I’ve been following these events quite closely.
I suspect most people have a good baseline of information regarding what is going on, but in case we need a quick summary:
Back in October, then President Yanukovych, rejected an aid and trade package from the EU to the cash starved Ukraine in exchange for a $15 billion bailout from Russia, with significant strings attached limiting Ukraine’s ability to bargain with the West.
Western Ukraine is ethnically Ukranian, Roman Catholic, and pro-West, Eastern Ukraine is ethnically Ukranian, Orthodox, and pro-Russia.
Yanukovych got elected from the East, his jailed rival Tymochenko and poisoned rival Yuchenko were elected from the West.
In December protestors started taking to the streets demanding the EU deal be put back on the table and rejecting the Russian deal, these protests gradually expanded into a broad scale pro-democratic pro-reform movement and anti-Russian, anti-autocracy movement that was eventually quashed by troops who killed scores of protestors. After that happened, the parliament, fearing further instability, and after a truce negotiated by Yanukovych broke down, removed him from office and appointed an interim power sharing government.
That’s when things got even more complicated.
Russia, which already leased military bases in the Crimea (ethnically Russia, Ukranian, and Tartar) sent troops to secure that region and there is now a broad standoff with the UN-NATO aligned against the Russian Federation and it’s allies inside and out of Ukraine.
The real question is how should we respond going forward?
I think Tufts University Fletcher School Dean ret. Admr. Stavrdis had good suggestions. So does Think Progress.
It seems the Obama administration is definitely killing the G-8 summit in Sochi, and pretty close to kicking Russia out entirely, while also examining what sanctions might work.
I think Sec. Kerry has been exemplary throughout this crisis, along with the surprisingly nuanced sounding Sen. Rubio. Sen. McCain and Sen. Graham are off the rails again like they were during the Georgia crisis. The President has said the right things and seems to have done a great job over the weekend keeping our allies on the same page. He has my confidence.
…but I haven’t posted about it because I’m not sure I have anything intelligent to say. I am absolutely appalled and outraged by Russia’s invasion, but I’m not sure what to do about it. Though I’m sympathetic to the political views of the protesters I don’t believe in overthrowing elected governments either. Russia never belonged in the G-8. As I recall when the USSR broke up it was given a seat at the G-7 mostly to stroke its ego.
“Though I’m sympathetic to the political views of the protesters I don’t believe in overthrowing elected governments either?”
What is this referring to, exactly?
The views I’m sympathetic with are the pro-Western views of the protesters? The overthrow is the running out of Kiev of the duly elected President. If you don’t like the President there is always the next election.
I’m sure plenty of us here are worried. If there’s not a lot of talk about the situation here, I suspect that’s because we’re not bringing it to a site focused on Massachusetts issues, not because we’re indifferent.
Or else, I suppose, because we’ve joined Charlie Pierce in All The Gang Under The Bed.
about the conflicts in the region – let’s not however as a nation of ADDs get distracted from the genocide in Syria and the continued tensions/warring in the middle East. We must remain steadfast as the percolation of seemingly disparate crises serves to throw US objectives into tailspins.
Putin has shown that his narcissism and swift ability to maneuver from one international stage to another is not to be underestimated. He out-foxed POTUS on the Syrian cease-fire and it is looking like he will annex Crimea…..with the perhaps ambiguous and non-confrontational support of many people who are Soviet sympathizers in the region.
Corruption and madly inflated ego are a dangerous combination. I don’t share your confidence in the US position. We are not perceived as all that strong on the international stage. Frankly it does not appear that POTUS is a match in the ring with the likes of Putin – whose SOP is a first parry that is not a probe but a cut to the jugular. Kerry seems to be projecting the gravitas commensurate with the situation. Frankly, I would like to see the US cut ties with those who endorse human rights, civil rights, economic and legal violations. We have played nice with our enemies to a fault.
..have not violated human and civil rights and/or committed “economic and legal violations?”
If we “cut ties” completely with Russia it will not have much impact on the internal reasoning for why Putin has decided to use force to protect what they see as their interests in their “near abroad”. Essentially, the Russians know that they are simply holding off their inevitable decline, slightly hastened by the possible loss of their client state of Syria and the must make any bold moves right now. Putin is going continue to make aggressive moves and the only real way we can hasten the fall of Russia (by the way none of the 5 steps outlined in that think progress article will impact the situation at all with the exception of building up defense in the Ukraine but that will take far too long to do any good right now) economically is to start exporting large amounts of liquid natural gas to Europe, cutting off a major supply of wealth and influence for Russia, but I have a feeling that would not be a popular move for us here at BMG.
In the unlikely event the US does commit troops to the Ukraine I would guess the Chinese will begin to make strong moves to protect their expanded sea lanes claims in the Pacific so that US military planners will have to seriously consider the need to split up our forces.
The way I recall the Syrian crisis being resolved is that Putin came up with a plan to diffuse it.
Obama didn’t have the experience or a consistent way to respond on foreign policy questions so we seem to be lurching from crisis to crisis. At this point we have the international legitimacy with Syria continuing to violate or agreement to make a move, I just fear titling the scale one way or the other over there since Assads foes are fairly nasty. It is bogging down and wasting Iranian and Russian resources at least.
As for the Ukraine I honestly don’t see how we could have stepped in earlier. Removing the missile shield and dropping NATO expansion were definitely mistakes we shouldn’t have made. One could so argue turning Poland into this century’s West Germany might be a smart move to ensure these red lines stopped getting crossed. At the same time they could argue any forward base closer than that is their equivalent of a “missiles in Cuba” moment.
Kicking them out of the G-8, maybe bribing Germany with LNG imports to join a far reaching sanctions regime could work. It definitely worked against Iran. Freezing all his offshore assets would work too.
is the way to go if we truly want to get Putin’s attention. It is also a somewhat difficult path for Obama to pursue politically…and for good reasons.
But it may be the right thing to do. I’m no neocon and I damn well don’t want us to put any military assets to bait Russia into a war, but they will keep acting irresponsibly if they are not punished. The best way to beat a bully is to show you have the spine to fight back, hit him once, and he won’t bother you again. We don’t need to defeat or even militarily fight them, just isolate him and hit him right in the pocket book.
It actually HAS been keeping me up at night.
I think we’re seeing, among other things, the strange fruit of the relentless and utterly personal attacks against Barrack Obama by the GOP and the right wing.
I think the world would be a whole lot safer right now if Barrack Obama was viewed as a strong president who has been doing everything humanly possible to make the world (and America) a better place for all of us. America has, until the election of Barack Obama, been a case study in how a freely-elected representative government can make progress on vital issues even when those issues are hotly contested by a wide diversity of interests and viewpoints.
The GOP changed all that. They should be ashamed. Imagine, if you dare, the nightmare that would have resulted between 1930 and 1942 if FDR’s opposition (and he did have opposition) had been so similarly irresponsible.
I only hope that Mr. Obama, Mr. Kerry, Mr. Biden, and the grown-ups in Congress can help us navigate these extraordinarily hazardous waters.
President Obama has excellent foreign policy advisors. He has not overreacted and rushed in to a very complicated situation. How many of us know the history of Stepan Bandera and that many of his followers on the right provoked much of the violence on the Maidan? Do Americans know how many Ukrainians were members of the SS during the war? Or that the holodomor (the starvation of millions of Ukrainians by Stalin in order to destroy the kulaks in the 1930’s has never been forgotten? Or that Yulia Timoshenko, the supposed heroine who was imprisoned for malfeasance, is indeed a thief? It is really hard to find good guys and bad guys in this scenario. And remember that Yanukovich is no Assad: he was elected legitimately and did not try to kill his fellow Ukrainians during the protests. He could have crushed those demonstrations had he wanted to by using the feared Berkut, but he did not. How the hell can anyone take sides in this mishmash?? And now throw in the history of the Crimea peninsula and you have the Tatars–who like our American Indians–were totally screwed over by everyone. Christopher, you are right, it is better that we not jump in here and I am very pleased that we have a president like Obama to handle this situation with reserve and wisdom.
It frustrates me how little of this has been covered on the news — and even more so that it has been covered in such a pettily partisan way.
Just look at Meet the Press last Sunday. Not 24 hours after it became clear Russia invaded Crimea, did we really need to give Marco Rubio equal time as Secretary Kerry? Did so many of the questions Kerry got have to focus on the really petty stuff, like rehashing Syria and all that BS.
Couldn’t we have spent this time questioning Kerry to see what the frack is really going on, what our understanding of the ground situation was, what we’ve already done and will do both short and medium term?
Frankly, it’s bizarre to me. It wasn’t that long ago that foreign policy, especially something as important as what’s going on here, was at least handled in a way that was somewhat nonpartisan. There were differences of opinions, but we didn’t cover these stories in a way that was more about scoring points and less about focusing on what was going on.
Frustrating.
Thank god for the Guardian, otherwise I’d feel completely lost.
Try the BBC World Service, or the twice daily Newshour podcast. Excellent coverage, and if you get the BBC World News channel, it’s practically wall-to-wall coverage. They’ve been following this story closely for months. The Guardian is unfortunately quite biased in several areas (Israel/Palestine, Military Intervention, and, unfortunately, Russian politics). The BBC is probably your best bet.
Of course, that quote is an old description for war, and that’s what we’re seeing. A surrender without the actual fighting.
I wonder about a couple things here:
-The internal dimension. Anybody trying to make money in Russia is really hurting today. And will be hurting for a while. Though people with access to natural gas and oil will always find a market (if the EU boycotts, they’ll just sell to China), anyone trying to go beyond those markets can’t be happy with this adventure. The Ukrainian Revolution took hold when the oligarchs began switching sides; what does this do to Putin’s power base? Merkel was already emphatic that Putin’s grasp on reality is slipping.
-Why is the US being so hands-off? We moved carrier groups to the Persian Gulf anytime an Ayatollah sneezes? Why not move a group to the Eastern Med? We’re cancelling pre-meeting meetings? Kick Russia out of the G8 already. I’m not for landing paratroopers in the Crimea, but when one side goes this extreme, there should be some blowback.
The NATO 25k strong mobile reactionary force was designed for this very thing. Send them to Western Ukraine and Poland to shore up the line. Send a CBG to the Black Sea. Putin has more to lose but by playing on his terms we cede too much. A bully responds to force. When we let Georgia get taken over I thought to myself we wouldn’t do that with Ukraine. I hope I am not proven wrong.
Throw troops on the ground in Ukraine to ‘shore up the line’ and we’ll probably be successful at that. But then we’ll just have another whole country where troops will have to be stationed for years or decades because the moment we do that, Russia’s troops won’t budge from their line, either.
Not only is that going to be an expensive and scary prospect, but it would be a ‘hotter’ incident with Russia itself than at any time during the entire cold war with the one exception of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The whole strategy for relative peace of the cold war was basically to just keep the US and USSR out of each other’s way, that proxies were bad situations but not nearly as bad for the world as a whole as seeing United States troops and Soviet troops staring at each other through the barrel of a gun.
So it would be really, really crazy to me to give up all the good things that have happened since the cold war ended, only to go to a situation where the US and Russia are in a potentially long-term standoff.
Europe and the world does not need that tinderbox.
Diplomacy is the *only* way there’s any hope for a Russian withdrawal of troops from Crimean territory (at least in the places they’re not supposed to be).
That’s not to say we shouldn’t take strong actions, but they should be diplomatic and economic, designed to apply pressure to get Russia to do the right thing and then provide the right diplomatic avenues to allow it to happen smoothly and successfully.
Should Russia for some reason escalate to other regions of Ukraine or dramatically build up their occupation inside Crimea, we still shouldn’t put troops in there, especially when the country is in such a fragile stage. It could very well be a tipping point that creates conflict within Eastern Ukraine with ethnic Russian nationalists there who want to split away.
We could be leaving Iraq and Afghanistan only to see IEDs killing our soldiers in Ukraine, and it could be partly our fault, with our very presence being the straw that broke the camel’s back.
What we could do is provide as much support as possible to hold Ukraine together. Make sure they have alternative sources for gas, so Russia can’t hold that over them. Make sure they have the funds to keep the ‘lights running’ in their government. Provide aid packages to get their economy going.
Do all that and Ukraine will become stabilized again — giving it much stronger standing to get Crimea back.
If Russia escalates or builds up forces to a dangerous level where Crimea could be seen as a staging ground, then maybe — maybe — we’d have to consider providing arms and military aid, but that’s not even something we should talk about until the time comes.
We need to “be cool” in this situation, remain calm and stay away from inflamed reactions or even rhetoric. If we’re patient and apply the right economic and diplomatic pressure, Russia will find it’s not worth the economic toll.
Russia is very dependent on the worldwide economy in a way the USSR never was — we have real leverage here to achieve our goals without boots on the ground or arms build ups or anything of the sort.
This dependence Russia has on the worldwide economy is the real reason why this isn’t the Cold War anymore — and why we can finesse this for a peaceful, positive resolution rather than go Bush Doctrine and watch this whole thing blow up in our faces in ways we can’t even begin to imagine.
that would escalate the hell out of this thing.
Before thinking we’re being so hands off, realize this is very much just happening and it takes time to make any actions, then consider that a lot is probably happening behind the scenes so we can give diplomacy every chance.
Then also consider that even if we go for some big diplomatic or economic actions, if other countries in Europe don’t follow, it will do little good. A great deal of your frustrations re: sanctions is because Germany isn’t on board.
Had the resolution passed in the Duma been limited to the Crimea we could have the patience for a long term sanctions regime to pressure them to leave. I can think of no historical examples where that has worked, but it’d would still be worth a try. The problem now is, they have authorized action in any part of the Ukraine, and not just the eastern half. They are just waiting for Ukraine to fire the first shot and may provoke them enough to do so. An incursion into Ukraine proper might be enough to get the Germans on board for crippling sanctions, but by that point it might be too late.
Absent US leadership Poland may mobilize, Turkey has even discussed unilateral action, and we may see a ‘guns of August’ situation develop. Korea is a bad analogy, West Berlin is the better one. Crimea is Easy Germany at this point, no way to roll them back, but we can make it quite clear, as Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy did, that there are trip wires in place and territories off limits. That’s how containment works. I don’t see us containing the situation purely via diplomatic means, I also don’t support offensive action to take back territory, even if they do seize Eastern Ukraine, but we can surely move assets there to establish a defense perimeter and offshore balance. And we can arm and supply the Ukraine so it’s not outmatched, not to encourage war but to prevent it.
If no, then we have to try for diplomacy.
I think we have to do everything we can diplomatically, and I also think there’s a greater than 50% chance that we’ll have military “peace keepers” there for fifty years.
At least our technology will make it easier to mount a massive airlift if and when it comes to that.
you think “peacekeepers” can in anyway be part of the solution?
I get the impulse to go all Alpha Dog in this situation. Really, I do.
That’s in many reasons why the Bush Doctrine was so popular… until it wasn’t.
If I thought putting troops on the ground as peacekeepers or to prevent Russia from invading further was a good idea… I’d wholly support it. But it just wouldn’t be happening in a vacuum.
Our presence could be hugely destabilizing, especially in Eastern Ukraine, and it could only serve to force Russia to dig its heels in — to say nothing of the potential sparks that could be ignited.
I’d sooner see Russia completely cut off from Western funds than I would 1 American troop be put on the ground, and I daresay the economic stuff would be far more effective.
are demonstrating today in Eastern Ukraine against the “Bandera Fascists” and we should want to combat them too?? Rightly or wrongly they are begging Putin to come and save them. http://3rm.info/44005-zhiteli-harkovskoy-oblasti-poprosili-vladimira-putina-v-sluchae-fashistskoy-agressii-prinyat-harkovschinu-v-sostav-rf-to-zhe-samoe-i-v-donecke.html
The Bush Doctrine was asserted that American primacy in a unipolar post-Cold War world, it also supported a policy of preemptive war, waged unilaterally if need be, against rogue states which were viewed as the greatest threat to our national security, and also endorsed a militant Wilsonian vision of democratic peace theory and democracy promotion. Preventing enemies from striking first and turning autocratic foes into democratic allies, by the sword if need be, was essential to this doctrine and neoconservatism.
I am instead arguing that we revive containment, like it’s author George Kennan, I opposed the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq War. Containment via no fly zones, routine bombing missions to enforce it, the occasional extraordinary mission like Operation Desert Fox, and a robust UN sanctions and inspections regime succeeded in containing Saddam’s tyranny within his borders and even helped sustain an autonomous Kurdish region. No reason it didn’t need to changed.
Similarly, containment against the Soviet Union in the Cold War ensured we were able to establish a defensive perimeter around our vital interests while creating a standard where we could negotiate for peace. When vital interests were threatened we used multilateral alliances and military deployments to defend the perimeter. Airlifting Berlin in 48′, reinforcing it with NATO trips during the Berlin Crisis in 56′ and 61′,using the OAS to enforce a quarantine around Cuba, were all proactive policies. Supporting anti-Soviet militants in Afghanistan also succeeded. Vital interests like Greece were shored up via the Truman Doctrine, NATO expansion, and the Marshall Plan. Non-vital interests like Prague in 68 and Hungary in 57 were surrendered since they were past the perimeter. Where we attempted rollback-trying to liberate N. Korea, the Bay of Pigs, and Vietnam-we failed-utterly.
I am not proposing rollback here. The Crimea is lost, militarily anyway, and it is not vital enough to start WWIII over. The integrity of the remainder of Ukraine is vital, and we have an obligation to assist it, as we are, financially, and also to reinforce its armed forces and mobilize the entirety of NATO to ensure the protection of member states on the perimeter (Turkey and Poland, who have already invoked their Charter rights I might add). Moving to a CBG to EMS would also help send a signal that there are trip wires and red lines we will not tolerate them crossing. Freezing them economically and as fully as possible is also vital. And I am willing to bailout British banks and send natural gas to Germany and E. Europe to ensure an embargo is successful.
I said I think there is a greater than 50% change it will happen.
Observing that I fear it will happen doesn’t mean I like it.
Not sure who that was directed towards. I don’t support a 50 year troop commitment, but I do think we should be moving assets into the region as we did during the Taiwan Straight Crisis in the 1990s. It will help diplomacy and ensure that Putin knows we are speaking a language he understands.
In no way do I support ground troops occupying Ukraine on our end or engaging Russian troops-again I favor containment not rollback since containment works and rollback fails. Containment is the middle ground between military action and diplomatic rhetoric.
Your impression that Germany is the problem within the EU is telling.
On a serious note, this situation is escalated. See the pics in the (non-American) press today? Russians marching Ukrainian troops away at gunpoint? Russia flew fighter jets alongside the Turkish border today.
Putting a carrier group in the Eastern Med is a balanced way of showing interest. Pulling out of G8 makes sense as well. We need to use gestures understood by Putin.
Germany isn’t, at least not yet. Which is why I’m a little perplexed at what you find so telling.
I’d also favor a great deal more of economic sanctions than the ones i’m seeing proposed (going after Russian individuals and state owned banks), such as trade bans.
I’m not opposed to a carrier group in the Eastern Mediterranean, never said I was. I just don’t want them in the Black Sea. That’s far too dangerous in this tinderbox situation, IMO.
BTW: I get my international news from that bastion of pro American bias known as The Guardian.
…shouldn’t we be pushing Russia out (never belonged in the first place IMO) rather than pulling out ourselves?
“I’m not opposed to a carrier group in the Eastern Mediterranean, never said I was. I just don’t want them in the Black Sea.” Okay…looking back I see you disagreed with someone else and said it was me. I said Eastern Med, not Black Sea. Mainly because that puts Turkey in a bad position, too.
Britain is the sticking point on the G8 (look at the briefing document that was inadvertently shown to the press). Trade bans would mainly hurt Eastern Europe. And why haven’t we recalled our ambassador?
FWIW, my main sources are Al-Jazeera and Le Monde. Like the Telegraph’s auto-update liveblog though.
What’s the West to do now? Lose the gas pipelines running thru Ukraine powering and heating Europe’s homes and businesses? Will the West sanction Russia and leave the US ISS crew stranded as there is no US vehicle for the station trip? “Cut off the nose to spite the face?”
It wasn’t that long ago when the US was calling for war in Syria and Mr Putin showed himself as the voice of reason over the Administration’s war cries. Does this situation no add to Mr Putin’s image?
The quotes from POTUS and SECSTATE regarding the evil of countries attacking others “unprovoked” are almost laughable. Either of these guys realize what the American Empire does?
“And would some Power the small gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us…”
–Robert Burns
Despite Moscow’s counter-productive stance on both Syrian intervention and regime change last year, the Kremlin has shown a greater willingness to work cooperatively with the United States and the EU in the past 5 years than at any other point in their brief history. Expelling Russia from the G-8 now would be utterly foolish, and would only serve to make it more difficult to resolve future conflicts of interest. The G-8 is the only vessel, outside of the UNSC, where the West has a direct channel of communication with Russian leadership. It should be clear that America’s best option for progressing with Russia as international partners is to allow the situation in Eastern Europe to resolve without interference.
Stavrdis’ suggestions are all excellent ways to further sour relations with Moscow. Not a one of them would prevent Russia from annexing the Crimea or Eastern Ukraine, or from turning them into ‘independent’ occupied states like South Ossetia. Much like the Georgia conflict, his idea of American involvement conflict would effect the outcome very little, and put Ruso-American relations back another decade.
The East-West polarization has gotten steadily worse.
The history of Crimea is pretty weird. The USSR deported the largest ethnic group, the Tatars, and kept them out. Crimea had been part of the Russian Federation within the Soviet Union, but then as a sort of anniversary present it was transferred to the Ukrainian SSR. After the Soviet Union split up, Ukraine lost its definite article but retained Crimea.
Ukraine itself has a lot of ethnic Russians. It also has a lot of ethnic Ukrainians whose principal language is Russian. As farmland, it’s very attractive.
…Ukraine can cede to Russia the area surrounding Chernobyl, which from what I understand and recall is still uninhabitable:)