When Does Russia Run Away?

Currently, Russia is occupying the Crimea, Ukraine.  But what would it take for Russia to run away?

I recall that Russia was in Afghanistan--and doing some good there.  I recall some long distance conversations with Russians, when I had already returned to the US from having helped with their new Constitution.  I was begging them not to leave Afghanistan, because their leaving would cause havoc in the land.  I think they replied with stories about their problems: "You don't know what it means for the Soviet military to lose so many helicopters!"

Well, it's been years since then, but now the Russians are on the move---into the Ukraine.  They say the Ukrainian language is but one of many languages in the area; but the Russian language should be the dominant.  They say Crimeans are really Tartars--true Russians.  Russia is to be forever their homeland; and maybe that of all of the Ukraine, too.

Ah, these new ambitions cast in the backdrop of  historical fond remembrances occurring in a barroom where shots of vodka are consumed by those who are drunk with the thought of political power.  But the political issue is that the Russian Empire collapsed under its own weight of under-production and ethnic strife.  It became bankrupt, even as the Ukraine is today.  The political issue is that there were some courageous Russians who realized that this is not the day of Empire-building and sought to re-constitute an assemblage of industrial nexus that would produce goods and services for the good of what would now be a Federation of Independent States as well as to be exported to other geographic areas.  The fact of the matter is that there was low productivity among the factories and business groups because of ethnic divisions and in-fighting.  And this is what Russia is seeking to impose upon the its geographic region all over again.

So, what would cause Russia to run away from Crimea?  If possible, a dose of reality-checking.  What Russia offers to its people under the present regime is nothing but what has been tried and failed under the old Soviet Union. Be it noted that a place in the sun is to be awarded a nation by concrete figures and facts of enormous growth and productivity.  Promising, there is rising in Russia today a technocratic cadre who envision a new place, a prominent place for Russia in the world.  It has nothing to do with remembrances of well-worn historical themes, but constitutes a steadfast push to a new reality of technological advance that those so dedicated are boldly and aggressively  undertaking, though not in a barroom where memories are blurred by booze..

What would it take for Russia to run away from Crimea? A dose of reality as a curative from its hangover, to be sure..  And along with the cure, a forward-looking plodding toward some new vision of what Russia can offer to the world--but it won't include a harkening back to what has already been shown obsolete and outmoded as a Model T Ford, namely, the Russian Empire!















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