Ukraine results not so bad

There's been a certain amount of handwringing over the fact that Viktor Yanukovych, generally considered the most pro-Russian of the candidates, won election as president Of Ukraine. It's hard for me to get worked up. There was certainly excitement surrounding the 2004 Orange Revolution when Yanukovych was prevented from stealing the election. But Viktor Yuschenko, who was elected then, proved to be something of a dud, and the Ukrainians dismissed him in the first round of voting.

It is also the case that Russia has traditionally been concerned with what it calls its "near abroad," whether it has sought to incorporate neighboring states into the empire (as the Soviets and to some extent the czars did), and it's not hard to understand. As this Register editorial explains, Napoleon and Hitler both invaded Russia through the flat plains of Poland and the Baltic countries, which offer no geographical barriers to invasion. Extending NATO after the Soviet Union collapsed was a huge mistake in that it made the Russians more paranoid than usual without accomplishing anything useful. NATO should have been disassembled instead. With Ukraine apparentoy in the Russian camp now -- or at least unlikely to cause Russia grief -- Russia might even be a bit less bellicose.

Russian-Ukrainian gas dispute has geopolitical aspect

I guess there's a tentative agreement between Ukraine (with implications for Central and Western Europe) over gas pricing and flow to Western Europe, involving international monitors. So the crisis (if it really deserves that moniker) may be over -- for now. I think most people understand there are geopolitical aspects to the dispute that may well trump the economic aspects (though with the world financial crisis having hit energy prices and Russia's economy pretty hard the economic aspect is not trivial). As this Register editorial explains, Russia's desire to remind Ukraine of its energy dependence is tied to deep-rooted Russian fears about invasion, tied to the knowledge that its borders are not well protected by topography, and what it sees, as in the Bush administration push to admit Ukraine to NATO (which most European countries now oppose, in no small part because of a similar gas cut-off three years ago), as U.S. messing about in what has traditionally been known as the "near abroad," which Russia considers vital to its security. If the push for Ukrainian NATO membership continues, expect more of what might be considered as Russian nastiness toward Ukraine.

I wrote about the gas cut-off back in 2006, for Antiwar.com, explaining the geopolitical aspects in more detail than I want to do in a blog post. Here's a link.

NATO's existential crisis

President Bush is visiting Ukraine today, pushing for Ukraine to be the next new member of NATO, in advance of the NATO summit in Bucharest. He's beating an almost-dead horse. The poor dolt thinks he can do this without ticking off Putin -- and furthermore he thinks that if France agrees to send an additional 1,000 troops to Afghanistan that the summit will be a success. He doesn't realize -- he's not alone, few people do -- that NATO is on the verge of breaking over the Afghanistan commitment. Here's a Register editorial explaining some of the reasons.

NATO was founded as a defensive military alliance against the Soviet Union and has no real reason to exist now except to grant Good Housekeeping seals to eastern European countries and tick off a resurgent Russia. But what's likely to break it is the Afghanistan commitment. Almost all the European countries have committed to nation-building (in a nation that doesn't especially want to be built) reluctantly, and some stipulate that their troops won't go places where there might be actual combat. They're unlikely to have the patience to stick it out for five to 10 to 20 years, even if a Western-style regime could be constructed in Afghanistan in that time, which is unlikely. NATO is on the verge of breaking. But Bush doesn't care. It'll happen on the next president's watch. He is truly one of the most irresponsible presidents this country has had, and it's had some doozies.