Mr. Putin is Calling

I just finished reading Tom Clancy's last book Command Authority and it is startling how the events in the book are mirroring the events happening right now in the Ukraine. Kiev is ablaze and people are being slaughtered all because they want to be a part of the West and not Putin's retro-Soviet empire. This is a big deal.

Russia has already managed to install a more pro-Russian government that is cracking down on those wanting to cast their lot with the West. Supposedly this is what the protestors in Kiev are rioting about. Clancy's book posits exactly this situation but has the Russians engineering such a "crisis" as a pretext for sending in troops to "stabilize" the situation. Could it be?

If you look at the map, the western border of the Ukraine is with Poland and other former Eastern Bloc countries that have moved gratefully toward the EU and the West after decades of Soviet occupation; they do not want to go back. If the Ukraine is Russianized it will be a dagger sticking into the ribs of these countries. 

The Ukraine itself has a deep Christian community and could be a breadbasket to all of Europe if it is able to fully modernize its agricultural system and adjust to modern agricultural marketing. 

So far the response of the Obama Administration has been one level above the usual crickets. Diplomacy is fine but unless more substantive measures are under way behind the scenes, Putin is unlikely to be persuaded after Obama's recent performance in Syria and his appeasement of them by stripping Poland of an advanced U.S. ABM system directed at Iran. The nature of dictators is such that failing to act in a way that means business will simply embolden them until they do something from which not even a milk-toast can avert their eyes and ignore. Ignorance is not bliss and certainly not in the Ukraine or Eastern Europe.

www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/08/us-ukraine-idUSBRE9B60DH20131208