Fish or Cut Bait on Ukraine

[Valin]

The American Interest:

America’s choices in Ukraine, as in the Middle East, are few and they are ugly. But a choice needs to be made. The half-hearted dithering that has passed for policy up until now from the West will no longer suffice.

Walter Russell Mead

September 3, 2014

 

The debate is intensifying over whether and how to provide more military assistance to Ukraine, even as Putin keeps changing the rules of the game. The Financial Times:

 

(Snip)

 

Russia expert (and few westerners know Russia today as well) Ben Judah argues in the New York Times, that “either we arm Ukraine, or we force Kiev to surrender and let Mr. Putin carve whatever territories he wants into a Russian-occupied zone of ‘frozen conflict.’” That is pretty much where things stand after Russia’s latest offensive (again, apparently catching the flat-footed White House by surprise) upended the military situation in eastern Ukraine. With a small intervention, Putin has yet again thrown Western calculations out of kilter, gained the initiative on the ground, and given the West another chance to look feckless and divided as he carries out the largest scale act of naked aggression in Europe since Hitler’s war.

 

America’s choices here (as in the Middle East) are few and they are ugly. We can back Ukraine with enough weapons, money, political will and if necessary air power and boots on the ground to tip the balance on the ground, or we can watch Russia conquer as much of the country as it wants. A Russian victory here won’t be the end; Putin is an empire builder and his goal is to restore the Kremlin power in all the former lands of the USSR, for starters.

 

A Russian win in Ukraine will change the world.....(Snip)

 

[Valin]

Also podcast

 

Episode 30: What to Make of an Out of Control World

 

This week we welcome back Walter Russell Mead to discuss our world in crisis. Richard and Walter touch on the optics of President Obamas foreign policy initiatives (or lack thereof), and go beyond to examine the fact that the world were living in is not the one our President thought it wasfrom the reset with Russia to the rise of ISIS, Obamas world outlook has been repudiated by recent events.