Ja Bazza

Du bist nicht mention der Krieg!

Pete

Would Ukraine be better off without Crimea and it's Russian speaking Eastern parts?

There are precedents. India was partitioned prior to independence. It is probably better off without Pakistan and what is now Bangladesh.

The Czechs and Slovaks were civilised about it. They agreed to an amicable divorce.

National boundaries should not be altered willy-nilly but neither should they be regarded as sacred. Sometimes parting is best.

@Steven Meyer. I agree. It is particularly the case with Ukraine because its current borders bear little resemblance to its historical situation. History is something missing from the education of most OLO commenters, especially those parts where "our" side behaves in a less than honourable fashion. William Blum has a long list of imperialistic intervention by the US and its satraps since WW2, often with disastrous consequences, eg Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya just to mention some of the more recent. Those interventions were based on lies, another fact missing from Pete's memory base.

When I first learned US history many decades ago we were told about the paramount importance of the so-called Monroe Doctrine whereby the US regarded as vital to its national interest what it defined as its "backyard", i.e. the whole of the western hemisphere.

Putin is doing no more than safeguarding what he perceives to be Russia's national interest in his backyard. Putin's views are reinforced by the wholesale breaking by the US of the agreements entered into when the old USSR broke up. He is right to be suspicious. Think how the US reacted when it discovered that Cuba might have Russian missiles 90 miles off its coast in 1962.

There is an analysis by Walt Mearsheimer in the opinion pages of the New York Times this week which is a far more subtle and realistic analysis of the geopolitics involved here that anything that OLO has managed to muster, either in its columnists or most of the commenters. I recommend that people read that before further venturing forth with their ill-informed prejudices.

James O'Neill wrote:

>> It is particularly the case with Ukraine because its current borders bear little resemblance to its historical situation. >>

And it is especially true in the case of Crimea which was never a part of Ukraine until Khrushchev gave it to them in 1954.

Hi James

Losing your memory matey?

Its John J. Mearsheimer - see http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/14/opinion/getting-ukraine-wrong.html?_r=0

Your "Walt" error is a different political scientist called Stephen Walt - remember?

And on Monroe Doctrine you ill-remembered the US' illegitimate claims to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. See memory jogger at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_Naval_Base

Don't worry - the vagueness of age comes with your early onset dotage :)

Regardeth

Pete

Pete, I plead guilty to getting Mearsheimer's first name confused with his frequent co-author although what nit picking achieves is anybody's guess. Thanks for providing the link.

I did not "misremember" Guantanamo Bay. My point was that the US had one set of rules for itself, in that case protecting what it saw as its backyard, but fails to allow other nations a similar interest. Cuba was actually forced to give the US a lease on G. Bay following the Spanish American War, itself set off by the wholly false claim that Spain had blown up the Maine warship. Not the first or the last false claim used to start a war.