Kissinger on Ukraine

[renard_ruse]

Interesting analysis, but with the loonies we have running the "west" today, compromise is never on the table.

Resolving the Ukrainian crisis requires Moscow to accept that Ukraine will not again become its satellite, and for the West to accept that Ukraine is too integral to Russian civilization to be treated as just another independent country, Henry Kissinger wrote in a commentary published in The Washington Post.

Kissinger, 90, was U.S. secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. He is associated with the realpolitik school of political science, which prefers finding solutions based on diplomacy and power not ideology.

He warned against demonizing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Doing so is no basis for policy but is "an alibi for the absence of one," he wrote.

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On Ukraine, Kissinger cautioned against confrontation between Russia and the West.

"In my life, I have seen four wars begun with great enthusiasm and public support, all of which we did not know how to end and from three of which we withdrew unilaterally."

Do not force an "either-or" choice on the parties, Kissinger argued. "If Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other — it should function as a bridge between them."

"Ukraine can never be just a foreign country" to Russia, the former secretary of state wrote. It is where "Russian history began." It's "polyglot composition" means that "any attempt by one wing of Ukraine to dominate the other" would result in "civil war or breakup."

Ukraine has known only 23 years of independence and hundreds of years of foreign rule, he wrote. One part of the country is Russian-speaking and Orthodox Christian; the other is Catholic and Ukrainian-speaking.

The former diplomat offered four principles for diplomats wanting to defuse the crisis:
Let Ukraine choose its economic and political associations.
Don't bring the country into NATO.
Encourage Ukrainian leaders to create a system of government that reconciles its two parts.
Crimea mustn't be annexed to Russia; it needs autonomy within Ukraine.

Kissinger does not expect either side would find these principles to its absolute satisfaction.

"The test is not absolute satisfaction but balanced dissatisfaction," he wrote.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Henry-Kissinger-Vladimir-Putin-Ukraine-/2014/03/06/id/556366

 

[renard_ruse]

We need people like Nixon and Kissinger in office again. Where has sanity gone?

 

[BoyNextDoor]

We need people like Nixon and Kissinger in office again. Where has sanity gone?

Date: Wednesday, February 17, 1971 - 5:26pm - 5:53pm
Participants: Richard Nixon, John Ehrlichman
Location: Oval Office

John D. Ehrlichman∇: [0:02:07c] On the health business—

President Nixon: Yeah.

Ehrlichman: —we have now narrowed down the Vice President's problems on this thing to one issue and that is whether we should include these health maintenance organizations like Edgar Kaiser's Permanente thing.1 The Vice President just cannot see it. We tried 15 ways from Friday to explain it to him and then help him to understand it. He finally says, "Well, I don't think they'll work, but if the President thinks it's a good idea, I'll support him a hundred percent."

President Nixon: Well, what's the judgment?

Ehrlichman: Well, everybody else's judgment very strongly is that we go with it.

President Nixon: All right.

Ehrlichman: And he's the one holdout that we have in the whole office.

President Nixon: Say that I—I—I'd tell him I have doubts about it, but I think that it's--now let me ask you, now you give me your judgment. You know I'm not to keen on any of these damn medical programs.

Ehrlichman: This, let me tell you how I am on—

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: This is a—

President Nixon: I don't want [unclear]—

Ehrlichman: —private enterprise one.

President Nixon: Well, that appeals to me.

Ehrlichman: Edgar Kaiser is running his Permanente deal for profit. And the reason that he can—the reason he can do it—I had Edgar Kaiser come in, talk to me about this and I went into it in some depth. All the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make.

President Nixon: [Unclear.]

Ehrlichman: [Unclear] and the incentives run the right way.

President Nixon: Not bad. [0:03:39c]