The Ukraine Plane Disaster: Countdown to A New World War I?
07/17/14
Jacob Heilbrunn
Democracy, Ukraine
"Like it or not, Obama is being compelled by world events to become a foreign policy president in his second term. Ukraine may prove to be his biggest test."
If
the horrific downing of a Malaysian airplane over Ukraine was
deliberate and carried out either from Russian territory or by
separatists, then Russia and the West will move one step closer toward a
confrontation that has unsettling echoes of August 1914. Sen. John
McCain is warning of "profound repercussions" if it becomes clear that
the airliner was shot down by separatists. This would not be a partisan
issue in Washington. Both the Republican and Democratic parties would be
pushed to condemn Russia and take much more drastic steps to attempt to
contain it.
The
question for Russian president Vladimir Putin, who has been playing
with fire in the Ukraine, is whether he will conclude that the costs of
failing to act decisively are higher than retreating. The longer the
conflict goes on, the more he may feel compelled to be able to show
actual gains. Otherwise he will resemble a high-stakes gambler whose
bluff has been called. One possibility may be that the rebels shot down
the airplane in order to exacerbate the confrontation with the West--to
force Putin to back them more strongly. Another is that it was simply a
mistake. But wars can begin from precisely such miscalculations.
Neither
Obama nor German chancellor Angela Merkel has much appetite for a
military confrontation. The last thing Germans want is to get dragged
into a conflict that they view as primarily between Washington and
Moscow, much as Germans feared that they would be the battleground for
the superpowers during the cold war. But if Russia connivance at
destroying the airplane is proven, then this could become a new Lusitania moment for the U.S.
The
direction events are moving in Ukraine is clearly strengthening the
hand of the hawks in Washington who want to confront Putin and his
camarilla. McCain's words are telling. If the plane disaster can be
traced to Russia or the separatists, "It would open the gates for us
assisting, finally, giving the Ukrainians some defensive weapons (and)
sanctions that would be imposed as a result of that. That would be the
beginning." The beginning, not the end.
Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-ukraine-plane-shooting-countdown-new-world-war-i-10903
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