by Mark N. Katz
Now that Russian forces have taken Crimea away from Ukraine, what will President Vladimir Putin do next?
There’s one thing he clearly will not do, and that’s give Crimea back to Kiev, as Ukrainian and Western governments have been calling for. Just as Moscow has backed “independent” [...]]]>
by Mark N. Katz
Now that Russian forces have taken Crimea away from Ukraine, what will President Vladimir Putin do next?
There’s one thing he clearly will not do, and that’s give Crimea back to Kiev, as Ukrainian and Western governments have been calling for. Just as Moscow has backed “independent” pro-Russian governments in Abkhazia and South Ossetia ever since Russian forces seized control of them from Georgia in 2008, Moscow undoubtedly intends to maintain the “new order” in Crimea indefinitely.
What exactly will that new order look like? If indeed the Crimean parliament’s plan for a referendum on whether the region should “join Russia” is held on March 16, it will undoubtedly pass. While the Ukrainian and Tatar populations oppose this, the Russian majority in Crimea has long wanted to leave Ukraine and “rejoin” Russia.
(At some point after the Bolshevik Revolution, Crimea was assigned to the Russian Federation, but in 1954 Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine. This did not matter much as long as the Soviet Union held together, but after it broke up in 1991, Russian nationalists both in Crimea and in Russia itself have been calling for the “return” of Crimea to Russia.)
If this referendum is held and yields the expected result of an overwhelming vote in favor of Crimea joining Russia, it is not clear whether Putin will proceed to incorporate it into Russia, recognize it as independent (like he did in Abkhazia and South Ossetia), or allow it to remain in limbo. Choosing the last of these options would allow hope to remain alive in Ukraine and the West that Crimea will someday return to Kiev’s control — even if Putin has no intention of allowing this. Recognizing Crimea as independent would anger Ukraine and the West, but would still allow them to hope. Incorporating Crimea into Russia, though, would signal that Moscow has no intention of allowing Crimea to return to Ukraine either now or ever.
It might seem that absorbing Crimea into Russia would not be a good choice for Moscow due to the negative effect this would have on Russian relations both with Ukraine and the West. From Putin’s point of view, though, this might actually be the most desirable course of action. Since the “color revolutions” in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan of the mid-2000s, the widespread anti-Putin demonstrations in Russia itself in late 2011/early 2012, and the recent events in Ukraine that led to the downfall of a pro-Russian government and the rise of a pro-Western one there, Putin has been fearful about the growing democratic movement in Russia that could become strong enough to topple him.
But given that incorporating Crimea into Russia would undoubtedly be popular with much of the Russian public, Western insistence that Russia give Crimea back to Ukraine might actually serve to alienate the Russian public from the West and (Putin hopes) democracy.
Russia could also now choose to absorb other parts of Ukraine where there are large Russian populations. While both Ukraine and the West would howl in protest, Western inaction at Putin’s successful wresting of control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008 and Crimea from Ukraine recently might well lead him to conclude that he can do this again with little cost.
And he might be right. However, in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Crimea Putin benefited from the fact that much of the local populations welcomed his actions. There are places in eastern Ukraine where this would also be true, but there is also a significant Ukrainian population that would oppose such a move. The danger Putin faces is that he might overestimate the local demand for absorption into the Russian sphere of influence and underestimate local opposition to it. The more of Ukraine he decides to “liberate,” the greater the risk that he will encounter this problem. Furthermore, local opposition in Ukraine to absorption by Russia, whether it is violent or peaceful, would not only serve to delegitimize this Russian effort in Ukraine and the West, but could lead to more opposition to his rule inside Russia.
Putin’s success so far in Crimea certainly gave rise to the appearance that he now has additional options to expand Russian influence in Ukraine, and perhaps elsewhere. But a decision to exercise those options in the near term may actually serve to limit his options in the long term.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
What did the guy say? Truth is the first casualty in war. And that other guy? “If you don’t learn from history…” Both bromides apply to what is happening with regard to Ukraine, as US government officials (other than Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the one calm voice) [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
What did the guy say? Truth is the first casualty in war. And that other guy? “If you don’t learn from history…” Both bromides apply to what is happening with regard to Ukraine, as US government officials (other than Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, the one calm voice) and the commentariat are trotting out Cold War analogies. It’s always difficult in crises, especially with a certified Bad Guy on the other side, to step back, calm down, try to understand “how we got from there to here,” and then figure out an approach that has a chance of being successful, in terms of our interests and the values we hope are shared by others.
To start with, Crimea is Russian (Tatar, actually, but it is too late to do much about that). That is Fact One. (Fact two: Vladimir Putin is, indeed, a thug). It was given as a birthday present to Ukraine in 1954 by Nikita Khrushchev, himself a native-born Ukrainian. This administrative change didn’t mean much until 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up and Ukraine emerged as a sovereign state with this bit of Russia embedded in it. Crimea might have reverted to Russia then, as the Czechs and Slovaks agreed to their “velvet divorce.” But few people thought then in terms of tidying up borders and ethnicities where such an action might just make matters worse and so Ukraine became independent with what territory it previously had under the Soviet Union — on balance, in my view, the correct approach.
One theory in the early 1990s was that redrawing borders in Central and Eastern Europe to align ethnicities to sovereignties was a fool’s errand or worse. Much of the mess of ethnicities and borders was a product of the 1919 Paris peace negotiations, and there was no point in the 1990s of trying to sort out the puzzles that Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, and Georges Clemenceau had been unable to solve. The theory further held that immersing these mixed-up countries collectively in NATO as well as in the EU would eventually lead peoples to value the resulting democracy and prosperity over ago-old ethnic hostilities. Thus Hungary was told it had to give up claims to Transylvania, which was transferred to Romania in 1921 in the Trianon Treaty, or it could forget about joining NATO. It was a no-brainer; even so, Hungary is one Central European country where memories of the “old days” of Empire still linger in many minds.
Hungary is a good analogue to Ukraine, but without the same result, in part because neither Ukraine nor Russia has been offered membership in either NATO or the EU. The former is too mixed up in terms of its population’s composition to be a “clean” fit, and including it fully in the formal Western institutions would be a clear provocation to Russia. For its part, Russia would be too big for NATO and the EU to swallow; it would totally distort those institutions and it isn’t interested anyway.
Historical missteps
One big Western mistake was declaring at the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.” These words were designed to placate those who wanted to set those two countries on a path of NATO membership without necessarily meaning it — like the often-made, cynical European promises that Turkey will join the EU. The statement was also designed to give something to US President George W. Bush, who was pushing the Ukrainian and Georgian causes, without meaning anything real. But it did. Saying that a country “will become a member of NATO” means that the allied countries making the pledge are — from that moment onward — prepared to extend to the country in question that critical Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which provides that each ally will come to the rescue of any other ally attacked from abroad. Two leaders accurately read this declaration: President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Believing, incorrectly, that NATO “had his back,” Saakashvili poked at the bear, and the bear struck back. The net loser was Russia because Western trust in Russia’s willingness to be a real Western country plummeted. At that time, I wrote that Putin had chosen to attack Georgia to set an example, because no Western country really cared about it — indeed, no NATO allies that had expressed willingness to include Georgia as a member of the alliance lifted a finger to help it, thus showing that the Bucharest declaration was vacuous. But, I wrote, Russia had better be careful about Ukraine because, since it lies on a direct line between Russia and Western Europe, Russian pressure there would have much graver implications.
When Central European countries were considered for (serious) NATO membership, Ukraine and Russia were places apart. Thus instead of offering membership, NATO negotiated a “Distinctive Partnership” with Ukraine, with a Charter (which I negotiated for NATO) that was far less than membership; and it negotiated a NATO-Russia Founding Act in 1997 and in 2003 that further extended NATO-Russia cooperation, including a NATO-Russia Council at NATO headquarters, with Russia present as an equal with the Western allies. Ukraine would not exactly be in limbo, but it would also not, at least for now, be a serious candidate for any form of membership in Western institutions that could legitimately be seen by Russia as drawing a line between it and the West. A delicate balance was struck, with Ukraine being offered a Western “vocation” and without Russian oversight, but also without damaging possibilities for Western cooperation with Russia.
A further premise of this approach was that the West and Russia would explore ways to work together and support Russia’s efforts to increase prosperity so that, in the fullness of time, Ukraine’s full sovereignty and independence would be acceptable to most, if not all Russians. Maybe this goal was out of reach, we shall never know. Maybe Putin (and his ilk) have all along been interested in recreating the Russian (Soviet) empire to the extent possible, by intimidating some neighbors and chopping into the sovereignty of some others.
But the moment for trying was lost. I argued at the time that Russia should immediately be brought into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), now the World Trade Organization (WTO), in order to hasten its economic engagement in the West and hence its prosperity but that was not done: Russia “had to meet the criteria for membership.” Criteria be damned, this was a political step. Similarly, the US Congress only repealed in 2012 the 1973 Jackson-Vanik Amendment limiting trade with the Soviet Union, which was originally designed to get it to permit Jewish emigration (an issue that died with the dissolution of the Soviet Union) and also designed to try killing US-Soviet détente.
Then there was the US decision to deploy elements of ballistic missile defenses in Central Europe, against today’s North Korean missiles and, in theory, those that Iran might have at some point in the future. Russia balked, arguing that this system would risk blunting its nuclear deterrent. The US has argued long and hard against this and it’s correct. The Russians obviously understand the point, as does any first-year student of nuclear strategy (I have worked on it for a half century). But that is not the issue. The missile defenses in Central Europe are an affront to Russia, demonstrating once again that it lost the Cold War; and, as the Russians argue, if a counter to future Iranian missiles were needed, that time is far in the future. At the same time, various Central Europeans see the missile defenses in the same light as do the Russians: a form of continued containment of Russia. Further, the missile defenses, like some other NATO military activities in new allied states, violate the spirit, if not the letter of precise commitments made to Russia at the time of the NATO-Russia Founding Act (I was present when the key US unilateral declaration on this point was drafted by a US official on a napkin in the NATO restaurant in Brussels).
What comes next
So, without repeating all the news of the last few weeks, “What is to be done?” as Nikolay Chernyshevsky said and Lenin repeated. This depends on the immediate possibilities of Putin’s three courses of action: to shift Crimea back to Russia and challenge anyone to do anything about it; to sit tight with his troops there (as he has done in disputed regions of Georgia); or to accept that he has made his point and agree to some face-saving formula to withdraw his troops, perhaps with UN monitors (so far rejected by Moscow) and perhaps some intensification of Crimea’s semi-autonomy within Ukraine that would benefit the Russians who live there.
The worst thing for the United States to is to draw red lines, especially ones that we cannot and will not honor. President Barack Obama came perilously close to doing so by saying that “there will be costs.” Sanctions have been trotted out (the standard “feel good” response when military action has to be ruled out), and some US hotheads are already talking about beefing up NATO defenses and holding military exercises in Central Europe. Secretary of State John Kerry has said that “all options are on the table,” a phrase from the playbook on Iran. All” options, Mr. Secretary? Yes, there will be ”costs,” in that Western trust in Russia, vital for it to have productive economic relations, has gone down even further, and Russia cannot pursue the autarkic policies of the Soviet Union. But what is most required now is coolness under pressure and serious thinking about the future.
It is long past time to complete the construction of the “Europe whole and free” and at peace that George H.W. Bush called for that — with Ukraine and Russia — has been so long delayed. That is in the realm of diplomacy, and it takes the following shape: to convene a series of efforts to sort out security and economic arrangements that attempt to achieve several principles and objectives. These include:
1) Ukraine is sovereign and will not have its future determined against its will by outsiders but the overwhelming Russian ethnicity of the Crimean people will get more recognition than heretofore;
2) Russia will have a proper and honored place in the security, political, and economic arrangements that are agreed as part of the process proposed here, provided it is prepared to “play by the rules” (“a voice but not a veto,” in NATO parlance);
3) NATO and the EU will be directly involved, beginning with the institutions for working with Ukraine and Russia that already exist;
4) the US and Russia will also deal directly with one another, in line with the broader diplomacy, as the two countries that, in the end, have to reach agreement on the future of European security;
5) ditto in regard to the European Union with Ukraine and Russia (and the two together);
6) in the process, various Russian proposals for European security need finally to be looked at seriously, but with the proviso that the Russian idea of replacing NATO is not on the table; yet some role for the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) can be considered.
Can such a process be properly developed and eventually be made to work? As with any such effort, doubts will be heavy. Putin’s appetite may be too great and he might allow Russia to be isolated; and US leadership and imagination may be lacking. But there is no way to judge since this necessary work has been postponed already for two decades. It has to begin with forbearance, now, by Putin; a calming influence from Washington; with discussions involving the US, Western Europeans (including NATO and the EU), Ukraine, and Russia; and with the recognition by all parties that the alternative is continuing crisis, instability, and human regression for all, with no winners and all losers.
“Leadership,” Mr. Obama?
]]>by Derek Davison
On February 27 gunmen seized control of government buildings in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine and raised a Russian flag over the headquarters of the Crimean Parliament in the regional capital Simferopol. This began a series of events that has resulted in Crimea under Russian control and [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
On February 27 gunmen seized control of government buildings in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea in Ukraine and raised a Russian flag over the headquarters of the Crimean Parliament in the regional capital Simferopol. This began a series of events that has resulted in Crimea under Russian control and furious diplomatic efforts underway between Ukraine, the European Union, the United Nations, NATO, Russia, and the United States. This primer will offer some background to the (rapidly changing) events currently taking place in Ukraine and some idea as to where things may proceed from here.
What is Crimea and why is it important to Russia?
Crimea is a peninsula that extends from the southern part of Ukraine into the Black Sea. Formerly controlled by the Crimean Khanate (whose Tatar subjects were forcibly relocated out of the peninsula by Josef Stalin in 1944), it was annexed into the Russian Empire in 1783 and immediately became home to Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet, based in the southern city of Sevastopol. The fleet was sunk during the Crimean War (1853-1856) when Sevastopol was besieged by a combined French, British, and Ottoman army, but was rebuilt after the war. In 1921 Crimea became the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, but in 1954, it became part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to streamline post-WWII reconstruction. Crimea briefly declared self-government when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1992, but agreed to remain part of the newly independent Ukraine.
Ukraine, including Crimea to the south (Credit: CIA World Factbook)
All of Ukraine has value to Russia, but Crimea is especially important. Crimea has only been part of an independent Ukraine for 20 years, a fraction of the time it was part of Russia, and ethnic Russians are actually almost 60% of the peninsula’s population, according to the most recent census (2001). More crucially, the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based at Sevastopol, part of a post-Soviet deal between the two countries to divide the former Soviet fleet and to lease part of the base to Russia, and so Russia has military/strategic reasons to ensure that it retains access to that base.
Why did Russian forces invade Crimea now?
Beginning in late-November 2013, a series of protests, known as Euromaidan, began in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, against the government of then-President Viktor Yanukovych, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Dueling pro- and anti-government protests, and clashes with security forces, continued through January 2014, when the Yanukovych government announced new draconian anti-protest laws. What had been an occasionally violent protest movement turned into a full-blown revolution, culminating in a series of clashes on February 18-20. Casualty reports vary, but as many as 100 people may have been killed in the violence.
On February 21, Yanukovych reached a deal with opposition leaders to end the violence, but the protesters refused to accept it, and the following day Yanukovych fled Kiev. Yanukovych has been impeached and removed from office by the Ukrainian Parliament, an act that he rejects, and is considered a fugitive for his role in the deadly February violence. After Yanukovych was impeached, officials in Putin’s government suggested that the Russian military could intervene in Ukraine if it was deemed necessary in order to “protect” Crimea. On March 1, the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian Parliament, voted unanimously to give Putin authority to deploy Russian troops into Ukraine, and the Russian military seized near-total control of Crimea.
What were the Ukrainian protests about?
Ukraine’s economy has been in crisis for some time. Many Ukrainians supported the adoption of an Association Agreement with the European Union as a way to boost the economy, but Yanukovych’s government suspended talks over the proposed agreement and instead pursued entry into the Eurasian Customs Union, alongside Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Polls indicated that a slim plurality of Ukrainians favored the EU deal over the customs union. The name of the protest movement, “Euromaidan,” reflects its initial demand (closer integration with Europe) and the fact that it began in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (“Independence Square”) in downtown Kiev.
The dispute over whether to gravitate toward Europe or back toward Russia exacerbated an already existing ethnic and linguistic split between the largely Ukrainian, pro-Europe western half of the country and the more Russian-oriented eastern half. But this division has been overemphasized as a “cause” of the protests, when the principal causes were Ukraine’s weak economy and Yanukovych’s decisions to reject the EU and then try to violently suppress the initial protests. Even in the eastern, “pro-Russian” part of Ukraine, the majority of the population is ethnic Ukrainian and, according to a 2011 poll, a majority in every province (even Crimea) sees Ukraine as its mother country.
Does Russia have designs on the rest of Ukraine?
The Federation Council resolution authorizing Russian military intervention in Ukraine pointedly allows deployment anywhere in Ukraine, not just Crimea. There are several reasons why Russia wants to retain influence in all of Ukraine, if not to outright control it. Russian history and national pride is inextricably tied to Ukraine, since Russians trace their origins to the 9th-13th century Rus’ people, whose capital and principle city was Kiev. Economically, it would be a blow to Russia if Ukraine were to choose EU membership over joining the Eurasian Customs Union, and Russia also depends on Ukrainian pipelines to ship its natural gas to the rest of Europe. Pro-Russian protests have taken place in eastern Ukrainian cities outside of Crimea, with Russian flags also being raised in several places there.
On the other hand, Russia continues to deny that it has even sent troops into Crimea, let alone the rest of Ukraine, since the fighters who have taken control of Crimea appear to be Russian private paramilitaries rather than official Russian soldiers.
Do the Crimeans want (or need) Russian “protection”?
It does seem that Crimean Russians, worried that the new government in Kiev might be hostile to them, have welcomed the arrival of Russian troops. New Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov refused to recognize Yanukovych’s removal from office and asked Putin to send Russian forces to help him “ensure peace” in Crimea. It is worth noting that one of the first acts of the new Ukrainian government was to abolish a 2012 law allowing Russian to be used as a second official language in some parts of the country, and it is also true that the Euromaidan movement included some far-right Ukrainian nationalist groups. However, Crimea is also home to large populations of ethnic Ukrainians and Tatars (who started returning to Crimea after the fall of the USSR), and these groups do not support the Russian invasion.
How have Ukraine and the rest of the world responded to Russia’s invasion?
The Ukrainian government has mobilized its military, though it seems to be on a purely defensive posture. At the UN Security Council, the United States and Ukraine accused Russia of violating Ukraine’s sovereignty, in particular the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which the US, UK, and Russia pledged to honor Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Russia has countered that American and European involvement in Euromaidan (an accusation for which it has yet to produce any evidence) was itself a violation of Budapest and made Russian intervention necessary. Presidents Barack Obama and Putin held a “testy” phone conversation in which Putin asserted Russia’s right to defend ethnic Russians in Ukraine, while Obama called on Putin to draw his forces back. There are diplomatic levers that the US and the EU can push, including sanctions against Russia and Russian politicians, but there is likely nothing powerful enough to force Putin to withdraw. Kiev has options it can pursue as well; Crimea is, for example, dependent on the mainland for its water and electricity, and while Ukraine relies on Russia for its natural gas, Russia also relies on Ukrainian pipelines to get that gas to European markets, so Putin cannot punish Kiev by just turning the gas off. Still, these options are unlikely to force Russia to withdraw.
Russia may simply order its forces out of Crimea after extracting concessions from Kiev, something akin to the outcome of the Russia-Georgia War in 2008, but it is possible that Putin will attempt to carve eastern Ukraine and Crimea off into a new state, which could lead to a military confrontation.
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