the charge is absurd, as is the notion that somehow Obama could have stopped him.
When the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956, there was no U.S. military response; ditto in 1968 when the Soviets put down Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia. Sometimes, geography really is destiny. Russia believed its vital interests in Ukraine were threatened and it had the means, will, and proximity to act on them. And it's about time we faced up to it."
4. Bombing Syria would have saved Ukraine
"[T]o argue that launching cruise missiles at Syrian military targets somehow would have deterred Putin from acting on what he perceived to be a Russian vital interest, or emboldened the Europeans to stand tougher against him, really is off base."
...
"The country [Ukraine] perceived to be in Russia's zone of influence and manipulation was drifting westward. And Putin was determined to stop it."
5. Ukraine can have a 'Hollywood' ending
"Are there good guys and bad guys in the Ukraine-Russian drama? Sure there are. We have courageous Ukrainian patriots who died in the Maidan for the dignity and freedom they believed in; corrupt and ruthless government officials who were willing to use force against their own citizens; Russian provocateurs eager to stir up trouble; extremist Ukrainian nationalists who are hardly democrats; and a Russian strongman who hosted the Olympics one week and invaded the territory of a sovereign country the next."
...
"There are no easy or happy endings here. And we can only make matters worse, as Henry Kissinger suggested recently, by trying to turn the Ukraine crisis into a Russia vs. the West (or worse, the U.S.) tug-of-war."
4. Bombing Syria would have saved Ukraine
"[T]o argue that launching cruise missiles at Syrian military targets somehow would have deterred Putin from acting on what he perceived to be a Russian vital interest, or emboldened the Europeans to stand tougher against him, really is off base."
...
"The country [Ukraine] perceived to be in Russia's zone of influence and manipulation was drifting westward. And Putin was determined to stop it."
5. Ukraine can have a 'Hollywood' ending
"Are there good guys and bad guys in the Ukraine-Russian drama? Sure there are. We have courageous Ukrainian patriots who died in the Maidan for the dignity and freedom they believed in; corrupt and ruthless government officials who were willing to use force against their own citizens; Russian provocateurs eager to stir up trouble; extremist Ukrainian nationalists who are hardly democrats; and a Russian strongman who hosted the Olympics one week and invaded the territory of a sovereign country the next."
...
"There are no easy or happy endings here. And we can only make matters worse, as Henry Kissinger suggested recently, by trying to turn the Ukraine crisis into a Russia vs. the West (or worse, the U.S.) tug-of-war."
