The situation in Ukraine is not going to be an easy one to solve. The consensus in American political circles is that it’s bad and something must be done.
How bad is it? Interviewed on a CNN news program on Sunday, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski compared the situation on the Crimean peninsula to Adolf Hitler‘s annexation of the Sudentenland in 1938. On Tuesday, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton joined them.
“Now, if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s,” Clinton told an audience in California. “All the Germans that were, you know, the ethnic Germans — the Germans by ancestry — who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, you know: Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. ‘I must go and protect my people.’ That’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.”
A day later, she backpedaled, but it didn’t matter. Enough sitting senators and opinion-makers were saying the same thing. To them it wasn’t enough, as Barack Obama and current Secretary of State John Kerry had done, to simply express support for the “interim government” in Ukraine. Russia and its head of state, Vladimir Putin, had to be the devil.
Putin himself had made no public statements on the Crimean situation, but the show of force is the response one would expect of him — as absurd as it might seem. I live in Germany and am ethnically Polish. Does that mean the Polish army should come to my aid if a party I support doesn’t win an election in Germany?
Russian and pro-Russian media have been emphasizing the fact that Ukraine’s interim government was not elected, while ignoring the fact that the elected government of Viktor Yanukovich had been corrupt to the core. Most of the “ethnic Russians” in the Crimea seem unaware of the fact that Yanukovich had personally smuggled $70 billion of their money out of the country — probably the largest heist ever made.
What can be done?
There is not much that the US can realistically do. Along with other Western countries, it can turn the Group of Eight (G-8) back into the G-7, which it was before Russia was invited to join. It can send money to Ukraine. Anything beyond that could have wider-reaching consequences. Impose sanctions? Hardly: the EU depends too much on trade with Russia, and energy from Russia. Put up a missile-defense shield? No reason to if fighting is going on within Ukraine. Boycott the Paralympics? Come on.
What’s left are empty saber-rattling and ill-informed comparisons to Hitler, whose degree of evilness is watered down every time such comparisons are made.
Instead of thinking of Czechoslovakia in 1938, it would make more sense to think of Czechoslovakia in 1993. The Czechs and Slovaks, who spoke almost the same language and displayed only minor cultural differences, decided they couldn’t get along after nearly 75 years together — so they parted ways as friends.
Like Czechoslovakia, modern Ukraine is two countries in one, and very unstable at that. If a vocal minority is poisoning presidential candidates, establishing paramilitary forces and generally causing chaos, the country might be better off without it. Only after the withdrawal of foreign troops and a UN-monitored referendum, of course.
Language note
You will see references mostly to Ukraine, but also occasionally to the Ukraine. There is a difference. With some exceptions, English uses “the” to refer to regions (“the Caucasus”), groups of islands (“the Philippines”), or political entities (“the Czech Republic”); it does not use “the” with the names of most countries.
In the days of the British Empire, it was common to refer to “the Sudan”, “the Yemen”, “the Lebanon”, “the Argentine” and so on. These were replaced in the second half of the 20th century by “Sudan”, “Yemen”, “Lebanon” and “Argentina” as an acknowledgement of these countries’ independence. Similarly, Ukraine was “the Ukraine” when it was part of the Soviet Union. After gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine officially requested that the article be dropped.
The Crimea takes a definite article, because it’s a region. Interestingly, though, two days ago, US reporters and politicians began calling it simply Crimea. Are they doing it to send a signal?
