The latest reality-show adventure flick is Putler vs. the West. In this thriller, which will keep you gripping the edge of your seat, Hitler has been re-incarnated as Vladimir Putin. He has seized Crimea in an Anschluss eerily similar to the annexation of Austria. Now he is raging through Eastern Ukraine as the West wrings its hands, almost exactly as happened to Czechoslovakia. Will the West intervene before he conquers the world? For the price of just one pizza a week, we could save civilization from this brutish conqueror.
This is what you might believe if you were Ivo Daalder, Michele Fluornoy, Strobe Talbott, and the other authors of the latest report urging American involvement in Ukraine. And you would be dead wrong.
A recent Brookings/Chicago Council/Atlantic Council report presents the case that what is going on in Ukraine amounts to an unprovoked Russian annexation of that country, and that the rebels (which it calls "separatists") could not have defeated the Kiev army without the massive participation of Russian troops and materiel. Following the ceasefire following that defeat, the Kiev army has lost 500 square kmof territory in fighting. It argues that if the rebels can consolidate control of the Mariupol-Crimea road, Ukraine would be further destabilized, and that this can be prevented by the injection of $3B in weapons delivered over three years. It cautions that failure to do so will encourage Russia to engage in adventures in its old empire-- or beyond.
And one can't dismiss the report out of hand. Its authors include a couple of former US Ambassadors to Ukraine, a former Undersecretary of Defense, a former Deputy Secretary of State, a former Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, and others-- many of whom have been guests on the Rachel Maddow show. The ones I have seen present seem to be genial and thoughtful. So, it's important to know that some other equally prestigious people, such as Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Angela Merkel, are not in favor of sending weapons into the conflict. There are respectable people on both sides of the issue... but only one of those positions is right.
One can stipulate certain points:
* If Russia hadn't encouraged them, the rebels probably would not have taken up arms
* Without Russian assistance in the form of arms and training, the rebels couldn't have held out.
* It's against the fundamental principles of international law for Russia to intervene.
* There has been terrible civilian suffering and death.
But that is not a case for intervening.
First, there's the question of what amounts to a vital national interest. Ukraine is a vital interest to the Russians. It is not a vital national interest to Americans. We should recall that during the Cuban missile crisis, we almost went to war because of a Russian presence over 1000 miles from our nation's capital. Ukraine's eastern border is about 300 miles from the Russian capital. If Ukraine joins NATO, it would be possible to base nuclear weapons that close to Moscow. It would also be possible in principle to construct a missile defense system that would completely neutralize Russian nuclear warheads aimed at Europe, while preserving a first strike capability for NATO. Therefore, simply from a military standpoint, Russia already feels threatened by NATO, and Ukraine is the last straw:
Gorbachev: NATO's eastward expansion has destroyed the European security architecture as it was defined in the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The eastern expansion was a 180-degree reversal, a departure from the decision of the Paris Charter in 1990 taken together by all the European states to put the Cold War behind us for good. Russian proposals, like the one by former President Dmitri Medvedev that we should sit down together to work on a new security architecture, were arrogantly ignored by the West. We are now seeing the results.
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Gorbachev: ... When the Soviet Union fell, those who didn't wish us well shed crocodile tears as they rubbed their hands together beneath the table. The Americans began by surrounding Russia with so-called rings of defense -- NATO's eastward expansion. NATO intervened militarily in the Yugoslavian civil war without the consent of the United Nations. That was a precedent-setting case. All that triggered a backlash in Russia. No Kremlin leader can ignore something like that.
Nor is there any indication that Russia has designs beyond its periphery. They had little use for Eastern Europe except as a buffer against invasion, they are not liked in those countries and would find them difficult to control, and intervening in areas which are NATO allies ([Ukraine is not) would have immediate consequences.
Second, one can make a case for intervention almost anywhere, but it is clearly impossible to intervene everywhere. To choose to intervene in Ukraine is to tie up American power that might be needed elsewhere. With much of the Middle East in parlous shape, it is unwise to engage in a conflict in an area that is not a vital national interest.
And, as a corollary, intervention can worsen a situation. This is the case in Syria, where in our eagerness to overthrow Assad, we opened space for terrorists to establish an operational base. Indeed, ISIS was born from yet another American intervention, where in our unwisdom, we dismissed all the members of the Baathist Party from the Iraqi Army, leaving thousands of men skilled in the use of firearms unemployed and humiliated. The American record on military interventions is poor. American policy is consistently weak on understanding local culture, politics, and history, and these are the root of many failures.
Third, there are serious questions that the men and women who are urging us to send weapons to Ukraine really understand the situation. Michael Kofman, a scholar at the Wilson Institute, says this:
Experts familiar with the reasons for Ukraine’s military defeat understand that it is not due to technical deficits, although those exist across the board in its armed forces, but because its army as a whole is not a capable force. It lacks logistics, training, commanders with experience at maneuvering brigade- or battalion-sized elements, any coordination between volunteer battalions and regular forces, along with independent military analysis of the problems. There is no intelligence, no mobile reserves, no unified command and a political leadership that often seems disconnected from the facts on the ground. Dumping weapons into this operating environment is unlikely to prove a solution to the problems, all of which are fundamental and structural.
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The authors also advocate for strategic air defense, even though one of the few areas where Ukraine’s military remains effective is precisely in air defense, from mobile Osa and Buk systems to strategic S200 and S300 variants. Notably, no airpower has been used by Russia in this war, and Ukraine’s air defenses remain a real problem, even for the modernized Russian air force. The report states that the bulk of casualties during separatist offenses are caused by long-range artillery, while recommending that the most important asset the United States can provide is Javelin “light anti-tank missiles.” These could make a real difference against Russian tanks, though there are visibly relatively few of them in operation in Ukraine. Outside of the fact that the Javelin is an extraordinarily expensive missile, at $250,000 per unit, and far from light (50lb), the problem with this logic is that Russia’s army will adapt instead of suffer needless casualties. It may force the Russian army to rely on heavier standoff weapons that would prove catastrophic for Ukraine. When anti-tank weapons proved a problem for Russian armor in Chechnya, they chose to level Grozny with artillery, for example.
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The report makes little mention of the fact that light counter-battery radars had already been sent by the United States last fall, that Russia had matched these with its own, completely nullifying any advantage they might offer, or that mobile MLRS and artillery are unlikely to fall victim to counter-battery fire in the first place.
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In the same vein, the authors keenly argue for the provision of armored Humvees. A piece of equipment not only long derided by U.S. troops and due for replacement, but also an unnecessary recommendation in light of Ukraine’s advanced defense industry. Ukraine is highly capable and proficient at producing indigenous lightly armored vehicles and heavy tanks. This is actually Ukraine’s defense industry’s area of expertise, and why the country has been successful as an arms exporter. In fact, its assembly plants have come up with a number of new designs already going into production, while the country still has vast stores of Soviet armor that can be refurbished and are being actively placed into action.
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Finally, UAVs, some of which have already been provided by Germany, will not prove effective, either. The authors of the report recommend the provision of medium-altitude UAVs, after stating that Russian armed forces are operating advanced air defenses throughout eastern Ukraine. In truth, there is video evidence of Russian air defenses including the TorM2, the Pantsir-S1 and the now-infamous BUK that shot down MH17. Medium-altitude drones cannot fly in this kind of air-defense environment.
Fourth, as mentioned, the U.S. has been quick to supply military aid without considering the political situation. An article by
Mikhail Klikushin in the New York Observer, titled "The New Ukraine Is Run by Rogues, Sexpots, Warlords, Lunatics and Oligarchs" should be a starting point. A sample:
One new face in the Rada—leader of the Right Sector ultra-nationalist party and former warlord Dmytro Yarosh—admitted in a January interview with Ukrainian TV that he caresses a real hand grenade in his pocket while inside the Rada. Because he is MP, the security personnel has no right to check his pockets. They just ask if he has anything dangerous on his person and he says no. The reason to have a hand grenade on his body is that there are too many enemies of Ukraine within the MP crowding him during the voting process. He is not afraid, of course. But when the time comes, he will use this grenade and with a bit of luck he will take a lot of them with him if he dies.
Ukrainian MPs Yuri Beryoza and Andrei Levus, also former warlords and members of radical parties, became notorious last December after publicly applauding the terrorist attack in the Russian city of Grozny….
Another former warlord, former member of social-national party and today’s Ukrainian MP Igor Mosiychuk said to the journalists that Ukraine, “being in the state of war, must stimulate the opening of the second front in the Caucuses, in Middle Asia” against Russia. In the scandalous video, which has been viewed 2.5 million times, he unloaded an assault rifle into the portrait of the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov ranting, “Ramzan, you have sent your dogs, traitors into our land. We have been killing them here and we will come after you. We will come after you to Grozny. We will help our brothers to free Ichkeria from such dogs like you. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the free Ichkeria!”.
If only crazy warlords and
neo-Nazis were all Ukraine had to worry about. The greater danger is from a kind of corruption that confuses self-interest with national interest. This corruption that reaches back even into the United States.
Robert Parry, Consortium News:
The Russians also have noted the arrival of financially self-interested Americans, including Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden and Ukraine’s new Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko, reminding the Russians of the American financial experts who descended on Moscow with their “shock therapy” in the 1990s, “reforms” that enriched a few well-connected oligarchs but impoverished millions of average Russians.
Jaresko, a former U.S. diplomat who took Ukrainian citizenship in December 2014 to become Finance Minister, had been in charge of a U.S.-taxpayer-financed $150 million Ukrainian investment fund which involved substantial insider dealings, including paying a management fund that Jaresko created more than $1 million a year in fees, even as the $150 million apparently dwindled to less than $100 million.
Jaresko also has been involved in a two-year-long legal battle with her ex-husband to gag him from releasing information about apparent irregularities in the handling of the U.S. money.
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More Interested Parties
The Russians also looked askance at the appointment of Estonian Jaanika Merilo as the latest foreigner to be brought inside the Ukrainian government as a “reformer.” Merilo, a Jaresko associate, is being put in charge of attracting foreign investments
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The Russians are aware, too, of prominent Americans circling around the potential plunder of Ukraine. For instance, Hunter Biden was named to the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, which is a shadowy Cyprus-based company linked to Privat Bank.
Privat Bank is controlled by the thuggish billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoysky, who was appointed by the Kiev regime to be governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a south-central province of Ukraine. Kolomoysky has helped finance the paramilitary forces killing ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
And, Burisma has been lining up well-connected lobbyists, some with ties to Secretary of State John Kerry, including Kerry’s former Senate chief of staff David Leiter, according to lobbying disclosures. As Time magazine reported, “Leiter’s involvement in the firm rounds out a power-packed team of politically-connected Americans that also includes a second new board member, Devon Archer, a Democratic bundler and former adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign. Both Archer and Hunter Biden have worked as business partners with Kerry’s son-in-law, Christopher Heinz, the founding partner of Rosemont Capital, a private-equity company.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Whys Behind the Ukraine Crisis.”]
If the United States were serious about helping Ukraine, the first thing it should do is get American politicians and their bundlers and business partners out of there. Nothing
better undermines a claim that a decision is driven by high ideals than someone's son getting rich off the deal.
Fifth and finally, the Powell Doctrine--which was generally regarded as sensible consensus--includes the point that one should what the end game will be and ask whether the risks justify the action. What happens if a conflict escalates to the point that one side is convinced it will lose? There are two choices: to give up or to escalate. There are very good indications that Russia would escalate into the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Their current doctrine, according to Jacob Kipp is:
....as the BASIC Trident Commission report made clear, the Russian government sees TNWs [tactical nuclear weapons] as playing a major role in conflict management and de-escalation under certain circumstances. At the same time, it seems to believe that, in the absence of effective conventional forces, low-yield nuclear weapons with special effects can be used to disrupt precision-strike attacks and de-escalate a local war before it can become a general war leading to the use of strategic nuclear forces. The decision announced in April 1999 to develop new TNWs remains unexplained and opaque because of the lack of transparency in this and other areas of Russian defense policy.
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In the absence of conventional forces capable of dealing with such crises, Russia has seen fit to expand the role of its tactical/non-strategic nuclear forces to include the mission of crisis de-escalation by first use. Until very recently, Russian military analysts
spoke of three distinct threats on three distinct axes. The first, coming from the West, was U.S.-NATO out-of-area intervention with a military built around precision-strike technology and advanced C4ISR capabilities. Russian TNWs/NSNWs were intended here
for de-escalation by disrupting the West’s capacity to conduct tactical and operational combat in theater warfare.
Or again,
Nikolai Sokov:
Available evidence suggests that there were two key variables that affected the emergence of the new nuclear doctrine. First, a perception of acute external threat (especially in the mid-1990s and in 1999, when Russia anticipated that NATO might threaten to use force on a limited scale to achieve limited political goals in a manner similar to wars in the Balkans). Second, acute sense of the weakness of Russia's conventional forces vis-à-vis the prospect of a limited conventional war, especially a limited war with both numerically and qualitatively superior NATO forces. From the perspective of the Russian military, reliance on nuclear weapons was a logical response to the glaring inadequacy of conventional forces premised on the perception that nuclear weapons had greater utility than deterrence of a large-scale nuclear attack.
In short, if the Kiev army were on the verge of defeating the Russian-backed rebels, the Russians might feel obliged to take out the Ukrainian army with tactical nuclear weapons. Where does the escalation end? U.S. policy analysts have not thought this through. Even just the talk of war has presumably elevated the strategic alert level.
There is much more that needs to be said about how this situation has got to this point. American self-righteousness and hubris, corporate and personal financial interests, glory dreams and old hatreds rooted in the Cold War... these and many other half-conscious human factors are driving some very poor thinking about the situation before us. I urge those who are so quick to turn to military solutions to read back over the Powell Doctrine, and ask themselves how many of its provisions they have fulfilled.