April 25, 2014--Two Weak Men

Does anyone think the situation in Ukraine is headed in a good direction when two weak men's manhood is challenged?

One parades around topless, flexing in leather outfits while the other puts on a veneer of cool in search of his inner macho.

This may be one of the best recent examples of how the personal trumps the rational. It's all about mine-is-bigger-than-yours.

In an Enlightenment, post-Cold-War world reasonable self-interest is supposed to prevail. As the Godfather taught, "It's not personal. It's business."

Well . . .

A little history might be helpful--

In the 17th century, war between the Tsardom of Russia and the Polish-Lituanian Commonwealth resulted in Russian imperial control of most of what is now--at least for the moment--eastern Ukraine. And it wasn't until after the First World War that what we now think of as Ukraine was assigned its current borders and became semi-independent.

This is a mere sketch of Ukraine's shifting geography. If inclined, one can look back as far as the 7th century or as recently as the 1950s to see more ebb and flow.

So, in a rational or objective world, for the United States to be lecturing Russia, actually Putin, about Ukraine's immutable borders makes about as much historical sense as Putin chiding the United States, actually Obama, about our Southwestern borders, much of which belonged to Mexico until the mid-19th century. If we applied the same principles to ourselves that we are pressing on Russia, it would mean relinquishing Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and California.

So, what we are seeing is neither about history nor the aspirations of peoples from polyglot backgrounds (look at a current ethnic map of Ukraine if you want a glimpse of these deeper, nationalist problems) assigned to a fiction of a country, but rather the flexing of the out-of-control egos and vulnerabilities of two men who are locked in a dance likely spinning toward disaster.

It doesn't take a seer to predict that before too long Putin will make direct moves to re-annex at least the eastern half of Ukraine and who knows what else after that. And, in response, when Obama's layer of seemingly admirable cool cracks, who knows what fires within might be smoldering and what he might feel propelled to do.