2008 NYT Op-Ed Foretells Crimea, Titled: Russia's Next Target Could Be Ukraine

[okaawhatever]

Perhaps the most urgent question in the world affairs today is whether Russia's invasion and continuing occupation of Georgia was a singular event. Or was it the onset of a distinct, and profoundly disturbing, national security and foreign policy agenda?

SNIP

How does Russia achieve this goal? (recovery of assets lost in the break-up of the Soviet Union) By dominating the domestic politics and, more importantly, economic- and foreign-policy orientation, of the former Soviet republics. Anything considered antithetical to Russia's interests, as interpreted by the current Kremlin leadership, must be discarded -- be it democratization, oil and gas exports that bypass Russia, and, especially, the membership in the Western organizations such as the European Union and NATO. And if, in the process, Russia must sacrifice most or even all of the fruits of the post-Soviet rapprochement with the West -- including membership in the G-8, entry to the World Trade Organization or ties to the EU -- so be it.

Russia's "targets of opportunity" include simmering border disputes (and virtually all Russia's borders with newly independent states could be disputed, since they are but the very badly demarcated internal borders of the Soviet Union), and the presence of the ethnic Russian or Russian-speaking minorities in neighboring countries.

Apart from Estonia and Latvia -- where ethnic Russians constitute over a quarter of the population, but where NATO membership raises the risk for the Kremlin -- by far the most likely target is Ukraine. Kiev has repeatedly defied and angered Russia by the domestic politics of democratization, a decidedly pro-Western orientation, and the eagerness of its leadership to join NATO. Nearly one in five Ukraine citizens are ethnically Russian (a total of almost eight million) and live mostly in the country's northeast, adjacent to the Russian border.

Mr. Putin has made his contempt for Ukrainian sovereignty clear, most notably at the NATO summit in Bucharest last April when, according to numerous reports in the Russian and Ukrainian press, he told President Bush that Ukraine is "not even a real state," that much of its territory was "given away" by Russia, and that it would "cease to exist as a state" if it dared join NATO. Clearly, Vice President Cheney's trip to Ukraine this past weekend, where he expressed America's "deep commitment" to this "democratic nation" and its "right" to join NATO, was intended as a message to Moscow.

Continued at Link, and yes the author does mention going into Crimea specifically.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB122100831438617621?mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB122100831438617621.html

[Warpy]

1. Well, yeah, they want the breadbasket back

They'd get a better deal on grain if Ukraine became part of Russia again.

Still, you'd think they'd remember what happened in Afghanistan a little more clearly. Taking a country doesn't mean being able to hang onto it and the attempt to hang onto it against the wishes of even a sizable minority is very costly.

[okaawhatever]

2. I wonder what it will be like with Crimea. Only 58.5% of Crimeans are ethnic Russians. If you look

at the survey numbers, almost everyone under 30 wanted to stay with Ukraine and almost everyone over 70 wanted to go with Russia. Over 60 was pretty strong, but not enough to counter the young population. I wonder what will happen when the 70 year olds die, especially if they haven't converted more of the younger generation. There may not be a majority support for Russian governance.

[Democracyinkind]

3. A curious way to describe what happened in Georgia. In both scenarios, the West played right into

Russia's hand.

[Cha]

4. Thanks for this bit of Russian history, okaawhatever..

"Perhaps the most urgent question in the world affairs today is whether Russia's invasion and continuing occupation of Georgia was a singular event. Or was it the onset of a distinct, and profoundly disturbing, national security and foreign policy agenda?"

As in.. is Crimea a "singular event" in 2014?

[BlueMTexpat]

5. Possibly.

But since 2001, I have one rule of thumb.

Anything that Cheney and the neocons support, I don't.

So, while I have LOTS of skepticism about Putin and his motives, I KNOW that what Cheney and the neocons support is ultimately about OIL, oligarchs and the One Percent.