Ukraine: military (Aug '14 to mid-June '15) closed

[BrentWilliams]

BW---as much as I beat up on the Russian leadership or lack thereof something is bubbling up from former liberal advisors next to Putin who are no longer in the inner circle.

1. about 1-2 months ago a simple three/four paragraph article was lanced into the blogging world which indicated that the author had been immensely surprised by the speed of the sanctions, the severity and for him the aggressiveness that he would not have anticipated seeing from the West.

The article was out for about three days and then drifted away with no follow up.

2. then today another quick series of paragraphs in the Russian news agency RIA indicating 1) the Russian decision makers are not fully understanding the West and 2) the West is not fully understanding Russian views points.

There seems to be the desire by some of Putin's inner circle for a "new Yalta" meeting---which would again "divide up the world into spheres of influence"--might in fact be coming from Putin himself.

Putin desperately wants a sphere of influence and does not yet fully understand that since the Wall came down 25 years ago that concept died a sudden and final death in Europe as a whole.

In some aspects that is why he is clashing with the West--Europe as a whole views the sphere thing totally dead and Putin is trying to resurrect it in the vision of the old SU.

What is interesting in this article is the fact that several weeks ago the Russian FM actually came out in a short release basically pleading with the West---what is it you all want as we do not understand.

What struck me was the honesty and bluntness of the comment which might have in fact been correct. When you see the massive amounts of junk the RIA places into space that release stuck out like a red flag--but then it suddenly disappeared as well.

IMO they have been trying to talk with the West---it is simply they do not know how to without using the terms from the SU/Cold War days but that is because his inner circle advisors are ultra nationalists,/fascists and hardliners who basically hate the West and it's values.

I think that is about right. They see themselves as a world power and think they should have cold war type influence. But the problem is, they really aren't that significant of a player. You may disagree with this, but to me military power is based off of economic power. The reason we have a military that is strong is because we have an American economy that can support the type of diversified labor needed for that modern military. Russia is a sick country with major economic and demographic problems. Long term, its only hope is integration with Europe, not a return to the Cold War.

That said, if they think it is in their interest to destabilize their neighbors and act against international norms, we should act. We might not have the political will to directly intervene here, but bigger picture we do have the will to do a lot that will affect Russia. We have shown the will for deeper economic sanctions. That will worsen their own internal problems long term. Security assistance to the Ukraine might be on the table. However, also of significant is a rejuvenated NATO which should expand and hem Russia in. It is time to draw a line and back it up with NATO and article 5.