Tag: Ukraine
Ukraine: expect worse
After many declarations of its intentions, Kiev is now trying to reassert by force its authority in eastern and southern Ukraine. It is moving gradually and slowly, trying to avoid both a popular backlash and intervention by Moscow, which has massed troops and has threatened to use them to protect Russian-speakers inside Ukraine.
This map from the Washington Post illustrates the military deployments, which heavily favor Moscow in both quantity and quality:
But those smooth curvy lines with arrows at the end are misleading. A conventional force-on-force conflict has not started, yet. Moscow is trying to achieve its purposes with more or less local forces, who have been setting up checkpoints and seizing government centers. A clash at one of these Friday killed dozens of insurgents when their Kiev-loyal antagonists set the building they took refuge in on fire. This followed the downing of two Ukrainian military helicopters, at least one by a surface to air missile not available at your local grocery, President Obama averred. Another Ukrainian helicopter was shot down yesterday.
What we’ve got here are escalating low intensity clashes between the Kiev government’s forces and local insurgents backed by Russia.
What counts in a clash of this sort is legitimacy. War is always politics by other means, but especially so when major conventional armed clashes are avoided. Moscow is denying the legitimacy of the Kiev government, claiming it was installed in a coup (even if approved in parliament) and trying to demonstrate that it lacks control over the national territory. Kiev is denying the legitimacy of Moscow’s complaints about treatment of Russian-speakers in eastern and southern Ukraine and trying to reassert territorial control.
The Odessa fire, which killed dozens, is significant even beyond the number of lives lost because it undermined Kiev’s claims that Russian-speakers are safe in Ukraine and supported Moscow’s complaints. I have no reason to believe the fire was set by government authorities. It seems to have been the act of people supporting Kiev, provoked by attacks earlier in the day. But the inability of the government to protect all its citizens detracts substantially from Kiev’s claim of legitimacy.
Still, the situation of Russian speakers in Ukraine is nowhere near what would be required to justify foreign intervention. Moscow has made virtually no effort to ensure their safety and security by non-military means. The OSCE observers sent with that mission were held captive and not allowed to observe anything but the facilities they were held in against their will. They have now been released, on orders from Vladimir Putin, which suggests how independent of Moscow the insurgents in Ukraine really are.
Kiev’s best hope for a restoration of its legitimacy may lie in the May 25 presidential election. Petro Poroshenko, a billionaire “Chocolate King” who has served as Foreign Minister Minister as well as Minister of Trade and Economic Development and Chair of the central bank, is the current front runner in the polls. With more than two dozen candidates, a second round may well be needed for someone to get over the 50% threshold. Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister, is trailing and thought to be trying to get the election postponed until the fall.
The Russians will not want a successful election in eastern and southern Ukraine that would confirm Kiev’s legitimacy. We can expect a concerted effort to prevent it from happening, and to disrupt it where it does. While the administrative apparatus of the Ukrainian state still appears to be operating in many Russian-speaking areas, Moscow has already shown that it can shut down what it wants pretty much when it wants. It would be prudent to expect a crescendo of violence and disruption as the election approaches, with Kiev trying to use its forces to restore order and ensure the election can proceed and Moscow plus Russian-speaking Ukrainians trying to prevent it.
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Peace picks May 5 – 9
1. Russia in East Asia: History, Migration, and Contemporary Policy Monday, May 5 | 9 – 11am 5th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center; 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW REGISTER TO ATTEND This talk explores Russia’s ties with East Asia through the lens of migration and policy. Russia spans the Eurasian continent, yet its historic and present connections with East Asia are often forgotten. At the turn of the 20th century, thousands of Asian migrants arrived in the Russian Far East, spurring fears of a “yellow peril.” A century later, the recent influx of new Asian migrants to Russia has generated similar sentiments. The talk discusses Asian migration in the context of cross-regional attempts to strengthen trade ties and diplomatic relations in the 21st century. SPEAKERS Matthew Ouimet, Public Policy Scholar Senior Analyst, Office of Analysis for Russia and Eurasia, U.S. Department of State. Alyssa Park, Kennan Institute Title VIII Supported Research Scholar Assistant Professor of Modern Korean History, University of Iowa 2. The Democratic Transition in Tunisia: Moving Forward Monday, May 5 | 10 – 11:30am Kenney Auditorium, The Nitze Building, Johns Hopkins University; 1740 Massachusetts Ave NW REGISTER TO ATTEND Mustapha Ben Jaafar, president of the National Constituent Assembly of Tunisia, will discuss this topic. Sasha Toperich, senior fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at SAIS, will moderate the event. Read more
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Triage, not retreat
I spent yesterday morning at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) annual shindig on the Middle East, “Allies, Adversaries and Enemies.” It began with a big-think panel on American foreign policy since 9/11: Robert Kagan, Walter Russell Mead and Leon Wieseltier. FDD President Cliff May moderated. The luminaries skipped any serious discussion of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Nor did they mention the drone wars in Pakistan and Yemen. The consensus was plainly and vigorously anti-Obama: he is shy of using force and leading an American retreat from the world that will get us into deeper trouble in the future. Congressman McKeon (R-CA) makes a similar argument in today’s Washington Post.
This is not my natural habitat, so I’ll try to give an account of the local fauna before launching into a tirade against them.
The panel hit President Obama hard and fast. Wieseltier criticized him for portraying all the alternatives to his policies everywhere as war. Spooked by Iraq, he trumps up phony dichotomies. The truth is he is looking for ways to pull the US out of overseas engagements, especially in the Middle East. As a result, all our friends need reassurance. His policy is one of introversion and absence. The President doesn’t see US power as a good thing and doesn’t recognize that even multilateralism requires US leadership. He wants no more land wars and is trying to ensure that with cuts at the Pentagon, an idea he admittedly inherited from Donald Rumsfeld.
Dissenting sardonically from the view that Obama is a Kenyan socialist, Mead offered a slightly more generous appraisal: Obama believes that as the US withdraws a balance of power will emerge, one that costs the US less than at present. This is a 1930s-style policy close to what most Americans want. But it won’t work, even if the limits of public opinion are real. We’ll get clobbered somehow. The president should harness pro-engagement sentiment and lead more forcefully. Only a balance of power under US hegemony can be stable and reliable.
Kagan concurred, remarking that Americans (unfortunately) have a high tolerance for a collapsing world. But the issue really is military power and America’s willingness to use force. We are on a slippery slope. The Obama doctrine is simply to avoid using force, which is undermining the world’s confidence in our ability and willingness to defend the liberal world order. That is the key objective for American foreign policy. We lost Iraq when Obama withdrew the American troops. The same thing could happen in Afghanistan. Nuclear Iran will be a big problem, but not a threat to the liberal world order, which is more threatened by the waxing military dictatorship in Egypt and the rebellion it will trigger in the future.
Doutbts about whether the US would attack Iran, or let Israel do it, wafted through the room. General Michael Hayden in the next session threw cold water on the idea that Israel either could or should undertake a military strike on its own. No one bothered to consider what would happen in the aftermath of a massive US strike on Iran. Would that stop or accelerate their nuclear program?
The only part of the panel presentations I would happily agree with is the well-established reluctance of the American public to be overly engaged abroad. It was notable that the panel offered not one example of something they thought Obama should do now to respond to the crises in Ukraine, Syria, Libya, Egypt or lots of other places. They were full of examples of what he should have done in the past, and absolutely certain he would not do the right things in the future, including decisive military action against the Iranian nuclear program.
Time and energy don’t allow me to respond to all of the points above. Let me comment on three countries I know well: Iraq, Ukraine and Syria.
The notion that it was President Obama who decided to withdraw troops from Iraq is simply wrong. Here is a first-person account from Bob Loftis, who led the failed negotiations on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA):
[The decision to withdraw US troops] happened in mid-2008 [during the Bush Administration]. My team and I were instructed to work on an agreement that would allow a long term US military presence. At no time did the issue of withdrawal arise, even when the term “SOFA” became politically toxic in Baghdad. SOFA talks were suspended in May 2008, with the focus placed on negotiating the Strategic Framework Agreement (which would have some vague references to “pre-existing arrangements” (i.e. certain parts of CPA17). I then heard in September 2008 that…there were new SOFA talks which were about withdrawal. The “Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq” was signed on 17 November 2008 by Ryan Crocker: Article 24 (1) states “All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011.”
People will tell you that President Bush thought the agreement would be revised in the succeeding administration to allow the Americans to stay in some limited number. But that doesn’t change the fact that it was Bush, not Obama, who decided on US withdrawal. Once in office, Obama did try to negotiate permission for the Americans to stay. Prime Minister Maliki didn’t want to give up jurisdiction over crimes committed by US troops. Hard for me to fault the President for not yielding on that point, especially in light of the arbitrary arrests and detentions Maliki has indulged in since. Nor do I think US troops in the mess that is today’s Iraq would be either safe or useful.
Ukraine loomed large over this discussion. No one on the panel had a specific suggestion for what to do there, except that Kagan demurred from the President’s assertion that we have no military option. Of course we do, he said. We have absolute air superiority over Ukraine if we want it. That may be true. But it would require the use of US bases in Europe and Turkey. How long does Kagan think US leadership and the liberal world order would last after war between the US and Russia?
On Syria, I dissent from the President’s policy as much as any of the panelists. But I have specific suggestions for what he should at least consider doing: recognize the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) as the legitimate government of Syria, overtly arm its affiliated fighters and destroy as much of the Syrian air force and missile inventories as possible. I suppose big thinkers like Wieseltier, Kagan and Mead don’t trade in such small beer, but those of us who treasure concreteness think they should.
It seems to me what the President is up to is not retreat but triage: he is focusing on Iran’s nuclear weapons and the Asia Pacific because he thinks the issues there threaten vital US interests. Syria for him falls below the line. For me it is above: the threat to neighboring states in the Levant and the growth of extremism put it there. But that simple and entirely understandable distinction would not inspire the kind of disdain that the panelists indulged in and the audience applauded at yesterday’s event.
PS, May 6: For the skeptical masochists among you, here is video of the event, which arrived today:
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Booooogus
The Administration and its surrogates are trying hard to assure all concerned that its pivot to the Asia Pacific will not reduce attention to the Middle East. They are also trying to minimize the impact of Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine maneuvers. Meanwhile Bashar al Asad intends to hold an “election” June 3 and photographs have confirmed the Russian origin of supposed pro-Russian demonstrators in Ukraine. Presidents may try to set their own agenda, but circumstances in the world don’t always comply.
The prospect of an election in Syria under current circumstances is bozotic. While Asad will no doubt find some supposed “opposition” figure to contest him, the whole thing will be what the car guys call “booooogus.” A good part of the Syrian population is living in areas outside government control, one-third or more of the population is displaced or refugees, violence threatens even more, and election observation is impossible. Unfree and unfair is the best that could be said about an election occurring under these conditions.
The protesters taking over government buildings in eastern and southern Ukraine are no less bogus. Russia inspires, equips and leads them to disrupt Kiev’s efforts to exert control. Most may be Ukrainians, but that makes little difference. For the Russian foreign minister to complain about Kiev’s failure to rein them in adds insult to injury. Provoking unrest and then complaining about is downright evil.
The question is what the United States can and should do about such reprobate behavior.
In Syria, only an effort to rebalance the battlefield will have a serious impact at this point. That is apparently happening, with the shipment of anti-tank weapons to a selected few trained members of the opposition. Hesitancy and reluctance still characterize the effort more than boldness and resolution. Even with greater resolve, arming will not suffice. There are other requirements: strengthening the opposition politically by connecting the Syrian Opposition Coalition (SOC) with the fighters on the ground, enabling the SOC-connected administrations to govern more effectively in liberated areas, and convincing the Iranians that their assistance to Asad is damaging to their regional ambitions.
I wouldn’t waste any more breath on the Russians, who appear to have decided to support Asad to the bitter end. Iranians I heard from recently show much more concern about the damage being done in Syria, not least because sectarian warfare and the growing strength of Sunni extremists are seen as real threats in Tehran. Asad’s use of chemical weapons and the increasingly serious attrition of Hizbollah forces also give Iran pause. Tehran has more to worry about if Asad falls without a political arrangement for what comes next than Moscow does.
In Ukraine, the United States can do little more than insist on implementation of last week’s agreement to deescalate. If this includes requiring the demonstrators in Kiev’s Maidan to disperse, as quid pro quo for an end to the occupation of government buildings in the south and east, so be it. The key thing is to create the conditions for a decent election at the end of May, or soon thereafter, to legitimize a government in Kiev with democratic blessing. The demonstrators in the east and south will try to prevent that, not least because the Russian annexation of Crimea has eliminated any chance the country’s Russophiles can win it. They will be condemned to the opposition. Their best hope for them to avoid such an election is to make Ukraine as chaotic as Syria.
Russia is relying on bogus protestors in Ukraine and a bogus election in Syria. The best response right now would be a decent election in Ukraine and more serious support to a more unified opposition in Syria. Neither will repair all the harm that has been done in both places, but the President’s prospects for convincing allies in Asia this week and next that they can rely on Washington depends on what he achieves in the places he would like to leave behind.
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Battlefield to conference room
Today’s US/EU/Russia/Ukraine Joint Diplomatic Statement aims to de-escalate a conflict that has been spiraling for weeks. The steps it proposes are straightforward:
All sides must refrain from any violence, intimidation or provocative actions. The participants strongly condemned and rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism.
All illegal armed groups must be disarmed; all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.
Amnesty will be granted to protesters and to those who have left buildings and other public places and surrendered weapons, with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes.
The Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe (OSCE) is to provide monitors, as had been hoped in Crimea (but Russia did not permit it, preferring to annex the peninsula).
Like many diplomatic statements, this one is well-intentioned but riddled with ways to wriggle out. There will always be violence, intimidation or provocation on which one side can base its own violence intimidation or provocation against the other. Disarmament of armed groups generally requires a superior force to undertake the task. Which building and other seizures are illegal is in the eye of the beholder. Where are those who allegedly committed capital crimes to be tried and by whom?
Whether the statement is a turning point will depend on political will. It is difficult for me to imagine that President Putin is ready to de-escalate. He has been on a winning wicket both in Ukraine and in Syria. Why would he want to stop now? The statement presumably forestalls further EU and US sanctions, but he knows as well as everyone in the DC and Brussels press corps that agreement on those was going to be difficult. Ukrainian military and police action to counter Russian-sponsored takeovers in the east has so far failed. I suppose Putin knows even better than this morning’s New York Times that Russia’s economy was on the rocks even before the Ukraine crisis. It will get worse, but since when did Putin or Putinism worry about the economy? Oil prices around $100/barrel are all he has needed to get Russia up off its knees. Crisis helps keep the oil price up.
So I’ll be surprised if this agreement holds, or even begins to change the perilous direction Ukraine is heading in. But the statement includes an important bit that should not be ignored:
The announced constitutional process will be inclusive, transparent and accountable. It will include the immediate establishment of a broad national dialogue, with outreach to all of Ukraine’s regions and political constituencies, and allow for the consideration of public comments and proposed amendments.
The Ukraine crisis, like the Syrian one, is fundamentally a political crisis: it is more about perceptions of legitimacy and distribution of power than about who military balance or who speaks which language. We’ve seen in Libya, Egypt and Syria the results of failure to conduct an inclusive and transparent discussion of the kind of state their people want and how its leadership will be held accountable. It is very difficult to move from violence to the negotiating table unless one side is defeated or both sides recognize they will not gain from further violence. Tunisia and Yemen have done it, but they are the exceptions, not the rule.
The odds of successfully moving from the battlefield to the conference room in Ukraine are low. But that is the challenge our diplomats now face, along with the OSCE monitors. I can only wish them success, no matter how unlikely that may be.
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Passover wandering
Like 70% of American Jews, I spent last night at a Seder, celebrating the story of liberation from pharaoh. Here are some of the thoughts that were on my mind.
Three years ago I wrote with enthusiasm about the Passover of Arab liberation. Two years ago Syria seemed already in the midst of ten plagues and ruled by a pharaoh who wouldn’t let his people go. Last year I thought things in the Middle East better than expected.
This year I’ve got to confess things are a mess, not only in the Middle East but also in Ukraine.
The war in Syria rages on. Israel/Palestine peace negotiations are stalled. Both sides are pursuing unilateral options. Egypt is restoring military autocracy. Libya is chaotic. Parts of Iraq are worse. The only whisper of good news is from Morocco, Yemen and Tunisia, where something like more or less democratic transitions are progressing, and Iran, where the Islamic Republic is pressing anxiously for a nuclear deal, albeit one that still seems far off.
In Ukraine, Russia is using surrogates and forces that don’t bother wearing insignia to take over eastern and southern cities where Russian speakers predominate. It looks as if military invasion won’t be necessary. Kiev has been reduced to asking for UN peacekeeping troops. NATO can do nothing. Strategic patience, and refusal to recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea and any other parts of Ukraine it might absorb, seems the best of a rotten bunch of options.
This is discouraging, but no one ever promised continuous progress. Even the Israelites wandered in the desert. Everyone forgets the part about getting stuck in one lousy oasis for 38 of those years. Freedom is not a one-time thing. It requires constant effort. There are setbacks. And there are breakthroughs.
Americans face their own liberation challenges. While the past year has seen giant strides in acceptance of gay marriage, there have been setbacks to the right to vote. Money is now speech and corporations are people, according to the Supreme Court. I’ll believe that when a corporation gets sent to prison and banks start accepting what I say as a deposit. The right to bear arms continues to expand, but not my right to be safe from those who do, except by arming myself. In Kansas City Sunday a white supremacist and anti-Semite allegedly shot and killed three people at Jewish facilities, all Christians.
The plain fact is that liberation, as Moses discovered, is hard. It requires persistence. There are no guarantees of success. The only directions history takes are the ones that people compel it to take. Some of those people are genuinely good. Others are evil. Sometimes they are both, as son Adam’s piece on LBJ this week suggests. There may be a right side and a wrong side of history, but it seems difficult for many people to tell the difference.
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