One of the neat things to come out of my qualitative research methods class is the idea of emergent or grounded theory. Now I'm just a novice, but my understanding of the concept is as follows: rather than walking into a situation with a hypothesis to be tested through quantitative data analysis, a qualitative researcher approaches an issue with enough background information to be at least somewhat knowledgeable about it, but no specific theory in mind.
Instead, the qualitative researcher looks for patterns and processes, notices trends, comes up with a starting theory, and then goes back to collect more data, bouncing back and forth between data collection and theory-crafting until there's nothing more to be learned from the situation, and the researcher has something that does a good job of explaining it. There's no concern about applicability; as the study progresses the researcher may be able to pull in other work describing similar patterns and behavior, but creating some grand universal theory is less important than one that works for the topic.
Quite different from quantitative work, in other words. It's slower and meticulous, unconcerned with prediction or prescription. And perhaps not as attractive to policymakers wanting someone to load some case data into an equation and spit out the odds that Dysfunctionstan is about to explode.
But it made me think about my other course readings, and the names on them - Kupchan, de Mesquita, Svensson, with a few exceptions, the names are all European, Western. When Morgenthau wrote his realist theory of international relations, the examples he used were from European history, particularly the exciting bits around World War II, or else Western nations' (particularly America) dealings with the rest of the world. Keohane's book on neorealism isn't much different, and aside from a brief mention of China's warring states period, is based on European history and European theorists.
And of course this makes a lot of sense, it's going to be a lot more important for a political scientist to study the history and politics of nearby nations, and the West designed and dominates the current world. And you could argue that a monarchy is a monarchy, a dictator a dictator, whether they're in Paris or Mogadishu or Beijing or Kabul.
But I can't help but think of Marxism, which was devised by a German, then picked up and applied in Russia, Cambodia, China, and too many other places. And in all cases, the result was an appalling body count and a coercive totalitarian state unlike the happy little dictatorship Marx envisioned. This is probably a bad example, as Marx couldn't even predict what would happen in his own country, but it reminds me of America's recent difficulties spreading democracy, or the confusion of early Western visitors to Japan who mistook the shogun for an emperor and the emperor for a pope.
In short, I want to see fewer attempts to apply venerable political theories born in the West to any given political development, and more scholars from the rest of the world walking into their studies with an open mind and seeing what they come up with. If the results turn out identical to those aforementioned Western theories, fantastic, let's give Morgenthau and the others another award. And if the results are different, we may learn something we didn't know, have a better way at looking at the world, and could even open further research to compare and contrast the new theories with the old ones.
If nothing else, we'd get more diversity on the syllabus.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
What To Do About Russia
I'm not sure anyone is surprised by Russia announcing the formal annexation of Crimea - a substantial part of the local population supports the move, and more importantly the region is swarming with Russian soldiers. Ukraine and Western leaders are of course outraged at this illegitimate referndum and brazen land-grab, and are threatening additional consequences on top of already-issued sanctions and travel restrictions on high-ranking Russian political figures.
But unless the recent clash between Ukrainian and Russian forces gets out of control, the situation in Crimea is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. Ever since the crisis started, pundits in the United States have been calling for a more developed Russia strategy from the Obama Administration, amid concerns that it may not even have one.
As for what such a strategy should entail, that depends on a few important questions.
First, is this a personal matter? Last Friday, Secretary of State Kerry insisted that his warnings of consequences for Russia's actions were not "meant in a personal way," but whether America's problem is with Russia in general or Putin in particular will have a huge effect on its strategy. If we expect that Russia's current bad behavior - a campaign against international organizations and political freedom within its borders, bullying of states on its borders, and now an outright annexation of territory - to be inherent to the system, so to speak, then our strategy against Russia may turn out to be a decades-long plan to isolate and counter a predatory illiberal regime.
On the other hand, we could pin all of this on Putin. Given the sparse limits on his power and the handful of other figures who can be said to have any input on his decision-making, it would be easy for America to focus its discontent on Russia's de facto dictator while insisting that it has no problem with the rest of the country. This would give us a better chance to reach out to Putin's successors - the man is 61 years old in a country where the average male life expectancy is 64, after all, so we should only be dealing with him for at most another administration or two. Perhaps just as importantly, this would argue against any sort of "East vs West" rhetoric put forth to explain America and Europe's response to the Crimean crisis.
Related to this is the question of what the rest of the world wants to do with Russia. If we're content to once again divide Eurasia between rival power blocs for the foreseeable future, this allows us to be quite strict with the economic sanctions and other consequences for Crimea, since anything that hurts the Enemy is good for us. But if we look forward to a time we can work with a post-Putin Russia, or entertain thoughts of expanding the West to create an economically-integrated, liberal-democratic North, that puts more limits on our actions precisely when we're trying to deter Putin/Russia from further bad behavior.
Enacting crippling economic sanctions in the vein of those that the United States likes to put on Iran, or excluding Russia from international clubs such as the G8, would be counter-productive if we hope to eventually win the country over. Coming down too hard on Russia would only drive it further away from Europe, and give it extra incentive to consolidate its "Eurasian Union" neo-Soviet hegemony. More to the point, there are concerns that we may not be able to effectively sanction Russia. It's a major energy exporter supplying Europe, which makes some of our allies hesitant to sanction the people sending them gas, and Russia has another enormous potential market in the form of China, who might not see what all the fuss in Crimea is about. We may be able to hurt it, but not necessarily hurt it enough to serve as a proper rebuke.
This leads into America and the West's non-economic response to Crimea. A throwaway sentence in a BBC report mentioned that Russia's parliament is considering "a bill on a procedure to admit parts of a foreign state to Russia." It sounds like Russia's government foresees future territorial expansion, and while Russia's foreign minister has insisted that "Russia doesn't and can't have any plans to invade southeastern regions of Ukraine," Putin has expressed concern about the safety of Russian-speaking citizens in those very regions, and holds that Russia has a responsibility to protect its own. It's unlikely Russia would consider a move into eastern Ukraine any more an invasion than it does its current occupation of Crimea.
This isn't a threat that's limited to Ukraine: Stewart Patrick points out that there are Russian minorities in the Baltic states, which are under NATO protection, and in Belarus and Kazakhstan, which are not. Given Russia's tactic of seeding to-be-annexed territory with Russian passports before launching invasions to protect its new citizens, this theoretically puts every country on Russia's border at risk. Stephen Blank has some good ideas regarding a build-up of forces in Eastern Europe (though I'd argue over missile defense), especially since that seems to be the area under immediate threat.
But where do we go from there? Should the United States try to rope Belarus and Kazakhstan into defensive pacts in case Russia looks their way? Do we need a return to Cold War notions of containment? Could the United States even afford an attempt at encircling Russia right now, and how would Putin react if he felt the West was trying to surround him?
I think a better question for the talking heads on the 24-hour news networks to ask would be not what America's Russia policy should be, but whether it really needs one.
After all, President Obama has baffled observers by breaking with tradition and not creating a coherent "Obama Doctrine" to guide US foreign policy, preferring instead the flexibility to take issues on a case-by-case basis. There's little reason to expect he'd handle Russia any differently.
More than that, America already spent the better part of the previous century designing its foreign policy around keeping Russia in check, and we're still paying the price for it - not just economically or diplomatically, but in the unholy alliances we made to get our chess pieces in the right position, entanglements with non-democracies that continue to poison our claims of supporting freedom and human rights. We've seen what happens when we decide that a country we otherwise have little in common with and no strategic interest in is too important to fall to the enemy. We should not be eager to go down this path again.
Another thing to consider is that drastic action may not be necessary to punish Russia - as Ilan Berman tells us, Russia's economy was stumbling even before the Crimean crisis, and the market fallout from subsequent events and the initial round of sanctions is only making things worse. It would be satisfyingly ironic for Putin's attempt to bolster his poll numbers and console his loss of Ukraine proper to hamstring any further expansion.
So what to do in the meantime?
Again, Stephen Blank's prescription for an increased focus on Ukraine is sensible, and hopefully the threat of escalation will dissuade Russia from pulling a similar stunt in the Russian-speaking border regions of Ukraine that it did in Crimea. Providing economic and political assistance to the country would also build up another functional democracy in a world where freedom is in decline, and counter the propaganda labeling Ukraine's post-revolutionary government a bunch of Nazis.
It would also be helpful to, as Patrick recommends, do a better job of explaining why the United States and the rest of the West is outraged over the annexation of Crimea. Yet we shouldn't pretend that the probable majority of the region doesn't want to rejoin Russia and that it is still part of Ukraine - instead, we could set conditions on Western acceptance of the annexation. Ask for a plebiscite with an option to remain a part of Ukraine, held with international observers to ensure a fair vote, and without masked Russian grunts holding the region in lockdown. Maybe we could ask for assurances that Crimean-Ukrainians won't face any persecution, and that the Tatars won't be deported again. I'd be surprised if Russia agreed to this, but then it would have to explain why it's afraid of a legitimate vote.
Rather than scrambling to secure Belarus and Kazakhstan from Russian aggression, we may be able to wait and see if Russia makes any moves in those directions. Its seizure of Crimea seems to be an attempt to save face following the loss of a local puppet, while Belarus and Kazakhstan seem comfortable in their current orbits around Russia. More bluntly, those petty dictatorships are probably not worth "saving" from Russia. In the meanwhile, it would be wise to reaffirm America's (and NATO's) commitment to the Baltic countries, just in case of any staggering lapses of Russian judgment.
I would argue that we should keep any economic sanctions of Russia to a minimum. Though this runs counter to the notion of rebuking the country for its misdeeds, if Russia is truly on the verge of an economic decline, the less the West does to aid this, the less Russia can blame it for its problems, and therefore the worse for Putin and his cronies. After all, America's heavy sanctions on Iran did hurt and isolate the country, but didn't actually change its regime.
This isn't to say that Putin being voted out of office is particularly likely, but if the Russian people's ire is focused more on its leadership than the West, this will make it significantly easier to engage with Russia later if the West offers to help Russia out of its economic difficulties. Such offers should come with stipulations, demands that Russia loosen state control of its media, be less restrictive of NGOs, and other political and economic reforms. Similarly, Russia should be ostracized for its actions, but not made a pariah - rather than expelling it from the G8 or other international organizations, instead we could revoke some of its privileges and again set conditions for their return.
America's goal should not be a long-term strategy to contain or defeat Russia, but a plan to dissuade future Crimeas in the short term, with a wider goal of pulling the country out of Putinism, proving to Russia that becoming part of the liberal, democratic West (or North) is better than making itself an authoritarian regional hegemon once again competing with Europe for influence and "prestige." In other words, America needs to succeed where it failed at the end of the Cold War.
Then we would no more need a Russia policy than we currently need a Germany policy.
But unless the recent clash between Ukrainian and Russian forces gets out of control, the situation in Crimea is unlikely to change for the foreseeable future. Ever since the crisis started, pundits in the United States have been calling for a more developed Russia strategy from the Obama Administration, amid concerns that it may not even have one.
As for what such a strategy should entail, that depends on a few important questions.
First, is this a personal matter? Last Friday, Secretary of State Kerry insisted that his warnings of consequences for Russia's actions were not "meant in a personal way," but whether America's problem is with Russia in general or Putin in particular will have a huge effect on its strategy. If we expect that Russia's current bad behavior - a campaign against international organizations and political freedom within its borders, bullying of states on its borders, and now an outright annexation of territory - to be inherent to the system, so to speak, then our strategy against Russia may turn out to be a decades-long plan to isolate and counter a predatory illiberal regime.
On the other hand, we could pin all of this on Putin. Given the sparse limits on his power and the handful of other figures who can be said to have any input on his decision-making, it would be easy for America to focus its discontent on Russia's de facto dictator while insisting that it has no problem with the rest of the country. This would give us a better chance to reach out to Putin's successors - the man is 61 years old in a country where the average male life expectancy is 64, after all, so we should only be dealing with him for at most another administration or two. Perhaps just as importantly, this would argue against any sort of "East vs West" rhetoric put forth to explain America and Europe's response to the Crimean crisis.
Related to this is the question of what the rest of the world wants to do with Russia. If we're content to once again divide Eurasia between rival power blocs for the foreseeable future, this allows us to be quite strict with the economic sanctions and other consequences for Crimea, since anything that hurts the Enemy is good for us. But if we look forward to a time we can work with a post-Putin Russia, or entertain thoughts of expanding the West to create an economically-integrated, liberal-democratic North, that puts more limits on our actions precisely when we're trying to deter Putin/Russia from further bad behavior.
Enacting crippling economic sanctions in the vein of those that the United States likes to put on Iran, or excluding Russia from international clubs such as the G8, would be counter-productive if we hope to eventually win the country over. Coming down too hard on Russia would only drive it further away from Europe, and give it extra incentive to consolidate its "Eurasian Union" neo-Soviet hegemony. More to the point, there are concerns that we may not be able to effectively sanction Russia. It's a major energy exporter supplying Europe, which makes some of our allies hesitant to sanction the people sending them gas, and Russia has another enormous potential market in the form of China, who might not see what all the fuss in Crimea is about. We may be able to hurt it, but not necessarily hurt it enough to serve as a proper rebuke.
This leads into America and the West's non-economic response to Crimea. A throwaway sentence in a BBC report mentioned that Russia's parliament is considering "a bill on a procedure to admit parts of a foreign state to Russia." It sounds like Russia's government foresees future territorial expansion, and while Russia's foreign minister has insisted that "Russia doesn't and can't have any plans to invade southeastern regions of Ukraine," Putin has expressed concern about the safety of Russian-speaking citizens in those very regions, and holds that Russia has a responsibility to protect its own. It's unlikely Russia would consider a move into eastern Ukraine any more an invasion than it does its current occupation of Crimea.
This isn't a threat that's limited to Ukraine: Stewart Patrick points out that there are Russian minorities in the Baltic states, which are under NATO protection, and in Belarus and Kazakhstan, which are not. Given Russia's tactic of seeding to-be-annexed territory with Russian passports before launching invasions to protect its new citizens, this theoretically puts every country on Russia's border at risk. Stephen Blank has some good ideas regarding a build-up of forces in Eastern Europe (though I'd argue over missile defense), especially since that seems to be the area under immediate threat.
But where do we go from there? Should the United States try to rope Belarus and Kazakhstan into defensive pacts in case Russia looks their way? Do we need a return to Cold War notions of containment? Could the United States even afford an attempt at encircling Russia right now, and how would Putin react if he felt the West was trying to surround him?
I think a better question for the talking heads on the 24-hour news networks to ask would be not what America's Russia policy should be, but whether it really needs one.
After all, President Obama has baffled observers by breaking with tradition and not creating a coherent "Obama Doctrine" to guide US foreign policy, preferring instead the flexibility to take issues on a case-by-case basis. There's little reason to expect he'd handle Russia any differently.
More than that, America already spent the better part of the previous century designing its foreign policy around keeping Russia in check, and we're still paying the price for it - not just economically or diplomatically, but in the unholy alliances we made to get our chess pieces in the right position, entanglements with non-democracies that continue to poison our claims of supporting freedom and human rights. We've seen what happens when we decide that a country we otherwise have little in common with and no strategic interest in is too important to fall to the enemy. We should not be eager to go down this path again.
Another thing to consider is that drastic action may not be necessary to punish Russia - as Ilan Berman tells us, Russia's economy was stumbling even before the Crimean crisis, and the market fallout from subsequent events and the initial round of sanctions is only making things worse. It would be satisfyingly ironic for Putin's attempt to bolster his poll numbers and console his loss of Ukraine proper to hamstring any further expansion.
So what to do in the meantime?
Again, Stephen Blank's prescription for an increased focus on Ukraine is sensible, and hopefully the threat of escalation will dissuade Russia from pulling a similar stunt in the Russian-speaking border regions of Ukraine that it did in Crimea. Providing economic and political assistance to the country would also build up another functional democracy in a world where freedom is in decline, and counter the propaganda labeling Ukraine's post-revolutionary government a bunch of Nazis.
It would also be helpful to, as Patrick recommends, do a better job of explaining why the United States and the rest of the West is outraged over the annexation of Crimea. Yet we shouldn't pretend that the probable majority of the region doesn't want to rejoin Russia and that it is still part of Ukraine - instead, we could set conditions on Western acceptance of the annexation. Ask for a plebiscite with an option to remain a part of Ukraine, held with international observers to ensure a fair vote, and without masked Russian grunts holding the region in lockdown. Maybe we could ask for assurances that Crimean-Ukrainians won't face any persecution, and that the Tatars won't be deported again. I'd be surprised if Russia agreed to this, but then it would have to explain why it's afraid of a legitimate vote.
Rather than scrambling to secure Belarus and Kazakhstan from Russian aggression, we may be able to wait and see if Russia makes any moves in those directions. Its seizure of Crimea seems to be an attempt to save face following the loss of a local puppet, while Belarus and Kazakhstan seem comfortable in their current orbits around Russia. More bluntly, those petty dictatorships are probably not worth "saving" from Russia. In the meanwhile, it would be wise to reaffirm America's (and NATO's) commitment to the Baltic countries, just in case of any staggering lapses of Russian judgment.
I would argue that we should keep any economic sanctions of Russia to a minimum. Though this runs counter to the notion of rebuking the country for its misdeeds, if Russia is truly on the verge of an economic decline, the less the West does to aid this, the less Russia can blame it for its problems, and therefore the worse for Putin and his cronies. After all, America's heavy sanctions on Iran did hurt and isolate the country, but didn't actually change its regime.
This isn't to say that Putin being voted out of office is particularly likely, but if the Russian people's ire is focused more on its leadership than the West, this will make it significantly easier to engage with Russia later if the West offers to help Russia out of its economic difficulties. Such offers should come with stipulations, demands that Russia loosen state control of its media, be less restrictive of NGOs, and other political and economic reforms. Similarly, Russia should be ostracized for its actions, but not made a pariah - rather than expelling it from the G8 or other international organizations, instead we could revoke some of its privileges and again set conditions for their return.
America's goal should not be a long-term strategy to contain or defeat Russia, but a plan to dissuade future Crimeas in the short term, with a wider goal of pulling the country out of Putinism, proving to Russia that becoming part of the liberal, democratic West (or North) is better than making itself an authoritarian regional hegemon once again competing with Europe for influence and "prestige." In other words, America needs to succeed where it failed at the end of the Cold War.
Then we would no more need a Russia policy than we currently need a Germany policy.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
The Ups and Downs of National Self-Determination
In theory, there's nothing wrong with people voting for independence from one country, or voting to join a country they feel a closer affiliation with than the one they're currently a part of. After all, the United States and the West were supportive of Kosovo and South Sudan when they decided to break away from regimes that were waging war against them.
In general, though, states don't like it when borders are redrawn, and not just due to conservatism or a fondness for the old maps. The champions of Western liberalism are not exempt from internal demographic issues: the United Kingdom controls a portion of an adjacent island that some would very much like to merge with the rest of Ireland, Spain has Basque separatists not content with status as an autonomous community, and even in the United States there are fears that a growing Hispanic population might try to reclaim former Mexican territories in the southwest. True, none of these communities can claim to be persecuted or victimized to the extent of Kosovo or South Sudan, but support for the latter breakaway states may cause the former to ask why they can't enjoy the same self-determination.
More than that, such sentiments would wreck havoc with the post-colonial world. When carving up the continent of Africa in particular, the European colonial powers famously ignored traditional ethnic or cultural boundaries, and in some cases purposely divided populations so that an empowered minority would be dependent on its colonial masters for survival against a disenfranchised majority. The countries that emerged when colonialism petered out were unstable enough without a myriad of ethnic groups fighting to redraw arbitrary borders or form new nations, and thus the newly-liberated Third World was encouraged to either support multinationalism or create a new national identity based on an artificial state. Such sentiments have since spread to the rest of the planet as increased immigration and shifting populations have challenged traditional notions of the nation-state, leading to a burgeoning "European" identity on one continent and no small amount of tension in countries with surging numbers of foreign workers - Qatar notably has its citizens outnumbered by such laborers.
So Kosovo and South Sudan are exceptions rather than the rule. Should Crimea be another? Overlooking for the moment that this flash of "self-determination" is taking place with thousands of undeclared Russian troops watching over these free and fair elections, and the options are "join Russia immediately" or "go indpendent," with no choice to remain a part of Ukraine.
As of a 2001 census, 60% of Crimeans identified as Russian, and the majority of its population speaks Russian. During the Soviet era, Crimea used to belong to the Russian republic until Khrushchev transferred it to the Ukrainian republic in 1954, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimea chose to remain a part of Ukraine, but with significant autonomy. We could complain that this would have been a better time for the region to separate from Ukraine, but from its history, Crimea has a strong argument for becoming part of Russia.
True, Ukrainian death squads haven't been trying to purge the region of Russians, but Crimea's view of the new government in Kiev as a bunch of Nazis, combined with that parliament's move to revoke a law giving Russian status as a regional language - in effect forcing Crimea to use another nation's tongue as its official language - evidently caused enough alarm to produce in 2014 the separatist movement that failed to succeed in 1991. The invasion of unmarked Russian troops was of course a happy coincidence.
So Crimea may have legitimate reasons for becoming part of Russia, which is probably what's going to happen anyway.
We might be able to mollify some of Crimea's concerns, urge it to remain a part of Ukraine for a year or so and see how the new government turns out once the upcoming elections are over. Maybe the most unpalatable of Ukraine's fascist element will fail to win any seats, and perhaps we could encourage them to keep their heads down for the sake of the old borders. Another obvious move would be to urge Kiev's government to reinstate Ukraine's language law and allow Crimea's autonomous government to conduct its business in its own language. And of course we could try bribes, reminding Crimea that it could share in foreign aid packages to Ukraine, assuming we could outbid Russia.
Unfortunately, even if the Crimean people decide they'd rather remain part of Ukraine, there's no guarantee that Putin would accept that any more than he accepted the Ukrainian people turning on Yanukovych. And again, the presence of all those Russian troops severely hampers Crimeans' ability to freely determine their region's destiny. So any attempt to sway the masses in Crimea is probably a wasted effort.
On the other hand, if Putin is suddenly interested in national self-determination, maybe we could ask Chechnya and other Russian-minority federal subjects if they want to remain a part of the Russian Federation, or go independent...
In general, though, states don't like it when borders are redrawn, and not just due to conservatism or a fondness for the old maps. The champions of Western liberalism are not exempt from internal demographic issues: the United Kingdom controls a portion of an adjacent island that some would very much like to merge with the rest of Ireland, Spain has Basque separatists not content with status as an autonomous community, and even in the United States there are fears that a growing Hispanic population might try to reclaim former Mexican territories in the southwest. True, none of these communities can claim to be persecuted or victimized to the extent of Kosovo or South Sudan, but support for the latter breakaway states may cause the former to ask why they can't enjoy the same self-determination.
More than that, such sentiments would wreck havoc with the post-colonial world. When carving up the continent of Africa in particular, the European colonial powers famously ignored traditional ethnic or cultural boundaries, and in some cases purposely divided populations so that an empowered minority would be dependent on its colonial masters for survival against a disenfranchised majority. The countries that emerged when colonialism petered out were unstable enough without a myriad of ethnic groups fighting to redraw arbitrary borders or form new nations, and thus the newly-liberated Third World was encouraged to either support multinationalism or create a new national identity based on an artificial state. Such sentiments have since spread to the rest of the planet as increased immigration and shifting populations have challenged traditional notions of the nation-state, leading to a burgeoning "European" identity on one continent and no small amount of tension in countries with surging numbers of foreign workers - Qatar notably has its citizens outnumbered by such laborers.
So Kosovo and South Sudan are exceptions rather than the rule. Should Crimea be another? Overlooking for the moment that this flash of "self-determination" is taking place with thousands of undeclared Russian troops watching over these free and fair elections, and the options are "join Russia immediately" or "go indpendent," with no choice to remain a part of Ukraine.
As of a 2001 census, 60% of Crimeans identified as Russian, and the majority of its population speaks Russian. During the Soviet era, Crimea used to belong to the Russian republic until Khrushchev transferred it to the Ukrainian republic in 1954, and after the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimea chose to remain a part of Ukraine, but with significant autonomy. We could complain that this would have been a better time for the region to separate from Ukraine, but from its history, Crimea has a strong argument for becoming part of Russia.
True, Ukrainian death squads haven't been trying to purge the region of Russians, but Crimea's view of the new government in Kiev as a bunch of Nazis, combined with that parliament's move to revoke a law giving Russian status as a regional language - in effect forcing Crimea to use another nation's tongue as its official language - evidently caused enough alarm to produce in 2014 the separatist movement that failed to succeed in 1991. The invasion of unmarked Russian troops was of course a happy coincidence.
So Crimea may have legitimate reasons for becoming part of Russia, which is probably what's going to happen anyway.
We might be able to mollify some of Crimea's concerns, urge it to remain a part of Ukraine for a year or so and see how the new government turns out once the upcoming elections are over. Maybe the most unpalatable of Ukraine's fascist element will fail to win any seats, and perhaps we could encourage them to keep their heads down for the sake of the old borders. Another obvious move would be to urge Kiev's government to reinstate Ukraine's language law and allow Crimea's autonomous government to conduct its business in its own language. And of course we could try bribes, reminding Crimea that it could share in foreign aid packages to Ukraine, assuming we could outbid Russia.
Unfortunately, even if the Crimean people decide they'd rather remain part of Ukraine, there's no guarantee that Putin would accept that any more than he accepted the Ukrainian people turning on Yanukovych. And again, the presence of all those Russian troops severely hampers Crimeans' ability to freely determine their region's destiny. So any attempt to sway the masses in Crimea is probably a wasted effort.
On the other hand, if Putin is suddenly interested in national self-determination, maybe we could ask Chechnya and other Russian-minority federal subjects if they want to remain a part of the Russian Federation, or go independent...
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
A Question of Sovereignty
In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years' War by introducing the concept of sovereignty. After decades of destructive religious conflict, the nations of Europe decided that another country's internal affairs were no longer a valid causus belli. World leaders would, at least on paper, no longer meddle in neighboring countries and recognize each others' respective jurisdictions.
"Sovereignty" is of course derived from the word "sovereign," which indicates the political climate that codified the concept, a world dominated by kings and emperors. But soon an alternative notion of "national sovereignty" would be introduced by liberal political philosophers, suggesting that the people of a country should be its ultimate authority, rather than the subjects of an all-powerful ruler.
The gulf between these notions of sovereignty, I believe, is the source of the current conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine. It's not just a matter of conflicting national interests, but incompatible worldviews.
The United States and the rest of Europe are proponents of national sovereignty. To them, the protests against the now-ousted President Yanukovich were unfortunate, but legitimate. The government of Ukraine was no longer responsive to the will of the people, as seen when Yanukovich abandoned an economic deal with the European Union at the last minute to strike a deal with Russia instead. Any legitimacy Yanukovich had was lost when he resorted to force to remain in power, and between his attempts to repress the Euromaidan and general corruption, he is a wanted criminal, not a country's president. Ideally, Ukraine's political process would have been able to see his ouster through a nonviolent election, but if that process is compromised by corruption, sometimes revolution is the only way for the people to express their will.
Russia, or more specifically Putin, is a proponent of sovereign-based sovereignty. To him, the methods President Yanukovich used to take and wield power are unimportant, and legitimate. The people of Ukraine had no right to break the law and governmental process with their complaints over their leader's policies. A sovereign has the right to use whatever means necessary to preserve order and stay in power, and even though armed mobs have forced Yanukovich to take shelter with his ally, he is still his country's only legitimate president. Ideally, Ukraine's citizens would be content to wait until the next election to make their voices heard, but if the government's authority is threatened by rebellion, sometimes violence is the only way to prevent anarchy.
Of course, both sides are also waffling when it suits them. America and the West was quick to greet the post-Yanukovich regime as the legitimate government of Ukraine, an expression of the people's will. But when a similar revolt played out in Crimea, taking over the government and rallying for a merger with Russia, they refuse to recognize it. Similarly, the pro-Western revolution in Kiev is decried as fascists by Russia, but the pro-Russia revolution in Crimea is of course legitimate.
Russia thinks the "popular" revolution in Kiev was purchased by NATO, but insists that the thousands of soldiers with Russian-style equipment, using Russian tactics, and driving trucks with license plates from the Black Sea Fleet, are simply local "self-defense" forces - and anyway, if Russian forces were in the Crimea, they have a treaty allowing a certain number of troops in the region. The West scoffs at the notion of a legitimate national referendum taking place with those "self-defense" forces holding Crimea in a stranglehold, and overtly Russian troops doing exercises on Ukraine's border. Proper democracy could be ensured with international observers and activists, the West declares, and of course those local "self-defense" forces are unwilling to let foreign agents in to subvert Crimea's government and population.
It's an impasse, modern popular liberal internationalism colliding with pre-revolutionary absolute sovereignty. Both sides have make some good points and are ignoring others when it suits them. Which one you support will probably depend on whether you think it's better to have someone like Yanukovich or al-Assad in power, or run the risk of Ukraine's neo-Nazis or Syria's al-Qaeda taking over. Whether you'd prefer to live in the 21st century, a world of international norms and governance, citizens using new technology to make increasing demands of their governments, and interdependence among countries, or a world of almighty sovereigns who are expected to mind their own business and ignore what their neighbors do to their subjects.
It would be nice to think that the 21st century should automatically win out, that Putin needs to get with the times. Except freedom is no longer on the march, and the world is getting less democratic. So the West's challenge in Ukraine is to find a way to reverse that trend, avoid a potentially dangerous conflict, and somehow bridge the centuries-wide divide between it and the new czar in Moscow. Or in other words, convince that czar that he ought not to have so much power.
I foresee a protracted, unpleasant stalemate. At least until Russia has a new leader.
"Sovereignty" is of course derived from the word "sovereign," which indicates the political climate that codified the concept, a world dominated by kings and emperors. But soon an alternative notion of "national sovereignty" would be introduced by liberal political philosophers, suggesting that the people of a country should be its ultimate authority, rather than the subjects of an all-powerful ruler.
The gulf between these notions of sovereignty, I believe, is the source of the current conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine. It's not just a matter of conflicting national interests, but incompatible worldviews.
The United States and the rest of Europe are proponents of national sovereignty. To them, the protests against the now-ousted President Yanukovich were unfortunate, but legitimate. The government of Ukraine was no longer responsive to the will of the people, as seen when Yanukovich abandoned an economic deal with the European Union at the last minute to strike a deal with Russia instead. Any legitimacy Yanukovich had was lost when he resorted to force to remain in power, and between his attempts to repress the Euromaidan and general corruption, he is a wanted criminal, not a country's president. Ideally, Ukraine's political process would have been able to see his ouster through a nonviolent election, but if that process is compromised by corruption, sometimes revolution is the only way for the people to express their will.
Russia, or more specifically Putin, is a proponent of sovereign-based sovereignty. To him, the methods President Yanukovich used to take and wield power are unimportant, and legitimate. The people of Ukraine had no right to break the law and governmental process with their complaints over their leader's policies. A sovereign has the right to use whatever means necessary to preserve order and stay in power, and even though armed mobs have forced Yanukovich to take shelter with his ally, he is still his country's only legitimate president. Ideally, Ukraine's citizens would be content to wait until the next election to make their voices heard, but if the government's authority is threatened by rebellion, sometimes violence is the only way to prevent anarchy.
Of course, both sides are also waffling when it suits them. America and the West was quick to greet the post-Yanukovich regime as the legitimate government of Ukraine, an expression of the people's will. But when a similar revolt played out in Crimea, taking over the government and rallying for a merger with Russia, they refuse to recognize it. Similarly, the pro-Western revolution in Kiev is decried as fascists by Russia, but the pro-Russia revolution in Crimea is of course legitimate.
Russia thinks the "popular" revolution in Kiev was purchased by NATO, but insists that the thousands of soldiers with Russian-style equipment, using Russian tactics, and driving trucks with license plates from the Black Sea Fleet, are simply local "self-defense" forces - and anyway, if Russian forces were in the Crimea, they have a treaty allowing a certain number of troops in the region. The West scoffs at the notion of a legitimate national referendum taking place with those "self-defense" forces holding Crimea in a stranglehold, and overtly Russian troops doing exercises on Ukraine's border. Proper democracy could be ensured with international observers and activists, the West declares, and of course those local "self-defense" forces are unwilling to let foreign agents in to subvert Crimea's government and population.
It's an impasse, modern popular liberal internationalism colliding with pre-revolutionary absolute sovereignty. Both sides have make some good points and are ignoring others when it suits them. Which one you support will probably depend on whether you think it's better to have someone like Yanukovich or al-Assad in power, or run the risk of Ukraine's neo-Nazis or Syria's al-Qaeda taking over. Whether you'd prefer to live in the 21st century, a world of international norms and governance, citizens using new technology to make increasing demands of their governments, and interdependence among countries, or a world of almighty sovereigns who are expected to mind their own business and ignore what their neighbors do to their subjects.
It would be nice to think that the 21st century should automatically win out, that Putin needs to get with the times. Except freedom is no longer on the march, and the world is getting less democratic. So the West's challenge in Ukraine is to find a way to reverse that trend, avoid a potentially dangerous conflict, and somehow bridge the centuries-wide divide between it and the new czar in Moscow. Or in other words, convince that czar that he ought not to have so much power.
I foresee a protracted, unpleasant stalemate. At least until Russia has a new leader.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
What Army, Where and Why
Over the past decade, after Afghanistan and Iraq went from overwhelming victories to exhausting occupations, a narrative emerged in Time magazine, on CNN, and in other journals. It asked why we needed 150-million-dollar air superiority fighters when our enemies were insurgents who were lucky if they had a pickup truck, and bemoaned that in a world of subterfuge, drone strikes, and special forces teams attacking terrorists from helicopters, the United States military was still built around defending Western Europe from the Warsaw Pact. War was changing, the narrative went, and the military was too conservative and obstinate to adapt to the times.
With the current Crimean crisis, such sentiments are looking premature.
Now there's a new narrative, in which our idealistic president's foreign policy strategy and a reduced military budget have left our military ill-prepared for this sort of crisis. Even if we don't end up actually fighting Putin, the critics say, a strong, capable military would give us a bigger bargaining chip as we try to resolve the situation, or may even have been enough to avoid it entirely.
Of course, this narrative could change again in an instant, if for instance Afghanistan or Iraq implodes and we get dragged in to run a counter-insurgency all over again. But it does present a dilemma: what is our military for? What foe should it be designed to battle?
A vast juggernaut of a military isn't all that useful when fighting terrorists or insurgents, since they're hard to deter, aren't interested in a fair fight, and typically so ill-equipped that sending tanks against them is cost-inefficient overkill. If we want to continue the "War on Terror," or foresee a need to clear out the next Taliban from somewhere (or the previous Taliban from Afghanistan, again), then we'd be better served by a mobile military supported by good on-the-ground intelligence. More drones, less F-22s. More elites, less National Guard guarding other nations.
On the other hand, if we plan on lining up on the other side of a border from someone like Russia or China, we're going to want as many men, with as many big guns, as possible. In this case the military's nostalgia becomes far-sighted, as we maintain a military capable of fighting another great power, an army more interested in defeating the enemy and driving them from a territory than in occupying and policing that territory, or scouring a region for insurgents.
But which scenario is more important? Which is more likely?
There will always be terrorists somewhere, and often in places that threaten our (more odious) allies, so there would always be something for an anti-terror Army to do. And anti-terror campaigns are easy to get into since they're not "real" wars, can happen with or without the cooperation of the host government, and in some cases can go on without officially happening. On the other hand, terrorists are small fry who can cause death and destruction, but not nearly on the scale of a proper military, or even certain acts of nature.
Conventional, great power wars are as old as nations, and can cause mayhem several orders of magnitude above the likes of Al Qaeda. As a consequence, considerable effort is made to prevent them from happening, leading to the irony of a state possessing a large, expensive military that it hopes to never use. On the upside, the threat of force can often be just as useful as the use of force, so that even an "unused" army can prove a wise investment. And of course if you have a nearby neighbor with a big conventional army, you'll probably want one of your own just in case, even if you'd rather be chasing terrorists somewhere.
The third option would be to combine the two, muster a big army to find in the field, and also support elites to run counter-terror operations. But that may not be practical when Congress can barely pass a budget, much less a balanced budget.
In a way, the Crimean Crisis is refreshing. It's making us question how we've been using our army, and really our foreign policy focus ever since 2001. Maybe now we'll be less concerned with what a terrorist with a car bomb can do, and more with what a tyrant with a state can do. Maybe instead of trying to ensure that no one, anywhere, can ever attack a US citizen or ally with explosive undergarments, we could try to create a world where a country can't occupy and annex territory. We thought we'd done the latter some time ago, but evidently we were distracted by the exploding underpants.
With the current Crimean crisis, such sentiments are looking premature.
Now there's a new narrative, in which our idealistic president's foreign policy strategy and a reduced military budget have left our military ill-prepared for this sort of crisis. Even if we don't end up actually fighting Putin, the critics say, a strong, capable military would give us a bigger bargaining chip as we try to resolve the situation, or may even have been enough to avoid it entirely.
Of course, this narrative could change again in an instant, if for instance Afghanistan or Iraq implodes and we get dragged in to run a counter-insurgency all over again. But it does present a dilemma: what is our military for? What foe should it be designed to battle?
A vast juggernaut of a military isn't all that useful when fighting terrorists or insurgents, since they're hard to deter, aren't interested in a fair fight, and typically so ill-equipped that sending tanks against them is cost-inefficient overkill. If we want to continue the "War on Terror," or foresee a need to clear out the next Taliban from somewhere (or the previous Taliban from Afghanistan, again), then we'd be better served by a mobile military supported by good on-the-ground intelligence. More drones, less F-22s. More elites, less National Guard guarding other nations.
On the other hand, if we plan on lining up on the other side of a border from someone like Russia or China, we're going to want as many men, with as many big guns, as possible. In this case the military's nostalgia becomes far-sighted, as we maintain a military capable of fighting another great power, an army more interested in defeating the enemy and driving them from a territory than in occupying and policing that territory, or scouring a region for insurgents.
But which scenario is more important? Which is more likely?
There will always be terrorists somewhere, and often in places that threaten our (more odious) allies, so there would always be something for an anti-terror Army to do. And anti-terror campaigns are easy to get into since they're not "real" wars, can happen with or without the cooperation of the host government, and in some cases can go on without officially happening. On the other hand, terrorists are small fry who can cause death and destruction, but not nearly on the scale of a proper military, or even certain acts of nature.
Conventional, great power wars are as old as nations, and can cause mayhem several orders of magnitude above the likes of Al Qaeda. As a consequence, considerable effort is made to prevent them from happening, leading to the irony of a state possessing a large, expensive military that it hopes to never use. On the upside, the threat of force can often be just as useful as the use of force, so that even an "unused" army can prove a wise investment. And of course if you have a nearby neighbor with a big conventional army, you'll probably want one of your own just in case, even if you'd rather be chasing terrorists somewhere.
The third option would be to combine the two, muster a big army to find in the field, and also support elites to run counter-terror operations. But that may not be practical when Congress can barely pass a budget, much less a balanced budget.
In a way, the Crimean Crisis is refreshing. It's making us question how we've been using our army, and really our foreign policy focus ever since 2001. Maybe now we'll be less concerned with what a terrorist with a car bomb can do, and more with what a tyrant with a state can do. Maybe instead of trying to ensure that no one, anywhere, can ever attack a US citizen or ally with explosive undergarments, we could try to create a world where a country can't occupy and annex territory. We thought we'd done the latter some time ago, but evidently we were distracted by the exploding underpants.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
The Western Threat
What struck me, reading some of the stories about events in Ukraine, was the Russian names in the comments sections. Putin and his flunkies have been blaming America, NATO, or the West in general for this and that, and naturally insist that the Ukrainian revolution was a Western plot. Because really, why else would thousands of people rise up against their country's corrupt and repressive leader who took them into economic stagnation and reversed course on a highly-anticipated trade deal?
The alarming thing is that the Russians commenting on English-language internet media sites are repeating the same accusations. I would assume that, if you have access to such websites, you'd be able to get more balanced and complete information about international issues, so that you might be less inclined to believe that there were CIA agents riling up the crowds, or posing as Ukrainian snipers and firing upon protestors, or whatever the conspiracy theory is. Optimistically those Russian names are working for Putin's government, and the rest of the country knows better.
The worst part about that conspiracy theory is how insulting it is. Here in the West there's been some finger-pointing and gnashing teeth about how the events in Ukraine caught everyone off-guard, and how tepid and unprofessional the Obama Administration's response has been to them. If that administration was orchestrating those events, surely Obama would have a plan ready to execute, and would have already resolved the crisis? The conclusion is that Russia thinks that the Untied States is conniving enough to start a revolution but too incompetent to follow through on it. Which is probably more probable than the previous scenario, but there is such a thing as tact, Russia.
On the other hand, there is some truth to Putin's accusations.
As I think I've said before, we live in a world without a great ideological debate, or rather a debate between ideologies. There is a club of democratic countries arguing for government for and by the people, we'll call them the West. And then there are the other countries, which alternately try to keep their citizens from hearing about this democracy nonsense, or distract their citizens with shiny trinkets, or attempt to negotiate with democratic principles and argue why their country should benefit from the modern world economy but still keep its one-party system, repressive religious laws, and so forth.
Putin's Russia certainly isn't democratic, nor can it try to hide democracy from its citizens. I've encountered a few statements criticizing the West for expecting everyone to follow its development path, but not any sort of comprehensive theory of Slavic exceptionalism to explain why democracy is incompatible with Russia. So the best the country can do is use a high GDP fueled by natural resources to make up for the lack of Russian democracy, much like how Saudi Arabia has to throw cash as its citizens whenever something like the Arab Spring happens. Though recent events suggest that invading a neighbor may be a good way of distracting people.
I've read that Putin is more a cynic than a believer in anything, someone who sees hypocrisy and self-interest behind all of democracy's claims of enlightenment. At any rate, he can't offer much in place of liberal government beyond economic development and aggressive nationalism. And that means he'll always have a problem with the West, because it can provide citizens with a high GDP, nationalism, and a more representative government.
Whenever a leader's time in office ends and he's prevented from running again due to term limits, Putin is threatened. Whenever a journalist's investigation puts a politician in prison instead of vice versa, Putin is threatened. Whenever citizens vote out an unpopular leader, whenever an executive's power is checked by another branch of the government, whenever a leader is subject to intense media criticism, the Russian people might notice and wonder "why can't we have that here?"
This isn't the Cold War, Putin can't appeal to the inexorable course of history, or insist that his repressive measures are necessary steps on the road to a proletariat paradise. He doesn't have a counter-argument for democracy, and thus we, the West, threaten his position simply by existing.
So he's right, the West is behind the revolution in Ukraine. But we didn't need to send spies or anything, all we had to do was prove that there was an alternative to corrupt autocracy, and that was enough to mobilize people.
On the other hand, accusations that foreign agents are attempting to stir up some sort of fascist revolt... well, those are a good justification for clamping down on non-governmental agencies and keeping as tight a grip on the national media as possible. So we can expect Putin's people to continue insisting that the West is playing an active role in undermining him, rather than undermining him as a side-effect of our day-to-day functions.
It makes me wonder what me might accomplish if we were actively undermining him as much as he says we are...
The alarming thing is that the Russians commenting on English-language internet media sites are repeating the same accusations. I would assume that, if you have access to such websites, you'd be able to get more balanced and complete information about international issues, so that you might be less inclined to believe that there were CIA agents riling up the crowds, or posing as Ukrainian snipers and firing upon protestors, or whatever the conspiracy theory is. Optimistically those Russian names are working for Putin's government, and the rest of the country knows better.
The worst part about that conspiracy theory is how insulting it is. Here in the West there's been some finger-pointing and gnashing teeth about how the events in Ukraine caught everyone off-guard, and how tepid and unprofessional the Obama Administration's response has been to them. If that administration was orchestrating those events, surely Obama would have a plan ready to execute, and would have already resolved the crisis? The conclusion is that Russia thinks that the Untied States is conniving enough to start a revolution but too incompetent to follow through on it. Which is probably more probable than the previous scenario, but there is such a thing as tact, Russia.
On the other hand, there is some truth to Putin's accusations.
As I think I've said before, we live in a world without a great ideological debate, or rather a debate between ideologies. There is a club of democratic countries arguing for government for and by the people, we'll call them the West. And then there are the other countries, which alternately try to keep their citizens from hearing about this democracy nonsense, or distract their citizens with shiny trinkets, or attempt to negotiate with democratic principles and argue why their country should benefit from the modern world economy but still keep its one-party system, repressive religious laws, and so forth.
Putin's Russia certainly isn't democratic, nor can it try to hide democracy from its citizens. I've encountered a few statements criticizing the West for expecting everyone to follow its development path, but not any sort of comprehensive theory of Slavic exceptionalism to explain why democracy is incompatible with Russia. So the best the country can do is use a high GDP fueled by natural resources to make up for the lack of Russian democracy, much like how Saudi Arabia has to throw cash as its citizens whenever something like the Arab Spring happens. Though recent events suggest that invading a neighbor may be a good way of distracting people.
I've read that Putin is more a cynic than a believer in anything, someone who sees hypocrisy and self-interest behind all of democracy's claims of enlightenment. At any rate, he can't offer much in place of liberal government beyond economic development and aggressive nationalism. And that means he'll always have a problem with the West, because it can provide citizens with a high GDP, nationalism, and a more representative government.
Whenever a leader's time in office ends and he's prevented from running again due to term limits, Putin is threatened. Whenever a journalist's investigation puts a politician in prison instead of vice versa, Putin is threatened. Whenever citizens vote out an unpopular leader, whenever an executive's power is checked by another branch of the government, whenever a leader is subject to intense media criticism, the Russian people might notice and wonder "why can't we have that here?"
This isn't the Cold War, Putin can't appeal to the inexorable course of history, or insist that his repressive measures are necessary steps on the road to a proletariat paradise. He doesn't have a counter-argument for democracy, and thus we, the West, threaten his position simply by existing.
So he's right, the West is behind the revolution in Ukraine. But we didn't need to send spies or anything, all we had to do was prove that there was an alternative to corrupt autocracy, and that was enough to mobilize people.
On the other hand, accusations that foreign agents are attempting to stir up some sort of fascist revolt... well, those are a good justification for clamping down on non-governmental agencies and keeping as tight a grip on the national media as possible. So we can expect Putin's people to continue insisting that the West is playing an active role in undermining him, rather than undermining him as a side-effect of our day-to-day functions.
It makes me wonder what me might accomplish if we were actively undermining him as much as he says we are...
Saturday, March 1, 2014
I'd Love to Stop Discussing Ukraine, But Things Keep Happening
The tragedy is that my Russian Politics course only barely touched on the Crimean War, focusing instead on the Soviet Union and events of the past hundred years, so I lack the knowledge to make any historical comparisons to recent events. This piece provides a bit of background on the place that Russian troops may have invaded - I have to say "may" because they're not wearing insignia, but the soldiers reportedly speak Russian, they showed up a day after a pro-Russian leader took over Crimea and asked for Russia's assistance keeping the peace, and the same day Russia's parliament authorized military force in Ukraine.
The motive ascribed for this invasion/peacekeeping mission seems to be Putin wanting Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence by any means necessary, which is in a word "reckless," and more to the point a few days overdue. Wouldn't it have been easier to send forces to prop up Yanukovych's regime while it was still dysfunctional, as opposed to collapsed? But alternative explanations don't make much sense - Crimean demonstrations of the past few days have been overwhelmingly pro-Russian, so unless Russia believed the rumors that the new regime was going to send forces to try and take over the autonomous region (a somewhat suicidal action), they shouldn't feel in danger of "losing" it.
So Putin is either trying to recapture something he didn't try to save, or else protecting something that isn't in danger, and in the process creating a mountain of uncertainty, exacerbating an already tumultuous situation, and bringing up the specter of great power war in Europe if the West gets drawn in. Reports from a few days ago warned of the situation in Crimea: these two analysts had some suggestions that are probably defunct now, while the aforementioned crisis guide to Crimea reasoned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be counter-productive, so I'm not the only one surprised by this. Maybe the situation looks better in the Russian (Putin-friendly) media, the heroic rescue of loyal Russians from fascist, Western-backed revolutionaries?
The big question is what the US should do about Ukraine, which is a familiar question by this point, since we keep re-asking it every time the situation changes. Secretary of State Kerry has condemned the invasion, which Russia hasn't admitted has happened, while President Obama spent an hour and a half on the phone with Putin. The White House assures us that Obama warned that Russia's actions "would negatively impact Russia's standing in the international community," which is not so much a threat as it is a reminder of how global opinion works, and how it cannot physically stop you from invading a neighbor.
Others want us to do more - this fellow notes that we haven't even called a Security Council meeting on the topic (remember that Russia has a permanent veto on said council), and urges Congress to act where the Obama Administration has not, by passing new sanction legislation on Iran. This would not directly help the situation in Crimea, but it may put more backbone into America's foreign policy, so that the next time Russia invades a country they may have to think twice.
Problem is, our options are limited. Nobody wants a fight with Russia, even if defending a country with a history of resisting invaders wouldn't present the sort of problems encountered by those who tried to invade Russia itself. More than that, if we wanted a fight with Russia, our army just got out of two long, nasty wars, and if you believe this commentary, has been emasculated by defense cuts. Some in Congress are proposing sanctions, "targeted" and unspecified, though I'm not sure how we could hurt an economy based on resource extraction, especially if we prefer to get our oil from Arabian rather than Slavic autocrats.
The other issue would be the basis for our actions. Intervening in Ukraine naturally raises questions about why we aren't intervening in countries like Syria, where citizens are not welcoming the offending army as brothers and protectors. If we call Russia's actions an unlawful invasion, they can point at Iraq. If we take issue with the pro-Russian mobs taking over Crimea, they can point to the pro-Western mobs that took over Kiev. If we accuse Russia of trampling democracy in defense of its Black Sea naval base, they can remind us that Bahrain is #8 on Politico's list of America's top 25 Most Awkward Allies. If we speak of the importance of democracy and self-determination, they can argue that eastern Ukrainians want close ties with Russia, and their chief complaint with the country's previous leader was his level of repression, not his international alignment.
In short, our objection to the situation in Crimea largely boils down to the fact that the wrong guy is "winning," i.e. not us. Admitting this would be refreshingly honest, yet depressingly realist. The United States ought to be better than that, at least able to appeal to the principles it likes to insist it upholds.
There's still potential for common ground, though. The developing situation is in danger of making Sarah Palin look like some sort of political visionary, and I'm not sure anyone wants that. It's not too late, Putin - you can either validate the guys who lost the 2008 election, or take a stand for sanity.
The motive ascribed for this invasion/peacekeeping mission seems to be Putin wanting Ukraine in Russia's sphere of influence by any means necessary, which is in a word "reckless," and more to the point a few days overdue. Wouldn't it have been easier to send forces to prop up Yanukovych's regime while it was still dysfunctional, as opposed to collapsed? But alternative explanations don't make much sense - Crimean demonstrations of the past few days have been overwhelmingly pro-Russian, so unless Russia believed the rumors that the new regime was going to send forces to try and take over the autonomous region (a somewhat suicidal action), they shouldn't feel in danger of "losing" it.
So Putin is either trying to recapture something he didn't try to save, or else protecting something that isn't in danger, and in the process creating a mountain of uncertainty, exacerbating an already tumultuous situation, and bringing up the specter of great power war in Europe if the West gets drawn in. Reports from a few days ago warned of the situation in Crimea: these two analysts had some suggestions that are probably defunct now, while the aforementioned crisis guide to Crimea reasoned that a Russian invasion of Ukraine would be counter-productive, so I'm not the only one surprised by this. Maybe the situation looks better in the Russian (Putin-friendly) media, the heroic rescue of loyal Russians from fascist, Western-backed revolutionaries?
The big question is what the US should do about Ukraine, which is a familiar question by this point, since we keep re-asking it every time the situation changes. Secretary of State Kerry has condemned the invasion, which Russia hasn't admitted has happened, while President Obama spent an hour and a half on the phone with Putin. The White House assures us that Obama warned that Russia's actions "would negatively impact Russia's standing in the international community," which is not so much a threat as it is a reminder of how global opinion works, and how it cannot physically stop you from invading a neighbor.
Others want us to do more - this fellow notes that we haven't even called a Security Council meeting on the topic (remember that Russia has a permanent veto on said council), and urges Congress to act where the Obama Administration has not, by passing new sanction legislation on Iran. This would not directly help the situation in Crimea, but it may put more backbone into America's foreign policy, so that the next time Russia invades a country they may have to think twice.
Problem is, our options are limited. Nobody wants a fight with Russia, even if defending a country with a history of resisting invaders wouldn't present the sort of problems encountered by those who tried to invade Russia itself. More than that, if we wanted a fight with Russia, our army just got out of two long, nasty wars, and if you believe this commentary, has been emasculated by defense cuts. Some in Congress are proposing sanctions, "targeted" and unspecified, though I'm not sure how we could hurt an economy based on resource extraction, especially if we prefer to get our oil from Arabian rather than Slavic autocrats.
The other issue would be the basis for our actions. Intervening in Ukraine naturally raises questions about why we aren't intervening in countries like Syria, where citizens are not welcoming the offending army as brothers and protectors. If we call Russia's actions an unlawful invasion, they can point at Iraq. If we take issue with the pro-Russian mobs taking over Crimea, they can point to the pro-Western mobs that took over Kiev. If we accuse Russia of trampling democracy in defense of its Black Sea naval base, they can remind us that Bahrain is #8 on Politico's list of America's top 25 Most Awkward Allies. If we speak of the importance of democracy and self-determination, they can argue that eastern Ukrainians want close ties with Russia, and their chief complaint with the country's previous leader was his level of repression, not his international alignment.
In short, our objection to the situation in Crimea largely boils down to the fact that the wrong guy is "winning," i.e. not us. Admitting this would be refreshingly honest, yet depressingly realist. The United States ought to be better than that, at least able to appeal to the principles it likes to insist it upholds.
There's still potential for common ground, though. The developing situation is in danger of making Sarah Palin look like some sort of political visionary, and I'm not sure anyone wants that. It's not too late, Putin - you can either validate the guys who lost the 2008 election, or take a stand for sanity.
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