Black Sea Wars by Pat Buchanan

Mr. Buchanan is right on target regarding the danger of expanding NATO power into the Black Sea region. His view that Obama believes in entente with Russia maybe over stating. The previous Bush administration miscalculated Russia's firm position against further NATO expansion in its own backyard. To save face from backing down, they passed it on to the next administration who now has no leverage and no alternative but to give in. However, you can count on this administration to continue the same anti-Russian policy as the previous if they get the chance. - TRP

Black Sea Wars

by Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)
Posted 09/22/2009 ET

In August, the Georgian navy seized a Turkish tanker carrying fuel to Abkhazia, Georgia's former province whose declaration of independence a year ago is recognized by Russia but not the West.The Turkish captain was sentenced to 24 years. When Ankara protested, he was released. Abkhazia has now threatened to sink any Georgian ship interfering in its "territorial waters," but it has no navy. Russia, however, has a Black Sea Fleet and a treaty of friendship with Abkhazia, and has notified Tbilisi that the Russian coast guard will assure, peacefully, the sea commerce of Abkhazia. Read more...

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of "The Death of the West,""The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

A review of 2008 and the future of 2009

If I can summarize the events of 2008 it would be with one phrase: "Global Economic Crisis." Some of us have been predicting this for a long time. One of my colleagues several years ago predicted the collapse of Western power. His reason was based on the simple fact that the U.S./Western system was victorious over the communist system because it practiced free market principles, whereas the communist system could not compete. When communism fell, many of the former communist countries embraced free market capitalism while the U.S. and the E.U. have in practice become more socialist. Therefore, it is logical to conclude that if you believe in the free market system and, capitalism, then you must also conclude that when you depart from those principles the economy will ultimately fail. Even in the United States, where Republicans embrace the ideology of the free market system, the Republicans themselves took charge with expanding the size of the U.S. government and its socialist system. Even the republican President Bush himself "apologized" for his "abandonment of free market principles," after enacting the greatest government intervention of the economy in U.S. history.

I once had the opportunity to meet Newt Gingrich in Washington back in 2005. He predicted privately, that the Republican controlled Congress would be defeated and the Republicans may also lose the White House. Gingrich's reasoning was that the Republicans would be punished because they departed from the free market principles of capitalism which would lead to failure and make it easier for the Democrats to criticize their performance.

Interestingly, there are economic experts who have been warning all of us that the U.S. economy could collapse if its continues on its departure from capitalism. One of those experts is Peter Schiff, an advocate of the Austrian or "Vienna School" of economics has been warning the public since 2006. Both left-wing ideologues and pro-Bush Republicans ridiculed him on Fox News and other news programs. Now both sides are taking him seriously. This video below shows his accurate economic predictions as far back as 2006.


Despite the global economic crisis, 2008 can also be characterized by the following events:

• Independence of Kosovo - Metohija. U.S. policy set a dangerous precedent with the declaration of independence of Kosovo, which was also recognized by mostly Western states. Most of the rest of the world including some members of the EU have and do not plan to recognize Kosovo. The Eurasian powers led by Russia (See map of countries recognizing Kosovo independence) have strongly resisted recognition. It is also worth noting that as of this writing, there are still four members of NATO that have not recognized Kosovo, further demonstrating that the U.S. has become less relevant globally.
• The Georgian-Russian War led to the failure of the U.S. experiment in Georgia and complete destruction of Georgian military by the Russian military. Russia previously resisted recognizing Ossetia and Abkhazia based on Russia's policy to not change borders of recognized states. The outcome of this event was a severe blow to both U.S. influence in the Caspian Sea area and NATO's presence in former Soviet space. One can conclude, that the recognition of the break-away republics inside Georgia is irreversible and was a direct result of the U.S. policy to recognize Kosovo.
• Russia's reassertion to break away from communism was symbolized with the the loss of two important figures in shaping the new destiny of Russia. His Holiness Alexy II, the Patriarch of "All the Russias" passed away leaving a legacy of reestablishing religious freedom in Russia and for re-unification of the Russian Orthodox Church. His leadership in uniting the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad helped to reconcile the splits amongst the Russian people dating back to communism. Another was the loss of a great dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who once was living in exile, returned to live the rest of his life in his Russian Homeland. Both were recognized and decorated by then President Vladimir Putin for their contributions to the Russian people.
• Deployment of the "Home Mission" military force inside the United States was barely noticed in the "commentariat," (U.S. media). An entire combat brigade from the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry has been deployed to the U.S. in case of civil unrest. The new U.S. military strategy of "Strategic Shock" to deal with internal threats caused by civil unrest was also revealed raising fears that the U.S. is preparing for a future crisis.

These important events of 2008 will definitely define the future of 2009. Unfortunately, the same analysts who correctly predicted the economic crisis of 2008, have even grimmer predictions for 2009. We all know that economies are cyclic. Many times in U.S. history, the economy boomed and other times it was in depression. What will happen to the world's greatest economy in 2009? Some say it will be a repeat of 1929 when the U.S. experienced the Great Depression. Others say it will resemble more like 1979, a recession that followed by a strong revival. However, my prediction is that the U.S. will experience an event similar to 1989. What happened in 1989? The collapse of the Soviet economy which resulted in its break up into separate countries. All three events have one thing in common, and that is that state intervention in the economies was the main cause of these events. However, the U.S. capitalist system always corrected the problems itself from the free market. In the USSR however, it was different. The Soviet socialist state intervention contributed to its demise. Likewise the U.S. government's interventions and state bailouts will also contribute to its own economic failure similarly as did the USSR.

The entire world has been impacted by the economic crisis. Countries that adhere to free market principles will eventually recover as did the U.S. in 1929 and 1979. However, the U.S. has made a departure from capitalism. The U.S. elite have a common belief that governments can solve any problems by just pouring money on them. Once the greatest manufacturer on Earth, the U.S. transformed itself into a service economy that is driven by consumerism rather than creating tangible goods. U.S. economic system has become a gigantic "Ponzi"scheme. Basically, the government spends and borrows money from foreign creditors. Countries like China, Saudi Arabia and Russia will stop providing credits because the U.S. cannot pay all this debt back. Nor can the creditors continue providing this credit as the dollar loses its value. Therefore to solve this problem, the U.S. will just print more cash. This will surely result in hyper inflation (like the USSR experienced) and eventually cripple the U.S. economy entirely.

How rest of the world recovers or not from this crisis will ultimately depend on the directions they make in their own policies and how the the global economic system redefines itself. Will they pursue sound conservative economic policies or will they experiment with socialism and printing more money. One thing is for certain in 2009. The new Obama Administration will bring about no change nor does Obama have any magic tricks to cope with the problems of hyper-inflation.

The other big question is if Russia can remain on course with its free market economic development. The Russian economy is also impacted and the demise of the U.S. economy is not a good scenario for Russia in the short-term. Russia has emerged as a significant energy supplier for the United States but is in the process of establishing more markets in the so called emerging markets of Asia. Certainly Russia may experience a "bump" on its road to economic development, much like the U.S. system had various times in its history. Although Moscow has lots of work to do, the biggest difference between the U.S. and Russia, is that Russia has reduced its size of government, lowered taxes, and has huge reserves of cash. On the other hand, the U.S. has expanded its government (thus increasing incompetence), and has accumulated huge debt that will certainly lead to hyper-inflation and possible civil unrest.

2009 shall be an interesting year.

McBamma's foreign policy on Russia

This posting was written after grappling with many of my friends and family on the difference between a McCain or Obama foreign policy. We all know where the Democrats stand on Russia. As for the Republicans it gets confusing. Ideologically, Putin and Medvedev are closer to the Republicans. However, Putin for the last eight years seemed to be embracing free market principles taken out of the playbook of Reagan while his counterpart George W. Bush seems to be using Lenin's playbook. Now where would a McCain presidency stand?

When the Russians pulled their forces out of Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall, they were in a state of Euphoria. The Russians no longer had to worry about security anymore based on the US promises they would likewise not move NATO closer to Russia's borders. It was in agreement that marked the end of the Cold War. However, the Clinton Admin reneged and decided to move NATO closer to Russia's borders despite promises. The US sensed the Russians during the Yeltsin days were too weak to do anything. To add insult to injury, the US decided first to use NATO forces to strike against the Serbs in Bosnia and later in 1999, against Russia's wishes to bomb Serbia and take Kosovo-Metohija from the Serbs.

I remember when Bush W. debated with Gore in 2000 on this issue. Gore must have really thought he had Bush check mated during the debates on this subject. If you were watching the debates you just knew he was thinking that Bush would sound silly trying to debate the "Gore the Expert." However, when Gore asked Bush W. what he would do in regards to Kosovo, Bush properly replied (convincing enough to earn my support) that this is Russia's sphere of influence not ours. I was over joyed to hear Bush answer this since this would mark a 180 degree turn from the Clinton years. However, was I ever wrong on this one! As we know now, Bush W. even recognized the independence of Kosovo despite Serbia's friendship to Bush and against Russia's wishes. I spent many meetings in the White House with the official delegations from the Serbian Orthodox Church to no avail on this subject.

What happened with Bush's change of heart? Going back to 2000, Bush and Putin embarked on a good friendship. Back in 2000, Putin correctly warned Bush that the greatest threat to security for both countries was the terrorist threats from the Middle East. He even proposed a new security agreement that would make Russia and the US the leaders in the war against terrorism. However, Rumsfeld and others laughed at this and continued to push NATO expansion (like Clinton) and to leave the earlier agreements in place that Reagan implemented with Gorbachev. At this time, they still did not take Osama Bin Laden serious. Then came September 11. Putin was right. This was the bigger threat, but the Bush Admin failed to address it earlier. I was puzzled about this since when I was an officer in the US Army, we were quite aware of where the presence of Islamic terrorists in Bosnia but did nothing to interfere with them. Serbs warned us on numerous occasions that Al Qaida would attack us eventually while our people would laugh at them thinking the Islamic extremists were no threat. They were wrong on that! After 9-11, the Russians reminded the US about this and even came to help the US by securing the border of Afghanistan with Russian troops stationed in the "stans" of Central Asia. Even today logistics for US troops are supported by Russia in Central Asia. But for some reason, Bush W. decided to embark on the same play book created by Bill Clinton. He moved NATO even closer to Russia's borders and more recently Bush recognized the illegal independence of Kosovo, an integral territory within Serbia. This was a blow to Russia. Russia was under great pressure to recognize Abkhazia and Ossetia despite but chose not to, even though it would be a popular decision to do so in Russia. Russia stuck to the principle of no border changes making Kosovo a stand on this principle. However, when Georgia which was armed by the U.S., attacked Ossetia and began killing Russian peace keepers, Russia had to change the playing field.

Unfortunately, Senator McCain is also using the same play book and is connected to the government of Georgia through lobbying. Like the pro-Georgian Vice President Cheney on this issue, McCain is wrong - dead wrong . Not only is he wrong, he is supporting the same policies of Bill Clinton which policies will not achieve anything for the United States anyway. The U.S. should not support loose cannon countries and even more so, should not allow these countries to join NATO. Just imagine if a year ago, Cheney got his way and Georgia was allowed to join NATO. That would mean the U.S. would have to provide a defense guarantee to Georgia and be forced to either launch a war to defend Georgia against Russia or risk the collapse of NATO! Is Georgia worth a war against Russia? I think not. The mistake that led to this debacle was the Bush Administration which was following the Clinton Administration's policies by recognizing Kosovo. This caused severe damage to the world order and will impact negatively for decades to come.

Unfortunately Barak Obama is no better. I also cannot help to remember some of my old history lessons about how the Russian Empire fell to communism. The Bolsheviks also supported the Georgians and Ukrainians against Russia! History is repeating itself, only the power base of the Bolsheviks is located on the other side of the ocean. This is insane.