Tag: Ukraine
Putin and Putinism are not foreover
There are things that are difficult to write, even when obvious. People all too often mistake analytical statements for normative ones. They fail to recognize that I can think something is likely to happen without wanting it to happen. Let’s be clear: what I am about to write is not what I want but what I think likely if the Russian takeover of eastern Ukraine continues.
Russian speakers, in an effort coordinated by Moscow, are seizing key government and police sites. But most people in eastern and southern Ukraine before this crisis considered themselves Ukrainian, not Russian, even if they spoke Russian better than Ukrainian. Anyone even remotely attached to Ukrainian identity will take offense at what Moscow is up to. Maintaining that sense of Ukrainian identity has to be a primary objective for those who want the country to remain united. If ever Kiev gets the upper hand, those who are today supporting the Russian takeover will find themselves unwelcome.
We’ve seen this happen in the Balkans, where Milosevic sponsored supposedly local Serb takeovers in parts of Croatia and Bosnia. Both had ample backing from Belgrade, including from its army. Once the Croatians got the upper hand several years later, 180,000 or so Croatian Serbs ended up leaving and entering Serbia. In Bosnia, the 500-600,000 Serbs who lived during the war in Republika Srpska were saved from a similar fate only by the Dayton agreements. In Kosovo, many Serbs left Albanian-controlled areas south of the Ibar once Serbian troops withdrew.
Someone more erudite than I am could extend the analogy to the Sudetenland, where Hitler’s takeover ended not so many years later with expulsion of German speakers.
I am trying in what I say above to avoid the fraught question of whether people were expelled, left of their own volition, or were summoned out. More often than not, such mass movements of population have multiple origins. Having mistreated others during their time in control, some people expect, justifiably or not, similar mistreatment when power is given to their enemies. Others are expelled. Still others respond to calls from their “homeland.” The mix is different in different places, and exponents of opposing sides won’t readily agree on what happened.
But I can be pretty sure that if Kiev ever regains control of the sites Russia is now seizing that an outflux of Russian speakers will ensue. Some will justifiably fear arrest or mistreatment. Others will be expelled by hotheads on the Ukrainian side of the ethnic divide. Still others may respond to an invitation by Moscow, which no doubt will be passing out passports to those who want them, as it did in Crimea.
The only real doubt I have is whether Kiev will ever regain control. It seems unlikely. Russia will always be much stronger. Even with a well-equipped and well-trained army that would take decades to create, Ukraine is not going to be able to defeat Russia in a slugging match. So long as it is prepared to devote the resources required, Russia should be able to maintain control.
There’s the rub. Moscow has a lot of problems other than maintaining dominance in Russian-speaking Ukraine. Russia is not much different in this respect from the Soviet Union. Its internal difficulties, both economic and political, are challenging. While today Russians are enthusiastically backing the takeovers, they are likely to feel differently when the bills start coming in. Putin and Putinism are not forever.
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Peace Picks April 14 – 18
1. Terrorism, Party Politics, and the US: Expectations of the Upcoming Iraqi Elections
Monday, April 14 | 12:30 – 2pm
Room 517, SAIS (The Nitze Building), 1740 Massachusetts Ave NW
Ahmed Ali, Iraq research analyst and Iraq team lead at the Institute for the Study of War, and Judith Yaphe, adjunct professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, will discuss this topic.
For more information and to RSVP, send an email to: menaclub.sais@gmail.com
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The roles and limits of international courts
Friday morning the US Institute of Peace hosted a discussion about the role of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Featured panelists were Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda (ICC), Judge Joan Donoghue (ICJ), Judge Xue Hanqin (ICJ), and Judge Julia Sebutinde (ICJ). Abiodun Williams (President of the Hague Institute for Global Justice) moderated.
Judge Donoghue emphasized that it is important to distinguish the ICJ from the ICC. The ICJ, also known as “the World Court,” has been part of the UN apparatus since WWII. Its role is to decide contentious cases between two states. The court also considers whether a state has met its obligations under international law. Neither function involves making a decision about whether an individual is accountable for a specific act. The ICJ is composed of 15 judges from the major legal systems around the world. Three of the 15 judges are women. The ICJ does not automatically have jurisdiction; states must first consent. Two recent cases brought to the ICJ were the whaling dispute between Australia and Japan as well as the maritime boundary dispute between Chile and Peru.
Prosecutor Bensouda agreed that it was important to distinguish between the two courts. While the ICJ deals with disputes submitted by states, the ICC deals with individual criminal responsibility. This includes war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The ICC can only intervene in territories of state parties or over citizens of state parties that committed a crime.
Established in 2002, the ICC is not an organ of the UN. It is a treaty-based institution. Currently 122 states have signed and ratified the Rome Statue. The ICC can exercise jurisdiction when a state requests ICC intervention or the UN Security Council refers a situation to the ICC for investigation and prosecution. An ICC prosecutor can intervene if a state party is not already prosecuting and investigating. However, the primary responsibility falls on the state.
Judge Xue explained the jurisdictional issues both courts face. There are three ways for the ICJ to have jurisdiction. Article 36 of its statute makes it compulsory for states to accept ICJ jurisdiction. International agreements may also provide for jurisdiction. The third way is through agreement by two states. If states do not accept going to court, it weakens the role of the ICJ.
Bensouda added that the ICC has limitations. It operates in a political environment. There are many priorities for states. A judicial mandate is not always a top priority. The effectiveness of the ICC depends on cooperation with states. It is only through this cooperation that the ICC can function as a judicial institution.
Another limitation is a double standard. For states that are party to the Rome Statute, the ICC can intervene on behalf of victims. Non-member states are not able to subject to this intervention unless the UN Security Council refers to or accepts the ICC’s jurisdiction. For full judicial effectiveness, all countries should be parties to the Rome Statute.
Judge Sebutinde noted how both courts depend on states and the international community to enforce judgments. When states are hesitant to implement a ruling of the courts, it is easy to turn on the institutions and accuse them of ineffectiveness. But the international community should turn on itself and wonder why the institutions they created are not fully functioning.
Bensouda said that the ICC can play a preventive role. Knowledge of the existence of the institution and its application of the law can act as a deterrent and stop would-be violators from committing crimes. This has been demonstrated in empirical academic work.
Williams brought up the issues of Syria and Crimea. Neither the ICC nor the ICJ is playing a role in either matter. Does this suggest that these courts have nothing to contribute when stakes are especially high and the international community divided?
Sebutinde replied that before looking to the courts it is necessary to look at the international community and the UN Security Council. The judges as individuals may be interested in these issues. But unless a case is presented, they can only be spectators. The ICJ can only settle disputes where states allow.
Judges Donoghue and Xue agreed that it can leave a feeling of frustration when one looks at disputes and wonders why they are not in an international court. Sometimes an affected state decides that the best way to make progress is not to come to court for resolution, but to pursue other avenues.
Bensouda concluded by saying that in her opinion the ICC should intervene in Syria. But it can only intervene on territories of state parties. Neither Syria nor Ukraine are state parties. Therefore, the ICC cannot intervene. It is a matter of jurisdictional limitations.
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What to do about whoppers
The Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted this today:
#Lavrov: Active Russian involvement in European affairs has always brought long periods of peace and growth to all European countries.
He must have lived through a different Cold War than the one I experienced, along with millions of Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians. Not to mention Ukrainians. In another whopper, he denies that there are Russian agents in southeast Ukraine.
NATO today gave the lie to Moscow’s claims that it has not built up military forces on the Ukrainian border by publishing satellite photos. Moscow appears to be hesitating to use them, because it knows as well as any Ukrainian that invasion (and its aftermath) will not be a cakewalk. Instead it is bargaining for a federal Ukraine, one that affords the eastern and southern provinces a wide degree of autonomy. That is not the worst idea I’ve heard, but Kiev will have to be careful to ensure that the result is not a kind of stealth independence. Americans may have forgotten where and what Republika Srpska is, but the Russians know and no doubt see it has an attractive model. They are even offering it hundreds of millions in euro loans.
But Ukraine is different from Bosnia. Residents of eastern Ukraine identify as Ukrainians even if relatively few say it is easier for them to speak Ukrainian than Russian. A pre-crisis Bertelsmann Foundation study of language, identity and politics in Ukraine found:
Nothwithstanding any linguistic, political, or cultural differences, the vast majority of Ukrainians consider Ukraine their motherland. Even in the south of the country, 88% believe that Ukraine is their home country. This conviction is even more popular among residents of the allegedly pro-Russian east–93% share this belief, in comparison to the traditionally patriotic west and centre (99%).
Nor is there much difference between Russian and Ukrainian speakers in Ukraine on the importance of democracy (both rank it close to 8 on a 10-point scale) or satisfaction with how democracy has performed in Ukraine (4.6 on a 10-point scale). Crimea was “poles apart” from the rest of the country on whether Ukraine should favor a Russian or European orientation.
The question is what can be done to prevent a Russian invasion and to make one unsuccessful if prevention fails. Moscow is working hard to polarize opinion in eastern and southern Ukraine, trying to ween Ukrainians from their Ukrainian identity and promote the Russian alternative. Kiev has to be careful not to make that task easier. This means caution in dealing with Russia-supporting protesters, who are occupying government buildings in several eastern cities. It also means avoiding legislation or other moves that would infringe on existing rights to speak and use Russian. The right posture if Ukraine wants to avoid invasion is one that is welcoming and friendly to Russian speakers, ensuring as much as possible that they retain their Ukrainian identities.
But invasion may not be avoidable. Some have talked of an armed insurgency against any Russian takeover in the east or south. The trouble with that idea is that insurgencies take a long time and are far less often effective than nonviolent struggles, as Maria Stephan and Marciej Bartkowski discuss this morning. Nonviolent resistance succeeds quicker, better and more often, regardless of the character of the regime against which it is used. Violence would compel Russian speakers in Ukraine to make a choice between speaking Russian and being Ukrainian. That’s what Moscow wants. Kiev, as well as Brussels and Washington, should not.
Lavrov’s whoppers are advantageous. The more he says things that can be readily and definitively disproved, the less appealing the Russian alternative will be. If Moscow invades, presumably claiming to protect Russian speakers from alleged abuse, the West and Kiev will need enormous self-control to avoid making things worse. Washington should be supporting pro-Western civil society groups in eastern and southern Ukraine even now. They will be the nucleus of any nonviolent resistance that emerges later.
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Is Syria like the Balkans?
I have long resisted parallels between the Balkans, in particular Bosnia, and Syria. Here are the notes on the subject I prepared for a recent presentation on the subject:
1. Context counts. One sense in which the context is similar is that the Balkans and Syria were once part of the Ottoman Empire. Their populations were not homogenized into nation states. They preserve distinct ethnic and sectarian characteristics to a far greater extent than in Western Europe.
2. But otherwise the context really is different
• Ethnic nationalism was a cause of the war in Bosnia, among the most important of them. Heightened sectarian and ethnic feeling is a consequence of the war in Syria.
• In Bosnia, the neighbors were actively trying to divide the territory. In Syria, the neighbors are supporting proxies but still trying to avoid getting too involved and fearing division of the territory.
• Russia is supplying and financing the regime in Syria. It was not playing nearly so active role in supporting the Serbs in Bosnia.
• Russia was Yeltsin’s, not Putin’s: it was retreating from the world stage, not trying to force its way on.
• The United States in the 1990s was at the peak of its unipolar moment. Today it faces serious challenges throughout the Middle East and in Asia and war fatigue at home.
3. The Dayton negotiations produced a territorial division of Bosnia along ethnic lines and saved the Serbs from defeat.
• Milosevic came to Dayton suing for peace, because he feared a mass exodus of Serbs from Bosnia along the lines of what had happened a few months before in Croatia.
• The Americans compelled President Izetbegovic to agree to a settlement he regarded as unjust.
• Almost 20 years of effort has not reversed the ethnic cleansing and separation caused by the war, whose territorial dimension is a major barrier to peace implementation.
4. If there is a parallel to Syria in the Balkans, it is Kosovo, not Bosnia.
• There Milosevic was trying to assert control over territory that belonged to Serbia.
• He violated even minimal standards of decency by attacking civilian populations, chasing people from their homes and rendering something like half the population refugees.
• The US took advantage of the unipolar moment to launch a war without UN Security Council approval. Milosevic was indicted at The Hague Tribunal during the war.
• The outcome in Kosovo was not ethnoterritorial, except for a small portion in the north that is now being reintegrated with the rest of the territory.
• Ethnoterritorial separation may look desirable to end a war, but it creates conditions in which a real peace process is difficult if not impossible to implement within the context of a single sovereign state.
5. The military intervention against Yugoslavia was a vital prelude to the Kosovo settlement.
• Serbia became concerned that damage to its infrastructure from NATO bombing would be irreversible, making it difficult for Milosevic to remain in power.
• The Serbian army withdrew from Kosovo, Belgrade lost all control of the situation there, and the refugees returned en masse.
• Though defeated militarily, Milosevic remained in power for another year or so, until his own people brought him down at the polls.
• He fell at an election, having allowed local observers and vote counting at the polling places.
6. Nothing like these conditions exist today in Syria.
• Assad is winning, not losing. From the opposition perspective, leaving him in power is not an option. From the regime perspective, removing him is not an option.
• Military intervention by Iran and Russia continues. Any definitive military intervention on behalf of the opposition seems far off.
• An election in Syria today would unquestionably produce an outcome favorable to Assad, with many people not voting and the polling far from free and far.
7. (only if needed) A quick word also about Crimea.
• President Putin’s playbook there is not borrowed from the Americans in Kosovo, as he sometimes implies.
• The US did not in Kosovo unilaterally occupy and annex a province. There was no quicky referendum, but rather a well-coordinated declaration of independence after eight years of UN administration and several years of UN-led negotiation.
• Kosovo is now recognized by over 100 sovereign states.
• Putin’s playbook is copied from Milosevic, who used military force claiming to protect co-nationals and re-establish full control over territory he regarded as rightfully his own.
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Peace Picks March 31 – April 4
1. Ground Truth Briefing: The U.S.-Saudi Relationship: Too Big To Fail?
Monday, March 31 | 9 – 10am
Woodrow Wilson Center; 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
In the wake of President Obama’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, please join us as three veteran observers and analysts of the Saudi and Washington scenes assess the state of relations between the two countries and prospects for the future.
What ails the U.S.-Saudi relationship? Can it be fixed? Or are we witnessing the weakening of one of America’s special relationships in the region?
SPEAKERS
David Ottaway, Senior Scholar
Middle East Specialist and Former Washington Post Correspondent
Abdulaziz Sager
Chairman, Gulf Research Center, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Jim Smith
Former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (2009-2013) and USAF Brigadier General, retired
Jane Harman; Director, President and CEO
Aaron David Miller, Vice President for New Initiatives and Distinguished Scholar
Historian, analyst, negotiator, and former advisor to Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State on Arab-Israeli negotiations, 1978-2003
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