Jeryn wrote:
Diamondeye wrote:
We should also get out of the habit of trying to find out which ethnic group has the best claim to certain areas, or the best reputation for good behavior generally. It makes no more sense arguing about Tartars vs Russians vs Ukrainians than it does holding present-day whites responsible for slavery in our past.
That's an interesting equivalency. Ethnic relations and tensions may not make sense, but they're reality. I don't think anyone could say with a straight face that our own diverse ethnic makeup lives harmoniously and bears no grudges. Yes, everyone directly involved in slavery here is dead. No, we are far from done dealing with the legacy of that. I'm hardly a scholar on Eurasian history, but, similarly, I would imagine that Russia's position on Crimea has a little more luggage attached to it than whether Ukraine is currently giving come-hither looks to the EU.
That was basically the point. Despite years and years of efforts to right past ethnic wrongs against blacks in this country, the memory of those wrongs simply refuse to die as a present-day issue (not that people should literally forget they happened, but rather that they should recognize the significant progress that has been made and stop re-inflaming the issue) and that's in an area where one group was pretty clearly the one being oppressed.
It's therefore that much harder for them to die out in parts of the world where the pendulum swung back and forth between 2 or more groups for several years. As far as that concerns us, we really shouldn't get into the business of putting one ethnic group "in the right" over another even based on
present ethnic tensions, much less past ones. Presently, this situation isn't like the situation in Bosnia or Kosovo where one side held a military advantage and was conducting various sorts of "ethnic cleansing".
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I'm not advocating trying to step in and decide who's the "rightful owner" of a place or anything like that. I'm just saying that an informed policy regarding a place is a lot likelier to be coherent if it considers a little more than the current leanings of nation-states. Regardless of whether Ukraine loses control of Crimea and they decide to ally with Russia instead of the EU, you still have people who live there and have their own dynamics. The Tatars didn't come out to vote because it's simple to see which way the wind is blowing, and the issues there go back centuries, not decades. And take Iraq: you oust a dictator and install freedom, and then have to contend with "oh wait, these guys all want to kill each other, and still none of them like us?" Whether or not we see outcomes that align with our strategic interests is based on more than what flag is flying where, is all I'm saying.
I'm really not exactly sure what you're trying to get at here. Yes, the situation is complicated. Is that it? We can be very well informed indeed on the history of the region and its ethnic tensions, but there is a strong likelihood that any policy we might have (no matter how hands-off) that is driven by the principle of keeping ethnic groups from each other's throats is likely to be resented by at least one side and possible both. Our policy in Kosovo, rather than simply getting Serbia to behave itself, split that area off and contributed to greater balkanization and resentment. Worse, it set the stage for Russia to do the same thing in Georgia and now Ukraine. We convinced ourselves that various forms of "international justice" made it a good idea to do this sort of thing without thinking that a few years down the road, other major players might do the exact same thing within THEIR coalitions and councils and spheres of influence, and with far thinner pretense.
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