Skipping Down a Tightrope

Russians admire their President for his “bold steps” in annexing Crimea and lending covert (a bit more like overt) aid to ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine. Russians have weathered the collapse of their currency, from the double pounding of falling oil and gas prices to sanctions that make everything more expensive. Mr. Putin has put his currency reserves to work to stem the tide of financial collapse, but there are heavy betters on both sides of the line as to whether he can pull the Russian economy out of its nose dive.

While Russia is hardly the Soviet monolith of old, it has plenty of bark and bite with its stunning arsenal and its cunning ability to deploy cyber-attacks at will. The Ukraine military is no match against a full-on Russian military assault. But as talks between Russia and Ukraine ebb and flow, even as Russia has agreed to provide natural gas to heat Ukrainian homes over this brutal winter, tensions are hardly deescalating.

Under Russian pressure in 2010 to make sure Ukraine did not fall into some military-treaty relationships at the expense of Russia, Ukraine agreed formally to become a non-aligned state, pledging neutrality between east and west. But as Russia abrogated treaties and plunged into Ukrainian territory with little concern for international borders, Ukraine shuddered under that neutrality promise.

Perhaps sensing that Russia’s economic crisis has narrowed Putin’s tactical and strategic choices vis-à-vis the Ukraine, that latter country is embracing a few bold (stupid to some) steps of its own. “Ukraine's parliament has voted to drop the country's non-aligned status and work towards NATO membership… In a vote in Ukraine's parliament on [December 23^rd], MPs overwhelmingly backed the move by 303 to eight… Speaking before the vote, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said Ukraine was determined to pivot towards Europe and the West… ‘This will lead to integration in the European and the Euro-Atlantic space,’ he said…

“Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called the move ‘counterproductive’ and said it would boost tensions...The BBC's David Stern in Kiev says it is not clear when Ukraine will apply for NATO membership and many officials see it as a distant prospect… Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko pledged to seek NATO membership over Russian support for rebels in the east.” BBC.com, December 23^rd. Indeed, one can think of almost nothing that Ukraine could do to anger Russia than in its joining a military organization with mutual pledges of armed support in the event of an attack. Would NATO in fact make such an alliance that could, theoretically, pit Western nations in a real shooting war (or more?!) against Russia?

“Addressing foreign ambassadors on [December 22^nd] night, President Poroshenko said Ukraine's ‘fight for its independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty has turned into a decisive factor in our relations with the world.’…Russia has made clear that it opposes Ukraine's move towards NATO.

“Andrei Kelin, Russia's envoy to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said on [December 23^rd]: ‘It's an unfriendly step towards us. This political vector will only add to nuisances and acuteness in ties.’… In a Facebook post on [December 23^rd], Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned that Ukraine's rejection of neutrality would have ‘negative consequences.’” BBC.com. “Negative consequences”? Where have we heard that in the news of late?

You’d think with all the years of historical lessons, the world would simply learn how to get along better, but tensions everywhere are increasing, with violence the seeming first choice solution. But between the impact of global climate change on access and development of natural resources, from fuel to food, the underlying religious differences that pit people with extreme views against each other in well-armed conflicts, the world threatens to get a whole lot worse in the years to come… even as global interdependence deepens.

I’m Peter Dekom, and my quest for common sense is now humbly joined in a quest for sanity where that no longer appears to be a relevant quality in national leadership anymore.