Ukraine Crisis Undermines US Interests Around the World

Western media and government focus on the crisis in Ukraine displays a dangerously Eurocentric myopia. Similar crises in Venezuela and Thailand go nearly ignored while disproportionate attention is given to the story unfolding in Crimea and Kiev. There is no objective basis for this imbalance and, in fact, it represents a kind of political disorder.

Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta is likely to struggle to keep Romania’s recent growth trajectory intact, thanks to tough IMF bailout terms and the departure of the center-right from his coalition government. Yet political stability in Romania, the second-poorest country in the EU, is vital to sustaining Europe’s long-awaited financial recovery.

A year after the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, his unsustainable policies are causing the South American petro-economy to unravel. Chavez held the country together by combining a charismatic personality with oil-driven spending on the poor and sheer force, resources in short supply to his successor, Nicolas Maduro.

CYBER WAR

According to Moore’s Law, the density of transistors on a computer chip — and thus its computing power — doubles every two years. That increasing power has led to broader adoption and opened the door to increased abuse: Already this year, a massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack slowed Internet speeds worldwide. The latest attack was one-third larger than a similar attack last year.

Increasing tensions between Washington and Moscow over Ukraine are a failure by each side to appreciate the mindset of the other. U.S. President Barack Obama sees the world as governed by international law and the United Nations Charter, while Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man who has jailed his critics, sent arms to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and has installed cronies as governors of Caucasus republics, sees the world very differently.

As Crimea moves to hold a referendum on joining Russia and the United States plans sanctions, those tensions will mount. Yet Obama’s approach to the crisis has almost no chance of succeeding and could make things worse, as administration officials have failed to grasp three crucial truths about this situation.

Revelations of secret amnesty deals for 187 veterans of the Irish Republican Army have cast an ominous shadow over Northern Ireland’s hard-won peace and could shatter its delicate unity government. Resurgent turmoil in the region would pose a dangerous distraction for the British government, which is fighting secessionist sentiment in Scotland ahead of an independence referendum there.