War

Karzai wants US troops out of Afghanistan, but it doesn't appear that will happen.

"The Afghan president has come under heavy pressure to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement, with a council of notables that he himself convened recommend that he sign the pact. The force would train and mentor Afghan troops, and some U.S. Special Forces would also be left behind to hunt down al-Qaida.

All 10 candidates seeking the presidency in April 5 elections have said they would sign the security agreement."

Bad news for Americans.

The way western leaders are so up in arms about Russian potentially, almost certainly, taking back control of Crimea, it seems like one of the strategic goals of fomenting the coup was to deny Russia a naval base in the Black Sea.

It seems I'm right.

"One of the keys may be found by looking back at Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard in which he wrote, “Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.”
“However, if Moscow regains control over Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.”
The former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981 and top foreign policy advisor to Barack Obama, Brzezinski wrote that US policy should be “unapologetic” in perpetuating “America’s own dominant position for at least a generation and preferably longer still.”"

This might be the major motivation. Still, I wonder about some of it. How does losing Ukraine make Russian not a Eurasian empire? Russia borders the Black Sea, so while its fleet is in Crimea now, they could build a Black Sea naval base in Russia.

Comparison of Ukraine and Crimea to Serbia and Kosovo.

Three years after the west backed al Qaeda affiliates in toppling Qaddafi, Libya is a chaos of al Qaeda affiliates. As predictable as this was, some call it unforeseen consequences.