047 The Erickson Report for February 3 to 16, Page 1: War in Ukraine?

047 The Erickson Report for February 3 to 16, Page 1: War in Ukraine?

I was going to do a big thing about Ukraine, including going into some of the background, including the divisions within Ukraine between the anti-Russian western parts which resent a history of Russian domination and the ethnic Russian eastern parts which for that reason are more oriented toward Russia. We'd have to look at the Orange Revolution, the Euromaiden protests and the Revolution of Dignity, the Russian seizure of Crimea, the on-going slow-motion war in eastern Ukraine involving two breakaway provinces, none of which even gets to the competing great power claims about the present day situation.

It soon became clear that all that was too much. So I'm going to pass on that.

Instead, I'm going to make a bold prediction. Which by the time you see this could already have proven me disastrously wrong. But - I predict that Russia is not going to attack Ukraine.

Frankly, I think that if Putin was intending to attack, he would have done it. The seizure of Crimea came within days after the Revolution of Dignity had forced the resignation of the pro-Russia president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych. In the case of Georgia in 2008, Russian forces invaded within hours of government forces seizing the capital of the pro-Russia breakaway province of South Ossetia. Instead, we have this dragged-out posturing and looming presence but no direct action.

Rajan Menon, director of the grand strategy program at Defense Priorities and a senior research fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, had I think a much likelier vision of events than the "Omigod, it's war any moment" version: “Some of this," he said, "is Putin saying, ‘We matter as a country, and you can't do in European security whatever you want, pretending that we don't exist.’” In other words, "We will not be ignored, our concerns will not be waved off."

Could Russia legitimate security concerns? Or could they at the very least honestly feel such concerns?

Okay. On February 9, 1990, US Secretary of State James Baker told both Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and President Mikhail Gorbachev that in exchange for Soviet cooperation in the reunification of Germany, that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward" out of respect for Soviet security concerns. In fact, he apparently said the same thing three different ways.

Look at the second map.

You can see it's a map of Europe with this funny purplish line through it. The countries in blue are members of NATO. Every one of those blue countries to the east, to the right, of that line joined NATO after that promise was made. The pale blue country is Bosnia and it is in the process of entering NATO. The green nations are Ukraine and Georgia and the plan is for them to also join NATO.

So if you were a Russian government official, could you feel that you had been tricked or lied to, that you had security concerns which had been ignored?

Now for the sake of completeness I'll add that US officials have striven mightily to insist that "one inch eastward" didn't mean that, it only applied to the former East Germany, not anywhere else, which bluntly is a real stretch but even at that doesn't address the fact that the Russians could honestly feel differently, honestly feel betrayed, honestly feel that NATO can't be trusted and despite all the pretty words is not actually interested in mutual security but in dominance.

Okay, given that, why no invasion? Because even if Putin intended to - which I say he doesn't - he has to know it would be hard and bloody. It wouldn't be like when Russians rolled into Georgia. Ukraine is nearly 10 times the size of Georgia and its military is seven or eight times bigger. We keep hearing about the 100,000 troops Russia has along its border with Ukraine. The Ukranian army has 150,000 members plus another 50-100,000 in a navy, air force, and National Guard, plus the arms and equipment that has been coming in from NATO nations. There are those who say that's irrelevant because Putin would attack with cruise missiles and other long-range weaponry which is a stupid argument because first then what's the big deal about the 100K troops and second, that would provoke the same sort of NATO response that a ground invasion would.

And it's not just me that has doubts.

Ukrainian authorities have projected calm. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Ukrainians not to panic, saying "There is no reason to pack your bags." A week ago, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told parliament that “as of today, there are no grounds to believe” Russia will invade imminently.

Meanwhile, Newsweek reports that several current and former US, Russian, and Ukrainian officials have said that US intelligence of an imminent Russian invasion is being exaggerated, a number that apparently includes some within Zelenskyy's inner circle.

In fact, Newsweek says, the US intelligence community has yet to establish a consensus on whether Russia was truly preparing to take on what would be an intensive military operation.

Even US Sec of War Lloyd Austin has said publicly that we don't know if Putin has actually decided to go to war and White press secretary Jen Psaki says the administration will no longer use word "imminent."

Well, I maintain he hasn't intended to, that he doesn't intend to, that his real concern is to make the declaration that Russia and its concerns are still something to which the West must pay attention, and that he won't invade Ukraine - unless...

And I'm going to leave you hanging there. If in two weeks I have not yet been shown to be a lousy prognosticator, I will go into what the greatest threat of war here is - except to say as a teaser that, as is so often true, it will not be as the result of someone's or some nation's unforced choice.