Cold War days are here again
Source: By Sunanda K. Datta: The Stateman
It is important for India to understand that the Cold War is not over. Much as we would like to believe it ended 24 years ago, the current crisis in Ukraine should be a warning to all countries that find themselves caught in the rivalry between the United States and Russia. Moscow may be accused of reluctance to relinquish authority, or, at least, influence in territories it once ruled. But this can be attributed in part at least to the determination with which Western institutions like the European Union ( EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ( NATO) are pushing eastwards. India cannot forget that freed of Soviet influence, the Ukrainians agreed in 1995 to a major arms deal with Pakistan. Only Delhi’s appeal to Moscow saved the situation.
The official rationale for the present restiveness is democracy, which the US claims to be spreading. In actuality, many Ukrainians are keen on becoming EU citizens, so that they can travel freely and work in more glamorous Western European cities like London and Paris. Like many East European governments, the Ukraine, too, is close to bankruptcy and seeks American and EU funding. The real reason for Washington is strategic. It wants to oust Moscow. The octogenarian Russophobe and Cold War warrior, Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who mentored President Barack Obama at Columbia University, outlined in his book, The Grand Chessboard, that it is the manifest destiny of the US to reign supreme in Eurasia. Hence NATO’s continuing eastern thrust, despite the reported assurance to Mikhail Gorbachev that it would not expand "one inch to the east" if he agreed to German reunification.
History records how John Foster Dulles pressured India to join NATO’s eastern counterpart, the South- East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO). Pakistan joined both SEATO and the Baghdad Pact, later called Central Eastern Treaty Organization (CENTO), thereby receiving the arms it used against India in the 1965 and 1971 wars. Formed in 1949 to contain the Soviet Union, NATO’s 12 original members have more than doubled to 28. This includes countries that either border Russia or were formerly under Russian control, like Greece and Turkey, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, Albania and Croatia. Cyprus, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Georgia are waiting to join.
If the West has its way, Ukraine will be next. If pro- West western Ukraine joins NATO, the more Russified southern and eastern regions (made up of historic Russian provinces like Kharkov, the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula), may be absorbed by Russia. That could mean civil war, each side fronting for foreign powers.
Three months of unceasing protests over the decision of the now absconding president, Viktor anukovich, to spurn a pact with the EU in favour of closer ties with the Kremlin have plunged the country into chaos and cost nearly 100 lives. Ukraine's new interim police chief holds the deposed anukovich and his aides responsible for the deaths and has charged them with the “criminal mass murder of peaceful civilians.” Obviously, anukovich is not without support, to have been able to make a neat getaway.
The incorporation of former Warsaw Pact countries has understandably been a cause of increased tension between NATO and Russia which sees the former adversary and stills the challenger advancing right up to its borders. For American strategists, this is the legitimate reward of global victory. Richard Nixon exulted when the Soviet Union collapsed, “The time has come for America to reset its geopolitical compass.
We have a historic opportunity to change the world.” The Gulf War and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were consequences of that heady triumphalism. The so- called ‘Arab Spring’ might have taken a different course without American endorsement. So would the rebellion in Syria, where the rebel forces expected Western support in overthrowing the Assad regime.
With a GDP of about $ 157 billion, which is only a fifth of Turkey’s, Ukraine, which has a population of only 46 million, is of no great economic value to the West? Reeling from both political and financial crises, it faces bankruptcy. The former parliamentary Speaker and new interim head of state, Oleksandr Turchynov, warns that Kiev would have no choice but to default on foreign obligations amounting to $ 13 billion due this year if the West doesn’t provide the $ 15 billion bail- out package that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had promised anukovich. That is the price for the ‘regime change’ that has become the principal instrument of American foreign policy.
Hence the two- day visit to Kiev by the EU foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to find “a lasting solution to the political crisis and measures to stabilise the economic situation". Despite being mired in its own financial problems, the EU has promised to help out. It is seen as NATO’s civilian arm and also as a party to an internal struggle for power.
Hours after anukovich signed an accord with the opposition to end the three- month long stand- off, Parliament voted to remove him from power. He accused the opposition of a “coup” and the pro- Russian eastern provinces refused to accept the new rulers in Kiev. Violating the accord, pro- Western protesters who raided and occupied the former president’s office and house ( which they threw open to sightseers) also refused to surrender their arms and continued their demonstrations. Parliament ordered the police and military not to intervene and called for new elections for May 25.
It also decided to set free the former prime minister, ulia Tymoshenko, who was jailed during anukovich’s presidency for abuse of power. Emerging from prison, she declared that “dictatorship has fallen” and that she would run for president. Tymoshenko, the star of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in 2004, narrowly lost to anukovich in the 2010 elections. With him out of the way and lauding the anti- anukovich, anti- Russian protesters as “liberators”, she seems the most likely winner in the May presidential election.
Hoping that the " planned volume of macroeconomic assistance for Ukraine may reach around $ 35 billion by the end of next year," Ukraine's interim finance minister, uriy Kolobov, has been urging Western nations and the International Monetary Fund to convene a donor conference to focus on " allocating aid to modernise and reform Ukraine". The real decision with its political overtones will be taken by the US. Washington’s generosity is legendary but because of the suspicion of a political motive, the response is often not equally generous.
Ukraine remains a weapons supplier to Pakistan. Arms may not be too much of a problem this time round, since the US is also on India’s side. But the total elimination of Moscow’s influence and a proxy war between the US and Russia in Ukraine will not make for stability. It’s the Cold War all over again.
It is important for India to understand that the Cold War is not over. Much as we would like to believe it ended 24 years ago, the current crisis in Ukraine should be a warning to all countries that find themselves caught in the rivalry between the United States and Russia. Moscow may be accused of reluctance to relinquish authority, or, at least, influence in territories it once ruled. But this can be attributed in part at least to the determination with which Western institutions like the European Union ( EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ( NATO) are pushing eastwards. India cannot forget that freed of Soviet influence, the Ukrainians agreed in 1995 to a major arms deal with Pakistan. Only Delhi’s appeal to Moscow saved the situation.
The official rationale for the present restiveness is democracy, which the US claims to be spreading. In actuality, many Ukrainians are keen on becoming EU citizens, so that they can travel freely and work in more glamorous Western European cities like London and Paris. Like many East European governments, the Ukraine, too, is close to bankruptcy and seeks American and EU funding. The real reason for Washington is strategic. It wants to oust Moscow. The octogenarian Russophobe and Cold War warrior, Professor Zbigniew Brzezinski, who mentored President Barack Obama at Columbia University, outlined in his book, The Grand Chessboard, that it is the manifest destiny of the US to reign supreme in Eurasia. Hence NATO’s continuing eastern thrust, despite the reported assurance to Mikhail Gorbachev that it would not expand "one inch to the east" if he agreed to German reunification.
History records how John Foster Dulles pressured India to join NATO’s eastern counterpart, the South- East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO). Pakistan joined both SEATO and the Baghdad Pact, later called Central Eastern Treaty Organization (CENTO), thereby receiving the arms it used against India in the 1965 and 1971 wars. Formed in 1949 to contain the Soviet Union, NATO’s 12 original members have more than doubled to 28. This includes countries that either border Russia or were formerly under Russian control, like Greece and Turkey, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, Albania and Croatia. Cyprus, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Georgia are waiting to join.
If the West has its way, Ukraine will be next. If pro- West western Ukraine joins NATO, the more Russified southern and eastern regions (made up of historic Russian provinces like Kharkov, the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula), may be absorbed by Russia. That could mean civil war, each side fronting for foreign powers.
Three months of unceasing protests over the decision of the now absconding president, Viktor anukovich, to spurn a pact with the EU in favour of closer ties with the Kremlin have plunged the country into chaos and cost nearly 100 lives. Ukraine's new interim police chief holds the deposed anukovich and his aides responsible for the deaths and has charged them with the “criminal mass murder of peaceful civilians.” Obviously, anukovich is not without support, to have been able to make a neat getaway.
The incorporation of former Warsaw Pact countries has understandably been a cause of increased tension between NATO and Russia which sees the former adversary and stills the challenger advancing right up to its borders. For American strategists, this is the legitimate reward of global victory. Richard Nixon exulted when the Soviet Union collapsed, “The time has come for America to reset its geopolitical compass.
We have a historic opportunity to change the world.” The Gulf War and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were consequences of that heady triumphalism. The so- called ‘Arab Spring’ might have taken a different course without American endorsement. So would the rebellion in Syria, where the rebel forces expected Western support in overthrowing the Assad regime.
With a GDP of about $ 157 billion, which is only a fifth of Turkey’s, Ukraine, which has a population of only 46 million, is of no great economic value to the West? Reeling from both political and financial crises, it faces bankruptcy. The former parliamentary Speaker and new interim head of state, Oleksandr Turchynov, warns that Kiev would have no choice but to default on foreign obligations amounting to $ 13 billion due this year if the West doesn’t provide the $ 15 billion bail- out package that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had promised anukovich. That is the price for the ‘regime change’ that has become the principal instrument of American foreign policy.
Hence the two- day visit to Kiev by the EU foreign policy chief, Baroness Catherine Ashton, to find “a lasting solution to the political crisis and measures to stabilise the economic situation". Despite being mired in its own financial problems, the EU has promised to help out. It is seen as NATO’s civilian arm and also as a party to an internal struggle for power.
Hours after anukovich signed an accord with the opposition to end the three- month long stand- off, Parliament voted to remove him from power. He accused the opposition of a “coup” and the pro- Russian eastern provinces refused to accept the new rulers in Kiev. Violating the accord, pro- Western protesters who raided and occupied the former president’s office and house ( which they threw open to sightseers) also refused to surrender their arms and continued their demonstrations. Parliament ordered the police and military not to intervene and called for new elections for May 25.
It also decided to set free the former prime minister, ulia Tymoshenko, who was jailed during anukovich’s presidency for abuse of power. Emerging from prison, she declared that “dictatorship has fallen” and that she would run for president. Tymoshenko, the star of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” in 2004, narrowly lost to anukovich in the 2010 elections. With him out of the way and lauding the anti- anukovich, anti- Russian protesters as “liberators”, she seems the most likely winner in the May presidential election.
Hoping that the " planned volume of macroeconomic assistance for Ukraine may reach around $ 35 billion by the end of next year," Ukraine's interim finance minister, uriy Kolobov, has been urging Western nations and the International Monetary Fund to convene a donor conference to focus on " allocating aid to modernise and reform Ukraine". The real decision with its political overtones will be taken by the US. Washington’s generosity is legendary but because of the suspicion of a political motive, the response is often not equally generous.
Ukraine remains a weapons supplier to Pakistan. Arms may not be too much of a problem this time round, since the US is also on India’s side. But the total elimination of Moscow’s influence and a proxy war between the US and Russia in Ukraine will not make for stability. It’s the Cold War all over again.
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