Crimean War Redux?

For a couple days now street hoodlums have been demonstrating outside the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. One wonders, indeed, whether the Georgians might have rented a chapter of Hells Angels. Meanwhile, American media continues its supine meltdown. Only in Europe can one find such clear, sensible commentary as this essay by Seamus Milne, columnist and associate editor at The Guardian. Things have a way of unraveling: Now Ukraine says it will block ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet from their home port of Sevastopol if they participate in actions against Georgia. The Russians, who lease Sevastopol's port until 2017 (a carry-over from the former Soviet Union), and who clearly wish to stay longer despite Ukrainian talk of throwing them out when the lease is up, are most unlikely to bend before Ukrainian threats. Talk coming from the Bush administration has been uniformly provocative, a mix of calculated insults and challenges. And Bush started "humanitarian aid" missions to Georgia. It's risky, because "humanitarian aid" is so frequently used as the thin edge of the wedge for military intervention in the post-Cold War world — all the players involved know that well and one thing easily leads to another. Anything might happen, for example, to an American "humanitarian" flight. A proxy mini-war with Russia over Georgia is bad enough. Getting directly involved is insane.