The Crimean Nexus
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
How the West sleepwalked into another Cold War
A native of Yalta, Constantine Pleshakov is intimately familiar with Crimea’s ethnic tensions and complex political history. Now, he offers a much-needed look at one of the most urgent flash points in current international relations: the first occupation and annexation of one European nation’s territory by another since World War II.
Pleshakov illustrates how the proxy war unfolding in Ukraine is a clash of incompatible world views. To the U.S. and Europe, Ukraine is a country struggling for self-determination in the face of Russia’s imperial nostalgia. To Russia, Ukraine is a “sister nation,” where NATO expansionism threatens its own borders. In Crimea itself, the native Tatars are Muslims who are vehemently opposed to Russian rule. Engagingly written and bracingly nonpartisan, Pleshakov’s book explains the missteps made on all sides to provide a clear, even-handed account of a major international crisis.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The West "sleepwalked" into the present Ukrainian crisis, according to policy analyst and Crimean native Pleshakov (There Is No Freedom Without Bread!). Ukraine unevenly influenced by European, Russian, and Turkic cultures became an unstable "state without a nation" after the Soviet Union's collapse. Advocates for NATO enlargement then stoked Russian resentment and insecurities over the "near abroad" regarded as their sphere of influence. Pleshakov lucidly outlines Ukrainian history and recent precarious status as an oligarch-dominated borderland. He asserts that America's clumsy intervention in Ukraine's 2013 14 political crisis prompted Russia's aggressive response. He then considers Crimea, a virtual island in the Black Sea, which was casually attached to Ukraine during the Soviet era. For Russians, Crimea is a "fetish," evoking strong cultural and historical associations and strategic ambitions for ports and pipelines. After presenting Russia's motivations, Pleshakov explains how it conquered Crimea in a "hybrid war" of commandos, cyber-attacks, and para-military groups that paralyzed the Ukrainian "failing state." Yet the Kremlin "miscalculated" by subsequently promoting the separatist insurgency in Ukraine's Donbass region, leading to sanctions and unleashing "violent rabble" who may someday threaten Putin. Pleshakov skillfully argues that NATO's ill-considered encouragement of pro-Western factions weakens the alliance by revealing its limited will and ability to respond to resulting crises.
