August 19, 2008

European Pussies

Or so the Russians think. And for once, the Russians are right:

The Russian Ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, dismissed the impact of the emergency meeting in Brussels, Belgium: "The mountain gave birth to a mouse."

You really should go read Allah Pundit's commentary on Pat Buchanan's latest piece calling for American isolationism. It's dead on in its criticism of Buchanan who with each passing day begins to sound more and more like a paranoid Illuminati conspiracy theorist. Also dead on in taking the middle ground between complete failure to support Georgia and declaring war on Russia.

One thing I would note is that I think Buchanan is right in that admitting the Ukraine into NATO with its present borders would be problematic, to say the least.

Buchanan is rather inelegant in referring to Yalta as the "vacation resort of the czars". The point he was trying to make, I think, is that certain areas of the traditional Russian homeland were only ceded to the Ukraine during Stalin's reign. The Crimea was always considered Russia and its people Russian.

See for instance this pre-WWII map.

I have some friends in Sevastopol (that's on the Crimean peninsula). They consider themselves Russian, and not Ukrainian.

They blame Stalin for giving the Crimea to the Ukraine.

Since it was an integral part of the Soviet Union the notion of "giving" the Crimea to the Ukraine seemed laughable at the time. But now? Not so much.

Parenthetically, and I'm sure many of you already know this, but can you name Joseph Stalin's nationality? No, he wasn't Russian, he was Georgian.

What does that have to do with the present conflict in Georgia? Nothing, but it does have everything to do with potential future conflicts with Russia.

For even though Stalin was born Georgian, he was really the first homo-sovieticus: Soviet Man. The communists were anti-nationalist. Stalin, being a true believer, also believed that communism would transform the citizens of the Soviet Union from Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Turks, etc into something completely new: Soviets.

It seems laughable to us today. We tend to take the cynical view of Stalin that it was all about his personal ego. I don't think so. The crimes of the Soviet Union were the crimes of communism. If anything, communism became less severe in later years because the communist rulers are guilty of that which we impose on Stalin's character: cynics who really didn't believe.

They just didn't believe in communism enough to let a few million murders get in its way. To paraphrase all of my high school coaches: they just didn't want it bad enough.

Digressing? Not really. Because the present make up of many Eastern European countries were imposed during an era when it was thought that national boundaries no longer mattered.

Does any one really believe that now? I don't think so.

The point being that most Russians believe, and with good reason, that certain areas of the Ukraine should be Russia proper. If not for Stalin's insane notions about the new "Soviet man" places like the Crimea would be Russia, not the Ukraine.

The reverse holds true, of course: there are many areas of Russia proper that probably shouldn't be if the locals had any say in the matter.

This isn't an argument for breaking up Russia or the Ukraine. It's not. What it is is an argument against considering the Ukraine for inclusion in NATO. At least not now.

It's also just a little history lesson to make sure that the rhetoric stemming from analogy doesn't overstep the limits of the analogy. This isn't Mexico demanding Arizona back. Or Canada demanding -- okay, sorry, can't continue with that analogy since it's "unpossible" to imagine Canada demanding anything. Those issues were settled by America's awesomeness at assimilation in conquest.

When we speak of the former countries of the Soviet Union, we are speaking of boundaries created by Czars and dictators. Boundaries I for one am not comfortable shedding American blood over. Which is exactly what NATO membership would mean.

If that was Buchanan's main point, I think it probably got lost in his increasingly odd rhetoric and Chomskyesque logic of blame-America for all the ills of the world. But I tend to agree that European problems should best be left to the Europeans.

If Europe feels threatened by Russia's moves against its neighbors, shouldn't they step up to the plate? I think so. But they won't. Why? Because as noted in the title of this post: they're pussies.*

More than just pussies: they're pussies who don't have to spend an appropriate amount of GDP on their own defenses so long as they are under the American security umbrella.

*My apologies to all the Europeans who are disgusted by their governments' collective pussytude.