Sudden Paranoid Thoughts Common During Cold War Return

It was a normal weekend for late winter, one that would probably be forgotten quickly if not for the fact that both Saturday and Sunday were spent glued to the personal computer checking the latest news coming out of Ukraine. The Cold War is back, and it is back in a big way.

The last post on this page having to do with events in Ukraine was on Friday. Then, Russian President Vladimir Putin had finally produced a statement, brief and broad, after nearly a week of silence since the putsch in Kiev had taken place. Masked gunmen in unmarked uniforms appeared in front of the two main Crimean airports. This set off a wail of panic from the putschists.

On Saturday Russian troops took full control of the Crimea and pro-Russian protesters took to the streets of the eastern Ukrainian cities of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk. The Russian Duma voted to authorize Putin's use of military force to protect Russians in Ukraine.

At this point, I thought that the West would ratchet back its tough talk and seek to quiet things down. I was wrong. The putsch government called for a full mobilization of its armed forces, saying that the situation in the Crimea amounted to a Russian invasion. And they received support from the West. Obama made a statement saying that Russia was in violation of international law. William Hague of Britain and John Kerry made similar disparaging sounds. (Hague is in Kiev today bucking up the putschists; Kerry arrives tomorrow). The G-8 meeting scheduled in Sochi is apparently off, and talk of sanctions can be heard.

That's basically where we are now. It was a teeth-grinding, unpleasant weekend. My anxiety and stress are due to the coverage in the Western media, which, after a few decent stories on Saturday questioning the legality of the putsch and the politics of the putschists, has returned to its biased, blinkered, anti-Russian norm.

For a good, brief statement of why the Russians are highly motivated to be pro-active in Ukraine read Jeffrey Sommers' "Dr. Strangelove Over Ukraine" that appeared on the Couterpunch web site this past weekend:

The scene for the original plot was set in the closing stages of the Cold War. George Bush (the elder) promised Gorbachev that if the Soviets let the Warsaw Pact go, Russia would never have to worry about the expansion of NATO. The US responded to this deal by immediately taking the former Warsaw Pact into NATO and then moving into the former USSR territory itself by taking in the Baltics. Nobody could blame the new entrants for wishing NATO entry, given their Soviet occupation past. But, neither could anyone blame the Russians for feeling utterly betrayed by the US and NATO for breaking their word. 

Thereafter, Eurasionists in the US State Department wanted more. For them, the goal was the further break-up of Russia and its ‘near abroad’ and remaking it in the image of a neoliberal periphery. For Russia, the ‘game’ has had an existential character. Russia was imploding (whether by their own actions, pressure from the West, or a combination of the two are all points for debate). For Russia, NATO’s moves into Georgia cut too close to the bone and Russia responded, yet the threat of NATO taking Ukraine represented taking Russia’s ‘heart’: the very ancestral home where ‘Russia’ was founded. 

Meanwhile, the EU has thought it could reprise its earlier eastward expansion into the former Warsaw Pact that delivered a consumer goods export windfall. This alleviated West European unemployment resulting from the Maastricht Treaty’s punishing fiscal and monetary requirements to create its currency union. Ukraine’s purchasing potential, however, is less than the countries that bordered Germany who were integrated into West European markets. An export boom is unlikely to occur with the proposed Association Agreement. Indeed, the possible damage to Ukrainian markets from poorly executed trade liberalization and non-visa regimes could flood the EU with cheap labor. This outcome would work to further erode Europe’s historically unique (and largely successful) ‘Social Market.’

What amazes me is that despite the biased, anti-Russian Western press, people aren't buying the U.S./EU position. If you read the comments section on the New York Times, readers are skeptical of the putschists' legitimacy and sensitive to Russian vital interests.

Power went out this morning at 2 AM. Now that the Cold War is back I thought, I wondered, Is this an electromagnetic pulse to shut down the power grid prior to a nuclear missile attack? These sudden paranoid thoughts were common back during the days of the Cold War. I hope they are not here to stay.