President Obama has bungled his negotiations with Vladimir Putin.
Photo by Alexey Kudenko/Host Photo Agency via Getty Images
The most startling thing about the crisis in Ukraine is how horribly all the actors have played their hands.
First, the Ukrainian parliament, after stepping up to power,
drastically overstepped its bounds, dissolving the courts and ousting
President Viktor Yanukovich by fiat rather than through legal processes
of impeachment—thus giving Russian President Vladimir Putin the sliver
of an excuse to declare the new leaders “illegitimate” and to intervene
under the pretense of restoring “order.”
Then, Putin went overboard, not merely bolstering the security of
Russia’s naval base on the coast of Crimea (an autonomous republic of
Ukraine that once belonged to Russia) but mobilizing 30,000 troops to
occupy the entire enclave. This was unnecessary, since Putin already, in
effect, controlled Crimea. It may also prove stupid, as the move’s
violence has further alienated Ukrainians, raised suspicions among
Russia’s other ex-Soviet neighbors, and roused resistance from otherwise
indifferent Western nations.
Which leads to President Obama, who has responded to the aggression
by imposing sanctions—a cliché of foreign policy that usually has no
effect, but in this case will almost certainly make things worse.
Sanctions only work (and, even then, rarely) when they are universal,
when they truly hurt the regime being targeted, and when they coincide
with—or prompt—political change. Russia fits none of these categories.
Too many European nations are too dependent on Russian gas supplies or
bank deposits to make sanctions bite or endure. None of the sanctions
under discussion are knockout blows; no conceivable sanctions would compel Putin (or any Russian leader) to surrender Ukraine. And regime change in Moscow is hardly on the horizon.
This crisis will be settled by making things somehow right with
Ukraine—keeping it secure from further encroachments and ensuring that
its government reflects the will of its people. The path toward both
goals runs through the upcoming elections in May. And neither goal can
be accomplished—no free and fair election can take place—without Russian
involvement. That is a simple fact. Russia’s ties to Ukraine run long
and deep. Any new Ukrainian government, even one wishing closer ties to
the European Union, will have to renew ties with Russia as well. The EU
can’t (and certainly won’t) solve all of Ukraine’s economic ailments.
Nor will some surge of American gas exports (a fantasy to begin with)
pry Ukraine loose from its dependence on Russian energy.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to acknowledge this. At a press conference
in Kiev, he proclaimed American solidarity with Ukraine’s aspiring
democrats. But he also acknowledged that Russia has vital interests in
Ukraine, waived any desire for confrontation, and called for mutual
“de-escalation.”
But then, President Obama announced sanctions against Russia, banning
travel of key officials, freezing assets, and suspending international
forums. The question that no one appeared to acknowledge, much less ask
or answer: How is it possible to do escalation and de-escalation at the
same time?
Yes, there are situations where a shrewd combination of “sticks and
carrots” can prod an adversary into action, but this isn’t one of those
situations. The sticks are too flimsy, and there are no carrots.
More to the point, if Putin had been looking for some way out of this
mess, he certainly wouldn’t be looking any longer, because
de-escalating now would make it seem that he was backing down under
Western pressure. Obama has had two long phone conversations with Putin
in recent days, but as long as he insists on preconditions for renewed
diplomacy (Putin must return his troops to their base, he must
sit down with Ukrainian officials), Putin has no reason to comply.
Russia has deeper interests in Ukraine than the West does—and more
localized sources of pressure to make those interests felt.
That being the case, Putin can sit and wait. He has the upper hand in
this game—and the more the West plays on his terms, the stronger his
hand will seem. Sanctions won’t change his behavior, except to stiffen
it—and once that becomes clear, Putin will seem stronger, the West will
seem weaker, and a solution to the Ukraine crisis will recede in the
distance.
Already, Putin has doubled down, calling for a referendum on whether
Crimeans want to rejoin Russia (they will almost certainly vote “yes” by
a large margin) and promising other rejoinders, such as freezing
Western assets inside Russia. None of this will work to his benefit in
the long run, but he can feel good about himself in the short run—just
as Americans in Congress (who have pushed Obama in this direction) can
feel good about voting for additional sanctions as well (and then, no
doubt, shrug off all the consequences if things fall apart).
Sanctions do have a place in this sort of confrontation, but Obama
got the sequencing wrong. The “costs” and “consequences” of Russia’s
actions should have been laid out on the table as measures that he would take
if Russia didn’t take steps to wind down the crisis. If possible (and
maybe it isn’t anymore), this warning could have been conveyed in
private, and in any case there should have been no public demands on
precisely what winding-down steps the Russians must take. Whatever leverage we might have had is lost, once the chips are already spent—and are shown to have no value.
There are other steps the United States and NATO can take, and, in
fact, Obama has taken them. Most notably, he’s beefed up defenses around
the Baltic nations and Poland. In part, this complies with security
guarantees to fellow NATO members; in part, it sends a warning to Putin
not to make further incursions into southern or eastern Ukraine—though
it’s hard to say what we would do if Putin did.
After the Cold War, when NATO expanded eastward to take in the more
western-leaning members of the former Warsaw Pact at a moment of extreme
Russian weakness, some thought was given to adopting Ukraine as well.
President Bill Clinton decided against it, for two reasons: first, polls
suggested that the Ukrainian people didn’t want to join NATO (in fact,
they’re now evenly divided about joining even the European Union);
second, it seemed a stretch to declare that the NATO nations would
regard an attack on Ukraine as an attack on themselves. (George W. Bush
came to the same conclusion, and for the same reason didn’t invite
Georgia to join NATO even after Russia’s invasion.)
When this crisis got underway two weeks ago, it seemed absurd that
the United States and Russia might go to war over the fate of Ukraine.
But both of their leaders have stumbled and bumbled so badly in the
meantime, and the exit-ramp is so littered with bombs and barricades,
nothing seems impossible.
No comments:
Post a Comment