{"id":3318,"date":"2014-04-25T22:25:20","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T19:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/?p=3318"},"modified":"2014-05-02T11:12:56","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T08:12:56","slug":"the-battle-of-the-mr-cools-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/the-battle-of-the-mr-cools-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The battle of the Mr. Cools"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If the situation in Ukraine were not so dire for the Ukrainian people, what a parody this could be.\u00a0 Facing off are two Mr. Cools.\u00a0 In the eastern corner is President Vlad Putin emulating tough guy actor Humphrey Bogart but in a smaller version of Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s muscular body.\u00a0 Whether Vlad thinks he is Peter the Great, Nicholas II (the last of the Romanov line) or Mikhail Gorbachev (who imploded the Soviet Union), his bare chested he-man style is surely good for the Russian soul.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the western corner is President Barry Obama whose studied intellectual aloofness is meant to confound his adversary.\u00a0 Still keen on leading from behind after the Crimea takeover, Barry has used the bully pulpit twice to extol the Affordable Health Care Act and once to downplay the agreement reached in Geneva last Thursday on ending the Ukraine standoff.\u00a0 His major emissaries have been Secretary of State John Kerry doing the heavy lifting with his Russian counterparts and Press Secretary Jay Carney making the tough pronouncements.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

His two best gladiators have been outgoing NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and NATO\u2019s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove.\u00a0 Rasmussen has rallied the alliance with forceful rhetoric.\u00a0 General Breedlove has produced sensible plans for reinforcing Europe NATO with additional forces designed to reassure allies while sending a direct and measured message to Moscow.<\/span><\/p>\n

How does this end?\u00a0 Three interesting observations are relevant.\u00a0 First, while the media has been reporting this crisis in too often cataclysmic terms (a spark could start a war; war is imminent; Ukraine is under siege), more balanced perspectives are coming from western embassies in Ukraine and outside visits by experienced diplomats and politicians.\u00a0 The latter see conditions as tense yet far from exploding.\u00a0 Even the Washington Post erred in the crisis direction by titling a recent op-ed as \u201cBoots on the ground\u201d suggesting land forces should be sent to Ukraine when the author was referring expressly to NATO\u2019s Baltic, southern and eastern borders.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, many of the so-called pro-Russian forces are employed and supplied by deposed president Viktor Yanukovych.\u00a0 Further, a number of mayors and other officials in eastern Ukraine appointed by Yanukovych are part of this cabal reacting against the new government in Kiev.\u00a0 This of course provides a perfectly deniable force for Putin.\u00a0 However, if a large component of these factions are indeed Ukrainian, then that must be factored into the political equation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Third, a majority of Ukraine\u2019s GDP is in the hands of a dozen or so oligarchs.\u00a0 It is in their direct financial and economic interests that a satisfactory agreement is reached.\u00a0 Otherwise they risk losing much of their wealth and conceivably their freedom.\u00a0 Additionally, banking sanctions have reportedly caused some of Putin\u2019s strongest supporters in Moscow to caution their president that any further moves into eastern Ukraine will be very bad for business.\u00a0 And that would not be good for Putin. Japanese banks are cutting off links with Russia on strictly business grounds, a further sign that the financial noose may be tightening if not on Putin certainly on his cronies and supporters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tobias Ellwood, a British MP recently in Kiev has tweeted that perhaps a new Magna Charta-like deal might work in Ukraine.\u00a0 In 1215, the English barons met with King John at Runnymede to curb his powers and set out their rights under law.\u00a0 Perhaps using the Ukrainian oligarchs as barons to negotiate with the various Ukrainian King John pretenders may yield a peaceful solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

This column has called for calm in addressing Ukraine.\u00a0 It is a crisis for Ukrainians.\u00a0 It is not the worst or most dangerous crisis since the end of the Cold War.\u00a0 September 11th<\/sup>, the second Iraqi invasion and the financial crash of 2007\/2008 were far more serious.\u00a0 Ukraine could become a real crisis.\u00a0 However, if that occurred, NATO almost certainly would be forced into action and the alliance rejuvenated—a rejuvenation sorely needed.\u00a0 And Russia would ingest a problem in occupying parts of Ukraine it could never digest.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us not fool anyone: neither Humphrey Putin nor Cool Hand Obama will prevail.\u00a0 Tragically, like Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Central African Republic and South Sudan, Ukraine will ultimately be left to fend for itself.\u00a0 To the sorrow of some, a new cold war is not in the offing.\u00a0 Sadly, Ukrainians will struggle with the hardships of failed government no matter who wins the May elections.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps self-interest will compel the oligarchs to achieve a positive outcome.\u00a0 This is a glimmer of a hope and not a strategy.\u00a0 Yet, it may be the least bad way out of this situation.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the situation in Ukraine were not so dire for the Ukrainian people, what a parody this could be.\u00a0 Facing off are two Mr. Cools.\u00a0 In the eastern corner is President Vlad Putin emulating tough guy actor Humphrey Bogart but in a smaller version of Arnold Schwarzenegger\u2019s muscular body.\u00a0 Whether Vlad thinks he is Peter the Great, Nicholas II (the last of the Romanov line) or Mikhail Gorbachev (who imploded the Soviet Union), his bare chested he-man style is surely good for the Russian soul. In the western corner is President Barry Obama whose studied intellectual aloofness is meant to confound his adversary.\u00a0 Still keen on leading from behind after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":3316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,71,76,86,102,62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-en","category-europerussia","category-harlan-ullman-en","category-international-peace-security","category-issues","category-regions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3318"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3319,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3318\/revisions\/3319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cass-ro.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}