In 1987 Tom Clancy published
his techno-thriller masterwork "Red Storm Rising." (which he co-authored with Larry Bond).
Clancy wrote what was then, in 1987, a chilling scenario in which the Russians, as prime mover in the Warsaw Pact, suffer a drastic casualty in it's oil production facilities due to poor planning and a group of Muslim fanatics. This causes the fictional Russian leader to decide that the only way to get out of the jam is to seize the Persian Gulf oil states. (with the possible exception of Iran.) If the Soviet controls the Arabian Peninsula not only is their immediate oil need satisfied, but their control would place a stranglehold on US and other economies. And so, the decision is taken. Warsaw Pact will launch a "defensive" battle against NATO, and split West Germany and Austria off, thus fracturing the alliance.
No doubt most of you are wondering by now why I'm spoiling a good read and what Clancy's fictional scenario has to do with the current very real war in Ukraine. I'm getting to that, but bear with me as I construct a scenario: Putin wants to wreck that portion of Ukraine not under his control so as to put an end to their threats of taking back the portions of the Donbas that his operatives have encouraged to separate from the main Ukraine country. It goes without saying that he also wants to keep them out of the Crimea he so badly wanted to re-integrate into Russia. Ukraine with it's leadership in prison (in Russia) and leaders installed by Putin would not be able or willing to drive Russians out of those territories. So now we come to the attempt at provocation. Putin has for years been manipulating events in Crimea and Donbas so that when the time came all three areas would break off from Ukraine and either request Russian "protection" or outright cede themselves to Russia to run by fiat. (both ends would be sufficient for Putin.) So, he cooks up this fiction about De-Nazifying Ukraine and protecting Ethnic Russians in the Donbas and Crimea. It is of course complete fabrication. The Ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine would have been content to remain there had not the mysterious "little green men" been there to "help" them separate from the rest of the country, in exactly the same way that "little green men" and "volunteers" helped Crimea secede from the nation. Well now let's turn to the Tom Clancy fiction again.
Why it is surprisingly similar. . . Why it should be familiar :
Vladimir Putin came up from the ranks of the KGB. his rise was not meteoric, but it was steady. Putin carefully eliminated any serious competition for the top jobs. Putin was also able to command loyalty. Fealty, really. Putin was not a rising star. But he achieved his level of power through a combination of luck, preparation and the careful forging of alliances. Putin is not Einstein. He could not play 3d chess with Mr Spock. Russia experts on the level of Garry Kasparov, Nina Kruscheva and Ambassador Michael McFaul, (Amb to Russia under President Obama) all agree on this. But still, Putin is above average intelligence -- you wouldn't have survived in KGB as a moron. He plans things out carefully, and then ruthlessly sticks to his plans, regardless of how many innocent lives are blasted. In Red Storm Rising, it is "Young Octoberists" from Pskov. In reality it is much worse. In reality those children in the theater are the Young Octoberists from Pskov. They are the victims of the ruthless leader of the Russian state. They, like the children in the work of fiction, have been discounted by the person who ordered their killing. To the fictional Russian leaders a few dead kids or a few hundred or a few thousand matters nothing. It almost seems to be a facet of the Russian character. In chess, they sacrifice a bishop to kill the other player's queen. But real life is not chess. Human beings have fathers, mothers, siblings, children -- all people who will grieve at their loss. Human beings have inherent rights -- the right to life being one of those. In a different way, they also have the right to a modicum at least of human dignity. They also have the right to not live in fear. Right now, Putin's Russia is taking those rights away, just as Clancy's fictional Politburo took the lives, and thus the rights, of those children from Pskov. Clancy's Russians had no empathy. Putin has no empathy. Putin will continue to kill the Young Octoberists every few seconds right up until he is removed from office or retires. But it will not be the few families of Pskov who will feel the pain, it is the many families of Ukraine. And if we are not careful -- if the others in the Russian power structure are not careful -- the world may in fact burn as in Clancy's novel. The Parallel is not exact, but I think you can see the picture I am drawing. Think what you will of Tom Clancy. He was a conservative Republican, but in this instance, his words should be instructive. Think it over.
Thanks.
DLC
No comments:
Post a Comment