One of the silliest defenses of Russia during the crisis with Ukraine is Pat Buchanan’s column, “Putin Wants His Own Monroe Doctrine,” suggesting Putin is only exercising authority over Europe that the United States has claimed for the Western hemisphere. Buchanan knows better. He was communications director for President Reagan when the Soviet Union and its client state, Cuba, were massively interfering in the Western hemisphere and sponsoring terrorism on American soil.

What Buchanan also ignores is that Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum, guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, in exchange for taking back control of Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal. Another Democratic president, Bill Clinton, arranged that sell-out.  

I went back into my library to find the 1985 booklet, “The Soviet-Cuban Connection in Central America and the Caribbean,” which explains how the Soviets (and now the Russians) had set a process in motion to take over country by country south of our border. In response, President Ronald Reagan launched the “Reagan Doctrine” of supporting anti-communist freedom fighters to put pressure on the communists in their own backyard.

One great success for our side was the defeat of Soviet-Cuban forces in Grenada when Reagan ordered the island liberated from the communists.

The 1982 hearing, “Role of Cuba in International Terrorism and Subversion,” also examines Soviet/Russian violation of the Monroe Doctrine.