When Russia sent its troops to Ukraine’s Crimea province purportedly to protect the Russian-speaking population in the region, the action reignited the second Cold War between Russia and the United States that actually began more than five years ago but eased in the last couple of years with the seeming cooperation between the two countries in negotiations with Iran and Syria over the use of nuclear and chemical weapons.
Whether the feud between the two superpowers would trigger a full-blown Cold War reminiscent of the 45-year battle of wits and guts would depend on how the US and the West would respond to an almost certain victory for Russia in the March 16 referendum in Crimea. The referendum, ordered by the pro-Russian Crimean parliament, would decide whether the Crimeans want their province to continue to be a part of Ukraine or become an independent state under the influence of Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long expressed his desire to revive the Soviet empire with the formation of a Eurasian Union similar to the European Union, made known his intentions in that region by sending Russian troops to Crimea last week and insisting Russia has the right to intervene in Crimea, where at least 60% of the population identify themselves as Russians.
On Sunday, Russian troops repulsed international monitors sent by the United Nations by firing warning shots in the air, clearly indicating that Russia will do anything to get back Crimea, which was given to Ukraine by the government of Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev in 1954.
Ukraine, particularly Crimea, is an important link to Putin’s dream of reviving the Soviet empire. Crimea hosts the Russian naval fleet in Sevastapol and is an important access to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Just as importantly, large oil and natural gas deposits have recently been discovered in the region, including Rumania and Ukraine. In fact, Ukraine was about to sign an exploration agreement with Exxon when the Ukrainian crisis broke out.
The crisis began when Ukraine President Victor Yanukovych pulled out of a proposed agreement for closer ties with the European Union. Immediately, massive anti-Russian demonstrations were held in the country’s Independence Square that escalated into bloody clashes and forced Yanukovych to flee. On February 25, the Ukraine Parliament named Olexander Turchynov as interim president and ordered the arrest of Yanucovych, who surfaced in Russia on February 27.
On March 1, the Russian Parliament authorized Putin to send troops to Crimea ostensibly to protect the Russians living there. US President Barack Obama denounced the Russian intervention, saying Putin’s action was a violation of international laws. He also threatened Russia with sanctions and isolation.
Thus began a new round of confrontation between the two superpowers, reviving the 45-year Cold War. But the second Cold War took its roots in 2008 during the Venezuelan crisis. In an article on September 22, 2008 entitled “The Second Cold War,” I wrote:
“The dispatch by Moscow of the nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great and three other ships to Venezuela on Monday has made the resurgence of the Cold War between the United States and Russia imminent, if it has not actually began. As in the original Cold War, which began with the fall and split of Germany in World War II in 1945 and ended with the break-up of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany in 1990, Latin America is turning out to be an important battleground for the two superpowers.
“Russia has recently intensified its contacts with Venezuela — an oil-rich nation that has been a pain in the neck for the US — Cuba and other South American nations following the heightening of tensions between the two superpowers in the dispute over Georgia. The incident brings to mind the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 when the world came closest to a nuclear war, and which ended when American President John F. Kennedy and United Nations Secretary General U Thant reached an agreement with Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev to dismantle Soviet missiles in Cuba in exchange for a no-invasion agreement and the removal of US missiles in Turkey.
“The emerging new Cold War is starting in almost the same manner as the old one. In 1945, shortly after Germany surrendered to the Allies and was split into West and East Germany, Russia, fearing another invasion from Western Europe after Germany had tried to invade it three times in the last 150 years, formed a buffer zone from Western Europe by exerting its might over what later became known as the Iron Curtain – Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania. These countries, along with the Soviet Union, formed the Warsaw Pact, the formation of which was in response to the formation of the United States-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
“With the Soviets ready to extend its sphere of influence to Greece and Turkey in 1947 – with the Greeks in the midst of a civil war and the Turks needing help to modernize its society — then US Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson called on Congress to come to the assistance of the two countries, arguing that if these countries fall into the hands of the communists, the neighboring nations would also subsequently fall. This later became known as the Domino Theory.
“Thus, the Cold War intensified as the two major victors of the Second World War raced to claim the spoils of war. The Cold War was characterized by satellite wars, foremost of which were the Korean War and the Vietnam War. The score was tied in the Korean War, with Korea being divided into North and South Korea, but the communists prevailed in the Vietnam War, with Hanoi overpowering Saigon after the US abandoned its ally.
“The Cold War also saw the emergence of the Nuclear Arms Race, with both the Soviets and the Americans battling to have more and superior nuclear bombs; the Space Race, which was dominated by the Soviets early on until the Americans beat them to the moon; the close calls to disaster during the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis; and the calming policy that came to be known as détente.
“The Cold War put the world constantly on the edge of fear and devastation for 45 years while the two superpowers expanded their spheres of influence to wide parts of the globe and threatened to annihilate each other.
“…A couple of years later, the arms race came to an end and Gorbachev abandoned the Brezhnev Doctrine, which declared that no satellite country in Eastern Europe would be allowed to defect. Within months, democratic movements emerged in these Iron Curtain countries and their authoritarian governments fell one by one, ironically like dominoes. The Cold War ended where it started, with the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the reunification of the two Germanys.
“With Russia now trying to create another buffer zone around its southern borders, and the United States racing to exert influence over these former Soviet republics around the Caspian Sea, which incidentally hold a huge reserve of oil and natural gas and host major oil pipelines to the East and to Central Asia, it was inevitable that history would repeat itself.
“… Unlike the first Cold War, the Second Cold War is not a race for political influence but is a battle for the world’s dwindling oil and gas reserves. It is not coincidental that it started in an area where vast oil and gas reserves sit – the Caspian Sea region. And it’s not merely symbolic that Russia has decided to intensify it by sending a part of its naval fleet to oil-rich Venezuela.
“The Second Cold War’s satellite wars will not be fought in Korea or Vietnam, but is now being fought in Iraq and soon in Iran, both oil-producing countries. Don’t expect rebellions and skirmishes in Cuba. They will occur in oil-producing countries, such as Venezuela, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and possibly the oil-rich region of Brunei, Indonesia, the Spratlys in the China Sea, and Mindanao.”
Add Ukraine, which is rich on loil and gas deposits, to that list now.
This new version of the Cold War would be more troubling for the world because Xi Jin-ping, the new leader of China – Russia’s resurgent ally – shares the same dream of Putin – to revive the glory of ancient China. Because of this, the world should beware of the emerging Russian-Chinese alliance, which could be the modern counterpart of the German-Japan alliance of World War II.
It is even more troubling for the Philippines, which is now locked in dispute over the oil-rich Spratlys archipelago in the South China Sea. With the focus and forces of its biggest ally and defender, the United States, divided between containing Russia and China, the Philippines has so much at stake in the current crisis unfolding in the Ukraine.
We can expect China to intensify its bullying in the coming weeks.
(valabelgas@aol.com)
