Monday, March 17, 2014

Is Crimea the Spark for the Next World War?

I have been watching the news about Crimea lately.  The phrase "usual suspects" comes to mind.

Frankly, I could care less what happens in Crimea.  Regardless of the outcome, the result of opposing machinations has no impact on me or my country, and therefore, it is my opinion that the USA should stay out of it.  The Ukraine is a European country, and therefore, Crimea is a European problem.

And that is why it is the USA's problem.

European nations have de-funded their militaries because the USA is always willing to take up their slack.  They use our propensity for bellicosity to subsidize all sorts of social programs, which leads the populace to engage in navel gazing while the banksters and collectivists suck their wealth dry.  So, from a military perspective, the European nations can do nothing, and they are expecting the USA to spend its blood and treasure in an anti-democratic move to force a region to be a part of a country which it has no wish to do so.

Let's be clear: the people of Crimea want to be part of the Russian Federation.  With over 81% of the eligible voters in Crimea participating, almost 96% of the voters voted to go with Russia.  International observers certify that the referendum was conducted by international standards.

So, why is the USA and the EU so anti-democratic?  Occam's Razor, they are not democratically-oriented organizations to begin with.  Besides being stuck on the Wilsonian philosophy that lines on a map are sacred, the people that run the US and EU governments do not want people to have the kind of power that the people in Crimea demonstrated, because it make them less than relevant.  They might even have to get real jobs.

The USA and the EU claim that the referendum violates the Ukrainian constitution. Really?  What part of the constitution is that?  According to the WSJ (I don't read Ukrainian), the entire country has to vote in order to let Crimea go to Russia.  I am not so sure about that.  It turns out that Crimea is in reality, The Autonomous Republic of Crimea with its own constitution and parliament.

And then, there is the argument concerning international law:
It’s a matter of international law: territory cannot be annexed simply because the people who happen to be living there today want to secede. If that were the case, then under international law, any geographically cohesive group could vote on independence. That would mean the Basques should be free from Spain and France, and the Kurds would have an independent nation; the large community of Cubans living in Miami could vote to separate from the United States.
It appears that international law has been structured to maintain the status quo.  The problem with this is that it removes the God-given right to self-determination.  If Dade County, Florida wants to secede, who are we to stand in their way?  The Basques and Catalans were forcibly inducted into the Spanish Empire. In this enlightened age, why does the Spanish government continue to force them to stay?  Where does democracy fit into all this?  Does the West only pay lip service to the concept? That being said, the Russians should not be able to have it both ways.  If they are going to incorporate Crimea, they need to let Chechnya go.  Fair is fair, after all.

What concerns me the most is how Russia will respond to our interference.   When most people think of US debt creditors, they think of China.  What they don't realize is that Russia is probably the second largest creditor of US government debt.  What if Russia decides to dump its holdings?  What if Russia decides to shut down natural gas sales to the USA's NATO allies?  Either or both moves would create an untenable situation, which would leave NATO very little political choice but to go to war.  And since the EU members of NATO do not have much capacity, it means the US would have to go to war.

Somehow, I do not think that Russia is afraid of the USA's military "might".  It's one thing to bomb the piss out of a few third world tribal nations.  It is another thing entirely to pick a fight with an opponent who has numerical and technological parity.

The USA has one thing going for it.  We have a pansy president who is essentially a bully. He will bully around countries who have no capacity for engaging him on any serious level. However, I expect he will back down from Putin.  And that's not necessarily a bad thing.