Sunday, March 6, 2022

Prattville Dragoons SCV Camp 1524 Commander's Column for March 2022 - Parallels between the War for Southern Independence and the Ukraine War

The current war in Ukraine has drawn comparisons to the War for Southern Independence.  Compatriot Rob Schwartz stated as such in a Tweet recently.  Although Ukraine achieved independence from Russia with the breakup of the USSR in 1991, Russia has long sought to bring Ukraine back under the control and influence of Moscow if not as a state of Russia.  In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula and has since backed a rebellion led by pro-Russia separatists in the eastern region of Ukraine.  Pro-Western actions by Ukraine to tie the country more closely to the European Union economically and even NATO military defense has angered Russian leadership and prompted the invasion of their sovereign neighbor.  “Putin has said Ukrainians and Russians “were one people — a single whole.” “ (https://www.vox.com/22917719/russia-ukraine-invasion-border-crisis-nato-explained) While Ukraine has been an independent nation for thirty years before this , Putin’s War, whereas the Southern states in 1860 and 1861 only briefly claimed their independence before Lincoln launched his War, many statements and observations by pundits are strikingly reminiscent although the world’s collective reaction is much more accepting of the concept of freedom and independence today a century and a half after the War for Southern Independence. 

In a parallel with Putin supplying rebel forces in the eastern regions of Ukraine over the past decade and gathering 150,000 troops in Belarus and along the Ukrainian border in the months prior to the invasion on February 24, 2022, after South Carolina declared its independence in December 1860, Lincoln responded by attempting to resupply Union forces at Ft. Sumter on April 12, 1861 provoking a response from the independent sovereign Confederate forces in Charleston across the harbor.  “On April 15, 1861, just three days after the attack on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling forth the state militias, to the sum of 75,000 troops, in order to suppress the rebellion (as he viewed the Southern states in secession).”  (https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/civil_war/LincolnEmergencySession_FeaturedDoc.htm#:~:text=On%20April%2015%2C%201861%2C%20just,order%20to%20suppress%20the%20rebellion.)  Confederate President Jefferson Davis stated in an address to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery on April 29, 1861, “We seek no conquest.  All we ask is to be left alone.”   Union troops invaded Virginia and Missouri in June of that year.   Putin claimed the Ukraine government was guilty of genocide against the separatist rebel forces.  Four days after Putin’s forces invaded, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba appealed to the people of Russia and to the world, "Ukraine has not attacked anyone and does not plan to attack anyone. We want to live in peace."  Putin and Lincoln manufactured threats to justify or provoke aggression. 

Why the war in Ukraine?  President Zelensky was elected in 2019 and has proven to be more pro-Western than the Kremlin would like, seeking greater economic ties to the West and even EU membership.   Just as in all wars, one need only follow the money.  Ukraine is the breadbasket of eastern Europe.   The Southern states were the agricultural engine of the United States.  Critical strategic gas pipelines run thru Ukraine.  Putin cannot afford to allow Ukraine to form permanent strategic economic ties with the West including European Union membership at the expense of Russian influence and control.  Similarly, Lincoln's stated purpose for invading the Southern states was to collect his tariff revenues from the Southern ports.  Lincoln long espoused protectionist policies which required the agricultural goods and resources of the Southern states to fuel Northern industries and the captive populace of the Southern states as a market for the products manufactured in the Northern states.   (https://blogger.com/u/1/blog/post/edit/6229202435605220184/8458143139681021623 , https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln1/1:423.1?rgn=div2;view=fulltext )

Just as Lincoln prosecuted his “total war” and imprisoned critics, the Kremlin has banned social media inside Russia and arrested protestors.  Russia news media spews propaganda claiming Ukrainian genocide akin to the Lincoln administrations adoption of the emancipation and abolitionist crusade against the atrocity of slavery.   Oksana Markarova, Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., told reporters Saturday February 26th, "We are defending our homes, we are defending our families, we are defending democracy, we are defending our choice to be sovereign.”  (https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/russia-ukraine-invasion-war-donbas-kyiv-troops-today/)  Our Confederate ancestors fought and died in pursuit of independence to preserve the founders ideals of liberty and freedom and the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and in defense of their homes, families, states and their sovereign Confederate States of America.  US Rep. Waltz has stated Putin may start “Scorched-Earth' Attacks on Ukraine reminiscent of the punitive indiscriminate scorched earth campaign of Sherman’s March to the Sea.   US Sen Ldr McCarthy was quoted saying the Ukrainians "are fighting for their freedom" and using kitchen knives, Molotov cocktails, anything as they are outgunned by the Russian forces, the world’s second most powerful army (in terms of defense expenditures).  The Confederates were similarly outnumbered and outgunned, resorting to muskets and hand to hand combat against the Union forces superior in numbers and possessing the most advanced repeating guns and more artillery.

But today, 162 years after the Southern states attempted independence to form their Confederacy, with a century past of World Wars, a Cold War, the crumbling of the Soviet empire, and countless countries gaining their independence from colonialism and communism, world acceptance to the concept of self-determination and sovereignty is much greater whereas the Confederate States had much difficulty being recognized by the European nations of the Victorian era.  "One reason Ukraine’s fight has engendered such a strong emotional reaction is that there is something inherently stirring about a people defending their homeland from a would-be imperial overlord, and that’s fundamentally what’s happening on the ground in Ukraine. If anyone had any doubt that Ukraine has its own national identity, the early days of this war should have eliminated it. And another layer of national heroes and national lore is being created as we speak. Of course, Putin is appealing to nationalist sentiment and themes himself, but his case that Ukraine isn’t an independent nation is spurious, and he explicitly pines for a return to empire. His war trespasses against the norm of national self-determination established after World War II. The Latvian prime minister put the issue very well the other day, underlining how the struggle in Europe is between nation-states and a budding empire. The defense of true nationalism — i.e., self-governing peoples who don’t want to be swallowed up by countries seeking a return to supposed imperial grandeur — is going to be a key element of the West’s pushback against the Russia-China challenge in the years ahead."  (“Nationalism’s Finest Hour” by Rich Lowry of National Review)  As Jefferson Davis stated, "The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." 

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