Russia Has Its Own Monroe Doctrine Covering Ukraine and Crimea

America’s Monroe Doctrine of 1823 warned distant nations that interfering with North and South America would not be tolerated.  Military intervention would meet any act of aggression.  The policy was demonstrated in JFK’s handling of the Cuban missile crisis.  

       Nations protect their immediate neighborhoods first.  Hitler had to annex surrounding European countries in self-defense.  Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere continued to assert its protective inoculation against unhealthy foreign influences.  China wouldn’t tolerate the US military threat across the Yalu River.  Should Russia be any different regarding the Ukraine and Crimea?  

      US television media inserted itself as active advocates in the recent “Arab Spring” destabilizations in North Africa, as if “democracy” would guarantee open markets for the US computer industry and  the various faces of our bling pop culture, including the Academy Awards.

      Vladimir Putin seems willing take a moral stand against the decadence of the West.  He promises to contain both gay sex and Muslim incursions.  He seeks to restore Orthodox Christianity, even while churches in America and Europe want to keep low profiles.

      Inept “tough talk” by Western leaders like Obama and Kerry will have no more effect than futile sanctions and empty diplomacy, though a good enough temporary fix to appease TV news watchers.

     In his recent Tune Out the War Party! essay, Patrick J. Buchanan suggests that secession fever is rightly sweeping aside all global attempts to consolidate under any “United” or “Union” banner:

    And should Crimea vote to secede from Ukraine, upon what moral ground would we stand to deny them the right, when we bombed Serbia for 78 days to bring about the secession of Kosovo?

    Across Europe, nations have been breaking apart since the end of the Cold War. Out of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia came 24 nations. Scotland is voting on secession this year. Catalonia may be next.

       A healthy local control may be asserting itself after all.