Crimea, Credibility, and Intervention by Paul Pillar, The National Interest
The Crimean crisis has energized those who wallow in a conventional wisdom that, as Fareed Zakaria noted last week, had already become a familiar theme on the opinion pages. This is the theme that the United States is in retreat, that it is insufficiently assertive, and that this lack of assertiveness is having awful consequences around the world. The crisis is tailor-made to encourage such wallowing, involving as it does a use of armed forces by the successor to the old Cold War adversary. So no time has been wasted by those who complain that soft U.S. policies have brought things in Ukraine to this juncture and who cry for more U.S. assertiveness in response, including saber-rattling with U.S. armed forces.
The conventional wisdom prospers, despite empirically mistaken aspects of it that Zakaria points out, partly because of the difference between punditry and incumbency and the related difference between posturing and policy-making. Pundits can do grand hand-wringing about supposed decline without the hard labor of thinking through which specific alternative options really exist with regard to specific problems and what their specific results are likely to be. It prospers also because of conceptual sloppiness that, as Paul Saunders notes, tends to equate leadership with the use of military force…
Crimea: Russia is Harvesting the Seeds Sown in the 1990s by Jeremy Kotkin, The Bridge
This week the Russian Federation, for all intents and purposes, invaded a sovereign country. As difficult as interpretations of the Budapest Memorandum, OSCE convention, and other aspects of international law and norm can be to define, there can be no mistake; Ukraine’s territorial integrity was unilaterally violated and there must be a response. Figuring out the suitable, feasible, and acceptable response must occur and it must occur quickly if it is to have the intended effect. But the decision making process in Washington, Brussels, Kiev, and Strasbourg must be tempered and not reactionary. It must not give in to the calls to conflate, unknowingly or intently, the Budapest Memorandum with NATO’s Article 5. It must not, as ADM(ret) Stavridis or current sitting members of the Obama administration would have it, lash out with punitive and largely unproductive measures or worse yet, counterproductive to longer term strategic interests. Primarily however, rational strategy, both diplomatic and military if need be, must understand history, both recent and older. We must understand what has brought us to the precipice again in Europe and what we can yet still do about it…
Comments
I'm going to have to make do with a Thomas Friedman column (!) from 2008 or so because I can't find the Washington Post letter to the editor that basically calls out Robert Kagan in 2008 and says that crossing certain red-lines will bring a response.
<blockquote>“The Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams acted on the basis of two false premises,” said Mandelbaum. “One was that Russia is innately aggressive and that the end of the cold war could not possibly change this, so we had to expand our military alliance up to its borders. Despite all the pious blather about using NATO to promote democracy, the belief in Russia’s eternal aggressiveness is the only basis on which NATO expansion ever made sense — especially when you consider that the Russians were told they could not join. The other premise was that Russia would always be too weak to endanger any new NATO members, so we would never have to commit troops to defend them. It would cost us nothing. They were wrong on both counts.”
The humiliation that NATO expansion bred in Russia was critical in fueling Putin’s rise after Boris Yeltsin moved on. And America’s addiction to oil helped push up energy prices to a level that gave Putin the power to act on that humiliation. This is crucial backdrop.</blockquote> - Thomas Friedman, New York Times (2008)
<blockquote>Kagan's essay "Not Fade Away: The Myth of American Decline", (the New Republic, February 2012, was <strong>very positively received by President Obama.</strong> Josh Rogin reported in Foreign Policy that the president "spent more than 10 minutes talking about it...going over its arguments paragraph by paragraph." That essay was excerpted from his book The Word America Made (2012).</blockquote> - Robert Kagan wiki
<blockquote>Not Fade Away. The Myth of American Decline.
The Americans won the Gulf War, expanded NATO eastward, eventually brought peace to the Balkans, after much bloodshed, led much of the word to embrace the "Washington Consensus" on economics--but some of these successes began to unravel, and were matched by equally significant failures.</blockquote>. The New Republic, Jan 11, 2012
<blockquote>A democratizing Russia, and even Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet Union, took a fairly benign view of NATO and tended to have good relations with neighbors that were treading the same path toward democracy. But Vladimir Putin regards NATO as a hostile entity, calls its enlargement "a serious provocation," and asks "against who is this expansion intended?"</blockquote> Ideologies Rude Return, Robert Kagan, Friday May 2, 2008
So, a President with little foreign policy experience because of his background in domestic politics listens to the same failed liberal interventionist/neocon blather that got us into trouble in Iraq, Afghanistan (surge), almost in Syria, and so on.
The essay on the myth of American decline is seductive, no doubt, but it mixes apples and oranges and conflates many things. Kagan has often written about the bumpy nature of American hegemony and the mistakes made, yet never pauses to consider in his essay whether what he counts as successes are really failures, or potential trouble spots.
How does this foreign policy deep state continue its intellectual seductions, president after president, year after year, failed policy and intervention after failed policy and intervention?
Oh. I'm sorry. Continue on with the discussion that is most comfortable to some in the American military and foreign policy world, where the world is a univariate world and the only variable that matters is the US and leaders showing "strongness!" Cold War nostalgia, in the US, Europe and Russia. What a waste.
Oh, by the way, the poison pill in Kagan's work is the same old, same old: Democratization and regime change. That's what others hear. Because that is what he is really saying, until we democratize everyone, the US can't be safe. And we need to use every hook or crook in the book to do it. I am surprised the President missed that point in the essay.
From Mandarin: The Diaries of An Ambassador (Nicholas Henderson):
10 February, Washington, 1980:
<blockquote>When I saw Zbig this week, he told me of the theme dominant on his mind: the effect of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviet motives and their future intentions, and how to deter them from further adventures. I do not think the Americans are very clear on how they are going to bring the Middle East and South-East Asian countries into some sort of defence arrangement - called first 'a doctrine', then 'a framework', and by Zbig 'a web'. They are also uncertain how they are going to concert policy with their European allies....The Americans are not impressed by the performance of the European community in the aftermath of the Soviet Union and wrangling about the British contribution to the budget.
I sought to draw Zbig out on the US guarantee to the Persian Gulf and the proposed framework of security co-operation in the <strong>arc of crisis</strong>, leaving him in doubt that I realized what an important departure this ws in U.S. foreign policy. <strong>It was being referred to as the Carter Doctrine.</strong></blockquote>
Zbig: We will build an arc of containment upon an arc of crisis! There is no flaw in this plan!
As for the Persian Gulf, so for the expansion of NATO. An arc of containment on an arc of crisis.
Uh, I think I see a flaw in the plan....
Sometimes it would be good for Americans to fully understand what the generation during and up to the collapse suffered like before the SU collapse occurred to really get a feel for why many in the former east bloc really respect and admire the US---it is not our politics it is our governance, our wide open spaces, the ability to start a simple business, the education system, the English which is actually American spread worldwide and the music, and on it goes.
So there is great disappointment when they see how we respond to something they feel very strongly about because they fully understand the Russian mindset during these events--something we Americans never quite get----by the way some of the Russian politicians inside Russia are now openly questioning Putins' military decisions.
Robert often writes here about good governance and the rule of law---something many in the former east bloc want thus the street actions in Kiev against typical Russian corruption and oligarch mindsets.
They understand the strict requirements to join the EU will hurt as they transition from a Soviet planned economy with oligarchs to a western system which some say has its own kind of oligarchs but they want to try.
Equally as important is the rule of law and open governance---that is what they really want after the long SU years.
By the way in Russian there is a term for that SU generation---they were simply called "the whipped".
I second carl's comment---Dishonesty is from a generation of Eastern Europeans who while part of the Warsaw Pact saw the US as bigger than life, bought on the black markets US smuggled movies/music and from the Voice of American and Radio Free Europe which by the still operates in Prague Czech Republic heard the reality about what was going on inside their own countries during the Cold War AND western rock music---the English language or better yet American is now almost the second national language across all of Europe.
Secondly, they pined for the EU due to it appearance of good governance and a strong developed economy many in the east wished for during the WP/SU days.
That is a large reason for their drive to join the EU---the drive to join NATO was for self protection from what Russia is now doing.
So now in time of crisis they turn always towards the US out of self protection instincts because they think we know what we are doing when in fact our senior leadership is just as lost as they are right now on how to respond.
That is what scares them---the realization that even the US does not get it sometimes, that we are conflict shy and risk adverse and yet offer only talk when this Eastern European generation knows that Russia responds only to threat of force on occasions---that has been their reality from years being under the influence/control by the SU.
Dishonesty:
The simple answer is the country that was the US, that you saw in movies and read about in the books, that some of your ancestors went to because they wanted to better their live, that country seems to be fading away. It breaks my heart as much as it does yours.
What you can do is stop deferring to Americans sensibilities and call us what you see us to be. Openly and strongly. Somebody has to tell the emperor his wardrobe is deficient.
Dishonesty, sadly the American President and much of his administration do not have a strong view of America's interests. You ask a very reasonable question for a European. I suspect that you are at least 40-50 years old and can easily remember US Presidents eager to assert American leadership, especially in Europe in security matters.
President Obama's view of history is that American power is to blame for most of the world's problems and otherwise Europe and the world would be more peaceful if America remained quiet in world affairs. So he is being meek in the face of Russia in the Ukraine.
As an American I am deeply upset that this President is turning his back on our responsibility to stand up for the security of Europe. If it is of any comfort to you millions of Americans are also very upset over this lack of American response. Our fears were confirmed several years ago when this President stopped efforts for missile defenses which were to be based in Poland and Czech Republic.
I realize that many Europeans have unrealistic expectations of the US; that's hardly news. What's surprising is that some, including some Americans, seem to think that the US should try to live up to those expectations, rather than asking Europeans to align their expectations with reality.
Again: I have no objection to the US helping Europe, if the Europeans define the response they prefer and ask politely for assistance. Expecting the US to define and initiate the response is unrealistic and counterproductive.
A problem that many have with Europeans east and west is that it tends to seem to many that they complain and complain and complain .
But if you lived under Communism for say 40 yrs and then lived through the break up and expected something better for all those years of living a third class life one might understand where they are coming from.
For western Europeans the major complaint is not of the same caliber but another subtle one--namely the difference between what we say we do, what we claim others should be doing and then watching the US not even follow it's own verbiage only to be repeated over and over and over.
There's the core problem.
I don't see the logic in this reflexive moaning about how the US ought to do something and how the US and its leaders are somehow deficient. Why the assumption that the defense of Europe is an American responsibility? Europe has a larger population and GDP than Russia. The EU has a larger GDP than the US. The EU has far more trade leverage over Russia than the US. Instead of moaning about the American response, why not ask the European leadership to stand up and take responsibility for defining what response is appropriate in their own immediate sphere? If they need American help, fine: let them decide what they need and ask politely and there's every reason for the US to help out in any reasonable way. Expecting the US to jump out in front and tell Europeans what they should do to protect themselves seems less than reasonable to me. Europeans are not children.
Honestly, Dishonesty...
The combined EU population is 500 million. Europe has a far larger economy than Russia, and has the economic leverage to impose real penalties on the Russians.
So why are you looking to the US and complaining about American inaction? Given the population and economic potency of the EU, why should the defense of Europe be an American responsibility?
I not mean military action,but harsh messages,strong diplomatic pressure,increase combat readiness etc.
Your current message for Putin is: "The struggle to downsize EUCOM" Stripes March 2, 2014
For Eastern Europe it is simple math.The population of Russia is 143,700,000.With annexing Ukraina 190 000 000.
Poland 40,Czech 10,Slovakia 5,Hungary 10, Baltic states 6 million people.
What can we do?
There has in fact been a request that the US and NATO are shying away from using the argument that the Ukraine is not a full member so they cannot ask under Article 5.
But the Ukraine is an associate member in another way which would provide valid cover---it is just my humble opinion that no one wants a war over what many in the US population would ask---Ukraine how do you spell it and where in the heck is it again?
The critical point is that it can be done without military action if the EU and the US truly want to lock down the Russian economy which is struggling to stay afloat.
BUT it has to come fast and faster to get ahead of the Putin daily moves and it must be serious---my guess is right now the Germans are dragging their feet with a bunch of ifs and maybe's praying that Putin get's his head on right and realizes what he has triggered.
They took a massive hit on their stock market today and the Rubel is in free fall---that might be the reason Russia is moving with urgency to wrap it up thus the threats that were uttered today by the Black Sea Fleet Commander.
By the way I do understand the Commenters compliant as it does appear that the US is both lost, confused, and risk adverse at the moment-but we have seen this in the past ie Syria--this coming from an American living in Berlin seven hours from Kiev.
I am from Czech republic.
Can you me explain American indecision?
You have 2313 US KIA and 447 UK KIA in Afghanistan.Annual Costs of the War in Afghanistan is 100 billion dollars.
The Afghanistan is DUST HOLE with NIL strategic value.
The Ukraine is the largest wholly European country and the second largest country in Europe,44.6 million people.
It is bumper between NATO and Russia.
You do nothing,NOTHING!
JPWREL---I previously mentioned the fear factor and the disdain---this kind of backs it up.
Mentioned today by the Russians----
"Ukraine's New Leaders - A Neo-Nazis, A Muslim, A Jew And A Boxer"
Again the fear of the street vs the professional oligarch class and Putin considers himself equal to and or higher than the oligarchs.
JPWREL---there is that argument about natural resources but due to poor exploitation during the communist days they are dwindling outside of gas which they are heavy on fracking --in some aspects that is why they are interested in the Ukraine for exactly these reasons---Ukraine is heavy in iron, coal, and other natural resources and sits atop a massive gas reserve that rivals anything Gazprom can deliver via fracking.
So maybe yes to the argument of sphere of influence but one build on a colonial basis from the Czarist days in the 1800s.
The Russians are in deep need for modern investment and new factories---this side show will only deepen the problem.
What strikes me is more the inherent fear that Putin has that if the street can in fact overthrow a hand picked prorussian president who even played the KGB play book on how to blame the demonstrations for the violence and in the end even use snipers---he ran the book and yet failed in the face of the street.
It is the street that Putin fears as he has had his demos in Moscow as well and fears that a successful Ukraine can be a shinning light for Russians and Russian still has not had their red/blue/white revolution.
You can hear that fear in the Russian UN Ambassador's recent UN comments.
Not so sure the EU/NATO will lift restrictions quickly and go back to business as normal ---Putin has shaken them in a way that is interesting to watch---they do feel threatened as it shakes the concept of being able to conduct diplomacy which they feel is the correct way forward after WW2 plus it takes a lot to get a common decision in say 28 NATO countries vs say the US or Russia.
He calculated yes but mis-stepped as he did not anticipate the being throw out of the G8 threat which is a prestige thing with Russia---as it appears that now Russia is a second class economy which really they are but they do not want to admit it to the world.
The stock market disaster of a double digit Billion loss for Gazprom struck a nerve and the Ruble dropping like a stone is not a good sign.
So is really the Crimea a "win".
Outlaw 09, yours is a very sensible analysis in my view. About Russia being on a downward trajectory as many think that remains to be seen.
I happen to hold a view that in the future natural resources will become a major competitive focus of industrialized nations even more so than now. Certainly, China thinks that and already and has invested heavily in developing relationships in Africa.
Russia has a vast resource capability and those resources could command premium prices and influence in the future. If so, even though Russia is not in the vanguard of industrial nations and innovative technology they could certainly become a key, perhaps the key source for critical raw materials.
The Europeans very well may decide to impose some strict measures upon Russia in response to the Ukrainian situation. But also it would not be surprising to find that those measures are rapidly lifted as the political situation in Ukraine settles down.
In fact, Russia by repatriating Crimea from the Ukraine may in fact have remove a thorn in Kiev's paw that makes it easier to construct a new government without pro-Russian Crimean elements. A referendum on this question would be likely perhaps this year?
I suspect that Putin is far more concerned with Europe’s views than with American. And there is a chance he has calculated correctly that Europe will eventually come around since they want to resume business.
JPWREL---actually tend to agree with you but on the other hand both the EU and NATO members fully understand the Ukrainian threat which if allowed to stand opens Pandora's box on borders draw around ethnic languages and the excuse of using language as a reason for wars which is why there were 100 and 30 year wars in Europe and they still have the effects of 1914 and 1939 in the back of their minds.
Secondly, while force is not off the table the EU meeting this evening had a new tone I have not heard in the last ten years from EU members---they view this issue as extremely serious and are prepared to forcefully institute hard economic sanctions something that I had not anticipated and will surprise the US.
The main thing that Putin has assumed is that there will be no response of consequences for Russian---Putin has that assumption as both the US and the EU have badly read him over the last eight years-he got away with it in 2008 and again in Moldavia--it is all about greater Russian and the restoration of the old SU--not languages which is just an excuse.
What is interesting is how Putin and the senior Russian leadership have come to the feeling that they were betrayed by NATO---something that came out in a number of their comments in the last few days and it goes to the heart of the Russian physic.
During conversations with the then Soviet President Grobi during the Soviet breakup he asked if NATO was going to push to the Russian borders and the then US president responded with no---nothing written all verbal--but to Putin and Co. he feels that it was a solid forever agreement---Russians tend to think like that. Notice though on the other hand they tend to forget what they signed in 1994 referencing the Ukraine but oh will they hold you accountable for something they sense is a benefit to them. There might be something to this as there is a story that Grobi felt he had the wool pulled over his eyes as he had in direct comments from the Allies that Germany would remain neutral if reunified---and was stunned when the old DDR went NATO.
Disagree to a degree with the US comments --hate to say it regardless of how the world revolves there will be superpowers or at least two that compete with each other----regardless of what Putin thinks Russia is sliding into a weaker position due to the heavy corruption, poor governance, a poor sliding economy, and their oligarchs. Actually what is even more interesting under the Communists they had the same problems.
I personally think a major problem has been the US in a relatively single unipolar position which some of our senior leaders have played on since 2001. Putin's attack has been attempting to reassert Russia into a bipolar position as an equal.
Finally I think you are right in that we are indeed seeing with this event Europe reaching adulthood which in itself is a good thing---question is will the US accept it?
The EU meeting confirmed that will be interesting to see how NATO builds on those decisions.
It is my belief that Europe with Germany at its core will not wholly track American leadership in meeting the Ukraine crisis as it evolves. America has no material interest in the Ukraine. Our trade and financial stakes in Ukraine are immeasurably small as to be irrelevant.
This lack of a stake in Ukraine also means that American (and the semi-European British) rhetoric from the media commentariat to the political class will likely be more unguarded, blustering and irresponsible. Adm. Stavridis recent clumsy foray into this affair probably has done more to wedge Europe away from America than the reverse.
Hence, the EU under largely German leadership will become the key players in deciding the future direction of relations with both Russia and the Ukraine. The EU’s financial crisis in 2008 was likely a necessary primer in its development of a more independent stance from its traditional deference to American leadership. Since the EU’s GNP is about the size of the US and Canada it is probably time for them shape a more distinct European foreign policy.
Europeans may welcome this opportunity, as they have been less than enthusiastic about the quality of that American leadership on a host of issues. The past decade’s ill-fated misadventures of America’s heavily militarize foreign policy and invasive spying has left Europe less than impressed with Washington’s judgment.
Ukraine could be the beginning of a Europe finally emerging from its Cold War political dependency upon America. A Europe forging a little more independent path in managing its relations with states with whom it shares borders and considerable trade relations.
Perhaps we are witnessing a new Europe forged after World War Two finally reaching adulthood and leaving home to make it’s way in the world? And that is not a bad thing for Europe or for America.
I am not sure this conflict shy US decision maker even understands just what the long term strategic interests really are as there has been no real strategy for the European area from this administration since it came into into power other than just marking time and underestimating Putin in order to pivot to Asia. Was it not Bush who stated he had looked into the eyes of Putin and saw what?
"It must not, as ADM(ret) Stavridis or current sitting members of the Obama administration would have it, lash out with punitive and largely unproductive measures or worse yet, counterproductive to longer term strategic interests. Primarily however, rational strategy, both diplomatic and military if need be, must understand history, both recent and older. We must understand what has brought us to the precipice again in Europe and what we can yet still do about it…"