Love of country/tribe will prevent recreation of USSR.
With Vladimir Putin having bloodlessly annexed Crimea and hinting that his army might cross the border to protect the Russians of East Ukraine, Washington is abuzz with talk of dispatching U.S. troops to Eastern Europe.
But unless we have lost our minds, we are not going to fight Russia over territory no president ever regarded as vital to us.
Indeed, should Putin annex Eastern and Southern Ukraine all the way to Odessa, he would simply be restoring to Russian rule what had belonged to her from Washington’s inaugural in 1789 to George H. W. Bush’s inaugural in 1989.
This is not an argument for ignoring Russia’s conduct.
But it is an argument for assessing what is vital and what is not, what threatens us and what does not and what is the real deterrent to any re-establishment of the Soviet Empire.
Before we start sending troops back to Europe, as we did 65 years ago under Harry Truman, let us ask ourselves: Was it really the U.S. Army, which never crossed the Elbe or engaged in battle with the Red Army, that brought down the Soviet Empire and dissolved the Soviet Union?
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