(A detail from the painting “Charge of the Light Brigade” by James Edwin McConnell).

OK- another crap shoot. The metro guys are saying it will start in the darkness, and freezing rain to wintery mix to some significant snow- maybe a foot of it on top of the ice by the time dazed Washington attempts to deal with the morning commute.

I expect someone will be calling off the Government shortly, since it is supposed to keep up through the day. Time for a run to the store and stock up on alcohol. I should just get on the road and try to outrun the band of precipitation to the south, where the gentle breezes blow and I can put my flip flops and shorts back on.

But there is stuff that needs to be done here, and so we will just have to shrug and bear it, like the people of Ukraine.

Reports this morning are that cash-strapped Kiev mobilized its armed forces after Mr. Putin declared he had the right to invade, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War.

The interim government that took power after Viktor Yanukovich fled last week does not have a lot of options, and neither do we. Mr. Putin obtained permission from the State Duma to use military force to “protect Russian citizens in Ukraine.”

This is all uncomfortably familiar, a spin on the complaint about oppressed ethnic Germans in Eastern Europe that had Mr. Chamberlain in such a dither in the brief break between horrors in the last century.

Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea, where their Black Sea base at Sevastopol gave them an impressive existing footprint.

I heard briefly from my neighbor Natasha about trying to track down family yesterday. There were confrontations between Russian and Ukrainian forces but so far no bloodshed. That may (or may not) continue. Any time forces are mobilized there is the opportunity for things to take a sudden and violent turn of their own.

There are no good options for Foggy Bottom- I mean, would we respond with troops if asked? The term of art for this invasion is telling- “Uncontested Arrival” was the phrase yesterday for the Russian incursion, a remarkable phrase I admire almost as much as “Leading from Behind.” But the events of today may render that term of art inoperative.

Ukraine as a whole is vital to Russian interests. The Crimea is essential; it is the warm-water port and access to the World Ocean year round that Petr Velikiy covetted.

The signs in Kiev’s Independence Square this morning read: “Putin, hands off Ukraine!”

That certainly is not going to happen, and I am apprehensive about what will. Poland is a NATO member, and I suppose that is where the line is drawn. A pal wrote this morning to remind me of the difference between Ukraine and the former East Block, which is what many in the western parts of the country are feeling now. He had dinner with some senior members of the Romanian MoD, and at one point he asked: “What are your top three national security concerns?”

The senior general responded that it was an easy question, ticking the answer off with his fingers: “The Russians, the Russians, and the Russians. Sooner or later those bastards will be back.”

Well, here they come.

Lord Tennyson the great British poet knew something about the region, and the strategic importance of its ports and agriculture. The British tried to block the forces of the Czar at Balaklava in 1854. Perhaps you recall the words?

“Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter’d & sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.”

That is a little prelude to whatever might happen as we are paralyzed by snow and indecision here in DC. I think the indecision thing is OK. But I would start talking to the Poles about how ready they are. And about that Missile Defense thing- think we might want to get back on that? Maybe think about re-setting the re-set?

(Russian troops occupy Crimea. Photo AP).

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303