Putin's Defense Plan

     As a response to questions and concerns of Sabina Bhatia and Misunderstoodmetropolis I’m writing this post. I tried to keep my last post very distant from the Crimean annexation, but I guess it’s hard to talk about parts of conflict when there are a lot of different aspects and issues involved at the same time. It’s actually very surprising that in the US media there are less articles and news reports about issues of Ukrainian nationalism and new neo-Nazi government leaders and more articles about Putin being a crazy communist former KGB agent. I’m sorry for anybody’s hopes and/or aspirations that could be shattered by this post. After careful research I may guarantee that Putin is neither crazy, nor is he trying to rebuild Soviet Union, nor will he try to invade other parts of Ukraine or any other countries of ex-USSR territory. Putin is nothing but a rational actor that is concerned about his country’s security and tries to protect his boarders, as well as takes advantage of a situation.

    Hear me out; I’m not anybody’s supporter. I have a cold mind and heart when I'm evaluating this situation; even though, my heart is bleeding when I watch poor civilians dying because of simple bureaucratic games.
   

       Crimea has a long troublesome history of being concurred, occupied, given away and rented out. Crimea locates just South of Ukraine and South West of Russia by the Black Sea. Before Crimea got its modern name the Greeks and Romans knew it as “Taurica” which means “fortress” or “stronghold” because of its strategically important location. The Greeks, Romans, Gothic tribes, the Kievan Rus’ state, the Byzantium Empire, and Mongols all occupied Crimea at different times. During mid-1400s under protection of the Ottoman Empire, it was also known as the Crimean Khanate. 

"The modern name 'Crimea' seems to have come from the language of the Crimean Tatars, a Turkic ethnic group that emerged during the Crimean Khanate. The Tatars called the peninsula 'Qirim'." 

Russian queen Catherine the Great annexed Crimea in 1783. It remained a Russian territory until 1917, when Russian Empire collapsed after October revolution. For a short period of time Crimea was a sovereign state, but in 1921 it once again became a part of a newly born Soviet Union as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1954 for very unusual and uncertain reasons Premier Nikita Khrushchev gave Crimea away to Ukraine and it remained as such until couple months ago.

     In 1997 Ukraine and Russia signed a bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, which legally allowed Russia to keep it Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, Crimea. While renting out Crimean ports Russia was partially subsidizing Ukrainian purchases of Russian natural gas. This seemed like a beneficial for both countries agreement. Here Ukraine gets to purchase cheaper natural gas and have a great military protection of a bigger brother Russia. Meanwhile, Russia gets to protect its Southwestern boarders, which as we can observe from historic evidences is extremely important military strategic location.

     Its 2014 now and Ukraine experiences a revolution where some people are eager to join the European Union, while others are not so eager and support keeping long-standing relationship with Russia. We also have people in Crimea that speak predominantly Russian and if not all the people but a majority of them see Ukrainian turmoil as an opportunity to gain Crimean independence and join Russian Federation.

    Lets try to become psychics and foresee future of Ukraine and Crimea specifically if Ukraine joins the European Union. However, you don’t need to be a psychic to realize that if Ukraine joins the EU it will eventually join NATO, as all of the other new members of European Union did. Now what’s going to happen to Russian Black Sea Fleet if Ukraine joins NATO? Hmmmm… No need to think too long or be some outstanding political analyst to understand that Russian Black Sea Fleet would be removed and United States Fleet would be placed instead. In this case we would’ve had a Cuban missile crisis but in reverse and it would’ve been called “Crimean missile crisis.” The US could have been as close as it gets to Russian boarder eye-eye staring at each other through riflescopes.

     Putin as a rational actor that understand how the world works could not allow this to happen and did everything to prevent a possible conflict and/or threat on his own boarders. But didn’t we do the same during the Cuban missile crisis, protected our boarders and prevented threat. If so, how can we blame Putin for what he did? Is he crazy? Not at all. Is he strategic? Very much so. Did he violate international laws? Yes he did, but who didn’t? It is quite hypocritical of United States to judge and sanction Russia

 “[a]fter invadingIraq illegally in 2003, with no sanction from the UN, and no imminent threat being posed by that country to either the US or to any of Iraq’s neighbors, after years of launching bombing raids, special forces assaults and drone-fired missile launches into countries like Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia, and killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children, after illegally capturing and holding, without charge or trial, hundreds of people it accuses of being terrorists and illegal combatants, after torturing thousands of captives […]

How many times has the US sent troops into neighboring countries based upon the claim that it had to protect American citizens during a time of turmoil. We have Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, the Dominican Republic in 1965, and Haiti in 2003, for starters. Would the US hesitate for even a moment to send troops into Mexico if the Mexican government were overthrown in an anti-American coup, and if demonstrators who had led to that overthrow were attacking Americans? Of course not.

The Panama invasion, and the overthrow and arrest and removal to the US of Panama’s elected President Manuel Noriega, is particularly instructive, as it involved protecting a strategic US overseas base — the US Canal Zone — much as Russia is protecting its naval bases in Crimea, operated under a long-term lease from Ukraine but threatened by the recent Ukrainian coup. The US, headed at the time by President George H.W. Bush, invaded Panama under the pretext of protecting Americans in that country, but the attack (which had been planned well in advance of any threats to Americans) quickly morphed into an overthrow of the Panamanian government, the arrest of its leader, and the installation of a US puppet leader."  

    Further on, Russia has no interest in occupying any other parts of Ukraine or any other countries of former SovietUnion. Most of these countries are extremely underdeveloped and will be more costly than beneficial for Russian economy that is still in developing process itself. Even now, after annexing Crimea Russia already suffers quite a lot offinancial and economic discomfort. That’s why there is no even need of any discussions of possibility of Russia annexing anybody