I start with a warning that as I write this, events in Ukraine are in serious flux, with Russia saying it's pulling back some troops and NATO countries saying they see no signs of it and one even suggesting a drawdown could be a trick while hints about talks on other topics are being bandied about on both sides.As I do this, the February 16 "day it will happen" is passing but the "it'll be by February 20" deadline is still ahead. Russia says it is pulling back troops but the US and NATO call b.s. So maybe tension is easing except maybe it isn't.
But it doesn't matter because as Politico's National Security Daily would have it today, February 16 was always "overhyped" and the real important day is February 20. Or soon after February 20. Or March 1. Or it doesn't matter because as one person they quoted said "Just because these dates come and go doesn’t mean the risk is any less." Just be worried all the time.
Things could be - in fact very likely will be in at least some ways - quite different by the time you see this: the difficulty of trying to discuss changing current events in a two-week time frame.
So I decided to plunge ahead with what I intended to say and if events prove that I got things totally and disastrously wrong, so be it and I won't hide from my failure. So onward.
Last time amid the growing drum beat of war at any moment, I made the prediction that Putin not invade Ukraine.
And in fact, that has recently been made more explicit, with Putin complaining the US and NATO have “freely interpreted” the principle of the "indivisibility of security," the idea that no country should strengthen its security at the expense of others, a principle that is enshrined in international agreements involving both sides. That is, he is sarcastically accusing NATO of interpreting the phrase in whatever way it finds most convenient at the moment, without regard to any concerns of objections Russia may have.
Another reason I gave was that an invasion would be a bloody and difficult undertaking,
the biggest Russian military operation since World War 2, and that includes Afghanistan.
And I also noted that I had some backup of my doubts to be found in statements from various diplomats and officials of non-US countries.
So my conclusion was that Putin would not invade - unless.
Which is where I left it, saying if the following two weeks had not yet proved that I am a lousy prognosticator, I'd finish that sentence this time. Time has not yet proved my failings, so here we are.
Simply put, the "unless" revovles around the NATO - which really means the US - response to Putin's posturing.
Putin is trying to lay down a marker, saying "We will be heard, we will not be ignored." Putin is regarded by some analysts as a gambler in foreign affairs, as being "risk-tolerant" as it's put, but in laying down his marker in this case, he's taking the risk he's making a bet he can't cover.
The risk can be seen most easily and clearly in the frankly bellicose words of US officials.
For one, there was the statement by Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley, who said late in January, quoting, “We strongly encourage Russia to stand down and to pursue a resolution through diplomacy.”
For another, that same week the Biden administration and NATO told Russia there will be no US or NATO concessions on Moscow’s main demands, which revolve around Ukraine being kept out of NATO and the withdrawal of NATO forces from near Russia's border.
Some years ago I read a statement - I can't remember who, I'd like to give credit where it's due but I can't - that "faced with the choice between humiliation and war, nations historically have shown a depressingly persistent preference for the latter." The point and the relevance here is that if you don't want a war, you have to give the other side a way to back out of a confrontation without appearing to back down, a way to say at the very least "OK, I can live with that; it's not everything I wanted but I can live with it." Lacking such a way out, nations historically prefer war to humiliation. That concern is central to where we stand now.
And realize this notion of giving the other side a graceful exit is not an out-there idea: On February 14, Rep. Adam Smith, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, told MSNBC that “If we're going to prevent a war, Putin has to get something out of this. He has to have some sort of diplomatic face-saving mechanism to back down."
The idea has even been mentioned in mainstream news articles, often coupled with claims that the US is now offering Putin such an off-ramp. Unfortunately, that off-ramp consists of saying if Putin totally backs down, that is, withdraws all his troops from near Ukraine and drops all his other demands, including any objection to Ukraine joining NATO, we would be willing to talk about some tangentially-related issues outside the bounds of those demands. It's hard to think of that as being an acceptable alternative to Russia. Such discussions and even some decent results arising from them are certainly not out of the question - on February 15 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made specific reference to them - but they will not address the central questions.
Which just brings us back to the US-NATO position of "stand down, no concessions."
There are really only four reasons they would say such a thing.- They are totally ignorant of that history of nations preferring war to humiliation.
- They actually want a war.
- They are really convinced an attack won't happen and taking the opportunity to look tough because they are convinced they can bully Putin into retreat.
- Or there is something going on behind the scenes of which no one is talking about even on background and so of which we know nothing.
Of those, the last is the most hopeful, although hard to credit considering how many potential leaky points there are. Nonetheless, I can hope it's true; it certainly wouldn't be the first time some back-channel deal proved to be the way out of a crisis.
The first reason I simply cannot believe to be true and the second one I have to believe and fervently hope is not true.
Which leaves what I think is the most plausible reason: They think they can bully Putin into backing down. In fact, a hint of that confidence can be seen in that at the same time the US was declaring "no concessions," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg declared that Russia should not only pull its forces from in and around Ukraine but also from Georgia and Moldova.
Frankly, if that's the game being played here, it is an insanely dangerous one, particularly when you bear in mind that Putin holds the 1990s as a "decade of humiliation" for his country, an experience he is unlikely to be willing to repeat.
Okay, so what can be done? There have been several ideas advanced; let's run through a few.
You have to realize the Ukraine is the key. So one idea is to simply accept Moscow's insistence that Ukraine be permanently barred from NATO. Now, that's actually not a bad one and I'd even go beyond that which I'll get to later, but right now it's not politically viable. It would be almost as much a humiliating retreat for NATO as the one being pushed on Russia by NATO. So in the present, it's a nonstarter.
However, what could be done is to emphasize the fact - and it is a fact - that there is no reasonable prospect for Ukraine to be part of NATO any time in the foreseeable future, if in fact ever.
The prospect of its joining what is a Cold War military alliance is based on a 2008 NATO statement which in the nearly 14 full years since has not produced what's called a Membership Action Plan - a pathway to eventual membership - for Ukraine. And Germany and France were and remain opposed to Ukraine's membership and getting in requires unanimous support from existing members. So Ukraine may never be able to join NATO.
Even Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has essentially acknowledged that. During a meeting with German chancellor Olaf Scholz on February 14, Zelenskyy said membership in NATO would take “longer than expected" and described it as a "dream," something Kyiv hopes to get to someday, but who knows when or, bluntly, if.
But instead of pointing that out except occasionally in passing, NATO and the US keep banging on the "anyone can join" drum as if it were a done deal and it's just a matter of some details.
Admittedly, President Blahden did say that Ukraine does not have the go-ahead to join NATO - but that was last June and is not found in the current rhetoric, at least as how anyone would notice. It's dispiriting and indicative of the idea that the US thinks Putin can be bullied because it is pushing pride over practicality, made clearer by that last week Jean-Marie Guehenno, former UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, described NATO’s non-stop enlargement as a "mistake" and said the 2008 promise was "hypocritical to claim that NATO enlargement was compatible with the development of real friendship with Russia."
Another related idea of what could be done is for NATO, rather than barring Ukraine or emphasizing membership is only long-term possibility, to declare a moratorium on new member states, a way to finesse Ukrainian membership without directly acknowledging the connection. Yet another proposal is the so-called "Finlandization" of Ukraine, which has a bad air about it because it has implied being subject to informal domination by Russia, but would really mean Ukraine declaring itself neutral and trying to maintain contacts and good relations with both Russia and the West, which wouldn't be popular with the pro-Europe western parts of Ukraine and would require a formal change in Ukrainian policy but still could be a viable option and over time become the normal state of affairs.
Yet another potential off-ramp for Putin, a way for him to, if you will, stand down without appearing to kneel, something that would give him that "face-saving mechanism" would be for the US and NATO to insist that Ukraine fulfill its obligations under a 2015 peace deal regarding two breakaway pro-Russia provinces in the Donbas region in the southeast of the country, a deal that was brokered by France and Germany and required Kyiv to offer self-rule to the rebel-held territories. Its implementation has stalled because of domestic opposition in the anti-Russian western Ukraine, but granting that self-rule plus surrendering even if not formally to the reality that Crimea is gone could well be enough to provide the "flexibility" to avoid a major war without anyone on either side giving up anything over which they actually have control.
Personally, I think that is the best option available and could be made even better if only because more saleable is for Ukraine to be admitted to the European Union - something to which it appears Russia has not objected - which would to some degree satisfy Kyiv's desire to closer ties to the West without involving any commitments of Europe or the US to the military defense of Ukraine or allowing for the stationing of any NATO forces or bases within it.
In fact, I'm going to go way out on a limb here. On February 15, Putin declared, without offering any evidence, that what is going on in Donbas is "genocide" - that is, genocide against the ethnic Russians there. Analysts are as you'd expect claiming that this is intend as a pretext for an invasion. Which, I have to acknowledge, it could be. However, he has been saying the same thing since 2014. It has served as the excuse for Russian military support of the rebels. Which prompts me to think that raising it right now, in this context, is a tell that what I just raised - a deal involving self-rule to the breakaway provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk - could be the key to a settlement.
As events unfold, we'll see how I do.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment