Flashback Friday: Putin's 2014 Ukraine and Crimea incursions...

Hobbservation Point Special

Happy Friday Hobbservation Point subscribers!

Thanks to the Facebook Memory app, I was reminded early this morning of the following piece that I wrote on March 4, 2014, during a time when President Barack Obama was facing the prospects of American military intervention in the Black Sea region due to Vladimir Putin's military aggression in Crimea and Ukraine.

In what ways have matters in Ukraine changed over the past eight years? Remained the same? Read on and decide for yourself:

“From 1853 to 1856, the Russian Empire waged a bitter conflict with the British, French and Ottoman Empires that would later be known as the Crimean War. While the particularities of this war are seldom taught in American classrooms, at least one major campaign within the same, the Battle of Balaclava in October of 1854, is memorialized in British Literature courses by Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade,’ in which Tennyson famously wrote: ‘…Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die…’ to describe the futility of the deadly charge by British Lord Cardigan's troops against Russian forces.

In the time since the Crimean War ended, the region, crucial to the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and modern day Russia for its strategic placement along the Black Sea, remains one in which vast numbers of ethnic Russians live despite Crimea's alternate existence as a satellite, semi-autonomous region from the Ukraine. Similarly, Russia arguably has been a suzerain for Ukraine ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; Ukraine has a similar hodgepodge of ethnic mixes as Crimea, and a history of autonomy before being totally subsumed by the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution in 1917, and the conclusion of World War I the following year.

The sad fact remains that from the end of World War I through World War II, Ukraine and Crimea both witnessed catastrophic losses of life in the form of famine; Soviet Premier Josef Stalin's ethnic genocide and deportations to the East during the 1930's; ethnic genocide by the Nazi's following Adolf Hitler's 'Operation Barbarossa’ invasion of the Soviet Union during the summer of 1941.

That said, when civil unrest broke out in Ukraine in late 2013 regarding president Viktor Yanukovych's reluctance to foster greater ties with the European Union, and the ensuing violence that occurred after Yanukovych's government began cracking down on demonstrators, the fact that Yanukovych was deposed in what essentially boiled down to a vote of no confidence in his leadership last month provided Russian President Vladimir Putin the pretext that he needed to order military "exercises" near Ukraine.

More crucially, with Crimea essentially being well over 50 percent ethnic Russian and approximately 24 percent ethnic Ukranian, Putin's moves into the area under the guise of ‘protecting ethnic Russians’ is merely the latest in a long history of civil unrest and internecine conflicts in the region.

Understanding this historical backdrop, it is crucial, then, that President Barack Obama resist all urges to extend the United States too far into quelling this conflict. Over the past week it has become almost routine for many right wing pundits to conclude that not only is President Putin thumbing his nose at Mr. Obama, but that an American failure to respond with strength would project weakness.

Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, could be further from the truth! First, there is something completely odd with the idea that America even has the moral high ground to lodge an objection to military aggression after out nation has fostered over a decade of invasions, bombings and droid explosions that have killed miltary targets and civilians in "collateral damage" in sovereign territories across the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Indeed, there is a sense of hypocrisy in the concept that some of the same war hawks who applaud such acts by the American military in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ now seem to believe that it is our responsibility to potentially engage Russia militarily over a local concern.

And make no mistake, wars from time immemorial have begun with saber rattling and veiled threats that soon morphed into full-out conflict. For this reason, the president would be wise to use caution and avoid the need to talk and appear tough during this mid-term election season when many Republican hawks will seek to paint him as being weak on foreign affairs.

Cognizant that American military intervention in Ukraine would be unwise, what, then, do we make of proposed American economic sanctions? The truth of the matter is that America and Russia simply are not strong trading partners, and a moderate American embargo would do precious little to break Putin's will. To be clear, several individual American companies, most notably Pepsi, John Deere and Exxon, would be impacted greatly should the U.S. sever economic ties with Russia. This factor, above all, may eventually inform how far the president and other political leaders, particularly the typically pro-business oriented Republicans, may go to lodge protest.

Conversely, the European Union does approximately $460 billion dollars in exports with Russia each year, a figure that dwarfs the 40 billion or so in trade between the U.S. and Russia. Germany, in particular, has enjoyed a long symbiotic economic relationship with Russia since its reunification in the early 90's and the collapse of the Soviet Union during this same period. And while leaders in Germany and across Europe have condemned Putin's actions, none has indicated that it is willing to break economic ties at this point.

With Putin outlining his concern that the current Ukranian government is a result of what he terms a ‘coup’ earlier this morning, while providing the typical totalitarian excuse of ‘protecting his countrymen’ in the wake of unrest, again, America, at this juncture, should only be prepared to monitor events in the region, condemn atrocities should they occur, sever economic ties to the extent that Putin would feel pressure to hold serve, and essentially stay the Hell out of another in a long line of civil war in the area.”

Looking back, the more things change, the more they stay the same, right? Stay tuned for the Hobbservation Point “Friday Flashpoints” later today!