The Americans, being a moral people, want our foreign policy reflects our national values. But being practical people, they also want our foreign policy has been effective.
George Shultz
The next day, after the first conversation of the President of trump with Vladimir Putin the leaders of the Republicans in Congress have made clear that they oppose any attempts by the new administration to cancel the U.S. sanctions imposed on Moscow by the White house under Obama. “I am categorically against the lifting of sanctions with Russia, — said the leader of the parliamentary majority Mitch McConnell (Mitch McConnell), the Senator from Kentucky. — If anything, we should be thinking about their expansion.”
Decent company the amount to McConnell, his fellow Republican John McCain (John McCain) and Marco Rubio (Marco Rubio), and senators-Democrats, who believe the main goal of American policy in relation to Russia’s continued opposition to evil.
Meanwhile, this is a very stupid approach because the policy that they proclaim, completely detached from historical roots and from the resulting post-cold war geopolitical situation.
Ukraine has no Crimea, no ties — no historical or cultural — do not possess any legal rights on this property. Crimea was part of Russia since 1783, when the Russian Empire took it from the Ottoman Empire, to 1954, when Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev made a symbolic gesture by passing it from the Russian Republic to the Ukrainian Republic. After 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukrainians gained independence, and the Peninsula became part of the new state called Ukraine. The Russian population of Crimea was under Ukrainian government is trapped. In the Crimea has always been dominated by Pro — Russian mood, which ranges from giving official status to the Russian language, to open separatism.
Furthermore, the Russians undoubtedly believe Crimea an integral part of owned by their rightful lands. Every piece of land in Sevastopol, soaked with Russian blood, praliases in countless wars over this strategically important city, the pearl of Russia.
Lack of understanding of history makes supporters of sanctions is to look at the annexation of Crimea as a moral issue. As a result, they succumb to the illusions, believing that the benefits from the lifting of sanctions ultimately must outweigh for Russia the requested price for it.
However, the Russians believe that we are talking about the geopolitical question that is essential to their safety, and the enforcement of the nationalist dream. Accordingly, they are willing to make sacrifices that the West itself can not imagine. This means that the future of sanctions is a foregone conclusion: even if they persist for another hundred years, Russia’s determination that cannot be shaken. From the point of view of Moscow annexation of the Crimea — a fait accompli, which is not subject to revision.
Eastern Ukraine, populated mostly by Russians, makes the same claims to the government in Kiev, and the Crimean population. Like the people of Cyprus, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, who faced unacceptable for them political trends, she is also committed to self-determination and independence.
From any point of view — political, economic or military sanctions against Russia was the biggest political folly committed by America in the era after the Second world war. It seriously affected the transition of America’s foreign policy, using the energy of American idealism, the political course, is inconsistent with national dignity and nationalist fervor in Russia. It has turned America from the object of love and hope in the object of hatred. It gave impetus to the militaristic tendencies and pushed the Russian foreign policy to hostile relations with the West.
But worst of all, the practical consequences of this ideologically motivated decision severely damaged the development of democracy in Russia. Before the sanctions, Russia was steadily moving towards joining the club of democratic countries. Let Vladimir Putin — and not Thomas Jefferson, we must recognize that the next Soviet/Russian leader since Joseph Stalin was more humane than its predecessor — and a crucial role in this process was the moral authority of the “land of the free”.
However, when President Obama gleefully declared that the sanctions are hurting the Russian economy, it confirmed the idea of Putin that the West deliberately seeks to ensure that the Russian people were faced with deprivation. The confrontation between Russia and the West — a classic theme of the cold war — forced the Russians to rally around their President as this has not occurred since the cult of Joseph Stalin. Putin’s approval rating soared, which helps the Russian leader to accuse political opponents of collaborating with the enemy to suppress dissent and harass — and sometimes directly to destroy critics.
The longer the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine will prevent the rapprochement between Russia and America, the more authoritarian and implacable will become Russia. In the international arena, the tensions will be accompanied, exactly as during the cold war, new attempts of Russia to gain a strategic advantage in destabilizing the situation in different parts of the world.
If the strategy objectives, the reasonable observer must admit that this strategy failed. As said by Talleyrand about the Bourbons after the French revolution, “they learned nothing and forgotten nothing”.
Alexander Markov is a native of Russia, immigrated to America, the author of “Anatomy of a Bolshevik” (“Anatomy of a Bolshevik”)and “Liberal Bolshevism: America defeated communism, and adopted it”(“Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It”), also collaborated with the New York Daily News, RedState and WorldNetDaily.
