Category: Sunday

In a strange land, a man is vulnerable; at his own doorstep, that same man stands insuperable.

The Crimean plebiscite ended as expected. The Crimean electorate voted and the vast majority voted to become Russians. Russia quickly annexed the Ukrainian province and that was that.

Western nations called foul, stating they would not abide a vote cast under the shadow of coercion. They derided the exercise as a mockery of the democratic ideal. The people’s will should not be influenced at the point of a bayonet or the sinister turret of an armored vehicle.

Visible Russian steel and mace flawed the election by guiding it to an affirmative result more skewed than necessary. Given the historic links between Russian and Crimea and given the uncertain future of Ukraine under the new hybrid government in Kiev, most of the electorate probably voted as they saw fit to do.

That the Russians manipulated the exercise and told the people to vote in this manner does not mean they would have voted otherwise in a freer atmosphere. Once Russia opened the door and showed the way, the majority of Crimea seemed destined to enter.

But Russia wanted the secession vote by more than a simple majority. Moscow wanted an outcome evincing a virtual unanimity to quit Ukraine. Their engineering achieved the desired outcome. However, the very engineering Moscow used to produce this near consensus, permanently taints the legacy of the vote in a way a more modest but more honest margin of victory would have avoided. In short, the final outcome appears accurate but the score and margin of victory were inflated. Because of this Russian overreach, it was an imperfect but not a bogus referendum.

With more than a hint of unalloyed effrontery, Western nations huffed against the Crimean plebiscite. Over the years, they have sprinkled the fulsome perfume of their approval on elections viler than what occurred last week on that strategic finger jutting into the northern eye of the Black Sea.

Despite Western consternation, Russia absorbed Crimea without a shot fired or massive veins of bloodshed. This is one of history’s most surgically swift and least violent annexations of vital real estate of one nation by another.

In one sense, this is a stinging rebuke of American and Western diplomacy. Washington and other Western capitals lectured Moscow from their manual of international commandments: “Thou shall bow as directed.” When this ersatz moral appeal fell, the West threatened crippling sanctions. Moscow was undeterred because its vital strategic interests were at stake. Moscow decided that losing the strategic naval base in Crimea was an intolerable reduction. Russia could stomach whatever economic poison the West would risk but it could not stomach the loss of its base.

Russia also knew economic sanctions were dual-bladed. Any sanctions America and Europe imposed might hurt Russia but the measures would also injure the West. In the end, Russia called the West’s bluff. It annexed the Crimea and dared the West to cast sanctions its way.

The West had no stomach for harsh measures that could also pummel key sectors of the flagging European Union economy. Thus, they imposed symbolic assets freezes and visa bans on a handful of Russian officials.

The sanctions were underwhelming at best and worthless in the main. There is no reasonable expectation of them crippling the Russian economy or any material part of it any more than one anticipates a single sheet of paper on the ground to trip an elephant.

At this moment, Russia flashes the winning hand but the situation is not static. We are witnessing the piecemeal reestablishment of a balance of power between the Western Powers and the strongest nation of Eastern Europe. The precise boundaries were erased when the Soviet Union cascaded into history’s recesses. The emergence of Russia now requires the drawing of new boundaries to represent the power balance. The undertaking must be done with care and astute calculation. Risks are high. Had both sides rushed like bulls into the Ukrainian fracas, an updated, inverted echo of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in the fashion of a potential nuclear standoff, would have neared the table. Restraint and care are lessons diplomats on both sides must learn from this near miss. Potential disaster lurks in every miscalculation and overreach.

Putin is more adept at geopolitics than his Western counterparts. That he plays the weaker hand also adds sobriety to his deliberations and actions. Western leaders have been slapped by the reality that they cannot waltz their EU-NATO political-military condominium right up to Moscow’s doorstep without the Russian bear standing on its haunches to deter the advance by extracting more than a pound of flesh in the process.

Putin has amassed a significant troop presence on Ukraine’s eastern border. The West screams this preludes an invasion. They misread the situation or they are attempting to cajole Putin into forfeiting the advantage proximity has afforded. The Russian has the stomach to devour more of Ukraine but realises the meal will cause more long-term indigestion than its worth. Invasion is unlikely. Instead, he positions troops at the Ukrainian eastern door to remind Kiev not to dance to closely to the West and to deter Western military aid to Ukraine. If the West does try to materially assist the Ukrainian military, Putin may seize part of the east to provide himself as large a buffer as possible from the West’s encroachment into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence. At the moment, Putin is not seeking land but he wants sufficient breathing space as he believes the West is trying to bridle his nation.

In very many ways, this crisis should not have occurred if Western leaders were adept practitioners of realpolitik. By enticing Ukraine and other nations under Russia’s shadow with NATO membership was fool’s gold both for the haughty giver and hapless recipient. As can be seen, the West has no will to fight Russia over real estate in that eastern European neighborhood. Yet, if a great power is unwilling to fight for a nation because that nation is peripheral to its interests, it is illogical and dangerous for that power to forge a military alliance with the lesser nation. Yet, this unwise condition is what the West seemed intent to establish with Ukraine and others.

Another troubling aspect of the Western mentality is a fundamental misreading of the fall of the Soviet Union. America believes it won the Cold War because its policies contained communist expansion until the Soviet Union extinguished itself like a penned wildfire with no place to go. This myth afflicts both Republican and Democrat alike. It is a totem of American foreign policy. When faced with a serious threat, American leaders quickly grab at the old elixir. They want to contain every perceived foe. In Europe, Russia is the target. China is the Asian equivalent. In the Middle East, the cage bears Iran’s name.

The only problem is that the vaunted policy of containment did not work. Or we can say it worked so brilliantly only because it failed so miserably. Knowing America wanted to contain their empire, Soviet leaders rushed headlong to establish a presence in every place imaginable, including places where they had no reason to be. The Soviet Union did not fall because it was contained. It fell because it held too much alien, distant and unproductive territory.

As a consequence of World War II, the Soviets ingested much of war-torn Eastern Europe. Disheveled by that war, the Soviet Union needed development help. Instead, it sought global empire. The demise of the Soviet Union became a matter of fate upon deciding to contest America for global empire. Not satisfied with Eastern Europe, the Soviets interposed themselves in Africa where they had no historic ties or interests. Within thirty years, more than a third of the continent leaned Moscow’s way. If this is containment it is containment in the breach of itself. At times in wary league with China, the Soviets pushed communism through Southeast Asia.

In the Americas, it brought communism to Cuba, miles from the United States’ southern extremity. Other nations such as Nicaragua experienced socialist, Soviet-funded revolutions and governments. Again, the Soviets had no historic ties and real interests in this region. The Soviets where there out of a bloated sense of empire. They paid a high cost of their miscalculation. They destroyed their empire in the very building of it. Imperial overreach is an expensive undertaking with massive overhead costs. Unless the empire rakes in as much as it spends, its days are numbered. It becomes bankrupt and collapses due to the growing costs of just its minimal upkeep. The political economy becomes debased and less productive. The fiction is maintained that all is well, efficient and growing when the reality is that much is corrupt, stagnant and unproductive. This is the history of the Soviet Union. America did not win the Cold War as much as the Soviet Union lost it by overreaching because it wanted to reach parity with America.

America’s containment policy worked in a way much like curing a drunkard by threatening to remove the alcoholic beverages from his house. Believing the threat, the man imbibes the entire inventory only to pass away from toxic intake. The remedy’s failure proved more effective than had it succeeded. We are certain the man will never take another hard drink. He is dead. Whatever he now imbibes is not of this world.

Ironically, the nation now seeking to contain others should be working to better constrain itself. The American notion of the reach of its power far extends the scope of its true interests. Since the Clinton Administration, America’s foreign policy establishment has been guilty of overreach, most egregiously in the theater of war.

Its track record in this aspect of its foreign escapades has been abysmal. The second Iraqi war was launched on a fraudulent pretext but the damage done thereby to American interests and to the Middle East has been indeed real. As a result, Al Qaeda gained a foothold where before it had none. It would use this platform to sally into the Syrian civil war. Iranian influence in Iraq has grown. America is seen as a villain. This week is the third anniversary of the Libyan war. If that nation sustains its current mad dash toward the gates of anomie, Gaddafi will be elevated to the status of a martyr. Afghanistan is no better than it was ten years ago.

The lesson should be obvious but America’s leaders can’t see it for they wear blinders woven of the dense fabric of arrogant power. To the extent possible, even great empires should limit warfare to areas close to home and only for reasons of obvious vital importance. The more distant the field of battle, the more uncertain the outcome. He who frequently fights in other’s backyards drains his energy and his treasury. Such engagements fuel the military machine but sap the nation. Such an imbalance is unsustainable.

Currently, American foreign policy lumbers toward three containment exercises. America simultaneously seeks to contain Russia, China and Iran. These parallel tracks will prove costly. Most likely, there will be serious miscalculations because American leaders so believe the world should understand them that they seek not to understand the world. Such mistakes will lead other weaker nations to rely on flippant American braggadocio as ironclad assurances. A smaller nation will wrestle one of the three containment targets, believing America will anneal their weak position. In its right mind, America will balk for it never should war against a great power for a small reason. However, at some point, America might miscalculate and be goaded into confrontation with one of the three. The prospect of world war looms in such a mistake.

America and its Western friends must huddle to rethink their policy. This is not about establishing moral dominance over all others because their group is strong. The American coalition may be the strongest but it is not omnipotent. It is vulnerable. The farther away from its area of strategic interests and the more confrontations it seeks, the more vulnerable it gets. Also, the chance of major warfare escalates. Moreover, America’s internal democracy suffers the militaristic the nation becomes. The reason and logic required for democracy to flourish are drowned by the sound of the drums of war. America also risks losing its role as the universal currency the more it seeks to impose sanctions against other powerful nations just because those states might decide to follow the dictates of their national interests as they interpret them.

In the end, America and its allies as well as Russia need to draw sobering lessons from this crisis. For the sake of regional peace, the West must respect the reality of Russian power and its resultant sphere of influence. Russia must realize it has won a battle but it should go no further in a war where no side wins if war is fully engaged. It need not press further in Ukraine. It should negotiate with America to turn the rest of Ukraine and other geographically sensitive states into “demilitarized zones,” thus forging neutral states between contesting spheres of influences. The same should be repeated with China and Iran.

Conversely, America will overextend itself if it tries to contain three major nations simultaneously. America places itself in danger of having survived the Cold War only to slowly drain itself by engaging in a trio of unnecessary mini-cold wars. Yet, such is the way of empires. They tend to be more powerful than prudent. That is why none has lasted. History watches and the clock ticks on the American imperial endeavor.

 

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