If Russia doesn’t invade Ukraine, there will be a lot of disappointed Progressives in this country. The Left has been using Russia as the “bad guy” for years now. Russia served well for a while to keep Trump preoccupied and prevent him from doing too much damage to their programs. Now that Covid is winding down, a good war could help the current administration recover before the midterm elections.
If we were to get seriously involved it might even serve as an excuse to “postpone” the midterms, perhaps indefinitely. It would certainly keep the populace fearful, distract from inflation, and justify all sorts of measures to eliminate “subversive elements who criticize the government” from any participation in society.
Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Progressive Left has been using Russia as a scapegoat and boogeyman. Aside from their feeling that Russia betrayed the Revolution and backslid into capitalism, the Left has been able to capitalize on the long history of sentiment against the communist Soviet Union. The Cold War period from the end of the Second World War until the advent of the Glasnost rally in 1965, the Soviet Union was considered an existential threat to the West. Since Russia was the dominant state in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) it is now the new replacement for that institution in the minds of many.
Any port in a storm
After several attempts at reform, the Union finally broke up in 1991 into a set of independent states. Russia became the Russian Federation. Unlike Europe and the US, the USSR lacked good port facilities that were available year ’round. The few all-year ports were problematic because they either required ships to traverse relatively narrow passages controlled by often unfriendly powers, or were at the far Eastern end of the country, distant from the population centers. This lack of ports greatly hindered economic development, as well as development of a Naval military force. The one bright spot was the port at Sebastopol in the Crimea. While not ideal, it was near both Russian population centers and European trading partners.
Consequently, the USSR invested heavily in development of both commercial and military port facilities at Sebastopol. When the Union fractured, Russia was left without access to a port they had come to depend upon, as well as one they had invested much in development. In case anyone hasn’t looked recently, there is a large country sitting directly on all the land routes between Russia and Sebastopol in Crimea. That country, a former Union member, is Ukraine.
In the time of Stalin, Ukraine was a problematic member of the Union. As one of the largest member republics outside of Russia, and one of the Union’s principal agricultural areas and sources of grain, Ukraine felt it deserved a larger voice. Stalin had other ideas. The difficulties grew to the point where during a food shortage in the rest of the Union in the ’30s, Stalin confiscated the crops of Ukrainian farmers, leaving many of them to starve. Many Ukrainians today either remember that time directly, or have parents and grandparents who remember that period well, and hold substantial mistrust and animosity toward Russia.
Besides the land access routes to the Sebastopol port facilities Ukraine also sits astride many of the best land routes for pipelines between Russia and Europe. Gas and oil are two major products for Russia and some of its best and most reliable sources of foreign exchange.