Big powers over the years have targeted specific regimes by arming rebel groups with lethal weapons, thereby destabilizing some states and contributing to the rise of dangerous extremists and terrorists. The destabilization of Ukraine, Syria and Libya, among other states, is a result of such continuing geopolitical games.

It is the local people who get maimed, killed and uprooted by the interventions of major powers and their regional proxies. Yet those who play such games assume a moral posture to rationalize their interventionist policies and evade responsibility for the consequences of their actions. They paint their actions as aimed at fighting the "bad" guys.

Take the blame-game over the downing of flight MH17, which was shot down by a surface-to-air missile (SAM) allegedly fired by eastern Ukraine's Russian-speaking separatists, a number of whom have clearly been trained and armed by Russia. Russia's aid to the separatists and Washington's security assistance to the government in Kiev, including providing vital intelligence and sending U.S. military advisers to Ukraine, is redolent of the pattern that prevailed during the Cold War, when the two opposing blocs waged proxy battles in countries elsewhere. Today, with the Ukrainian military shelling rebel-held cities and Russia massing heavy weapons and troops along the frontier, the crisis threatens to escalate to a direct U.S.-Russia confrontation, especially if Moscow directly intervenes in eastern Ukraine.