Tanks for the Memories

All hell is breaking loose in Iraq as ultra-extreme, ultra-violent Sunnis are crushing their way towards establishing an ultra-conservative Sunni Islamic republic in combined regions of Syria and Iraq. As Iraqi soldiers run like scared chickens from the onslaught heading toward Shiite-majority controlled Baghdad, ultra-extreme, ultra-violent Shiite militias, some re-constituting while other form new ranks, are gathering to resist this Sunni challenge. It is the kind of civil war we’ve been talking about, but it is here! The world is watching. The United States is reacting, siding oddly with Shiite Iran on this one, and few on this planet are focused on much of anything else.

But meanwhile, as the world is heavily distracted, the Russians are ramping their game of “pretend it’s just a local rebellion” chant in Eastern Ukraine (where there are large numbers of ethnic Russians). Without this region, Ukraine loses its most important remaining (remember Crimea?) economic value, a loss that would doom the entire nation to an unsalvageable economy… perhaps leading to the Vladimir Putin-wish-list-total-collapse. That would allow “Putie” to take over, either directly (merging it into Russia as a subservient state) or by installing a traditional pro-Russian puppet who would take orders from Moscow.

Indeed, former CIS countries with significant pockets of ethnic Russians are watching this scenario, where Putie is telling the world he has a moral obligation to support “his people.” Much like Adolf Hitler’s invasion excuse in pre-World War II Czechoslovakia to protect ethnic Germans in that country’s Sudetenland, CIS nations see a conscious parallel with Putie’s actions. They also see a conscious effort by the rest of Europe – dependent on Russian gas and oil – to appease the Putin government and let Russia have its way with Ukraine… and perhaps additional countries as he seeks to recover from the big humiliation that contracted both Russia’s size and sphere of influence post-1989. Putie wants Ukraine, particularly the economically valuable Eastern Ukraine.

Fighters from Russia have turned up in the East, denying their Putie-affiliation with heavy accents that suggest they are definitely not local “ethnic Russians.” They just shot down a Ukraine military transport, some believe by anti-aircraft and machine gun fire, killing 49. Not enough. They need more weapons, weapons that the Ukrainian army might have a touch more trouble with. How about some old tanks that perhaps the Russians could deny were really still theirs?  “The State Department said [June 13^th] that Russia had sent tanks and other heavy weapons to separatists in Ukraine, supporting accusations [June 12^th] by the Ukrainian government.

“A convoy of three T-64 tanks, several BM-21 multiple rocket launchers [all pictured above] and other military vehicles crossed the border near the Ukrainian town of Snizhne, State Department officials said. The Ukrainian Army reported [June 13^th] that it had destroyed two of the tanks and several other vehicles in the convoy.

“‘This is unacceptable,’ said Marie Harf, the deputy State Department spokeswoman. ‘A failure by Russia to de-escalate this situation will lead to additional costs.’… The T-64 is an obsolescent tank no longer in active use by Russian forces, but still stored in southwest Russia.

“‘Russia will claim these tanks were taken from Ukrainian forces, but no Ukrainian tank units have been operating in that area,’ the State Department said [June 13^th]. ‘We are confident that these tanks came from Russia.’

“‘We also have information that Russia has accumulated multiple rocket launchers at this same deployment site in southwest Russia, and these rocket launchers also recently departed,’ the State Department added. “Internet video has shown what we believe to be these same rocket launchers traveling through Luhansk [Ukraine].” New York Times, June 13^th. Oh, did I mention that Russia has just shut off of natural gas supplies to Ukraine unless they pay a massive bill that seems all but impossible without a lot of help from others? Putie does this now and again, but the Ukrainian government argues that it would just be sending money to help Moscow fund attacks on Ukraine. Go figure!

Putie had earlier reacted with his judo-like training, taking advantage of  moment of opportunity to distract his economy-sinking electorate and absorb a “part of Russia” (Crimea) that Nikita Khrushchev gifted to Ukraine (then just a provincial holding of the USSR, a meaningless gesture) in 1954. Russians have long-maintained that the Crimea was never intended to be part of another country, one that threatened to become a part of the NATO – Russia’s sworn historical enemy. The Cuban missile crisis in reverse? His waning popularity immediate shifted to extreme positive.

Did Putie expect to begin a military effort to reunite all of Russia, continuing an offensive that had begun with Georgia in 2008? Or was this just a tactical stroke at the right time? Whatever the rationale, can Putie resist a rather significant groundswell of popular Russian sentiment to annex at least the Eastern Ukraine? Could Putie ignore this pressure and perhaps lose what he cherishes most? Staying in power? The dire economy would eventually return to the top of the list of his negative accomplishments, so distraction continues to be key. And what better way to walk the line than not to invade directly (“it’s not us”), but instead to encourage and supply “volunteers” from almost anywhere ready either to show their commitment to mother Russia… or simply find a battlefield to oppose the West.

Russian veto power as a permanent member of the U.N.’s Security Council pretty much takes that potential peace-keeping body out of the mix. But does Putie cross the line, as Hitler did with Poland, and drag the West into another major World War, one with nuclear weapons everywhere? Or is there another way? Will Putie understand history, or will history repeat itself. Can what about the rising hubris of the once-humiliated Russian people? Not a good combination.

I’m Peter Dekom, and these are ugly questions for ugly times… as the world just looks away and hopes for the best.