Would eastern and western Ukraine be better off going their separate ways? (user search)
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  Would eastern and western Ukraine be better off going their separate ways? (search mode)
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Question: Would eastern and western Ukraine be better off going their separate ways?
#1
Yes
 
#2
No
 
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Total Voters: 89

Author Topic: Would eastern and western Ukraine be better off going their separate ways?  (Read 20267 times)
muon2
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« on: February 23, 2014, 06:16:07 PM »

Ukraine, like many of the former Soviet republics, was an artificial construct of the USSR. The Crimea and Black Sea coast was not historically Ukrainian, but instead shifted from Tatar to Russian in the late 18th century. Note that much of modern Ukraine was for a long time under Polish rule, and only became whole to the west after WWII.



The coast was attached to Ukraine for administrative purposes when Ukraine became part of the USSR. When the USSR collapsed the existing pieces of the union became independent countries, even when there was no historical basis for many of those states with those borders. The language map below shows the percent native Ukrainian speakers and is indicative of the historical Ukraine.


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muon2
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« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2014, 07:12:51 PM »

The defense of the current borders seems to ignore the much more important geopolitical reality. Russia conquered the Crimea to gain access to the Black Sea. They built their southern naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea. Until the Russian Revolution no one would have thought of Crimea as part of Ukraine and even today there are few Ukrainians there. When the USSR collapsed Ukraine inherited Crimea through its USSR administrative borders, borders that had only existed for about 80 years.

I have a hard time seeing a scenario where Russia can risk one of their most important military assets having anything other than clear control by Russia. This should have been resolved in 1991 at the collapse of the USSR, and indeed the subject of Sevastopol came up among some experts back then. But the chaos of the collapse and the West's joy at the end of the Russian communist state set aside any thought of allowing Ukraine to gain independence through a rational new set of boundaries. Russia was left with a lease agreement that I think will continue to chafe until this issue is permanently resolved.
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muon2
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« Reply #2 on: February 23, 2014, 07:38:31 PM »

Plenty of American military bases in countries that are not America (like the one I reside in), despite the Cold War having ended.

But none of those were historically part of America and got chopped off due some internally drawn boundary. The one notable exception would be Guantanamo Bay, which the US gained in the Spanish-American war prior to Cuban independence. I don't see any scenario where the US would let Cuba exert any real sovereignty there, either.
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muon2
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« Reply #3 on: February 24, 2014, 08:03:00 AM »


The South... That is another story. Part of that story is a major population change in fairly recent history. You know, Odessa was mostly Jewish not that long ago...

Crimea, of course, is most obvious victim of population change. Stalin kicked out the native Tartars and replaced them with Russians. There are few Ukrainians there, it is true. But there is a non-Ukrainian group there that is vehemently pro-Ukrainian (and, actually, anti-Russian): the Tartars. Throughout the Soviet years they fought to be allowed back - though relatively few made it. As the Soviet Union was breaking up, they came under further pressure in Central Asia where they had been living in exile (there were some nasty pogroms there) - and Ukraine let them back. They may be under 15% of the population in Crimea - but they are the natives. And they will fight to keep their land Ukrainian.

So it sounds like Stalin expels the Tatars and replaces them with Russians. A decade later Khrushchev shifts this Russian population into the Ukrainian SSR. If this were US politics it would look like a classic gerrymander to move a block of favorable residents (Crimean Russians) into a district with less reliable residents (Ukrainians).
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muon2
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« Reply #4 on: February 25, 2014, 03:38:55 PM »

For those arguing in favour of the split can you please look at this map...



And explain to me what would have been - on the basis of the map - an appropriate way of splitting that country into coherent units in 1913?

And then once that is done, try and think of a mechanism of how such a split could have come about in a realistic alternative history.

If I disregard the number of German enclaves in A-H outside of Austria proper or adjacent to Germany, the linguistic groups are pretty well segregated. One problem was that the US backed off of its original promise through Wilson's 14 Points that "The people of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development." The note by Secretary of State Lansing in Oct 1918 superseded the 14 Points and essentially led to the recognition of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia to help allied groups fighting the Central powers. Without that, and just the 14 Points one can imagine a timeline where the US does not support the Corfu Declaration and allows Serbs, Croats and Slovenes to each seek their own independence, while the Czechs and Slovaks could go their own separate ways in the north. Galicia (Western Ukraine) would be given the autonomy to either become independent or unite with the east, rather than mandate their consolidation into Poland.
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muon2
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« Reply #5 on: February 25, 2014, 06:35:26 PM »


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Ah, you may not realize this but you are engaging in that classic American historiographical trope of arguing that all the world's problems might have been different had only AMERICA taken the right course.

Of course, that's nonsense as is this argument. America had no way of enforcing Central European land boundaries - the boundaries that were 'fixed' by post-war treaties were often ad hoc justifications for land grabs that had already taken place (How else can you explain Transylvania?). As for allowing Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia to go their separate ways - you do realize that was contradictory to Serbian war aims from the beginning of 1914 - you know, the country that started the war. Across what became Yugoslavia guerilla warfare was fought in support of 'Greater Serbia'. Where those borders lay - or how 'Serbs' could genuinely be identified (and Serbia's government at the time identified Croats as 'Crypto-Serbs' or Serbs that didn't know they were Serbs) - remember they all spoke the same language in effect - was hardly clear. Your scenario would have led to a much great bloodbath probably ending with British and French intervention to lord knows what effect. (But probably with Italy annexing large parts of what's now the Slovenian and Croatian Coast)

Well the previous post had asked to envision a timeline whereby a hypothetical split other than RL happened. I used memories of my 1970's education and the given map to flesh out just such a scenario. Since my education was from the US during the Cold War, perhaps you can forgive me some biases. Perhaps my recollection is faulty from those biases, but I was led to believe that the US had a larger role in dealing with A-H than the other Allies whose aims were more strongly directed at Germany in the aftermath of the war, and Russia which was most engaged in the eastern theater was in the midst of its own internal upheavals. And yes, I know that Serbia's desire for a greater land was a big factor historically, but I wanted Wilson's optimism to overshadow it for this alternate reality.

How would you have dealt with A-H upon the conclusion of WWI? Would you contend that the historical result was best?
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muon2
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« Reply #6 on: February 27, 2014, 01:56:03 PM »

Re the Crimea situation it ought to be noted Crimea was never a part of Ukraine before the 1950s.

Soviets loved to play with the borders.

Crimea was an Autonomous Soviet Republic before WW II, thus neither part of Russia nor of Ukraine. It only became part of Russia in 1944, and was transferred to Ukraine in 1954.
In Tsarist times, Crimea was part of the Taurida Governorate, which also included coastal parts on the opposite mainland. Until 1783, it was an independent Khanat.


Of the three possible claims (Independence, Ukrainian, Russian), the Russian one is historically clearly the weakest.

I don't follow this last statement of yours. Independence presumably refers to the Crimean Khanate from 1441 to 1783 and Russian from 1783 to 1992. Where is the Ukrainian claim other than since 1991? I wouldn't count the Kievan Rus from the Middle Ages since Russia can claim connection back to the Rus of the Middle ages as well.
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muon2
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« Reply #7 on: February 27, 2014, 06:49:00 PM »

In that case I think we would agree that some type of autonomous status has the highest claim. If Crimea as defined by the old ASSR were independent would that calm Russian concerns about an EU-leaning Kiev?
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muon2
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« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2014, 09:24:52 AM »

This discussion shows how impotent both the US and NATO, and the EU and affiliates are in all of this. The US has no leverage whatsoever; Non-US NATO and the EU have substantial leverage, but they won't use it because the results are unsavory and it costs too much. All we have left is to discuss fairytale contingencies.

The US has more leverage then anybody else. If it chooses to use it.

I feel like we lost a lot of that leverage by not recognizing the geopolitical reality a week ago. By waiting until Russia acted, our reaction puts us in overt opposition with a weaker diplomatic hand. The stronger position would have been to use the leverage (economic and diplomatic) when Russia's primary goal and outcome were clear, but events on the ground still provided space for dialog.
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