A nightmare scenario without rules
In continuation of the previous post which mostly focused on Russia's stake in the Ukrainian gamble, let's look at the US role in the whole Ukrainian debacle. Now, at a first glance, the US doesn't seem to have a lot of interests in Ukraine. The annual US exports to Ukraine amount to just $ 2bn, which is four times less than the exports to the Dominican Republic for example (the $ 1bn of aid that Kerry pledged, although minuscule in comparison to what Ukraine actually needs, is half the annual US exports to Ukraine). Even the trade output for Finland is much more. The Ukrainian immigrants and their descendants in the US are less than a million, which is a third of a per cent of America's population. Even though celebrities and New York bohemians tend to enjoy having dinner at the local Ukrainian restaurant Veselka in Manhattan every now and then, until last week the majority of the US public probably wasn't even aware that Ukraine was a separate country. And the average citizen of Nebraska or South Carolina may not be associating Ukraine with anything beyond hot borscht and super-hot Hollywood celeb Mila Kunis (you did know she was Ukrainian, right?)
In this context, it might seem odd that Washington would want to throw all its diplomatic weight into resolving the Ukrainian crisis, and for the first time in a while the otherwise polarised Congress is in support of taking an active position. And even the news from the Crimean peninsula may've somehow managed to completely distract the traditionally introvert US public from important domestic issues like the national budget at least for a while. But behind the sharp reactions from Washington, some deeper concerns about the current Ukrainian crisis are lurking, and fears of a nightmare scenario, where international law would lose all its weight and value. Especially at a time when America is starting to debate its new defense model, and president Obama and secretary of state John Kerry are trying to leave their mark on world politics.
Symbols do tend to have a significance in the world of diplomacy, and the fact that this crisis has happened in Ukraine of all places, loads it with a special meaning. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the West believed for a while that there was some kind of new world order in place, one that included economic liberalisation, democratisation and inreased significance of human rights. The fact that in Ukraine, which is so close to the epicentre of the so called Empire of Evil, as dubbed by Reagan, people have risen twice, in 2004 and now in 2014, and flocked to the square to defend these ideals, only served to reinforce these hopes.
But the recent weeks have shown that not everyone believed or desired that new world order. Putin obviously doesn't fear diplomatic or even economic isolation. On the contrary, he may relish it. Because what it brings with itself is a revisionist direction, and an end to the liberal-democratic expansion that had marched on ever since the end of the Cold War.
The really worrying thing is that this could potentially lead not just to an end of the disarmament process and a cancellation of all trade agreements and the shutting down of the major diplomatic channels - in fact it could bring even more problematic relations. In this respect, the world may've been much more peaceful towards the end of the Cold War than it is today, or will be in the near future. It's possible that with the imminent Russian takeover of Crimea, we may well be entering a period of a new standoff between great powers of global calibre. Still, we should keep in mind that things haven't reached the point of no return just yet, and the worst-case scenario is still far away. But is fast approaching.
That point would rather never be reached, as far as the US is concerned. When John Kerry compared Putin's actions to the end of the 19th century, he was publicly countering the prospects of such a development. In that analogy, there was the indignation from the outright disrespect of international law, but also the concern that a theory that until recently was considered fringe, could now turn out true. Mostly circulating around the academic circles, that theory claims that the last two decades were merely a transition period, and the world is now again returning to the old balance of forces. And, similarly to the situation in Europe between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and WW1, international relations are being determined by several big national players, and defined by the conflict of their interests, and by the occasional collision between them (in the modern, modified model, the main names that are being mentioned are the US, Germany, Russia, China, and maybe Brazil and Turkey). So the journalists and analysts may have to open the history, diplomacy and geopolitics studybooks, and find out that what they'll recognise there is not very enjoyable.
The current system may not be perfect, and the US may share a lot of blame for using many words to chastise other nations for disrespecting international norms while having pissed on them (as with the preparation for the Iraq invasion for example), but the collapse of this system would mean a drastically more unstable world. If the principle of the inviolability of national borders that's been in place since WW2 is rendered null, then today's great powers would be again able to redraw borders on the map at a whim, just like in the colonial times. With all the dire long-term consequences. Indeed, if the precedent becomes the norm, what is to stop China (which is already heavily investing in East Siberia), from annexing vast chunks of Russia in a couple of decades? Or using force and taking those islands it's disputing with Japan? A situation where crossing the international rules becomes an ordinary practice would be a nightmare for the US, which is still being viewed and is indeed viewing itself as the world's policeman and protector of democracy and human rights (even when it occasionally or systematically violates them). Respectively, America might find itself compelled to get actively involved in virtually every and any conflict around the world. And now imagine a Ukraine-scale crisis occurring every year or two. Sounds pretty exhausting, doesn't it?
And even if such an extreme scenario of an unscrupulous balance of forces should remain just in the realm of academic hypotheses, the clogging of international diplomacy in the short term is still an obvious concern for Washington. Which is why the prediction that the Ukrainian events will be Obama's biggest international test yet, may not be too far-fetched. The US does need Russia's support in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, and in the resolution of the Syrian conflict, and on the logistics of the withdrawal of the US military forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year. Which is why the White House and the Department of State are trying to preserve (as much as possible) the constructive tone, and refrain from escalating the situation beyond reasonable. G-8 will probably be the first victim of these developments. The other international mechanisms, the UN Security Council, the diplomatic efforts in Syria, the nuclear disarmament process in Iran, the talks with North Korea, etc, will now be full with more bitterness, stumbling blocks and dysfunctionality. Some of these may even die entirely and prematurely. Which would be unfortunate, and would cause more instability.
The Ukrainian crisis slides international relations at least a decade backwards. Ukraine had quit its nuclear weapons back in 1994 in exchange for guarantees for its territorial integrity. From now on, every time someone tries to raise the question about the nukes to India, Pakistan or any other nuclear power, the Crimean case will be brought up. So, today's events will be echoing every time the US attempts to initiate a disarmament process anywhere.
Moreover, this big uncertainty about the near future comes at a time when Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has initiated the debate about the shrinking of the US military budget that had been pumped way out of proportion after 9-11. Even if the international relations were near perfect, diminishing the active component in the US military to pre-WW2 levels will be a hard task, given the Congress dominated by conservative Republicans. Now with the sharpening of the situation in Ukraine, it's not certain that the plan would become reality at all. And the way the White House navigates through the Ukrainian crisis will clearly show whether America would manage to say goodbye to the most grotesque ghosts of the global war on terror, or we're in for yet another arms race.
Meanwhile the criticism that indecisiveness and empty threats of punishment like those against Syrian dictator Assad, and what may've been perceived as last-minute backtracking, could've either encouraged Putin to act more boldly or at least facilitated his decision about Ukraine. And this perceived inconsistency in foreign policy resonates back at home in America. Some of Obama's opponents have reached as far as to claim that the comparison between Obama and the weakness and indecision of Jimmy Carter on foreign policy might be an insult to Carter, which says a lot. Others have gone even further, praising Putin for being quite the "strongman", a decisive leader acting to the best interests of his country (while conveniently ignoring the fact that he's a ruthless totalitarian dictator, and even forgetting that they were the ones who'd compare Obama to Hitler the moment he even gave the slightest hint of decisiveness). It took one Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg columnist and outspoken critic of the current administration, to remind those that for a former community organiser, Obama has already killed quite a lot of terrorists.
But it's a fact that America is dangerously and confusingly swinging between activism and isolationism, between military interventionism and the rejection of any forceful involvement, from wiretapping every and any ally leader that matters to whining when someone discovers the secret and exposes it to the public, from the sending of a flock of lethal drones into a foreign sovereign territory, to the mere expression of dissatisfaction via a single tweet at a time when international crises require a more flexible approach. As has become evident in the recent days, the White House doesn't have a clear-cut plan for preventing and containing crises of this nature and magnitude, and so far no one has seriously considered where exactly the "grey zone" between direct confrontation and nonsensical, meaningless threats, exists.
So maybe the whole Ukrainian debacle did have at least one positive effect. It has made Washington start contemplating on an action plan for those cases when the military option is unthinkable, and passiveness is intolerable. At least I hope it has. Because the alternative would be disastrous.
In this context, it might seem odd that Washington would want to throw all its diplomatic weight into resolving the Ukrainian crisis, and for the first time in a while the otherwise polarised Congress is in support of taking an active position. And even the news from the Crimean peninsula may've somehow managed to completely distract the traditionally introvert US public from important domestic issues like the national budget at least for a while. But behind the sharp reactions from Washington, some deeper concerns about the current Ukrainian crisis are lurking, and fears of a nightmare scenario, where international law would lose all its weight and value. Especially at a time when America is starting to debate its new defense model, and president Obama and secretary of state John Kerry are trying to leave their mark on world politics.
Symbols do tend to have a significance in the world of diplomacy, and the fact that this crisis has happened in Ukraine of all places, loads it with a special meaning. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, the West believed for a while that there was some kind of new world order in place, one that included economic liberalisation, democratisation and inreased significance of human rights. The fact that in Ukraine, which is so close to the epicentre of the so called Empire of Evil, as dubbed by Reagan, people have risen twice, in 2004 and now in 2014, and flocked to the square to defend these ideals, only served to reinforce these hopes.
But the recent weeks have shown that not everyone believed or desired that new world order. Putin obviously doesn't fear diplomatic or even economic isolation. On the contrary, he may relish it. Because what it brings with itself is a revisionist direction, and an end to the liberal-democratic expansion that had marched on ever since the end of the Cold War.
The really worrying thing is that this could potentially lead not just to an end of the disarmament process and a cancellation of all trade agreements and the shutting down of the major diplomatic channels - in fact it could bring even more problematic relations. In this respect, the world may've been much more peaceful towards the end of the Cold War than it is today, or will be in the near future. It's possible that with the imminent Russian takeover of Crimea, we may well be entering a period of a new standoff between great powers of global calibre. Still, we should keep in mind that things haven't reached the point of no return just yet, and the worst-case scenario is still far away. But is fast approaching.
That point would rather never be reached, as far as the US is concerned. When John Kerry compared Putin's actions to the end of the 19th century, he was publicly countering the prospects of such a development. In that analogy, there was the indignation from the outright disrespect of international law, but also the concern that a theory that until recently was considered fringe, could now turn out true. Mostly circulating around the academic circles, that theory claims that the last two decades were merely a transition period, and the world is now again returning to the old balance of forces. And, similarly to the situation in Europe between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and WW1, international relations are being determined by several big national players, and defined by the conflict of their interests, and by the occasional collision between them (in the modern, modified model, the main names that are being mentioned are the US, Germany, Russia, China, and maybe Brazil and Turkey). So the journalists and analysts may have to open the history, diplomacy and geopolitics studybooks, and find out that what they'll recognise there is not very enjoyable.
The current system may not be perfect, and the US may share a lot of blame for using many words to chastise other nations for disrespecting international norms while having pissed on them (as with the preparation for the Iraq invasion for example), but the collapse of this system would mean a drastically more unstable world. If the principle of the inviolability of national borders that's been in place since WW2 is rendered null, then today's great powers would be again able to redraw borders on the map at a whim, just like in the colonial times. With all the dire long-term consequences. Indeed, if the precedent becomes the norm, what is to stop China (which is already heavily investing in East Siberia), from annexing vast chunks of Russia in a couple of decades? Or using force and taking those islands it's disputing with Japan? A situation where crossing the international rules becomes an ordinary practice would be a nightmare for the US, which is still being viewed and is indeed viewing itself as the world's policeman and protector of democracy and human rights (even when it occasionally or systematically violates them). Respectively, America might find itself compelled to get actively involved in virtually every and any conflict around the world. And now imagine a Ukraine-scale crisis occurring every year or two. Sounds pretty exhausting, doesn't it?
And even if such an extreme scenario of an unscrupulous balance of forces should remain just in the realm of academic hypotheses, the clogging of international diplomacy in the short term is still an obvious concern for Washington. Which is why the prediction that the Ukrainian events will be Obama's biggest international test yet, may not be too far-fetched. The US does need Russia's support in the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, and in the resolution of the Syrian conflict, and on the logistics of the withdrawal of the US military forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year. Which is why the White House and the Department of State are trying to preserve (as much as possible) the constructive tone, and refrain from escalating the situation beyond reasonable. G-8 will probably be the first victim of these developments. The other international mechanisms, the UN Security Council, the diplomatic efforts in Syria, the nuclear disarmament process in Iran, the talks with North Korea, etc, will now be full with more bitterness, stumbling blocks and dysfunctionality. Some of these may even die entirely and prematurely. Which would be unfortunate, and would cause more instability.
The Ukrainian crisis slides international relations at least a decade backwards. Ukraine had quit its nuclear weapons back in 1994 in exchange for guarantees for its territorial integrity. From now on, every time someone tries to raise the question about the nukes to India, Pakistan or any other nuclear power, the Crimean case will be brought up. So, today's events will be echoing every time the US attempts to initiate a disarmament process anywhere.
Moreover, this big uncertainty about the near future comes at a time when Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel has initiated the debate about the shrinking of the US military budget that had been pumped way out of proportion after 9-11. Even if the international relations were near perfect, diminishing the active component in the US military to pre-WW2 levels will be a hard task, given the Congress dominated by conservative Republicans. Now with the sharpening of the situation in Ukraine, it's not certain that the plan would become reality at all. And the way the White House navigates through the Ukrainian crisis will clearly show whether America would manage to say goodbye to the most grotesque ghosts of the global war on terror, or we're in for yet another arms race.
Meanwhile the criticism that indecisiveness and empty threats of punishment like those against Syrian dictator Assad, and what may've been perceived as last-minute backtracking, could've either encouraged Putin to act more boldly or at least facilitated his decision about Ukraine. And this perceived inconsistency in foreign policy resonates back at home in America. Some of Obama's opponents have reached as far as to claim that the comparison between Obama and the weakness and indecision of Jimmy Carter on foreign policy might be an insult to Carter, which says a lot. Others have gone even further, praising Putin for being quite the "strongman", a decisive leader acting to the best interests of his country (while conveniently ignoring the fact that he's a ruthless totalitarian dictator, and even forgetting that they were the ones who'd compare Obama to Hitler the moment he even gave the slightest hint of decisiveness). It took one Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg columnist and outspoken critic of the current administration, to remind those that for a former community organiser, Obama has already killed quite a lot of terrorists.
But it's a fact that America is dangerously and confusingly swinging between activism and isolationism, between military interventionism and the rejection of any forceful involvement, from wiretapping every and any ally leader that matters to whining when someone discovers the secret and exposes it to the public, from the sending of a flock of lethal drones into a foreign sovereign territory, to the mere expression of dissatisfaction via a single tweet at a time when international crises require a more flexible approach. As has become evident in the recent days, the White House doesn't have a clear-cut plan for preventing and containing crises of this nature and magnitude, and so far no one has seriously considered where exactly the "grey zone" between direct confrontation and nonsensical, meaningless threats, exists.
So maybe the whole Ukrainian debacle did have at least one positive effect. It has made Washington start contemplating on an action plan for those cases when the military option is unthinkable, and passiveness is intolerable. At least I hope it has. Because the alternative would be disastrous.