The slaughter of more than 3,000 civilians and Ukrainian soldiers and a growing toll of Russian mercenaries and conscripts in southeast Ukraine can hardly compete with ISIS’s (or ISIL’s, if you like) grisly You-Tube beheadings, but the potential risk posed by Russia’s War of Southeast Ukraine exceeds those emanating from the ISIS threat.
If you do not believe me, hear me out.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2014/09/23/ukraine-is-more-of-an-existential-threat-than-isis-because-it-could-destroy-nato/A retired general, a former ambassador, and an intelligence expert testified before the House shortly before Poroshenko’s speech about how to defeat the 30,000 strong (and growing) ISIS forces. We must keep our options open and not “tell our adversaries in advance any timeline … or which of our capabilities we will not employ.” Defeating ISIS will be a tough slog. ISIS’s recruitment of European and American sympathizers complicates the war on terror, which we must regrettably fight for decades to come, ISIS or no ISIS.
The same military experts would be hard pressed to explain how the hobbled Ukrainian army is to defeat the Russian-backed separatists and regular Russian troops without military assistance, especially now that Russia has shown it will invade with regular forces. Sanctions are indeed hurting, but they are a price Putin is willing to pay. If anything, Europe and the United States seem to be rooting for Ukraine’s military weakness. Angela Merkel rejected military aid lest Ukraine believe a military solution is possible. Barack Obama expressed fear that military aid might involve the U.S. more deeply in the conflict. Neither Merkel nor Obama seem to understand that you gain a good peace by winning not by losing.
Whereas Poroshenko’s “blankets do not win wars” line gained the most attention, his chilling parallel with the Cuban Missile Crisis largely escaped notice:
“Without any doubt, the international system of checks and balances has been effectively ruined (by Russia’s actions). The world has been plunged into the worst security crisis since the U.S. (Cuban missile) standoff of 1962.”
By this stark comparison, Poroshenko made clear that Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions, his clear intent to restore a Russian empire, and his hatred of NATO provide the tinderbox for reigniting events similar to October 1962 when U.S. and Soviet forces faced each other “eyeball-to-eyeball.” We could be weeks or months away from another such standoff with Russia, not in the Caribbean, but in a small state on the Baltic Sea.
