How the Ukraine crisis ends By Henry A. Kissinger

[jakeXT]

Henry A. Kissinger was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977.

Public discussion on Ukraine is all about confrontation. But do we know where we are going? In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally. The test of policy is how it ends, not how it begins.

Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side’s outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them.

Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia’s borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States.

The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709, were fought on Ukrainian soil. The Black Sea Fleet — Russia’s means of projecting power in the Mediterranean — is based by long-term lease in Sevastopol, in Crimea. Even such famed dissidents as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Joseph Brodsky insisted that Ukraine was an integral part of Russian history and, indeed, of Russia.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-to-settle-the-ukraine-crisis-start-at-the-end/2014/03/05/46dad868-a496-11e3-8466-d34c451760b9_story.html

[PATRICK]

1. Nixon had the

same need to criticize when Bush Sr. and the crowd were tossing aside his and Kissinger's approach AND goals for a total victory dance and corporate rape of the still nuke armed collapsed Soviet union.

It is like a plea from the history books but both Europe and the American Imperium are too stupid or self-interested to regard any of that textbook lecture or common sense or complicity in disregarding any of the peoples being manipulated by all sides.

Since when has democracy trumped any "national interest" in foreign affairs, economic or military, short term or long? And why the enthusiasm for the Ukraine? Maybe because it has the classic form of takeover possibilities under the new more favorable rules?

Shooting back at Kissinger would be to admit that removing the key region(pipeline, seaports, agriculture) totally from the Russian orbit would be to turn that entire region into a defanged, western controlled backwater.
A nicer guy than Putin might be played differently, but played he would be to remove centuries of vital Russian interests and one less superpower on the happy world team. China would like that too, I suppose.

So like Nixon, this will be even more ignored for what it also is, a bid for attention by the old Guard, out of touch with the current hypocrisy.

[RobertEarl]

2. Ukraine also has Chernobyl

There have been reports that that explosion and ensuing radioactive contamination has gravely injured Ukraine's economy, dignity, and general health.

And that pollution spread over much of Europe and parts of Russia. It, Chernobyl NPP, was a Russian design, so Russia is culpable in the damage done and that is ongoing.

And Kissinger should be in jail.

[jakeXT]

3. A lot of countries pay for the new structure to contain it.

Everything about the project is epic: the size, the 1.5bn euro (£1.2bn) cost, the technical problems of working on a radioactive building site.

http://m.bbc.com/news/magazine-25086097

[bemildred]

4. I find it strange to be agreeing with Kissinger, but here I do.

Is possible he learned something from all those defeats?

[jakeXT]

5. He was probably pretty useful to Obama's foreign policy

18.10.2009

..

Last December, when Obama was just forming his foreign policy team, he sent Kissinger to Moscow to meet with Putin and president Medvedev. The topic of the discussion was naturally kept confidential, but some foreign diplomats in Russia “leaked” that Kissinger brought to Moscow Obama’s offer to resume U.S.-Russia nuclear weapons control negotiations abandoned by the Bush administration.

In March of this year, Kissinger came to Moscow again, this time accompanied by a group of high-ranked retirees from previous administrations. The White House was quick to assure that Kissinger and his companions traveled to Russia as private citizens. However, the very timing of the visit – less than two weeks before the first Medvedev-Obama summit in London – makes it certain that Kissinger’s talks with the Russian leadership were strictly business.

The fact that Obama trusted Kissinger with the initial (and therefore the most important and difficult) stages of negotiations with Moscow – along with Obama’s complete lack of any experience of his own in dealing with the Kremlin – allows one to conclude that Obama’s first foreign initiatives towards Russia were largely driven by Kissinger.

...

Second, Kissinger has always been a principled disciple of Realpolitik that stresses tough pragmatism and the primacy of U.S. national security interests over ideological considerations. Kissinger strongly believes that even when disagreeing with Moscow on some critical issues, Washington should always be looking for cooperation wherever possible. What Washington should not be doing, however, is lecturing Moscow on Russia’s domestic politics, much less on whom the White House prefers to see sitting in the Kremlin.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2009/10/18/6321.html

[bemildred]

6. As a form of institutional memory, not doubt about it. nt

[go west young man]

7. Same boat here..

but he seems to actually understand the region and the fact its not all as simple as many on our side of the Atlantic want it to be. Having said that...he did irreparable damage to South America.

[bemildred]

8. Oh yeah, he is still a criminal, but credit where it is due.

If he says the right thing, I'm not going to attack the messenger with a battleaxe.

[Doctor_J]

9. is Kissinger blogging from prison somewhere?

Wishful thinking