The crises in the Ukraine is much more serious than what we read about online and see on the news every evening. It is simply shocking that what I'm about to discuss hasn't yet been mentioned by any news organization anywhere. I haven't seen the Financial Times, CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, BBC, Foreignaffairs, The Economist, or even ForeignPolicy mention what I'm about to. It's quite likely that someone somewhere has mentioned it in a small blog much like mine here and that it is simply too small to be widely recognized.
The Real Issue(s):
1) : NATO
* The Russian Federation is stuck in Soviet era rut thanks to a Soviet era leader at the helm. They have an imperialist agenda of always wanting more and to prove themselves to the world. Despite their stagnate economy, fairly outdated military, internal problems, domestic terrorism, socialist issues, and both moral and financial corruption, they insist on invading sovereign nations. All the sovereign nations they invade just happen to be their neighbors and former satellite states during Soviet times.
This Soviet mentality fuels their desire to conquer and expand the size of their nation and also encourages their embrace of their "East versus West" perception.
NATO, originally created to counter the "Soviet threat" of the latter half of the 20th century has always been predominantly run and empowered by U.S. military forces and U.S. funding. There has been little change in the financial and military structure within NATO since its creation; the change that has come is due to the U.S. opting to reduce its involvement in NATO as a result of it's involvement in the global war on terrorism and it's involvement in Afghanistan.
As a result of the U.S. scaling down its involvement with NATO, NATO is severely weakened and hasn't been of considerable strength for many years. What isn't discussed very often is the lack of power-projection i.e. the lack of teeth that is, NATO.
NATO still has considerable military power and capabilities but is severely hampered by its lack of geo-political weight and internal problems. Most of the countries that make up NATO consists of European countries with strong economic ties to Russia.
In summary: NATO has no geo-political weight; NATO is ineffective and essentially useless. I.e. NATO has no teeth to enforce nor deter any legitimate threat.
That is not the point I wanted to discuss that has yet to be mentioned by anyone else as I had mentioned above. I will get to it now:
2) The deeper issues not yet talked about:
* This is all hypothetical at the moment but have very real possibilities of materializing in the very near (<5 years from now) future.
First, remember the Russian invasion of Georgia a few years back? The aggressor nation (Russia) went virtually unchecked. Historically, The U.S. has acted as a counter-weight to Soviet Russia aggression. We consistently prevented them from rolling over Europe and Asia for decades, both in terms of military might and political influence. However, in the Georgian conflict we refused to intervene. We shy'd away from any conflict with Russia and adhered to a sense of isolationism and pacifism that hadn't been witnessed since pre-WW2 years. This last sentence can also be used to describe current U.S. geopolitics and diplomatic relations.
Before we continue, we need a basic understanding of why the U.S. has become a passive-nation in terms of international diplomacy and military enforcement... i.e. world police.
First: our economy is severely strained. Were still experiencing growth but the vast majority of that wealth is going to the already wealthiest Americans. While most of the debt is being incurred not just by those in poverty but is also now infecting the middle-class with fewer chances than ever before to ever repay it, leading to a sharp yearly increase in loan defaults.
In other words: more inequality=less geopolitical might
At first, this might seem strange if not counter-intuitive. You might say "look at the influence American companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, or Coca-Cola have on the world" well yes, it's true those companies have a huge influence on people around the world but that simply does not translate into geopolitical might. At least, not in terms of action equaling reaction. There are other factors at work here. The most important of which is money. Thanks to current regulatory standards, investment boards, and the incessant drive for greater profits and wealth disparity, money absolutely rules everything. Including politics.
No major public company is going to support a war that may result in profit-loss, whether short of long term. It simply cannot be afforded. And if an already poor nation is at war they are less likely to purchase more luxury goods (such as a new computer) when they are more focused on affording food or rent as prices are driven up and job losses increase.
In other words: war typically=a decrease in profits for for luxury consumer goods
Lastly, all major U.S. companies are represented in congress through the sponsorship of politicians and lobbyist groups.
In other words: major companies influence government policy
Those are two main reasons why the U.S. and NATO countries are not interfering with current Russian aggression. Next, we move on to theories to help explain the consequences of this current aggression.
So far, the Russians have acted exactly as predicted by many analysts. They have moved into the Crimea region of Ukraine and have successfully "taken" or "acquired". Of course, the region has not yet declared itself part of Russia, but that will come shortly. Russia is in it's power-projection stage and will continue to flex its muscle through hostile invasions. The Baltic states lie in the immediate danger zone. Followed by the more western-Eastern European countries. Russia is using this current conflict to test the strength and courage of it's NATO counterparts. They want to know if the U.S. or anyone will intervene, and if so, how much and in what way. The U.S. has not made a military threat, hasn't made a legitimate economic threat, and has not made a definitive political threat. Nor has any NATO, or European country. It is not surprise that Europe hasn't made any legitimate threats or moves against Russia because for one, no country in Europe has any want or need for war, nor do any of them have the capacity for it, and secondly they have ties to Russia that extend well-beyond normal economic ties and into energy and life-dependency. Most of Europe cannot risk an open war or even to make threats against a country like Russia who's ego is as bare and small as that of a menacing eight year old hyped up on caffeine, because they need Russian oil, Russian business, and most importantly Russian natural gas.
That last point has been discussed at length in several places over the years so I will not dive into that any further. But here is where things continue to get more interesting:
The U.S. has no deep-rooted energy ties with Russia. We have no dependency on Russia or anything Russian. We don't need their technology, their natural gas, their roads, nothing at all! We do have formal relationships with Russian companies through business contracts and other dealings. But again, we are not dependent upon them (other than using a couple roads to transport materials to Afghanistan). And historically, we have always stepped up to confront and check Russian aggression. ---So why are we not stopping them? Why have we not checked Russian aggression this time?
Well, for one we have been deescalating our involvement in major confrontations in both scale and geopolitical importance and opting to fight in wars against incredibly weak opponents and have been doing so with a severe lack of intelligence and frequently under false pretenses. In one sense, you might say that our latest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are quite similar to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, our mission never was and still isn't to occupy for the long-term nor acquire. If we did, we could be appropriately labeled imperialists. The Russian invasion is actually a take-over, they seek and will acquire the Crimea region of Ukraine through illegal means. Though our invasions were illegal, we still had more legal means and reasons for doing it than the Russians can fabricate for their own invasion.
Secondly, and this may sound crazy at first but will make sense later, we have a democrat in office and not a Republican. Democrats are known for being more tame and seeking more diplomatic and peaceful relations with nations and making every attempt at avoiding war. I'm not saying this is bad, in fact I am not making a judgement here at all so please don't think I am bashing democrats. Republicans on the other hand are known for being more aggressive and dare I say, warmongers. Remember when George W. Bush was in office? Remember what the main issue was between the U.S. and Russia? Missiles! Bush wanted to install a vast network of missiles throughout Europe that would act as a missile shield. Russia saw this and interpreted it as a direct threat to it's security and claimed they would increase their ballistic missile capabilities and networks along their European borders.
Looking back at those years (2000-2008) we notice how Russia, as aggressive and hostile as their threats were, never made an invasion of a sovereign nation. They kept to themselves mostly, and thanks to our aggressive nature, they never made good on their most terrible of threats. Then, we have Obama come to office and has made many efforts to keep the U.S. passive from conflicts with major powers. This is predominantly a democrat phenomenon but also a growing U.S. epidemic. An epidemic of passivity that would, under perfect conditions be ideal, but are unfortunately unrealistic.
I predict that Russia will continue its excursions into sovereign nations' territory, intimidating and even taking away land and assets by illegal means for years to come.
Now on the next big issue that is not discussed:
China
China has an intimate relationship with Russia, they have strong economic and political ties. Additionally, they share similar ideologies in how they run their governments, how they project power abroad, how they settle internal disputes, power-struggles, and domestic terrorism, how they view the world, and how they perceive themselves in it.
China has the same "short-man in the room" syndrome that Russia suffers from. Unlike Russia however, China has a booming economy that allows them to showcase their power with little effort. China is also vastly more important than Russia on the geopolitical and global economic stage. They do, however wish to flex their military might and let the world know just how powerful they are.
Unlike what a few quack journalists have said in such magazines as the Economist, PoliticalAffairs, and others, China certainly is paying attention to the situation and they certainly are rooting for the Russians because if they see Russia succeed and go unchallenged by Western powers, they too will make similar moves. First, they will threaten then move militarily against smaller, less powerful Asian neighbors. Neighbors that the U.S. and Europe are even further from than the Ukraine. They may also make more hostile and more aggressive moves in Africa, using their economic might to intimidate African nations in appeasing them. They will obtain land for military bases as they have already begun doing, this will lead to similar moves in both Central and South America where they are already undoubtedly in the process of acquiring land for military and intelligence purposes. We already have assets in their neck of the woods so it will make perfect for them establish military assets in our region of the world to act as a counterbalance to us. This would be incredibly dangerous but still inevitable. We have no allies that can or seem to want to project power the way we do, and we know it. We've been working to get our European allies to step up for years now and thus far there has been no sign that they will. The time may surely come when we rely on them to help defend us or deter anti-U.S. threats coming from abroad.
In summary: we must continue to counter Russia and not back down. We must continue to police the world and check any threats, and deter any hostile acts.
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