Last night, Russia launched a brazen attack on the people of Ukraine, in violation of international law and basic principles of human decency. Russia did so not because Ukraine posed a threat to Russia, but because the people of Ukraine chose a path of sovereignty, self-determination, and democracy. For exercising rights that should be available to all people and nations, Ukrainians now face a brutal onslaught that is killing thousands and displacing untold numbers of men, women and children.
The consequences of Russia’s reckless actions extend beyond Russia’s borders. This illegal invasion in the heart of Europe also threatens the foundation of the international order and security. For some time now, we have seen the forces of division and authoritarianism make headway around the world, mounting an assault on the ideals of democracy, rule of law, equality, individual liberty, freedom of expression and worship, and self-determination. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows where these dangerous trends can lead — and why they cannot be left unchallenged.
People of conscience around the world need to loudly and clearly condemn Russia’s action and offer support for the Ukrainian people. And every American, regardless of party, should support President Biden’s efforts, in coordination with our closest allies, to impose hard-hitting sanctions on Russia — sanctions that impose a real price on Russia’s autocratic elites.
There may be some economic consequences to such sanctions, given to Russia’s significant role in world energy markets. But that’s a price we should be willing to pay to take a stand on the scale of freedom. For over the long term, we all face a choice, between a world in which might make right and autocrats are free to impose their will through force, or a world in which free people everywhere have the power to determine their own future.
Michelle and I will be praying for the courageous people of Ukraine, for Russian citizens who have bravely declared their opposition to these attacks, and for all those who will bear the cost of a senseless war.
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Thank you President Obama for inspiring us to progress toward a more perfect union in solidarity with all world citizens.
Nice talk, but a big part of the blame for this comes from Obama’s continued downplaying of the Russian threat throughout the first six years of his term, to the point where he mocked Romney for calling it the worlds biggest geopolitical threat in 2012. Romney would prove to be right.
Obama then anemically responded to Crimea and allowed the Russians to take significant territory in Syria preventing a humanitarian intervention against Assad. The assumption that Russia and China could be cheaply bought with American style capitalism was one of the biggest foreign policy failures since the end of the Cold War. Right up there with the Forever Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama also refused to publicly acknowledge intelligence that Putin was interfering in Trumps behalf since “Moscow Mitch” McConnell refused to agree to it.
Crackpot talk. The only thing worse than forever wars is a nuclear forever war.
There you go again with nuclear war. Should we have allowed West Berlin to be gobbled by the Soviets? Or Greece? Or Turkey? Containment worked precisely since the Russians respected peace through strength. The e people through small arms are inflicting many casualties upon the vaunted Russian military. Putin is looking more and more like a paper Tiger, and I only wish we had called his bluff and responded to his aggression sooner.
By the time the Syria pimple burst, it was already far too late for any democratic outcome.
ALL of the groups that might have brought something like democracy to Syria were united in their opposition to Israel. America therefore automatically refused to deal with them in our knee-jerk capitulation to Israeli intransigence.
As a result, by the time things came to a head in Syria during the Barack Obama administration, there were no “moderates” left.
I’m not sure whether or not America should have responded more forcefully in Crimea. I am sure that conflating Crimea with Syria significantly weakens your argument.
There was a window right after Libya where a similar air campaign could have grounded the Syrian Air Force and saved thousands of Syrian lives. Obama dithered on launching the operation, even after his red line comment, and in that span of time the Russians reinforced Assad and had their mercenaries and air defenses on the ground making it impossible to intervene. By the time he came back to Congress to authorize air strikes in 2015 it was too late. I supported air strikes in 2013 and opposed them in 2015 precisely since the risk of hitting Russian assets was too great in 2015. By that point there was also Al Nusra and ISIS all over the place.
Similarly with Crimea the kinds of sanctions we are seeing now could have been employed then. Kicking Russia out of SWIFT for instance. There should have also been a better effort to arm the Ukrainian military to deter further seizures. I think Obama badly underestimated how little Putin cared about world opinion or accessing global markets. I also think he overestimated how willing Medvedev was to go his own way during his brief term in office.
Look a lot of this goes back to Iraq. I think the Bush administration squandered a ton of political and military capital on that foolish adventure which then mad successor presidents like Obama understandably cautious about entangling America in further conflict. But I think Biden was the first president with the courage to see the end of the GWOT and reposition the US against the great power threats we spent two decades ignoring as they gained strength, their autocratic leadership consolidated power, and they increasingly acted against our interests. He’s done an impressive job of assembling a coalition to take on Putin. My hawkishness toward Russia was an issue people here and my left wing friends in real life used to laugh off, until Russians helped Trump and then the polarity of the issue shifted. I know sound about as reactionary as Adam Schiff, but there was a time when the GOP was right on Russia and the Democrats were wrong, and I do not think it is unfair to criticize our side when they dropped the ball. Biden certainly isn’t, he’s doing a great job on this issue.
I’ll also add Hillary was right about all of these challenges go back to her 2015 interview with Jeffrey Goldberg. For that she was pilloried as hawkish by the left, but there is a reason Putin did not want her in office. It was not just that she would be tougher on him than Trump, she’d have been tougher on him than Obama.
Suppose the US had exploited that window and grounded the Syrian air force. What then? What government would we have chosen if Assad had been removed?
I agree that a lot of this goes back to Iraq. Even more goes back to Israel.
America chose to ally ourselves with Israel decades earlier. Libya, Syria, Lebanon — all those were Soviet satellites in no small part because of their hatred and our love for Israel.
If an actual democratic government had been put in place in Libya and Syria, the first two things that government would have done — no particular order — would have been:
Russian influence in the Middle East outside of Russia has been dominant because Russia has always been willing to fill the vacuum created by our insistence on supporting Israel.
The incredible stupidity — never mind criminality — of the 2003 Iraq invasion was in no small part because it destroyed the strongest non-sectarian nation in the entire region. It took down the most pro-American government in the region — even more so than the Saudis (as we’ve learned since).
All that had already happened by the time Barack Obama took office.
By 2008, there was no good outcome on the table. Barack Obama played the cards he was dealt better than anybody else including Hillary Clinton. To her credit, Ms. Clinton saw the dilemma in Libya and Syria just as clearly as Mr. Obama.
I’m no supporter of Russia. I don’t think direct military conflict with Russia is needed to bring about the collapse of the Putin regime — I think Mr. Putin is bringing that on himself.
I think it is a mistake to conflate Russia’s role in the Middle East with Russian aggressiveness towards its immediate geographic neighbors.
I think the first is the direct result of American loyalty to Israel. If Russia crashes and burns (again), I think it’s more likely that China will fill the gap than America. I think a different dynamic is at play in the Middle East.
I think that Vladimir Putin is trying to vault himself onto the same pedestal as Peter the Great. I think his adventure in the Ukraine is driven by his internal craving for historical recognition rather than any rational strategy.
I think the best way to manage Vladimir Putin is to starve the beast. His spending on the Russian military is unsustainable — and especially so when the sanctions and economic barriers are put in place. The Russian people will suffer and starve, and Mr. Putin will lose his already tenuous grip on power. There are already reports of extreme dissatisfaction within the upper echelons of the Russian military.
If Russia was to attempt to open another front in another neighbor, I think it will just increase the rate at which the Russian bear is bleeding to death. I see this invasion of Ukraine as a sign of Russian weakness rather than strength. Mr. Putin is seeing his vision slipping away, and is thrashing about in a futile attempt to stave off the inevitable.
I therefore don’t think direct military conflict is the most effective strategy. Although the GOP credits Ronald Reagan’s military buildup with the fall of the Iron Curtain, I think more objective historians have shown that the American build up actually delayed the collapse by providing a high-profile “wolf at the door”.
That’s why I think “strategic patience” is the best path. I wasn’t joking about rope-a-dope, either. Rope-a-dope worked because Ali recognized that he was in better shape than a much older George Foreman. Ali let Foreman punch himself out, then pounced when Foreman had nothing left to fight with.
Knowing when NOT to counter-attack is an important teaching of Sun Tzu (revered ancient military strategist). Those who play “Go” learn the same lesson.
I think we’re doing the right thing in the Ukraine.
I think that Donald Trump and the GOP seditionists are far and away the most immediate threat that Vladimir Putin presents to America and American interests.
There’s a a lot of Tom’s analysis that I disagree with very strongly, but I almost uprated it because Tom is at least asking the right questions. Simply assuming that the US just wants democracy and justice, and that the world’s problem is just that they don’t conform to our enlightened wishes because we don’t bully them enough–it’s foreign policy by children.
The fact is that we don’t much care about democracy or the rights of countries not to be invaded. We sometimes support breakaway states, (Eritrea, East Timor, Kosovo) and sometimes don’t.
That’s why I said that we should have an exit strategy, ie a clear idea of what an acceptable outcome would be. “Making the world safe from bullies” would require a hard look at our own priorities.Democratic Reps tweet about Ukraine — from Israel, on AIPAC junket – Mondoweiss
I would strongly disagree with the notion that I am not asking those questions or assuming that the US is always on the side of justice and democracy.
I’ll put my cards on the table. The choice facing the world this century is continued largely benign American hegemony or Chinese hegemony with Russia as its junior partner. As an American I have a vested self interest in my country continuing to maintain its primary position, and as a small l small d liberal democrat, I have a vested values based interest that the ruling power I’m subject to be a liberal democracy rather than an autocracy.
So just like the Cold War it means we have two kinds of allies. Other liberal democracies and governments that are not democratic but aligned with us against our authoritarian rival powers. Both kinds of alliances are going to be critical if we want to take on the Chinese and prevent them from dominating the world.
So I would argue that America neither has the moral authority nor the self interest to lecture Turkey and India about their human rights violations. We need to cut deals with them to make them from peripheral partners to full allies against the Russians and Chinese. It means restoring the Iran nuclear deal as a first step toward cutting a broader deal with them that leaves their regime in power and takes them off the table as a rival. It means that the Middle East deserves a period of benign neglect and I would neither carry the Israelis water anymore nor would I bother much with the Palestinians. The status quo is probably the best both sides are going to get in the near to mid term.
I think that’s a consistent world view. Defend existing democracies from hostile takeover from rival powers. Increase the power of liberal supranational institutions to create a rules based order but also recognize that Hobbesian anarchy still exists in the system and rival powers need to be checked and balanced by American power. That does not mean intervention, but it also does not mean total disengagement from playing the game of world politics. Prioritize the places that need to be defended and defend them.
Ukraine is not a core priority like Taiwan is, I would not risk American lives to liberate it. We do have an incentive to give them a fighting chance to make the war painful for Russia as a deterrence to future Russian aggression and as a means to contain their expansion to Ukraine.
So our exit strategy is tied to Putin’s. A settlement where his troops leave Ukraine and he respects the territorial sovereignty of his neighbors in exchange for US security guarantees that we will leave his regime and Russia itself alone. If that means halting NATO expansion I am open to it, but I think anyone who believes that’s the only thing Putin wanted in this invasion is deluding themselves. He wants Ukraine, and there is a greater risk of instability giving it to him then doing what we can indirectly to make it painful for him to acquire.
I agree with you that China is our most important international rival.
China gives every indication that they quietly join the US and our allies in pursuing “strategic patience” towards Russia in Europe. Conflicts along Russia’s western border are conflicts that the Chinese would rather avoid, I think.
I think we will do well to pay rather more attention to radically reconstructing our relationship with our neighbors in Central and South America. While we are continuing our corrupt and imperialistic “war on drugs”, China is building schools (that teach Chinese language and culture), providing low- or no-interest government-subsidized to loans to small business, and doing all the things that a major power does to build and nurture friends and allies.
I think our best strategy towards Europe is to continue doing what we’re doing while doing all in our power to starve the Russian Bear.
Agree about all that. The War on Drugs has been a huge failure and it’s time to ramp it down and restart something like the Alliance for Progress. Similarly in Africa China has made a lot of influential inroads by building up the economic capacities of the states they invest in rather than drowning them in IMF debt like the West has.
Personally, if China were to “steal” much of our “intellectual property”, my life might a little nicer.
I wasn’t thinking of IP. Can you be more specific about what you mean?
From Dean Baker:
Many items that sell at high prices as a result of patent or copyright protection would be free or nearly free in the absence of these government granted monopolies. Perhaps the most notable example is prescription drugs where we will spend over $420 billion in 2018 in the United States for drugs that would almost certainly cost less than $105 billion in a free market. The difference is $315 billion annually or 1.6 percent of GDP. If we add in software, medical equipment, pesticides, fertilizer, and other areas where these protections account for a large percentage of the cost, the gap between protected prices and free market prices likely approaches $1 trillion annually, a sum that is more than 60 percent of after-tax corporate profits.
Stronger and longer patent and copyright protections have redistributed enormous amounts of income upward over the past four decades, likely more than $1 trillion annually (half of all corporate profits). If Biden plans to put stronger enforcement of U.S. intellectual property claims at the center of his trade relations with China, it means he wants to redistribute even more money away from the vast majority of people who voted for him to the richest 10 percent of the population.
Ah, I see — that red herring. Sorry, not biting.
Are you seriously arguing against patent protections, which actually happen to be one of the explicitly enumerated powers of the US Congress? That’s a pretty big chunk of what incentivizes invention and progress!
Am I against patent protection? No. Whatever gave you that idea? I am against the abuse of patent protection. Some here seem to want to ignore the abuse I have no idea why they feel that way. I also do not buy the myth that patent protection is the primary driver of innovation.
This comment reminds of Donald Trump inviting Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Is that what you intend?
Nope. Just looking out for run of the mill working class Americans. That’s my position today and it will not change tomorrow.
Ah, I see.
It appears that the “run of the mill working class Americans” that you “protect” …
The piece you cited together with your commentary suggests that you not only want to dismantle all IP protection, but also encourage international outlaws who are notorious for stealing the intellectual property of others.
I guess that in your world no “run of the mill working class Americans” ever invent anything or seek to create their own businesses based on trademarks they own, copyrights of material they create, and the individual wisdom that makes their venture unique.
It doesn’t sound like you’ve ever created your own business.
Another example of “I’ve already made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts”.
Right. China — the world’s leader in making life better for “run of the mill working class” people.
With “protections” like you advocate, run-of-the-mill working class Americans don’t need predators.
Wow, that’s quite a leap. Nope, not taking the bait today. I stand with the American Worker.
As Christopher points out, patent protection is one of the explicitly enumerated powers of the US Congress.
You apparently join Mr. Trump in casually ignoring the Constitution whenever it gets in the way of whatever particular whim you would “protect” Americans from or with on any given day.
Hmmm, wrong again mate. I am not against patent protection. I am against unfair patent protections that funnel money away from the working class. But hey, I’m a pro-working class. I against patent protections that actually stifle innovation. Well, that’s me. I no fan of the 1%.
And by the way, while I appreciate the fact that you are no longer associating me with Rush Limbaugh (RIP), could you do me a favor and drop the Trump connection references?
This sub-thread began with you writing the following:
You followed that up with a cite of a screed that argues that “intellectual property [is] the root of all evil — patents copyrights and inequality”
I hope you’ll forgive me for reading your commentary as being against patent protection.
Neither am I.
I invite you to post this in its own diary. I’ll be happy to front-page that if you do so.
I’ll remove any further exchanges posted to this subthread.
I largely agree with this analysis and will uprate it. I don’t think we could have overthrown Assad, and committing ourselves to his ouster so early in the conflict gave him no off ramps but to fight. The brief experiment in Egyptian democracy and American indifference to Sissi’s coup dismantling it proves your point correct about the perceived dangers of bringing democracy to those countries (that they will likely elect regimes hostile to American and Israeli interests in the region) outweigh the benefits from a realpolitik perspective. That said, Tunisian democracy seems to be doing just fine and it did not require any American assistance to get to that point nor are they hostile to us our allies in the region.
Regime change was never the goal of the Libyan intervention. It was to eliminate a hostile military force that was about to commit a genocidal act. That is what the UNSC sanctioned and that is largely what happened. The Libyans killed Qaddafi on their own, not the American military. I think a similar air campaign around the same time could have wiped out most of Assad’s capability to inflict genocide on his own people. Full stop.
I think failing to intervene early allowed the Russians to become entrenched on the ground to preserve their warm water parts on the Mediterranean. So I brought this up not to debate Obama’s Syrian policy more broadly, but simply to point out this was another line Putin crossed, like Crimea. that Obama insufficiently responded to. I’ll concede that he had to deal with European leaders less willing to take on Putin at that time and a war weary American public, challenges Biden has more flexibility in dealing with now that we are totally out of the wars and a more united Europe facing off with Russia over the war in Ukraine.
Sounds like you’re playing “Risk” .
Chris Hayes made that comment to attack a former professor of mine, who I happen to disagree with on Ukraine, but anyone using the realist framework comes off sounding cold and heartless, but it is the idealist who is more liable to end up in a quagmire.
I prefer liberal realist. We live in a world that has Hobbesian and Lockian shades. The Hobbesian recognizes that bigger states will dominate smaller states, the Lockian creates supranational bodies to overcome that dilemma and enforce some norms for state behavior. So for the cold realist NATO was a relic and a non-communist Russia had a right to its near abroad. For the liberal idealist, NATO should always expand and be employed now to directly protect Ukraine. For the liberal realist, I seek to preserve Ukraine using the means least likely to start a direct armed conflict with Russia.
When NATO expansion was on the table in the 90s it felt to me like a dated idea. I thought it made sense to let the EU expand its membership and consolidate its mandate, then replace NATO with an alliance among the US, Canada, and the EU. No country has any right to tell another it cannot join an alliance or international organization.
While true in the abstract, I’m not sure the US will idly sit by if China starts building huge military bases in South America, complete with full nuclear capabilities. If that action were attempted under the guise of some alliance or international organization, I suspect that the US would still not allow it.
I agree that NATO is a dated concept.
I’m not sure that the US would embrace an EU with military capability that rivals the US.
As I understand it, the biggest challenge of NATO since its inception is the absolute requirement that the US be THE nation that determines how NATO resources are used.
The US is reasonably careful to insure that the military equipment exported to any NATO partners would lose in any head-to-head conflict with the US.
The bottom line is that the US was the victor in WWII. I think Americans, especially younger Americans, tend to lose sight of the privilege that comes with absolute military superiority.
I’m not sure that any American government will or should ever cede that absolute military superiority to any other nation or international alliance.
I suspect that that absolute military superiority is at or near the heart of whatever is driving Vladimir Putin to do what he’s doing.
“ I’m not sure that the US would embrace an EU with military capability that rivals the US.”
I think we are seeing the birth pangs of this very independent capability develop as countries that have long piggy backed off of American security guarantees like Germany, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, the Baltics, etc. race to embrace the 2% GDP military spending target and develop an increasingly integrated command somewhat separate of and parallel to NATO.
As an aside, it is also clear to me that Brexit made Britain far less relevant in these recent conversations and leave remains a huge mistake on their part. BoJo is playing like an also ran to Macron, Scholz, and Stohlberg.
Anyway I think developing these independent capabilities are vital in order for the US to pivot to the Indo-Pacific. It also would enable the US to play a more supportive role which undermines Putin’s propaganda that the NATO and EU expansions are American led aggression against Russia. No sir, they are the authentic ambitions of a free and democratic Europe now united against you.
I’m not sure regional hegemons rather than one big one are the worst things in the world, but it’s certainly better that they be partners rather than rivals. Something to be said for not stretching ourselves too thin. I’ve long advocated the EU become a United States of Europe, especially after having studied it in grad school and I assume that at least the two of us are inclined to be partners on most things.
I don’t think we’d be very happy if China built bases in this hemisphere either. We’ve jealously guarded our influence in that regard going back to the Monroe Doctrine. However, that would be cause for diplomatic carrots and sticks, not a military invasion of any country allowing such bases.
Well, we came pretty close with Cuba in 1963.
I know that’s a long time ago, but I’m not sure we’d behave very differently today.
Except we did NOT invade (at least over the Missile Crisis, Bay of Pigs notwithstanding). If anything, that is an example of how we should handle such a situation and proved it can work. (Also, the threat was a bit more direct – pointing missiles at us as opposed to simply building a base or Cuba joining an alliance with the USSR.)
There’s a lot of 20/20 hindsight in that comment. I actually recall Syria being the one instance where I thought Putin was the one who came up with the right idea to mollify the situation, and I’m pretty sure he never attempted to annex Syrian territory.
I bring that up not to compare the situations but to put into context how moves by Obama were perceived by the Russians as capitulation or appeasement. Crimea should have led to the reaction we are seeing now, and unfortunately I think a lot of bloodshed could have been avoided if the West had been tougher on Russia back in 2014.
I think you’re ignoring the stark difference in the political landscape of Ukraine in 2014 versus 2022.
We should recall that rampant and pervasive corruption within the Ukrainian government was a huge issue in 2014. The Ukrainian military was in terrible shape.
That corruption was central to the role that Joe Biden played as Vice President during that time. The success of Barack Obama and Joe Biden at excising that corruption and improving the Ukrainian military was a direct cause of the behavior that led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment.
Ukraine is pushing back on Russia and Vladimir Putin because America spent nearly a decade strengthening its political system and economy — in spite of the best efforts of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to sabotage that progress.
Ukraine of 2014 was not enough similar to Ukraine of 2022 for the current strategy to have worked in 2014. I think your comment is essentially criticizing Barack Obama and Joe Biden for successfully building the very strengths in Ukraine that made its resistance possible this week.
Lets keep reminding people:
I agree with everything you laid out there except for the last sentence. I think Obama did a lot of productive things that laid the groundwork for Biden’s diplomatic success. Particularly our relationship with core European allies who rightly felt mocked and ignored by the second Bush administration. Obama did a lot to curry favor with France and Germany and it’s a miracle that they bide their time under Trump and waited patiently for the Biden administration to come to pass. Biden’s recent diplomatic success is undoubtedly riding on Obama’s coattails.
By bigger point is McCain was right in 2008 to be hawkish about Russia and Romney was right in 2012. Obama made a serious mistakes in trusting Putin and Medvedev for the first six years of his term. The reset was never going to work since Putin always had zero interest in being part of the liberal world order. I will not argue with their efforts to build up Ukrainian self sufficiency and state capacity, I will argue that Obama and Bush both underestimated Putin and overestimated the end of history.
To be fair they had a lot of company regarding the end of history. It really did look for a while like democracy would be universal in the developed world at least, and the Pax Americana would be extended for quite some time.