Our respective borders.
We are reasonably invasion-proof. Racist-based paranoia aside, even in 1942, it was pretty clear to rational thinkers that Japan couldn't mount an invasion of the United States. Besides the oceans, there is a major desert in northern Mexico, and some not-insignificant mountainous terrain. Getting the Southwest and Texas out of Mexican hands pushed any invasion from the south back across that terrain. While the Canadian border is relatively open across much of its length, the Canadians don't have the resources to mount an invasion, so any allies would have to cross the oceans.
In short, geography has given us security.
That is not the case for Russia. There are no major geographic obstacles between Moscow and Paris, other than some rivers. Three times in the last three centuries, European armies have attempted to conquer Russia.* The only defense that geography offers Russia against invasion from the west is distance.
If you understand that, then you understand why the Russians were pleased when the Yanukovych government tilted away from the EU. If you understand that, you will understand why the Russians viewed the addition of Poland and the Baltic states to NATO as a threat to their own security.
Beyond that, as we have shown little hesitation to bring about regime change by using our own military when it suits our purposes, it gripes me to hear the whining from clowns ranging from John Kerry to John McCain when somebody else does it.
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* 18th Century- Sweden. 19th Century- France. 20th Century- Germany. I rather doubt that the Russians have forgotten that the Ukrainians sided with the Swedes.
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Tuesday, March 4, 2014
4 comments:
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"The only defense that geography offers Russia against invasion from the west is distance."
ReplyDeleteNot quite true. In addition to the vast space, they have the advantage of what happens for a huge part of the year in that vast space, a nasty phenomenon called Russian Winter. It bogs invaders down and freezes them to death, while their supply lines are cut from the rear and the harvests have vanished from the scorched earth.
You don't believe me? Ask Napoleon and Hitler.
Yours very crankily,
The New York Crank
I must disagree. That's a matter of climate, not geography.
ReplyDeleteI would up the invasion count to four. Both the Kaiser and the Fuhrer invaded Russia in the 20th century. While I admit that the Russians are not paranoid, creating buffer zones between Russia and Europe by conquering Poland (twice) and Ukraine is evil.
ReplyDeleteThe Ukrainians also sided with Hitler in World War II. The Waffen SS had some Ukrainian divisions, perhaps in response to the Holomodor in which Stalin starved the Ukraine, killing over a quarter of the population.
Al_in_Ottawa
Perhaps 5, since the Ottoman Empire got help from most of the rest of Europe in the 1850's in the Crimean War. Crimea was occupied, and was certainly Russian at the time. That is an invasion. On the whole, Russian paranoia is quite rational.
ReplyDeleteThe question that comes to mind is have we, perhaps, reached the limit of expansion of countries. If we continue to subdivide countries into new countries, we will run into more and more cases of non-viable countries created because a couple of tribes can't get along. Maybe consolidation is going to be the story of the 21st Century?