UKRAINE

By Tom Kando

I suppose I should write something about Ukraine. It’s been in the news so much. Plus, our blog is called “European-American” and I come from Hungary. Ukraine borders on Hungary. I have been in Ukraine.

What is there to say? Is Putin  an asshole? Yes. Is Russia misbehaving? Yes. Should we go to war over Russia’s  annexation of Crimea? Don’t be ridiculous. And if Russia invades the rest of Ukraine? Same thing.

Analysis:
Putin’s actions are reminiscent of Hitler’s in the 1930s: It is called IRRIDENTISM. Look it up:

First, you have  country A, whose ethnicity “overflows” across its borders into adjacent country B. This may be the result of war, of redrawn borders,  or of  some other cause. Country A then uses this as an excuse to annex parts of country B, the parts which are  allegedly populated by  people of the same ethnicity as country A.

This is exactly what Russia just did with Crimea. It may yet annex Eastern Ukraine, which also has many Russians.

Hitler provides the most classic examples of irridentism: First he re-occupies the Rhineland (1936), which was part of Germany but which was occupied and administered by France after World War One. Then he accomplishes the “Anschluss” (1938), i.e. the unification of Austria and Germany, on the grounds that Austrians are basically Germans. Then he annexes parts of Czechoslovakia (1938), namely Sudetentland/Bohemia, on the grounds that it is populated largely by Germans. Finally he attacks Poland (1939). This is not a case of irridentism, although here too, Hitler made the ludicrous argument that he was invading Poland  in order to “defend” and “protect” Germans.

There are dozens of areas in the world where irridentism could manifest itself. Hungary, my birth country, could lay claim to several  regions outside its borders. There are about two million ethnic Hungarians living in Romania, and several hundred thousand in Slovakia.

A few years ago I was visiting the President of Hungary. I told him, as a joke, that he should consider invading Romania and Slovakia and take back the Hungarian territories. He had a good sense of humor and promised that he would think about it.

What about the US Southwest? Shouldn’t Mexico consider  re-taking Arizona, New Mexico and large swaths of Texas and California? And then you have Ireland/Ulster, Israel/Palestine, Pakistan/Kashmir, etc... etc...

Irridentism, ethnic unification and ethnic cleansing are stupid 19th and 20th century ideas.  Russia lives in the 19th and 20th centuries.

But the similarity between Putin and Hitler stops there. Look at it from the Russian point of view: When the USSR dissolved  in 1991, it let go of vast areas. Ukraine was one of them.  Then, from 1999 to 2004, NATO (the Western anti-Russian military alliance) expanded and added TEN Eastern European countries to its membership, many of them bordering on Russia! If this isn’t a provocation, I don’t know what is.

Ukraine is not one of NATO’s new Eastern European members, nor should it be. If it were, the current crisis could soon escalate into a second Cuban Missile crisis.

I propose the following reasonable solution for the Ukrainian crisis: Simply Finlandize Ukraine. That is, make it a neutral state that owes no more allegiance to the West than to Russia, just as was decided for Finland after World War Two.

Is Obama doing the right thing?
You bet.
Republican carping is just political gamesmanship. In 2008, Russia did exactly the same thing in Georgia, and George W. Bush didn’t raise a finger.

Of course Putin’s annexation of part of Ukraine is a gross violation of international law. But what else
are  America and Western Europe to do, besides economic sanctions?

In any event, this whole focus on foreign issues and a revival of the Cold War  is a distraction - for us as well as for Russia: For Putin  awakening/exploiting Russian jingoism through  foreign adventures is a classic case of diverting  public attention from domestic problems. 

And the same can be said of  America. What business do we have trying to fix Ukraine, Syria and all the other hot spots, when we can’t even fix Detroit, Vallejo, Stockton and San Bernardino?

Obama’s instincts are correct. Our attention must be on the gradual  impoverishment of more and more Americans, the horrible state of our infrastructure, our decrepit educational system, the disappearance of the middle class, universal health care under continued attack by the retrograde Republicans, the continued rape of the country through such things as fracking. It’s THIS country that we need to fix.

© Tom Kando 2014

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