The title for this post comes from an editorial written by former US Rep. Ron Paul which appeared in the USA Today and other publications (first link). Rep. Paul makes a very good case that there is nothing really significant that the USA or Europe can do about the Crimea’s vote to rejoin Russia. I agree. This development is unfortunate for those in the Crimea who wish to stay in the Ukraine, but there is nothing they can do about it. No media report seriously doubts the outcome of the Crimean referendum. The majority of Crimea’s really do want to rejoin Russia. The only reason the Crimea was ever in the Ukraine at all was the Soviet leadership transferred the Crimea from Russia to the Ukraine for geographic convenience when the Ukraine was a mere province of the Soviet Union. If they had known then that the USSR would dissolve, the Crimea would never have been detached from Russia in the first place. Ron Paul also makes the case that many in Scotland want to secede from the United Kingdom. If Scotland votes to secede, will the USA be requested to send troops or enact sanctions against Scotland if it takes this action?
The simple fact is that Russia’s Vladimir Putin is currently playing a very strong hand in the game of global geopolitics and he knows it. If he only re-assimilates the Crimea into Russia, the West can count itself fortunate. If Putin decides to intervene in Eastern Ukraine “to protect ethnic Russians,” the true weakness of the USA, NATO and Europe will be revealed. If Ukraine decides to fight, they may lose all of eastern Ukraine to Russia. Indeed, Russian tanks may roll right up to the Polish border. The Ukraine is in such a weak position militarily that their safest bet is to accept the loss of the Crimea. They still retain a base for the Ukrainian navy (what is left of it) at Odessa on the Black Sea. If the Ukraine had kept its arsenal of 1800 nuclear weapons at the end of the Cold War, this would be a different situation. Let this crisis be a lesson to all nations. Nations who unilaterally rid themselves of nuclear weapons become easy prey for nations that retain them. This is an example of the foolishness it would be for the USA to ever unilaterally disarm itself of nuclear weapons. Indeed, Russia has so many nukes yet that the USA would be crazy to reduce its own stockpile of nuclear weapons. The second link reports that a Russian state-approved TV commentator reminded the USA and the world that Russia is the only nation that can turn the USA into ashes. I saw this same report on one of the establishment US media’s news programs.
The USA is no longer able to mount any more military operations at present, and they certainly can’t sustain a military confrontation with Russia in Russia’s backyard. Also, the USA and Ukraine are having a hard time getting European nations to even cooperate on economic sanctions vs. Russia as European nations are dependent on Russian energy and export markets. The only reaction by the Obama administration to this Russian re-assimilation of the Crimea was the imposition of some piddling sanctions on a few Russian officials. That reaction was about as flaccid as a reaction could be, and it signals the weakness of the USA and the Obama administration to the entire world. The Russian Deputy Prime Minister openly mocked Obama’s almost meaningless response (third link), and Putin quickly responded to Obama’s sanctions vs. Russian individuals by preparing Russian sanctions against US Senators and other Americans-forbidding them to enter Russia (fourth link). If I lived in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia now, I’d be really nervous that NATO guarantees will be ignored by other NATO nations if Russian tanks move into those nations as well.
The plain truth is that the USA has no right to intervene in Ukraine. It has no treaty via NATO or any other venue that gives the USA any right or obligation to intervene in the Ukraine in any way. There are no vital US interests at stake in this crisis. The world is seeing Russia exercising the old-fashioned Cold War technique of using raw military power to accomplish an aim and seize territory. This should cause the Obama administration to abandon its plan to reduce the US army to pre-World War II levels if it has any sense at all. Russia’s military action in Crimea shows the old Cold War is coming back. The US needs to increase its military strength in light of Russian and Chinese militarism, not reduce it.
The USA has a very weak hand in this crisis. If Obama tries to do more vs. Russia in the way of sanctions, Russia can hurt Obama and the USA far more than the USA can hurt Russia. Remember that Russia is sitting on a treasure trove of the NSA’s American secrets brought to Moscow by Edward Snowden. Much of that information has not yet been released. Russia can tell Obama: if you do any more sanctions, we will release the covered-up information about your past that the NSA was safeguarding and what you did before you changed your name to Barack Hussein Obama. It can also cancel the overflight rights of the US military to resupply or withdraw its troops and equipment from Afghanistan over Russian airspace. If Russia persuades Pakistan to join them in denying any such overland or overflight rights, the USA has no way of getting its troops and equipment back to the USA from Afghanistan! Pakistan may be eager to join such an effort, particularly if Russia and China support Pakistan with military reinforcements. Pakistan is already seething at the USA re: American drone strikes within Pakistan that have killed lots of Pakistani civilians as “collateral damage.” Pakistan has already twice cut off US rights to resupply its forces in Afghanistan via any overland route. If this happened, the US forces would have no way out of Afghanistan other than fighting their way across Southern Pakistan to the Indian Ocean coast to stage an ignominious Dunkirk-like withdrawal to US ships. I warned about this possibility years ago in a post when I noted that it was folly for the USA to be in a war like that in Afghanistan where it sent in large forces without a truly secure means of reinforcement or retreat. Putin could also release to the world information about any insider corruptions and market manipulations of Wall Street that Edward Snowden brought to Moscow. Putin can also threaten any nation that joins the US sanctions with a cut-off of any access to the NSA’s secrets that Russia is surely strategically sharing with nations around the world behind closed doors.
Russia is very much in control of this crisis. The whole world sees it. Israel has warned about the consequences of the weakness of the Obama administration’s US policies re: Iran and Afghanistan (last link). As the USA shows weakness over and over again under Obama, it can only further motivate nations such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan and others to “go it alone” and build up their own militaries, build or increase nuclear weapons stockpiles and form new alliances as they realize they can not rely on the USA as long as Obama is president. China is rapidly building a modern military force to challenge the USA and many media reports indicate that China is amassing gold and silver in immense quantities (most likely to prepare a gold-backed Yuan to smash the dominance of the US dollar). Russia is on an expansive march militarily again. Iran is emboldened by the weakness of the West in confronting Iran’s nuclear program. Meanwhile, the USA oozes weakness and indecision and Obama announces plans to weaken the USA’s military even further. Obama is steadily leading the USA toward global irrelevancy. The US Congress, as usual, seems utterly comatose, and does nothing to stop Obama’s disastrous policies.
This crisis is graphically confirming that the Gog-Magog alliance, prophesied in Ezekiel 38 to include Russia, China and Iran in the latter days just prior to Divine intervention in human affairs, is in steady ascendancy and that the alliance of the modern nations descended from the ten tribes of Israel (the USA, the UK, many European nations, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and their allies) is in steady decline. If you have not ordered copies of my books that provide abundant evidence from secular historical sources that the above-named nations are the modern descendants of the ten tribes of Israel who never returned to the Holy Land to settle down, I urge you to do so. The books will be eye opening and will permanently alter the way you see world geopolitics and the Bible. You can order the E-book on this subject for an affordable $12.99 at the website to make an order easy on your budget. The ten tribes of Israel were prophesied to vastly multiply their populations after they went into exile (Hosea 1:10), become an empire that ruled over their former captors (that prophecy in Isaiah 14:2 happened when the Israelite empire of Parthia ruled over Assyria, Babylon and Persia for centuries and often defeated the Roman Empire in wars) and Genesis 49 offers clues for locating the nations of the ten tribes in our modern “latter day” period of time. My books examine those clues thoroughly and identify the ten tribes’ locations in the modern world. When the Parthians’ vast empire collapsed in the 3rd century AD, their refugees poured into Europe from the 3rd century onward and settled the modern nations of Europe as well as nations founded by European nations. The Romans called the Israelite Parthian refugees the Goths, Saxons, Germans, etc. The story of Parthia’s forgotten (and suppressed history) is the main subject of my book, Parthia: The Forgotten Ancient Superpower, which can be ordered separately if desired. Many Christians will enjoy this book as it examines what happened during Jesus Christ’s missing 18 years between age 12 and 30, and documents that the Wise Men/Magi who visited the Christ-child (Matthew 2) were Israelite Parthian nobility.
- http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/03/17/crimea-ukraine-russia-ron-paul-editorials-debates/6544163/
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/16/russian-tv-host-russia-is-the-only-country-with-capability-to-turn-u-s-into-radioactive-ashes/
- http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/03/russian-deputy-pm-laughs-at-obamas-sanctions/
- http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/178613#.UyiV_IU2Ma0
- http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/18/us-israel-usa-idUSBREA2H0SV20140318
