Ukraine May Test Limits of U.S. Relationship With Russia

Image courtesy of Wikimedia and United Nations Cartography Division

The recent political crisis in Ukraine is likely to test the limits of the U.S.’s relationship with Russia. Signs of mounting tension surfaced when earlier this week CNN reported earlier that Secretary of State Kerry asked the Russians to refrain from using military force in Ukraine.

The last time a major political crisis erupted in a former Soviet republic with a large Russian speaking population, Russia rolled out the tanks to “protect” Russians in the South Ossetia region of Georgia. There was a lot of international diplomatic hand wringing back in 2008, but six years later the Russian military is still present in South Ossetia, although it is authorized through a  bi-lateral agreement. Not that Georgia had a lot of bargaining power during the treaty negotiations.

Today the AP and Reuters are reporting that Putin is putting the Russian military forces in western and central Russia on alert.

Ukraine is a physical buffer between Eastern Europe and Russia. It is also a political and cultural buffer. The western half of Ukraine looks to Europe and yearns to integrate and share in its economic success. The Ukrainian-speaking majority considers their homeland traditionally part of Europe. The eastern half of Ukraine is predominantly Russian speaking and looks to Russia with a nostalgia for empire. Ukraine has been in the Russian orbit for most of the past 300 years.

The cool eyes of Vladimir Putin match the gaze of the Ukrainian Russians and share their nostalgia for empire. Former Ukrainian president, Viktor Yushchenko, recently forced from power, was Putin’s man. Putin does not trust the pro-European forces sure to take over Ukraine, and he seems to have a special dislike for previously jailed, but recently freed, opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko.

The worry of many in Europe and the United States is that Russia will use the turmoil in its neighbor to intervene and force a split between the Russian and Ukrainian halves of the country. Russia could either absorb the Russian speaking provinces of Ukraine into Russia, or set up a puppet state, harkening back to the Cold War. Either way the Russians would be able to move its military forces closer to Europe.

What is not known is how much influence the U.S, has or is willing to exert in the crisis. The U.S. has to balance its need for Russian cooperation in Syria, Iran and North Korea with its other strategic objections to wider expansion of Russian power into Europe.

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Jason McBride is the creator of the Intellectual Ninja and the Scourge of Scoundrels series. He is also the author of Watch Out For Sneaker Waves. He is currently hard at work on his first book of fiction, available Spring 2014.

He is the proud father of four amazing children and the happy husband of one wife. He aspires to be an extreme sleeper.