I was fascinated to hear repeated from several sources a comment from a presidential advisor called Zbigniew Brzezinski. He reported to the US President Jimmy Carter in teh 1980's, and stated the importance of Ukraine to Russia. Simply put without Ukraine, Russia cannot call itself an empire, with it, then it can. Ukraine has (or at least had) 40 million people, while Russia 140 million, but Russia desperately wants to claim these 40 million as its own, as well as the strategic importance of the land and sea access (see below, perhaps Brzezinski can shed more light on how Russia and America "really see the rest of the world"):
I will have to read "The Grand Chessboard" the old fashioned way with the Mark One eyeball!
Footnote: The date of paperback publication I am reading was back in 1997, last century. I feel old saying that!
2 comments:
Zbigniew Brzezinski's whole premise is bogus, if not altogether fraudulent. Russia has no desire whatever to absorb Ukraine into a renascent empire. It didn't even want the Donbass particularly, despite the clamour of the locals to rejoin Russia (particularly in the light of their own Kyiv government's hostility towards the Russian and Russophone majority). But did anyone expect Russia indefinitely to accept what was happening upon its own borders? Eight years was forbearing enough!
It is the US - in the person of Z B - that wanted a US global empire. Recall the mantra: 'Full Spectrum Dominance.' And, what do you suppose is the purpose of this? Security for the US? Security for the World?! How about freedom for the US to plunder - as it has been doing in Latin America for decades - anywhere it likes without any fear of resistance. Recall the US orchestrated 1990s feeding frenzy in the former USSR, including Russia. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of wealth and resources stolen, and further hundreds of billions in capital flight. That Russia survived it to become what it is today is nothing short of miraculous.
Had the US not pushed Ukraine into clamouring for entry into NATO, Ukraine would even have kept Crimea. But Sevastopol falling into NATO hands? Why on God's Green Earth would Russia find that OK? Russia has always sought buffers against the West. Now, why would Russia want to extend its border to the Polish frontier? None of it makes any sense.
The way the West - the US, NATO, and several EU members, too - are behaving - like obstreperous kiddies in a sand box - they are bidding fair to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. I sometimes wonder, in my more cynical moments, if that might indeed be their aim.
Cheers,
Ion
Cheers Archduke, I will keep that in mind as I read the book. We will see if it ages well. The world sure does look a right old mess from where I am sitting. Settling scores with tanks never works in the long run, a massive European rearmament program does not bode well for the future!
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