Dangers from the MH17 catastrophe

The crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine looks most likely to be the result of a catastrophic bungle. Such things happen in wars, civil and otherwise, and more details are awaited before the guilty can be identified. But irrespective of further revelations, the disaster looks certain to worsen US-Russia ties.

The Western media say the most likely direct cause of the disaster that killed all 298 people on board MH17 was the launching of a BUK surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile by secessionist forces in eastern Ukraine. According to Western media outlets, such missiles, apparently supplied by Russia, were used to shoot down at least three Ukrainian Air Force aircraft, including an Antonov An-22 military transport plane.

But the related parties should refrain from making conjectures and prejudgment and, more importantly, avoid politicizing the issue.

Malaysia Airlines is certainly at fault for continuing to route its flights through what is widely recognized as an increasingly dangerous war zone. Other more responsible Asian airlines had months ago taken the decision to steer clear of the disturbed region.

There is a common factor between the MH17 crash and the disappearance of another Malaysian airliner, Flight MH370, with 239 people on board after taking off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on March 8. And that common factor appears to be complacency and sloppiness in the way Malaysia Airlines was run, and continued to be run even after the first tragedy. If the Malaysia Airlines management had followed the example of other major Asian air carriers and steered clear of the eastern Ukraine combat zone, it could have avoided the MH17 tragedy on July 17.

The outrage in Europe and the United States against Russia over the downing of MH17 smells of selective amnesia, myopia and even hypocrisy. The eastern Ukrainian rebel groups craved the anti-aircraft missiles to defend their civilian populations from air-strikes that, combined with ground artillery and multiple rocket mortar bombardments, have already killed nearly 1,000 Ukrainian civilians - more than three times the death toll in the MH17.

Those air strikes had been complacently supported by the US and Western Europe. They did so to prop up a Ukrainian government that was brought to power by an unconstitutional, bloody, terror-filled coup in Kiev in February.

Now the three leading Western European nations of France, Germany and Britain are preparing to bring more pressure to bear on Russia. The US and the European Union are already pushing for such a course of action. But this is extremely reckless and will be counter-productive, because instead of helping ease tensions in Ukraine, it will only provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin to take a stronger, nationalist stance against the West.

Such a position has proven increasingly popular with the Russian public, and Putin has many critics among the extreme nationalist elements who complain that he has not taken enough measures to defend Russian interests and the Russian-speaking majority in eastern Ukraine.

What the situation really needs is coordinated private diplomacy between the US and Russia to work out a practical road map to end the violence and allow real self-government and increased federalization for eastern Ukraine. Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, among others, has strongly advocated such a course of action.

But for this to work, US policymakers will have to take into account the horrific three-decade (1914 to 1945) bloodbath across Ukraine, and the hatred it generated. But so ignorant and callow are the current policymakers in Washington - liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat alike - that it is literally impossible for them to understand this.

There is, therefore, no realistic way to avert a new cold war between Russia and the West. Indeed, we will be lucky if this new chasm remains generally non-violent and "cold", for there was nothing "cold" about the missile that is said to have brought down MH17, or about the Ukrainian air strikes that led to the rebels equipping themselves with BUK missiles in the first place.

Just over three weeks ago, we solemnly observed the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. The trigger for that catastrophic war was a single act - the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo (in today's Bosnia and Herzegovina) on June 28, 1914. The downing of MH17 is a far greater act of crime. But, terrible as it is, it should not be allowed to destroy hopes for peace and understanding between the different power blocs and civilizations of an increasingly diverse and dangerously unpredictable world.

The author is a national columnist for the Post-Examiner chain of online newspapers and a senior fellow of the American University in Moscow, and has the book, Shifting Superpowers: The New and Emerging Relationship between the United States, China and India, to his credit.