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RE: Ukraine and Crimea
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runner
Posts: 357
Joined: Dec. 5 2008
From: New Jersey USA
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 RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to gmburns)
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Bill Barkell has it just about right. When Khrushchev "gave" Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, he was taking it out of his right pocket and putting it into his left pocket; he never anticipated the demise of the Soviet Union. Crimea is Russian, de facto, and will stay that way, according to every expert on the area. And Russia will never sit still for a NATO Ukraine (memories of Cuba, anyone?). Historically, Ukraine, as Bill points out, has always been a very divided area, with vicious, horrible wars between the Poland-oriented/"western"/Catholic population and the Russian-oriented/"eastern"/Orthodox population. While those wars are hopefully in the past, they do not inspire hope in a unified Ukraine in the future--look at the Czech Republic and Slovakia, look at the Croats and the Serbs.
I predict that, after a period of chest-thumping, the world will move on to the next crisis. But we will be well-advised to keep a eye on Putin's next moves, in case he is of the notion to further annex territories on Russia's western borders, and should be ready with truly draconian sanctions, including turning off the pipeline to Europe and replacing the Russian gas with other sources.
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Date Mar. 18 2014 22:58:05
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gmburns
Posts: 157
Joined: Nov. 20 2012
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to runner)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: runner
Bill Barkell has it just about right. When Khrushchev "gave" Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, he was taking it out of his right pocket and putting it into his left pocket; he never anticipated the demise of the Soviet Union. Crimea is Russian, de facto, and will stay that way, according to every expert on the area. And Russia will never sit still for a NATO Ukraine (memories of Cuba, anyone?). Historically, Ukraine, as Bill points out, has always been a very divided area, with vicious, horrible wars between the Poland-oriented/"western"/Catholic population and the Russian-oriented/"eastern"/Orthodox population. While those wars are hopefully in the past, they do not inspire hope in a unified Ukraine in the future--look at the Czech Republic and Slovakia, look at the Croats and the Serbs.
I predict that, after a period of chest-thumping, the world will move on to the next crisis. But we will be well-advised to keep a eye on Putin's next moves, in case he is of the notion to further annex territories on Russia's western borders, and should be ready with truly draconian sanctions, including turning off the pipeline to Europe and replacing the Russian gas with other sources.
Crimea is only mainly Russian because Stalin evicted the Tatars. He managed to deport nearly 100% of them in the 1940s and about half of them died during this transition. Naturally, Crimea was resettled by Russians during this time, and the Tatars never fully recovered. To say that Crimea is pretty much Russia anyway is true to a technical point, but certainly not just by any sense of the imagination.
However, you're pretty spot on about NATO and attention spans. People have seemingly forgotten about Georgia.
_____________________________
Greg Mason Burns - Artist
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Date Mar. 19 2014 1:26:20
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to gmburns)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: gmburns
Crimea is only mainly Russian because Stalin evicted the Tatars.
The khanat of Crimea was Osmanian territory until end of the Russian-Turkish war. The constant increase of Russian population set in after that already, while Tartars began moving to Turkey.
In 1783 the Crimea was declared Russian by Katharina II "from now on for all times".
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You got to wonder about the schizophrenia of the Western policy without anyone even noticing.
Traditionally the EU, USA, Nato, UNO and what have you have always supported separatism.
Whether during the unmounting of the former SU, or with the former Yugoslavia Western credo was constantly to assist areas, provinces, federal states to separate, always emphasizing how it was their right to part.
They were so eager to pressing ahead with separation policies that they would let the concertated press push claims of how individial ethnic groups were allegedly being traditionally hostile, eventhough the majority of these groups had obviously been living in peace for so many decades already.
Separation of federal states consistantly was the West´s equal to "democracy".
And now?
As it pleases an adverse strategy, this time a vote of inhabitants of over 90% for union with Russsia is called "annexation".
I am shaking my head while hearing artificially indignat politicians and main stream journalist struggling to produce pseudo arguments before TV-teams about an alleged crime of Putin. It´s such a ridiculous masquerade.
So absurd even that yesterday a politician of the German conservative party requested a halt of the demagogic exaggeration against Putin, and warned from hysterically provoked consequences.
Anyone who has a notion of the West´s policies since WWII should be wondering about the new reverse credo.
How about some consistency for a change?
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And while at it:
Putin´s speak yesterday was only correct.
The USA and NATO have exclusively treated Russia with disrespect since the times when they lurked the SU into dissolution ( and installing the appropriation mafia). Never treated them as partners and always served them pre-made decisions about EU / NATO integrations and installation of US missiles at Russian borders.
Worst of all the USA´s refuse to follow Gorbatshov´s suggestion for a complete disarmamaent of nuclear weapons. Something I personally can´t forget.
Ruphus
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Date Mar. 19 2014 8:46:33
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runner
Posts: 357
Joined: Dec. 5 2008
From: New Jersey USA
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Aretium)
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Russia completed its decades-long attempt to conquer and annex Crimea with the signing of the Treaty of Jassy in 1792, whereby the Ottoman Empire ceded the Crimea to Russia. Virtually all of the USA, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada too, were acquired by their current "owners" in more or less the same way (and time frame). In fact, it's the History of the World. Territory belongs, ultimately, to those who have the most feet on the ground and also can hold it against all (or most) comers, until some bigger dog comes along. Russia has the most feet on the ground in Crimea, and they can hold it. It is what it is. Shall we debate the past of East Prussia? Ulster? Brittany?
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Date Mar. 19 2014 13:01:54
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to gmburns)
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To my understanding all senseful considerations, excpet of two points.
quote:
ORIGINAL: gmburns
There's nothing honorable about Gorbachev's offer. The dude wasn't a peace-love-and-brown-rice environmentalist. He was trying to both survive and win at the same time. It's realpolitik at it's best.
I don´t think so.
On the one hand Gorbi showed much less of an idealist than people think. After all gone into dissolving of the SU after having fallen for false promises of personal ernichment.
On the other hand there is no reason to assume tricky strategy behind his unarming proposal. ( None that I am aware of.) Instead it appeared plausible as sincere attempt to remove the idiocy of nuclear bombs.
Actually, any intelligent mind could realize the sanity behind such suggestion, me thinks.
quote:
ORIGINAL: gmburns
Besides, an all-out ban would never be agreed to. How can one trust it?
Despite of so much sweeping actual sinister goals of sabotage and destruction against any whatsoever left agenda especially behind Western post WWII policies, the question here would not have been a moralistic one ( in respect of earlier tactics about reduction / enhancement).
I think sincere aims provided the USA would had taken the chance to explore chances and the unique opportunity to follow through with Gorbatchov´s suggestion of disarmament.
Regardless of their lead, naturally.
I estimate the background behind contra productive behaviour shown instead, to lie in the substantial and traditional creaming off from states budgets, which can hardly be had so freely like with draining of from states budgets for weaponry under propagandistic cause of hostile threat. Indepently from actual potential of threat, mind you.
( The ending SU about to bomb the USA then, or any time close; come on now.  )
For Lockheed, Boing& co. the hypothetical end of nuclerar bomb building self-evidently will have steered prompt networking through established lines.
That is were evil resides.
When easy money towers over literally each and everything.
- And I am certain that a business world like that in the future will be ethically filed side by side with preceding reckless profiteerings of the likes as Faber-Castell, BMW etc. during Third Reich.
Ruphus
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Date Mar. 19 2014 17:07:37
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gmburns
Posts: 157
Joined: Nov. 20 2012
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
To my understanding all senseful considerations, excpet of two points.
quote:
ORIGINAL: gmburns
There's nothing honorable about Gorbachev's offer. The dude wasn't a peace-love-and-brown-rice environmentalist. He was trying to both survive and win at the same time. It's realpolitik at it's best.
I don´t think so.
On the one hand Gorbi showed much less of an idealist than people think. After all gone into dissolving of the SU after having fallen for false promises of personal ernichment.
On the other hand there is no reason to assume tricky strategy behind his unarming proposal. ( None that I am aware of.) Instead it appeared plausible as sincere attempt to remove the idiocy of nuclear bombs.
Actually, any intelligent mind could realize the sanity behind such suggestion, me thinks.
quote:
ORIGINAL: gmburns
Besides, an all-out ban would never be agreed to. How can one trust it?
Despite of so much sweeping actual sinister goals of sabotage and destruction against any whatsoever left agenda especially behind Western post WWII policies, the question here would not have been a moralistic one ( in respect of earlier tactics about reduction / enhancement).
I think sincere aims provided the USA would had taken the chance to explore chances and the unique opportunity to follow through with Gorbatchov´s suggestion of disarmament.
Regardless of their lead, naturally.
I estimate the background behind contra productive behaviour shown instead, to lie in the substantial and traditional creaming off from states budgets, which can hardly be had so freely like with draining of from states budgets for weaponry under propagandistic cause of hostile threat. Indepently from actual potential of threat, mind you.
( The ending SU about to bomb the USA then, or any time close; come on now. )
For Lockheed, Boing& co. the hypothetical end of nuclerar bomb building self-evidently will have steered prompt networking through established lines.
That is were evil resides.
When easy money towers over literally each and everything.
- And I am certain that a business world like that in the future will be ethically filed side by side with preceding reckless profiteerings of the likes as Faber-Castell, BMW etc. during Third Reich.
Ruphus
We'll have to agree to disagree then. While I certainly believe any human being can come up with the idea of disarmament, it's not that easy of a solution for a person at the helm of a superpower. His responsibilities were beyond the idea of just doing what's good for the world. As you noted, there are / were other players, too. Nations don't just disarm at a proposal. There's a lot more strategy that goes into a proposal than that.
There are plenty of theories abound that suggest the Soviets knew they were running out of time and wanted to disarm before the game got too one-sided. Gorbachev was charged with restoring a bad economy and he tried to do by allowing greater political and economic freedoms. This in turn led to the various republics feeling empowered. The Berlin Wall may have fallen over night, but the process to that point was anything but.
They were also aware of where their nuclear arms were held, and if those areas were becoming potential problems. For example, they didn't want nukes in the Ukraine to end up Ukrainian, especially if the Ukraine slid westward. Of course those nukes did end up Ukrainian for a while, but they were eventually safely returned (that doesn't change the fear in the advance, though). Disarming everything made it more difficult for the US and / or NATO to threaten "Russia" during a period of potential upheaval. (this is sort of funny because the Ukraine gave up the weapons in return for territorial guarantees. Guess who just recently decided this treaty is no longer relevant? I wonder if the Ukraine would like to take back that treaty now.)
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Greg Mason Burns - Artist
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Date Mar. 19 2014 18:21:29
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
On the one hand Gorbi showed much less of an idealist than people think. After all gone into dissolving of the SU after having fallen for false promises of personal ernichment.
Could you point us to more information on this? It wasn't featured much in the Western press.
quote:
On the other hand there is no reason to assume tricky strategy behind his unarming proposal. ( None that I am aware of.) Instead it appeared plausible as sincere attempt to remove the idiocy of nuclear bombs.
Actually, any intelligent mind could realize the sanity behind such suggestion, me thinks.
Having spent a good part of my life observing, and to a considerable extent participating in human behavior relative to nuclear weapons, i think I am qualified to say that, whether or not it is a sane suggestion, I believe there is little hope for the success of a total nuclear weapons ban.
However there has been a steady reduction in the risk of accident or miscalculation through the Test Ban and ABM Treaties, the sharp reduction of the number of weapons, the re-targeting of those which remain, and the increased level of Russian/US trust developed through cooperation in the destruction of weapons and inspection of the remaining stocks.
quote:
ORIGINAL: gmburns
Besides, an all-out ban would never be agreed to. How can one trust it?
quote:
ORIGINAL: ruphus
Despite of so much sweeping actual sinister goals of sabotage and destruction against any whatsoever left agenda especially behind Western post WWII policies, the question here would not have been a moralistic one ( in respect of earlier tactics about reduction / enhancement).
I think sincere aims provided the USA would had taken the chance to explore chances and the unique opportunity to follow through with Gorbatchov´s suggestion of disarmament.
Regardless of their lead, naturally.
I estimate the background behind contra productive behaviour shown instead, to lie in the substantial and traditional creaming off from states budgets, which can hardly be had so freely like with draining of from states budgets for weaponry under propagandistic cause of hostile threat. Indepently from actual potential of threat, mind you.
(The ending SU about to bomb the USA then, or any time close; come on now. )
Neither side ever intended to bomb the other. Everyone realized that if either side initiated nuclear conflict, it would be suicide. Each of the two nuclear establishments moved with caution, not to unduly provoke the other side, nor to unduly frighten them. Each played not to win, but to stalemate.
The U.S. advantage was that it could much better afford to play than the Soviets could.
Everyone actually involved knew that this was the case. The Soviets denied it to prop up morale. The U.S. establishment never mentioned it, for fear of undermining political support.
A similar political impulse was seen in the embargo of press photos or TV images of dead American soldiers in Iraq, for fear that it would undermine politcal support for a war, that in its earliest phases appeared to be going even better than expected.
quote:
ORIGINAL: ruphus
For Lockheed, Boing& co. the hypothetical end of nuclerar bomb building self-evidently will have steered prompt networking through established lines.
That is were evil resides.
When easy money towers over literally each and everything.
- And I am certain that a business world like that in the future will be ethically filed side by side with preceding reckless profiteerings of the likes as Faber-Castell, BMW etc. during Third Reich.
Ruphus
While greed is a strong motivating force in capitalist societies, I think you overestimate its influence relative to the overpowering forces of fear and distrust between two diametrically opposed societies, the U.S. and the USSR, each announcing its intention to annihilate the other. Not annihilation through open war, but each attacking the other by the steady expansion of its sphere of influence, through the destabilization of weak governments, proxy wars like Vietnam and the Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, and the eventual asphyxiation of its adversary.
The Soviets would much rather have spent the billions of rubles of the military budget on industrialization and raising the standard of living of the population. Instead they bankrupted the state, responding to American threats to destroy them, and due to the ineptitude of Soviet central planners, and the fake obedience of significant parts of the economy.
Eisenhower cautioned against America becoming a "garrison state" out of fear of explicitly stated Soviet intentions to overpower the West. Despite your distrust of America, its citizens did in fact enjoy more personal freedom and less fear of the government than did anyone I have ever talked to who actually lived in the Soviet Union. I know some of them quite well.
At the end of WW II the world had recently witnessed the Soviets' pre-war fanaticism in pursuit of a political theory, by killing millions of its own citizens through the intentionally created famine of "collectivization" of farmlands in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia itself. The repeated Stalinist "purges" were well known in the West, as was repression and state terrorism employed against its own citizens. What else might the Soviets be capable of? Who would want to live under such a system?
The Soviets had seen the U.S. nearly instantly kill hundreds of thousands in the fire bombing of Tokyo and the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Together with the British we pushed the Nazis back out of North Africa, neutralized Hitler's weak ally in Italy, and took our time building and gathering our forces, while the Soviet Union took the full violent brunt of the Nazi attack, losing 20-milliion people. Then we invaded a materially weakened German-occupied western Europe at a tiny cost relative to the Soviets' losses. There was a century-long record of the exploitation of labor by capital, only partly balanced by bouts of expanding prosperity and the emergency measures of the 1930s New Deal. What else were we capable of?
There was indeed a financial incentive for the U.S. "military industrial complex." Having been a member of it at a high enough level to see, I can say that there was not the unbridled and unprincipled greed exhibited by a small but critical segment of the West's financial industry in recent years.
We can see the dynamic at work in the recent expansion of the "intelligence community" in the USA. Against a threat of fanatically inspired terrorism which is not remotely as dangerous to the USA as the declared intentions and visible actions of the USSR, the intelligence community, enabled by technology, has far overstepped any bounds on government intrusion envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Their motivation is not greed. You don't make a fortune working for the government. The thought process, clearly visible when I was a part time contractor for the NSA 25-35 years ago, is "It's our job to protect the country by collecting and processing information, so we must do whatever is technically possible."
During the Cold War, Congress and the Pentagon, motivated by far more powerful and reasonable fears of the USSR, poured money into nuclear technology and delivery systems. People made money as a result. They were also far more efficient at their work than the clumsier and slower design bureaus of the Soviet Union, whose work was often hampered by interference from the politicians.
For example, of the two anti-ballistic missile radar design teams whose prototypes were tested at Sary Shagan on the shores of Lake Balkash, what we called "Design Team A" received far more resources than "Design Team B." Design Team B were clearly more innovative and faster moving. Design Team A had better political connections.
Greed certainly played a role in the USA. Pursuit of a political theory and lust for political power played a significant role in the Soviet Union.
Fear played a bigger role in both.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 21 2014 21:25:13
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runner
Posts: 357
Joined: Dec. 5 2008
From: New Jersey USA
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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RNJ, excellent analysis. The only area where one might differ would be the extent to which the various horrors visited upon the Soviet populations were the product of ideological zeal, or just plain psychopathology--paranoia and sadism--on the part of Stalin and his toadies. The purge of the Red Army in 1937-38 was an example of such on a remarkable scale: 75 out of 80 members of the Military Soviet of 1934, all eleven Deputy Commissars for Defense, every commander of a military district, 13 of 15 army commanders, 57 out of 85 corps commanders, 110 out of 195 divisional commanders, 220 out of 406 brigade commanders, and an even higher percentage of all officers from colonel on down--all executed. This was paranoia on a colossal scale. Often, monstrously brutal thugs find themselves in charge of large populations; in the case of WWII, two such monstrously brutal thugs found themselves at war with one another.
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Date Mar. 21 2014 22:39:41
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Greed certainly played a role in the USA. Pursuit of a political theory and lust for political power played a significant role in the Soviet Union.
Having spent most of my adult life involved in foreign policy and national security issues, I would agree with much of your comment, Richard. Nevertheless, I would take issue with your statement cited above. During the mid-1970s, I was assigned to the American Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was during the Brezhnev era in the USSR, and Todor Zhivkov was the Communist dictator of Bulgaria, a toady of the USSR if there ever was one. If the basic definition of greed is the selfish desire to have more of something than one could possibly need (be it money, possessions, Objets d'Art, privileges, etc.), I can assure you the privileged Bulgarian "nomenklatura" and elite possessed greed in spades.
I saw first-hand that greed played just as much a role in Communist Bulgaria (and in the Soviet Union) as it did in the USA. It simply manifested itself in different ways. While in the US, greed manifested itself most often in personal wealth and the privilege that comes with such wealth, in Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, and other Communist countries, greed was just as evident in the perks and privileges enjoyed by the high level elites and "nomenklatura." They exulted in their dachas and country homes, in their well-appointed apartments which were far grander than the common citizens' dwellings, in their large, black, Russian Zil limousines with sirens blaring to make way for some ministry official. It manifested itself in the "special" stores that only the elites could utilize, buying the best imported scotch, sweaters from Italy, and any number of other goods that the ordinary citizen could only dream about.
So, while greed did have a role (although not a decisive role, in my opinion) in the US's actions during the Cold War; greed plus ideology drove much of the Soviet Union's and Eastern Bloc's actions. Sorry to puncture anyone's treasured illusions, but Communism did not create a "New Soviet (or Bulgarian) Man," free of greed and driven by altruism.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 22 2014 14:48:14
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
I don´t agree with Richard´s point on US administartion´s fear from the SU. They were well informed about what the SU was actually entangled with, and were aware of themselves as the initiative aggressor.
The US as the initial aggressor? Hardly! After the end of World War II, it was the Soviet Union that agreed to allow the London Poles to form a coalition government with the Soviet-backed Lublin Poles, and then reneged on that promise by installing the Soviet puppet Lublin Poles in Warsaw. It was the Soviet Union that installed Soviet-backed regimes in Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and other Eastern European countries without the benefit of free and fair elections. It was the Soviet Union that pulled off the 1948 coup that led to the Communist government in Czechoslovakia. It was the Soviet Union that in 1948 closed all land routes from the Western sectors of Germany to West Berlin, leading to the great American airlift to supply the West Berliners with food and fuel. It was the Soviet Union that in 1961 raised the Berlin Wall to prevent the people of East Berlin from freely traveling to the West.
Moreover, the reason the US and the West maintained NATO forces in Western Europe was to thwart any attempts by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies from threatening Western Europe. Soviet and Warsaw Pact conventional forces in the Communist Bloc were much greater in number than NATO forces in the West. That's why NATO installed Intermediate Range Missiles in Western Europe in 1983, to act as a deterrent to any Soviet moves. (The Warsaw Pact countries already had 420 Soviet Intermediate Range SS-20s targeted on Western Europe.) Without NATO forces, Western Europe, especially in the years right after the War, could easily have fallen under Soviet influence, even if there were no actual invasion. That Soviet funds supported the Communist candidates in the immediate post-War elections in Italy and France demonstrates Soviet efforts to intimidate and undermine the West at every opportunity.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 22 2014 15:20:23
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
The US as the initial aggressor? Hardly! After the end of World War II, it was the Soviet Union that agreed to allow the London Poles to form a coalition government with the Soviet-backed Lublin Poles, and then reneged on that promise by installing the Soviet puppet Lublin Poles in Warsaw. It was the Soviet Union that installed Soviet-backed regimes in Bulgaria, Romania and other Eastern European countries without the benefit of free and fair elections. It was the Soviet Union that pulled off the 1948 coup that led to the Communist government in Czechoslovakia. It was the Soviet Union that in 1948 closed all land routes from the Western sectors of Germany to West Berlin, leading to the great American airlift to supply the West Berliners with food and fuel. It was the Soviet Union that in 1961 raised the Berlin Wall to prevent the people of East Berlin from freely traveling to the West.
Moreover, the reason the US and the West maintained NATO forces in Western Europe was to thwart any attempts by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies from threatening Western Europe. Soviet and Warsaw Pact conventional forces in the Communist Bloc were much greater in number than NATO forces in the West. That's why NATO installed Intermediate Range Missiles in Western Europe in 1983, to act as a deterrent to any Soviet moves. Without NATO forces, Western Europe, especially in the years right after the War, could easily have fallen under Soviet influence, even if there were no actual invasion. That Soviet funds supported the Communist candidates in the immediate post-War elections in Italy and France demonstrates Soviet efforts to intimidate and undermine the West at every opportunity.
Was your political schedule by any chance instructed by a magician and his items-disappearing hat?
It is like noting that Cortez had been heading to America to take revange on the Indians for them having looted the Iberian peninsula beforehand.
It sure can be claimed, but makes no sense still.
Ruphus
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Date Mar. 22 2014 15:34:51
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
Was your political schedule by any chance instructed by a magician and his items-disappearing hat?
No, my understanding of the politics and history of the Cold War (among other issues) has been informed by a lifetime spent in analytical, operational, and policy positions in foreign policy and national security (i.e., it is based on more than vague memories of 25-year old articles from "Der Spiegel").
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 22 2014 16:16:24
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Bill-
My intention was to concede that greed was a partial motivating factor in the USA in the Cold War but only to a limited extent. I would see my "lust for political power" as an element of your wider indictment of greed in the Soviet bloc.
But I stick to my perception, based on my acquaintance with U.S. sub-cabinet level government officials, the Reagan Administration Secretary of Defense, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy in the same administration, senior vice-presidents of Lockheed, Boeing, Martin Marrietta and other defense contractors, and flag-rank military officers, that fear of Soviet expansionism and the determination to oppose it were much greater motivating factors.
And from my work in the intelligence business, and the observed caution of the Soviet nuclear establishment, I conclude that they were fearful of the USA as well.
I think the fear on both sides was to some extent rationally motivated, to some extent amplified by the fear for their very existence experienced by both countries during WW II spilling over into the postwar period.
I personally experienced the WW II fears in the USA. Any country that suffered the horrors that the USSR did at the hands of the Nazis is bound to have felt the grip of terror, despite the bravery and persistence shown in resisting them.
It almost goes without saying that the strong nationalism of both parties, and the resulting diametrically conflicting perceptions of the same events, were a major factor in keeping the Cold War alive.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 23 2014 1:22:28
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Ukraine and Crimea (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
My intention was to concede that greed was a partial motivating factor in the USA in the Cold War but only to a limited extent. I would see my "lust for political power" as an element of your wider indictment of greed in the Soviet bloc.
As I stated, Richard, I agreed with much of your comment on both sides' motivations and actions during the Cold War. And as you stated, both sides were governed by a rational leadership that recognized a resort to nuclear weapons would be folly. Far better to have engaged in proxy struggles in various theaters around the world than to have engaged in a nuclear war. Both the United States and the Soviet Union were rational actors in the ideological struggle. You and I agree on that, and it is something that is often missed in discussions about the Cold War.
My point about greed being just as evident in the Soviet bloc as in the West was to emphasize that it manifested itself in a slightly different way, since the Communist bloc had neither the ability (it was ideologically straightjacketed) nor the incentives (under the system) to allow for personal wealth to accrue through the efforts of individuals operating outside the system. It was all accrued as a function of being part of the system's "Nomenklatura" and elite. And, yes, in part that led to a desire for political power, but it was more than that. Just being well-placed within the Communist Party system brought one those desirable material possessions that were sorely lacking by the ordinary "proletariat" and "Heroes of Socialist Labor" so trumpeted by the Party. One did not have to have political power as such to partake of the gravy train; it was enough to just be a well-placed party "hack."
Interestingly, after the fall of Communism in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe in 1989, and in the Soviet Union in 1991, many of the Communist Party "Nomenklatura" and elites in the former Soviet bloc simply took advantage of the situation to enhance their own personal wealth exponentially with gross corruption and distortions of the economy in taking over former state-owned industries and enterprises. The greed was there all the time; it just manifested itself a bit differently as the system changed and new "opportunities" (if I may use that term) arose.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 23 2014 10:42:29
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