A comment I made elsewhere:
If Ukraine is a crisis of sovereignty, then how did the conversation switch to Putin-as-devil? Taking land is the worst of it, arms from outside the second worst of it, but early on, did our advice help or hurt the Ukrainians in asserting their sovereignty and creating a healthy state?
In the Council, a commenter from Estonia I believe, said something along the lines of, “we told them to control the borders and grab Russian passports.”
Ukrainian border patrol asked for help early on. Did they get it? The oligarchs that are in control raided the state and isn’t that partly why the border control doesn’t have the resources it needs? How did this issue of border control–and including ethnic Russians into the larger state order–become all about the US/NATO/EU and its battles with Russia?
I worry about the Ukrainians–look what internationalizing the issue did to the Kashmiris. Just because outsiders want to help, doesn’t mean that their help will actually work.
And how much of the NATO stuff is various constituencies using the crisis to get particular things, increasing budgets, directing the course of the EU. Some Eastern European nations are going to get big subsidies. What does this do to sovereignty and the ability to resist outside interference?
I’ve been looking up articles on Border control and its hard because after a certain time period it’s all either US/NATO/EU propaganda, Russian propaganda, or Ukrainian propaganda fed to journalists that seem to dutifully pass it on….
“Just because outsiders want to help”: I actually laughed.
:)
Oh, mixed in with the Machiavellian “geostrategists” in DC are the NGO do-gooders. They always tag along….
What is interesting to me is that the British press has been better in some ways, except some clearly have their old Russophobia going on. And there is the part about some UK elite and their relationship to NATO and transatlanticism which I am not happy about as an American. If I were British, I wouldn’t be happy either. Peter Hitchens may sometimes be a crank, but he’s not wrong on EU expansionism.