Tut I Tam:  Another Betrayal

By Dr. Myron Kuropas

The September 17 decision of the United States to scrap a missile defence-agreement the Bush administration negotiated with Poland and the Czech Republic should send a clear signal to Ukraine that Russia is still calling the shots in Eastern Europe.

      Like it or not, America kicked the people of Poland and the Czech Republic to the side of the curb.  In the words of a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial,   “Both governments took huge political risks - including the ire of their former Russian overlords - to accommodate the United States, which wanted the system to defend against a possible Iranian missile attack”.   “Next time,” concluded the WSJ, the West can be seduced into trading away the pro-Western government of Georgia, or even Ukraine.”

Some have argued that the U.S. betrayal was quid-pro-quo for Russia’s future support in reining-in Iran’s growing nuclear threat.  Unfortunately, there is not a shred of evidence to support this conclusion.  Russia is still shipping armaments to Tehran, and, according to Russian officials quoted in the WSJ, “Russia’s interests in Iran are so wide-ranging that any serious pressure on Iran by Russia is out of the question.”

Anyone familiar with history knows that Western betrayal of Eastern Europe is par for the course.  Mention Munich and the word “appeasement” pops up.  Recall that in 1938, France, Britain and Italy reached a settlement with Adolf Hitler permitting Germany’s annexation of Czechoslovakia’s German-populated Sudetenland.   Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister at the time, returned from Munich promising “peace in our time.” Hitler annexed all of Czechoslovakia the following year and, August 23, 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was concluded. A secret protocol allowed for the division of Poland between Germany and the USSR.  Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, Joseph Stalin on September 17. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were overrun by the Red Army in 1940.  The West eventually reacted militarily but not before Hitler overran most of Western Europe.

Far greater treachery was demonstrated during World War II.  American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with Stalin at Yalta in February of 1945.  During the conference, FDR opened the door to post-war Soviet control of the East European nations “liberated” by the Soviet forces during World War II.  It is now clear that Soviet agents such as Alger Hiss, who accompanied FDR to Yalta, and high-ranking Roosevelt administration officials such as Harry Dexter White and Lauchlin Currie were agents of the Soviet Union.

The Yalta Agreement also included provisions for the return to the USSR of displaced persons, by force if necessary. The resulting “Operation Keelhaul” remains one of the most contemptible Western actions of the post-war period. 

A similar pattern of Western betrayal was pursued during the Cold War when the Hungarians revolted against their Soviet occupiers in 1956, and in 1968 when the communist armies of the Warsaw Pact nations, led by the Soviet Army, invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the liberal changes instituted during the Prague Spring. 

President George W. Bush acknowledged these calamitous travesties while speaking in Riga, Latvia, on May 7, 2005. “The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”, declared the American President.  “We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations - appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability.”  One can only wonder if the present American administration appreciates the significance of these words.  I fear not.        

Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin and Dimitry Medvedev, Russia is resurrecting the centuries-old Muscovite ideal of the “Third Rome”.    Whether under the czars or the commissars, the “Russian Way” has been predicated on three motivating principles:  autocracy, orthodoxy and Russian chauvinism or narodnichestvo.  “Russia is obsessed with being recognized as a ‘Great Power’”, wrote Harvard emeritus professor Richard Pipes in the WSJ last August.   A great power Russia means bye-bye Ukraine.    At a NATO meeting in Bucharest in 2008, Putin told President Bush: “You don’t understand, George...Ukraine is not a state.  What is Ukraine?  Part of the territory is Eastern Europe, but the greater part is a gift from us.” Ukraine, in other words, is nothing more than Little Russia for Putin and most Russians.

In fairness to the Obama administration, it should be remembered that Vice-President Joe Biden promised to continue Bush administration policy supporting Ukraine’s membership in the European Union.  I hope this commitment holds.

Even if Kyiv overcomes its present political difficulties and creates a stable government - improbable but not impossible - can we be confident that the West will accept Ukraine into the EU if Russia continues to rattle its imperialist sabr?  If the past is prologue to the future, the answer is no.