John Kerry’s mouth is a
danger to us plebes and rubes out here in the sticks. He said “Any kind of military
intervention that would violate the sovereign territorial integrity of
Ukraine would be a huge, a grave mistake. The territorial integrity of
Ukraine needs to be respected.”
There is no discernable
threat posed by either the Ukraine or Russia to ordinary Americans. Kerry’s
capacity to create frictions or confrontations with the Russians is a
definite threat to Americans. The game between Kerry and Putin is between two
governments, the U.S. and Russia. It’s the equivalent of two gangsters having
a spat and posturing with one another. Putin is more than posturing, however.
He will use his army to hold Crimea. Over 150,000 troops are doing a
“military exercise”. The option of splitting off part of Ukraine also remains
open.
Hence, what Kerry is
saying is already academic unless the U.S. wants to match Putin’s raise and
call him by some concrete measures.
Kerry claims his warning
is not power politics: “It is not a zero-sum game. We do not view it through
the lens of East-West, Russia-U.S. or anything else. We view it as an example
of people within a sovereign nation who are expressing their desire to choose
their future. And that’s a very powerful force.”
Kerry’s argument about
sovereignty doesn’t hold water because there are no objective ways of
determining what borders justifiably constitute a state be it an existing one
or a new one. Borders invariably rest on a number of factors that include
military, political, geographical, resource, possession and arbitrary
matters. There are no objective ways to say when such a state is legitimate
or not, what the relevant nation is, and what people must be subject to that
state and borders. Who decides these matters? How do they decide? What
happens to people who do not consent to be governed by some state? Abraham
Lincoln decided it by military means on a portion of this continent. If a new
state forms, it often happens that it must confront breakaway movements
within it and it’s against them. What sense does this make? If eastern
Ukrainians by the usual murky means decide to break off from western
Ukrainians who have by their murky means decided that this should not be
allowed, what sense does that make in terms of such notions as consent of the
governed, the rights of free association, or even simple consistency.
In other words, what
Kerry is insisting on makes no sense in terms of Ukrainian people determining
their own future. How does he know that the murky workings of consent are
coincident with Ukraine’s current borders and its “territorial integrity”?
Why don’t some subsets of Ukrainians have a right to promulgate their own
governments?
Why should
Kerry be sticking his nose into their business anyway and acting as if
he knows what’s right for them? The only reasonable answer is that this
Ukrainian matter is strictly and only power politics. Kerry cared less about
democracy in Egypt and Syria! He doesn’t respect the unique kinds of Islamic
republics that arise. This matter is strictly gangster Kerry talking to
gangster Putin during a very real poker game. It’s entirely obvious that the
U.S. wants Ukraine to be in the European proto-empire or actual empire, which
is now called the EU (European Union). And he would only be playing this game
if he regarded the U.S. as a partner, or a leading partner, in an alliance,
joint venture and intermingling of the U.S. empire with the EU.
The only sensible way to
understand the kinds of things that U.S. leaders like Kerry say about matters
like these is in terms of the expansion of the U.S. empire. Their rationales
in terms of “robust democracies” are hype.
Empires are prone to
expand through thick and thin, pushing against weakness and testing opponents
wherever encountered. Having disregarded the costly blunder that was Vietnam,
the U.S. has pushed unsuccessfully in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lately it has
sought low-cost means of pushing without taking over a country and without
committing armies. It is using the method of outposts and advisory contingents
in Africa. It is using drone warfare there and elsewhere. It has encouraged
and used NATO forces. It has sought to train local forces. It has used
special forces. In a number of countries it has employed NGOs to nurture
unrest and revolution. The U.S. is a very active and pushy empire. However,
it has some large and growing weak spots: its national debt, its deficit
spending and its faltering economy. It also has growing dissent and
dissatisfaction at home. One of its main components, Japan, has big economic
problems.
