Ukraine and Russia: A New War
History Book Club
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
Southern Ukraine, Crimea and the Don Basin
Wednesday, April
27, 2022. History of Ukraine and the Dnieper and Don Rivers. "Believe me, you will acquire immortal fame such as
no other sovereign of Russia ever had,"
said Grigoriy Potemkin, a prominent adviser to Catherine the Great, when
offering the empress counsel in 1780 on plans to wrest Crimea away from Ottoman
suzerainty. "This glory will open the way to still further and greater glory."
Events in 2022 cast a spotlight on Russia and Ukraine. Read any book that
explores the rich history of this fertile land north of the Black Sea and south
of Russia. [Proposed by Mary Beth
Smith]
To start
to understand why Vladimir Putin waded into the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24,
2022, and brought forth worldwide reaction, financial damage to his nation, a
picture of cruelty and heartlessness like Stalin’s, and a demonstration of what
appears to be a hollowed-out, second-rate military, let us look at what
happened when the Soviet Union quietly fell apart without bloodshed in 1991.
All
during the Cold War there had been a sort of balance of power: NATO vs. Warsaw
Pact; Communist vs. Capitalist; Arab nations, generally sponsored by the USSR
and PRC, vs. Israel and Western Nations. When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991
most of us who had spent the Cold War studying Russia were amazed at how the
end came so quietly, and bloodlessly.
Then
in 1999 Poland joined NATO, and in the next few years more former Soviet bloc
nations joined. Fiona Hill of our
National Intelligence Council at the time recently wrote that in 2008 she
advised President George W. Bush not to let Ukraine and Georgia join because it
would make Russia feel like a caged lion.
He went ahead and supported the move anyway, even though other NATO
member leaders warned against it, and Russia openly objected.
American
and European motivation to let nations join NATO and the European Union was
simple: “The more the merrier!” But as Fiona Hill advised, it created the
situation of unbearable pressure against the wounded, rebuilding Russia. And
those Russians, Vladimir Putin in particular, looked back upon the vast Russian
Empire of the Tsars, the great Soviet Union, and saw these bit-by-bit events
intolerable.
In
2008 Putin sent troops to invade Georgia, with scant reaction from America or
European nations.
And,
in 2014 Putin quietly seized the Crimean peninsula and attempted to take the
Don Basin states of Luhansk and Donetsk, both largely populated with
Russian-speaking and oriented Ukrainians.
In
2014 Ukraine was governed by a Russia-friendly leader with a government known
for widespread corruption.
The
Soviet Union I knew years before, when I lived there in 1981-83 was riddled
with corruption, and that is why the end came so swiftly for the USSR. The men
who had bored deeply into segments of the Soviet economy began to grab huge
chunks and convert them into dollars. It
was a feeding frenzy, and greedy little men from all over the world came to
help pick over the spoils.
It
does not take a lot of imagination to discover that a man like Donald Trump would
somehow, someday, connect himself to this extravaganza of loose money. With people like Paul Manafort, and then Rudy
Giuliani and his Russian allies, it was a nice fit. It’s sad that even Joe
Biden’s son found his way into this money-grubbing feast.
All
this time, the corruption extended to all the former Soviet republics,
including Ukraine, with most leaders closely tied to Russia.
When
Putin sent men in unmarked uniforms into Crimea in 2014, the takeover was swift
and quiet. The United States, with
President Obama, and European Leaders expressed disapproval, but it became a
fait accompli. Russian invasion of the Donbas drew more ire, and plunged part
of Ukraine into a drawn-out local war, even resulting in shooting down of a
passing jetliner with loss of 298.
And
then, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Jewish comedian, was elected president. Ukraine
appeared to be pulling itself out of the corruption cesspool.
America’s undivided attention fell
upon Ukraine when President Trump was impeached for allegedly trying to
blackmail the new Ukrainian President. He was accused of threatening to
withhold $491 million in Javelin anti-tank missiles that Congress had
authorized for Ukraine, unless Zelenskyy announced he was investigating
corruption by President Biden’s son.
-end-
2022
Henry Ford
Wednesday, May 25, 2022.
Immigrants to America who have made a difference. Read and tell us
the story of an immigrant to the U.S. who has brought a wondrous addition to
his/her new nation. Perhaps the newcomers started a family of creative
Americans; perhaps they themselves made important advances. Look at Henry Ford,
Albert Einstein, Sergey Brin, Audrey Hepburn, Chinua Achebe, Cary Grant, Irving
Berlin, Nikola Tesla, more. [Proposed by Mary Beth Smith.]
Lincoln
Assassination
Wednesday, June 29, 2022. Assassinations and executions of leaders. Read the stories of how famous people were assassinated
and what came after. From modern times--- Anwar Sadat, Olaf Palme, Yitzhak
Rabin, Aldo Moro, Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, or Presidents Lincoln, Garfield,
McKinley, and Kennedy, or Franz Ferdinand, King of Albania, Nicholas II of
Russia, or earlier-- Henry VI, James III, Henry III, Julius Caesar.
[Proposed by Janos Posfai]
Ironclad USS Monitor, 1862
Wednesday, July 27, 2022. Game changing maritime
inventions. Read about the days of
ships propelled by sail, oars, coal or oil, paddle wheelers, steam engines, or
warships like dreadnought, submarines, aircraft carriers, or torpedoes,
propellers, chronometers, sextants, etc. [Proposed by Janos Posfai]
Wednesday, August 31, 2022. How Should We Deal with China? Let's dig into the history of China and try to learn how
the United States should approach China, in terms of human rights, trade
policy, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Global Warming, Nuclear Weapon Proliferation,
autonomous weapons, public health, and much more. We are tremendously
interdependent: should we continue to view China as an Opponent? [Proposed
by Bruce Frederick]
Ethel
and Julius Rosenberg
Wednesday, September 28, 2022. Trials of historical significance. Read about the Nuremberg
War Crimes Trials (1945-46), or the Trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (1951),
Burning of the Reichstag trial (1933), or the Trial of Galileo Galilei (1633), Martin Luther and the Diet of Worms,
(1521) (not what it sounds like), the Trial and Death of Socrates by Plato (399
BC), or many more. [Proposed by Janos Posfai]
