Mustang Rambles

Christopher Meyers, in an article in The TimesOnLine raises a few points that most Americans don’t think about very much. Meyers is a former ambassador to Washington and has very good experience with Europe and European problems. In this article he raises the question of what are the current spheres of influence in Europe and how are they defined.

Basically, since the fall of the Soviet Empire the US and NATO have rushed to fill in the power void caused by Russian collapse of military might and economic turmoil. Now that the Russians are more stabilized, they are beginning to reassert their influence and military presence. However, they find that the US and NATO are infringing on what have been traditionally influenced or governed by Russia. Ukraine and Georgia are two sterling examples. For many long years the Ukraine was one of the breadbaskets of Russia, and Georgia was the birthplace of Stalin. Russia feels as if we are staking our claim in their back yard, something they did in Cuba when they put missiles there in the early 1960’s.

Russia is not a country you can bully. Nor can you merely dismiss its national needs and interests. While it is true it is a fledgling democracy, it still responds to strict discipline and order and will act with a cohesive unity a more mature democracy like ourselves lacks. If we gracelessly move into the Ukraine and Georgia with membership in NATO, we had better be prepared to fully commit ourselves militarily to their defense.

The article made a case for the leading nations to sit down and formalize an agreement on “spheres of influence”. Kind of makes sense to me. Let’s do that before someone screws up and the guns go off.