All Things Russia & Ukraine

[MDlaxfan76]

...we should propose a comprehensive disarmament negotiation between NATO & Russia on a DMZ on NATO's E border & Russia's W border.

Let it drag on, sorting the details & providing Putin a face saving off ramp which he can spin as a victory domestically.

How about we stop admitting these border countries into NATO? That would be your buffer. Also, having a military "alliance" that is basically funded by American taxpayers where we can't reach agreement on "defense" issues with other members is pointless to begin with. It's become a "Marching and Chowder Society". I can't tell you how many friends I know that were ticked because they missed all of their NATO travel and per diem during Covid. It's a victim of it's own bloated bureaucracy.

If that is supposed to be at variance with me, you have not been following my post-Cold War critique of NATO & NATO expansion. ...I called it a Marching & Toasting society, which apparently was interpreted by some here as opposition to NATO rather than frustration over how it has deteriorated since the end of the Cold War & German unification.

Yeah, back to good ole, bad days of the Cold War it was darn simple, the Europeans got in line and allowed the US to drive all policy and to bear whatever costs necessary as one of the two world superpowers...with the other an immediate existential threat to Europe. And because of nuclear, an existential threat both ways, to all of the world.

But then we had the 'new world order', with massive reduction in risk and military spending priorities. Which was going to along just fine until 9-11 and the US decided to act unilaterally rather than how we had handled Iraq's invasion of Kuwait a decade earlier. And surprise, surprise the Europeans didn't see the issues the same way as did our leadership...we made fun of French fries...with all the arrogance of our preeminent prior role in the world. And we kept that up for 20 years, albeit with some small attempts under the Obama administration to work more collaboratively...but not really as equals...and then Trump shocked the heck out of the Europeans by tacking the other way, a threatened unilateral withdrawal of of support for NATO and all of its mutual defense obligations...so, what did Europe, especially the strongest single country do? Germany began to think and act more and more independently, made economic alliance deals, energy purchases, which make it less likely that Russia would threaten their own economic interests by threatening Germany militarily.

So, yeah, NATO is less cohesive, less confident about the commitments of one another, and certainly unwilling to simply follow the US.

A very interesting challenge that one year of a new sane Administration has certainly not solved.

[old salt]

...bad days of the Cold War it was darn simple, the Europeans got in line and allowed the US to drive all policy and to bear whatever costs necessary

Anyone familiar with what went on inside NATO & the hard work done in building consensus would find that laughable, as well as your casual dismissal of the costs the Europeans member nations bore in the shared defense of Europe, the North Atlantic & the Med. The combined capability of the non-US members then, in relative terms, dwarfed their current capacity.

Trump had nothing to do with Germany's short sighted decision to terminate their nuclear power program & make their economy vulnerable to Russian energy. Trump offered them an alternative that they rejected, despite the approval of our other EU allies. Germany's outgoing Chancellor went to work for Gazprom.

Trump forced the rest of NATO to confront the frustration, resentment & dwindling support for NATO within the US public (& Congress & the military) with NATO's free riding, as they disarmed while the US assumed a steadily increasing share of the costs & capabilities of the common defense. NATO responded -- they increased defense spending & are regaining their lost capabilities.

Germany remains a laggard, doing the minimum necessary, relying on their size, wealth, central location & Cold War legacy infrastructure. If NATO has to reinforce the E flank, the logistics flow through Germany. I'm not sure we can still rely on Germany to let the rest of the allies & material transit. Germany's self-serving greed & pacifism has nothing to do with Trump. It has been building since the Cold War & preceded his his time in office.

[old salt]

Trump deliberately weakened NATO; for f*ck's sake, it was essentially a campaign promise to remove us from the post WW2 order as much as possible and to make the Europeans pay whatever he believed was their fair share. He is the first President since WW2, to my knowledge, to make the ardent case for the notion that American interests are not served by being in Europe in force, and the first American President in my lifetime to glow with overt admiration for political leaders who were not the product of a democratic electoral system and who were considered strongmen in their countries. His leadership helped clear the way for Putin to impose Russian power on Ukraine.

Trump's leadership helped clear the way for Putin to impose Russian power on Ukraine ?

You are aware that Putin invaded & annexed Crimea in 2014 right, after seizing portions of Georgia in 2008 ? Or that Putin's stooge Yanukovych was Ukraine's PM or Pres from 2006 to 2014. After surviving being poisoned in 2004, former PM & Pres Viktor Yushchenko left office in 2010. Ukraine had revolutions in 2004 & 2015. Trump had nothing to do with any of that.

Now you're telling us that the leaders of the rest of NATO's member nations are so weak & submissive that Trump singlehandedly undermined their commitment to NATO, without withdrawing 1 US troop from Europe or closing 1 US base. okie dokie.

[a fan]

...bad days of the Cold War it was darn simple, the Europeans got in line and allowed the US to drive all policy and to bear whatever costs necessary

Anyone familiar with what went on inside NATO & the hard work done in building consensus would find that laughable, as well as your casual dismissal of the costs the Europeans member nations bore in the shared defense of Europe, the North Atlantic & the Med. The combined capability of the non-US members then, in relative terms, dwarfed their current capacity.

Yes. We were dealing with the Soviet Union then. We're dealing with one country that has the GDP of Italy. We're good.

Trump had nothing to do with Germany's short sighted decision to terminate their nuclear power program & make their economy vulnerable to Russian energy. Trump offered them an alternative that they rejected, despite the approval of our other EU allies. Germany's outgoing Chancellor went to work for Gazprom.

Entirely true. We abandoned Nuke power too...being the shortsighted idiots that we are over here.

Trump forced the rest of NATO to confront the frustration, resentment & dwindling support for NATO within the US public (& Congress & the military) with NATO's free riding, as they disarmed while the US assumed a steadily increasing share of the costs & capabilities of the common defense. NATO responded -- they increased defense spending & are regaining their lost capabilities.

Untrue. Not even half of members meet the 2% GDP bare-*ss minimum requirement. Let's not exaggerate what happened....

Germany remains a laggard, doing the minimum necessary, relying on their size, wealth, central location & Cold War legacy infrastructure. If NATO has to reinforce the E flank, the logistics flow through Germany. I'm not sure we can still rely on Germany to let the rest of the allies & material transit. Germany's self-serving greed & pacifism has nothing to do with Trump. It has been building since the Cold War & preceded his his time in office.

It's because they know Putin can't invade any NATO nations. Given that? How much would you spend?

And again...this is not a serious organization. You're telling me we're supposed to keep Putin from invading neighboring NATO nations....and yet we let Turkey buy military cr*p from Putin? Is this a Three Stooges short film?

The millisecond NATO allowed that? That's it man, all bets are off. Everyone will mail it in, and depending on the US to protect everyone.

Fer F's sake.....Erdogan is looking to buy MORE stuff from Putin right now! Stoopid.

[a fan]

...we should propose a comprehensive disarmament negotiation between NATO & Russia on a DMZ on NATO's E border & Russia's W border.

Let it drag on, sorting the details & providing Putin a face saving off ramp which he can spin as a victory domestically.

How about we stop admitting these border countries into NATO? That would be your buffer. Also, having a military "alliance" that is basically funded by American taxpayers where we can't reach agreement on "defense" issues with other members is pointless to begin with. It's become a "Marching and Chowder Society".

+1. My view? Lower the minimum spend needed. All we need is a gaggle of US marines, and Putin would be scared sh*tless to invade anywhere where they are posted.

[old salt]

...bad days of the Cold War it was darn simple, the Europeans got in line and allowed the US to drive all policy and to bear whatever costs necessary

Anyone familiar with what went on inside NATO & the hard work done in building consensus would find that laughable, as well as your casual dismissal of the costs the Europeans member nations bore in the shared defense of Europe, the North Atlantic & the Med. The combined capability of the non-US members then, in relative terms, dwarfed their current capacity.

Yes. We were dealing with the Soviet Union then. We're dealing with one country that has the GDP of Italy. We're good.
GDP, or % thereof, does not matter if you don't spend it on defense & in a way that contributes directly to combat capability. The Pope was also rich & powerful. Some wise person once asked -- how many divisions can the Pope field ?

Trump had nothing to do with Germany's short sighted decision to terminate their nuclear power program & make their economy vulnerable to Russian energy. Trump offered them an alternative that they rejected, despite the approval of our other EU allies. Germany's outgoing Chancellor went to work for Gazprom.

Entirely true. We abandoned Nuke power too...being the shortsighted idiots that we are over here.
Yes it's dumb, but does not make us dependent an Russia, or any foreign country, for energy. Especially when we take advantage of our own resources.

Trump forced the rest of NATO to confront the frustration, resentment & dwindling support for NATO within the US public (& Congress & the military) with NATO's free riding, as they disarmed while the US assumed a steadily increasing share of the costs & capabilities of the common defense. NATO responded -- they increased defense spending & are regaining their lost capabilities.

Untrue. Not even half of members meet the 2% GDP bare-*ss minimum requirement. Let's not exaggerate what happened....
Still a significant increase & they're spending it on new combat capabilities. Some are buying the F-35 & the Brits are taking them to sea on their 2 new aircraft carriers. You see all those new NATO C-17 transports evacuating Afghanistan & flying arms into Ukraine. Even the Germans are finally buying some newer fighter planes.

Germany remains a laggard, doing the minimum necessary, relying on their size, wealth, central location & Cold War legacy infrastructure. If NATO has to reinforce the E flank, the logistics flow through Germany. I'm not sure we can still rely on Germany to let the rest of the allies & material transit. Germany's self-serving greed & pacifism has nothing to do with Trump. It has been building since the Cold War & preceded his his time in office.

It's because they know Putin can't invade any NATO nations. Given that? How much would you spend?

And again...this is not a serious organization. You're telling me we're supposed to keep Putin from invading neighboring NATO nations....and yet we let Turkey buy military cr*p from Putin? Is this a Three Stooges short film?

The millisecond NATO allowed that? That's it man, all bets are off. Everyone will mail it in, and depending on the US to protect everyone.

Fer F's sake.....Erdogan is looking to buy MORE stuff from Putin right now! Stoopid.

[a fan]

GDP, or % thereof, does not matter if you don't spend it on defense & in a way that contributes directly to combat capability. The Pope was also rich & powerful. Some wise person once asked -- how many divisions can the Pope field ?

This is my exact point. funnily enough.....the Pope doesn't have a single division, yet they've maintained Vatican City for.....how many centuries now?

Seems to me that the Pope and Germany are using the same playbook. Meanwhile, how much of our children's future have we shipped off in cash to other nations? Everyone else gets health care and free higher ed for their kids. Here in the US? Just the thought of providing that sounds insane to...what?.....half our citizens?

I thought we'd changed course under Trump.

Yes it's dumb, but does not make us dependent an Russia, or any foreign country, for energy. Especially when we take advantage of our own resources.

It's dumb...but it also sends the signal to citizens of NATO members that this treaty is not to be taken seriously. The part Trump did play is on the PR for NATO.....and it was not positive PR. I can assure you that Germans are well aware of the stupidity of having Turkey in NATO, given the current leader.....

Still a significant increase & they're spending it on new combat capabilities. Some are buying the F-35 & the Brits are taking them to sea on their 2 new aircraft carriers. You see all those new NATO C-17 transports evacuating Afghanistan & flying arms into Ukraine. Even the Germans are finally buying some newer fighter planes.

Yes, I agree....I'm just saying, let's not exaggerate the things that did indeed happen.

[tech37]

This is my exact point. funnily enough.....the Pope doesn't have a single division, yet they've maintained Vatican City for.....how many centuries now?

Who needs a single division when God is on your side?

BTW, great discussion OS/a fan.

[seacoaster]

Biden's clarification on his press conf "minor incursion" remark -- If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukranian border, that is an invasion = green light to send in the little green men.

I've never seen DW so opinionated about the US. Normally totally objective, host Brent Goff is exasperated with Biden over his comments the past 2 days & his staff's futile cleanup duty. He opened The Day by saying that Europe's & the world's reaction to Biden being inaugurated a year ago today has gone from a sense of relief to "good grief".

Putin is not just threatening Ukraine. He's accomplishing his goal of dividing NATO, demonstrating it's ineffectiveness & prompting it's unravelling.

And the four years of the Trump administration's -- and Trump's -- gladhanding Putin have been instrumental in getting us here. Isn't this essentially what Fiona Hill has been saying: that a strong, coordinated response from NATO is necessary or it will mean the end of any meaningful North Atlantic treat order? We'll see what comes from the talks with Lavrov today.

The irony is that Putin waited for the right time...makes you wonder why?

YA, further to this post and others concerning the timing, here is an excerpt of an interview with Fiona Hill:

"The situation Putin says he’s fed up with in Ukraine has been building for a long time, yes, but why now? Why didn’t they do this in 2015 or while Trump was in office?

I think Trump was pretty unpredictable and they had no idea how he would react. He might just say, Okay, take Ukraine, whatever. And then that would create all kinds of craziness, all kinds of chaos. Also, look, Trump wanted to privatize Ukraine for himself. What was going on at the end of the Trump administration was that Trump was basically doing to [Ukrainian president] Volodymyr Zelensky—withholding military assistance and a visit to the White House in exchange for a favor—the same kind of thing that Putin does. I don’t think Putin liked that one little bit. Trump was literally all over the place.

I once overheard [Putin spokesman] Dmitry Peskov say to someone, Did he really say that? They couldn’t get their heads around Trump at times. They couldn’t believe their good fortune of the chaos and the craziness. But they also found the lack of follow-up infuriating. Russian Ambassador [Anatoly] Antonov would be sent to talk to me and say, Why didn’t this happen? Why didn’t this happen? Why didn’t we move forward on this? I think they thought we were stuck in a Trumpian Groundhog Day. They weren’t going to get any treaties out of him. He promises things and then nothing happens. And then there were all kinds of sanctions they didn’t expect because Congress is a big player and they realize that Trump actually couldn’t deliver on stuff.

So I think they’re hoping that Biden can deliver even though they think he’s weak, because they know Biden. They’ve known him for a long time in different capacities. They know all the people around him: [Secretary of state] Tony Blinken, [Deputy Secretary of State] Wendy Sherman, [Undersecretary for Political Affairs] Toria Nuland, [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan, who was just a kid when Putin came into office. These are people they know. There are people that they’ve dealt with and they’re serious and that they won’t have to explain where Ukraine is."

https://puck.news/fiona-hill-explains-h ... 0puck.news

[MDlaxfan76]

Pretty darn insightful and balanced perspective.

[youthathletics]

Biden's clarification on his press conf "minor incursion" remark -- If any assembled Russian units move across the Ukranian border, that is an invasion = green light to send in the little green men.

I've never seen DW so opinionated about the US. Normally totally objective, host Brent Goff is exasperated with Biden over his comments the past 2 days & his staff's futile cleanup duty. He opened The Day by saying that Europe's & the world's reaction to Biden being inaugurated a year ago today has gone from a sense of relief to "good grief".

Putin is not just threatening Ukraine. He's accomplishing his goal of dividing NATO, demonstrating it's ineffectiveness & prompting it's unravelling.

And the four years of the Trump administration's -- and Trump's -- gladhanding Putin have been instrumental in getting us here. Isn't this essentially what Fiona Hill has been saying: that a strong, coordinated response from NATO is necessary or it will mean the end of any meaningful North Atlantic treat order? We'll see what comes from the talks with Lavrov today.

The irony is that Putin waited for the right time...makes you wonder why?

YA, further to this post and others concerning the timing, here is an excerpt of an interview with Fiona Hill:

"The situation Putin says he’s fed up with in Ukraine has been building for a long time, yes, but why now? Why didn’t they do this in 2015 or while Trump was in office?

I think Trump was pretty unpredictable and they had no idea how he would react. He might just say, Okay, take Ukraine, whatever. And then that would create all kinds of craziness, all kinds of chaos. Also, look, Trump wanted to privatize Ukraine for himself. What was going on at the end of the Trump administration was that Trump was basically doing to [Ukrainian president] Volodymyr Zelensky—withholding military assistance and a visit to the White House in exchange for a favor—the same kind of thing that Putin does. I don’t think Putin liked that one little bit. Trump was literally all over the place.

I once overheard [Putin spokesman] Dmitry Peskov say to someone, Did he really say that? They couldn’t get their heads around Trump at times. They couldn’t believe their good fortune of the chaos and the craziness. But they also found the lack of follow-up infuriating. Russian Ambassador [Anatoly] Antonov would be sent to talk to me and say, Why didn’t this happen? Why didn’t this happen? Why didn’t we move forward on this? I think they thought we were stuck in a Trumpian Groundhog Day. They weren’t going to get any treaties out of him. He promises things and then nothing happens. And then there were all kinds of sanctions they didn’t expect because Congress is a big player and they realize that Trump actually couldn’t deliver on stuff.

So I think they’re hoping that Biden can deliver even though they think he’s weak, because they know Biden. They’ve known him for a long time in different capacities. They know all the people around him: [Secretary of state] Tony Blinken, [Deputy Secretary of State] Wendy Sherman, [Undersecretary for Political Affairs] Toria Nuland, [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan, who was just a kid when Putin came into office. These are people they know. There are people that they’ve dealt with and they’re serious and that they won’t have to explain where Ukraine is."

https://puck.news/fiona-hill-explains-h ... 0puck.news

Thank you. It does indeed align with much of what was discussed in "The Fifth Risk". I think that is how trump works....he walks around starting fires, then reads who engages to discern what is in it for me. But when he does go in....it is All-In.

I read this last week, from 2014.....not much has really changed: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ukra ... rd-to-win/

[old salt]

I agree with Fiona Hill. Trump's craziness was a weapon. It contributed to strategic ambiguity.

Hill verified that Trump was not Putin's puppet & the Russians feared how Trump might react,
just as we fear Putin, but the US brings a lot more to fear.

Sometimes seeming too crazy to F with is not a bad thing.

[youthathletics]

Hill verified that Trump was not Putin's puppet & the Russians feared how Trump might react,
just as we fear Putin, but the US brings a lot more to fear.

Yep....but the left was, and still is, even more afraid. Only when you think past 2 minutes from now, do you realize the charade the put on.

[old salt]

Putin also realized that any proposed further expansion of NATO would be squelched by Trump.

Now, Victoria Nuland, the Den Mother of Maidan, is back at work in the State Dept, having failed upward.

[a fan]

I agree with Fiona Hill. Trump's craziness was a weapon. It contributed to strategic ambiguity.

Yep. I had NO clue what he was going to do next. If that fact actually helped, in places? We should take it, and not ask too many questions.

[old salt]

Now playing on Netflix. Very timely.

[PizzaSnake]

Is Germany the Kyrsten Sinema of NATO?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... er-ukraine

“ “And my God, giving someone respect is low cost, even no cost ... It is easy to give him the respect he really demands – and probably also deserves,” Schönbach said at the meeting, which was filmed, calling Russia an old and important country.

Russia has amassed tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine’s borders.

Schönbach conceded Russia’s actions in Ukraine needed to be addressed but predicted that Kyiv would never win back annexed Crimea from Moscow.

‘The Crimea peninsula is gone, it will never come back, this is a fact,” he said, contradicting the joint western position that Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 cannot be accepted and must be reversed.’

[old salt]

NATO = monkeys f-ing a football.

[old salt]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/uk ... st-ukraine

Liberal Illusions Caused the Ukraine Crisis

The greatest tragedy about Russia’s potential invasion is how easily it could have been avoided.

The situation in Ukraine is bad and getting worse. Russia is poised to invade and demanding airtight guarantees that NATO will never, ever expand farther to the east. Negotiations do not appear to be succeeding, and the United States and its NATO allies are beginning to contemplate how they will make Russia pay should it press forward with an invasion. A real war is now a distinct possibility, which would have far-reaching consequences for everyone involved, especially Ukraine’s citizens.

The great tragedy is this entire affair was avoidable. Had the United States and its European allies not succumbed to hubris, wishful thinking, and liberal idealism and relied instead on realism’s core insights, the present crisis would not have occurred. Indeed, Russia would probably never have seized Crimea, and Ukraine would be safer today. The world is paying a high price for relying on a flawed theory of world politics.

At the most basic level, realism begins with the recognition that wars occur because there is no agency or central authority that can protect states from one another and stop them from fighting if they choose to do so. Given that war is always a possibility, states compete for power and sometimes use force to try to make themselves more secure or gain other advantages. There is no way states can know for certain what others may do in the future, which makes them reluctant to trust one another and encourages them to hedge against the possibility that another powerful state may try to harm them at some point down the road.

Liberalism sees world politics differently. Instead of seeing all great powers as facing more or less the same problem—the need to be secure in a world where war is always possible—liberalism maintains that what states do is driven mostly by their internal characteristics and the nature of the connections among them. It divides the world into “good states” (those that embody liberal values) and “bad states” (pretty much everyone else) and maintains that conflicts arise primarily from the aggressive impulses of autocrats, dictators, and other illiberal leaders. For liberals, the solution is to topple tyrants and spread democracy, markets, and institutions based on the belief that democracies don’t fight one another, especially when they are bound together by trade, investment, and an agreed-on set of rules.

After the Cold War, Western elites concluded that realism was no longer relevant and liberal ideals should guide foreign-policy conduct. As the Harvard University professor Stanley Hoffmann told Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in 1993, realism is “utter nonsense today.” U.S. and European officials believed that liberal democracy, open markets, the rule of law, and other liberal values were spreading like wildfire and a global liberal order lay within reach. They assumed, as then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton put it in 1992, that “the cynical calculus of pure power politics” had no place in the modern world and an emerging liberal order would yield many decades of democratic peace. Instead of competing for power and security, the world’s nations would concentrate on getting rich in an increasingly open, harmonious, rules-based liberal order, one shaped and guarded by the benevolent power of the United States.

Had this rosy vision been accurate, spreading democracy and extending U.S. security guarantees into Russia’s traditional sphere of influence would have posed few risks. But that outcome was unlikely, as any good realist could have told you. Indeed, opponents of enlargement were quick to warn that Russia would inevitably regard NATO enlargement as a threat and going ahead with it would poison relations with Moscow. That is why several prominent U.S. experts—including diplomat George Kennan, author Michael Mandelbaum, and former defense secretary William Perry—opposed enlargement from the start. Then-Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were initially opposed for the same reasons, though both later shifted their positions and joined the pro-enlargement bandwagon.

Proponents of expansion won the debate by claiming it would help consolidate the new democracies in Eastern and Central Europe and create a “vast zone of peace” across all of Europe. In their view, it didn’t matter that some of NATO’s new members were of little or no military value to the alliance and might be hard to defend because peace would be so robust and enduring that any pledge to protect those new allies would never have to be honored.

Moreover, they insisted that NATO’s benign intentions were self-evident and it would be easy to persuade Moscow not to worry as NATO crept closer to the Russian border. This view was naive in the extreme, for the key issue was not what NATO’s intentions may have been in reality. What really mattered, of course, was what Russia’s leaders thought they were or might be in the future. Even if Russian leaders could have been convinced that NATO had no malign intentions, they could never be sure this would always be the case.

Although Moscow had little choice but to acquiesce to the admission of Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic into NATO, Russian concerns grew as enlargement continued. It didn’t help that enlargement was at odds with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s verbal assurance to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in February 1990 that if Germany were allowed to reunify within NATO then the alliance would not move “one inch eastward” (a pledge Gorbachev foolishly failed to codify in writing). Russia’s doubts increased when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003—a decision that showed a certain willful disregard for international law—and even more after the Obama administration exceeded the authority of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 and helped oust Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi in 2011. Russia had abstained on the resolution—which authorized protecting civilians but not regime change—and former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates later commented that “the Russians felt they had been played for suckers.” These and other incidents help explain why Moscow is now insisting on written guarantees.

Had U.S. policymakers reflected on their own country’s history and geographic sensitivities, they would have understood how enlargement appeared to their Russian counterparts. As journalist Peter Beinart recently noted, the United States has repeatedly declared the Western Hemisphere to be off-limits to other great powers and has threatened or used force on numerous occasions to make that declaration stick. During the Cold War, for example, the Reagan administration was so alarmed by the revolution in Nicaragua (a country whose population was smaller than New York City’s) that it organized a rebel army to overthrow the ruling socialist Sandinistas. If Americans could worry that much about a tiny country like Nicaragua, why was it so hard to understand why Russia might have some serious misgivings about the steady movement of the world’s mightiest alliance toward its borders? Realism explains why great powers tend to be extremely sensitive to the security environment in their immediate neighborhoods, but the liberal architects of enlargement simply could not grasp this. It was a monumental failure of empathy with profound strategic consequences.

Compounding the error is NATO’s repeated insistence that enlargement is an open-ended process and any country meeting the membership criteria is eligible to join. That’s not quite what the NATO treaty says, by the way; Article 10 merely states: “The Parties may, by unanimous agreement, invite any other European State in a position to further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area to accede to this Treaty.” The key word here is “may”—no nation has the right to join NATO and certainly not if its entrance would make other members less secure. Details aside, shouting this goal from the rooftops was foolhardy and unnecessary. Any military alliance can incorporate new members if the existing parties agree to do so, and NATO had done just that on several occasions. But openly proclaiming an active and unlimited commitment to moving eastward was bound to further heighten Russian fears.

The next misstep was the Bush administration’s decision to nominate Georgia and Ukraine for NATO membership at the 2008 Bucharest Summit. Former U.S. National Security Council official Fiona Hill recently revealed that the U.S. intelligence community opposed this step but then-U.S. President George W. Bush ignored its objections for reasons that have never been fully explained. The timing of the move was especially odd because neither Ukraine nor Georgia was close to meeting the criteria for membership in 2008 and other NATO members opposed including them. The result was an uneasy, British-brokered compromise where NATO declared that both states would eventually join but did not say when. As political scientist Samuel Charap correctly stated: “[T]his declaration was the worst of all worlds. It provided no increased security to Ukraine and Georgia, but reinforced Moscow’s view that NATO was set on incorporating them.” No wonder former U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder described the 2008 decision as NATO’s “cardinal sin.”

The next round came in 2013 and 2014. With Ukraine’s economy staggering, then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych encouraged a bidding war between the European Union and Russia for economic help. His subsequent decision to reject an accession agreement negotiated with the EU and accept a more lucrative offer from Russia triggered the Euromaidan protests that ultimately led to his ousting. U.S. officials tilted visibly in favor of the protesters and participated actively in the effort to pick Yanukovych’s successor, thereby lending credence to Russian fears that this was a Western-sponsored color revolution. Remarkably, officials in Europe and the United States never seemed to have asked themselves whether Russia might object to this outcome or what it might do to derail it. As a result, they were blindsided when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the seizure of Crimea and backed Russian-speaking separatist movements in Ukraine’s eastern provinces, plunging the country into a frozen conflict that persists to this day.

It is commonplace in the West to defend NATO expansion and blame the Ukraine crisis solely on Putin. The Russian leader deserves no sympathy, as his repressive domestic policies, obvious corruption, repeated lying, and murderous campaigns against Russian exiles who pose no danger to his regime make abundantly clear. Russia has also trampled on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which provided security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for its relinquishing the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union. These and other actions have raised legitimate concerns about Russian intentions, and the illegal seizure of Crimea has turned Ukrainian and European opinion sharply against Moscow. If Russia has obvious reasons to worry about NATO enlargement, its neighbors have ample reason to worry about Russia as well.

But Putin is not solely responsible for the ongoing crisis over Ukraine, and moral outrage over his actions or character is not a strategy. Nor are more and tougher sanctions likely to cause him to surrender to Western demands. Unpleasant as it may be, the United States and its allies need to recognize that Ukraine’s geopolitical alignment is a vital interest for Russia—one it is willing to use force to defend—and this is not because Putin happens to be a ruthless autocrat with a nostalgic fondness for the old Soviet past. Great powers are never indifferent to the geostrategic forces arrayed on their borders, and Russia would care deeply about Ukraine’s political alignment even if someone else were in charge. U.S. and European unwillingness to accept this basic reality is a major reason the world is in this mess today.

That said, Putin has made this problem more difficult by trying to extract major concessions at gunpoint. Even if his demands were entirely reasonable (and some of them aren’t), the United States and the rest of NATO have good reason to resist his attempt at blackmail. Once again, realism helps you understand why: In a world where every state is ultimately on its own, signaling that you can be blackmailed may encourage the blackmailer to make new demands.

To get around this problem, the two sides would have to transform this negotiation from one that looks like blackmail to one that looks more like mutual backscratching. The logic is simple: I wouldn’t want to give you something you want if you were threatening me because it sets a worrisome precedent and might tempt you to repeat or escalate your demands. But I might be willing to give you something you want if you agreed to give me something I wanted just as much. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. There’s nothing wrong with setting a precedent like that; it is, in fact, the basis for all voluntary economic exchanges.

The Biden administration appears to be attempting something along these lines by proposing mutually beneficial agreements on missile deployments and other secondary issues and trying to take the question of future NATO enlargement off the table. I have considerable respect for U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s toughness, savvy, and negotiating skills, but I don’t think this approach is going to fly. Why not? Because in the end, Ukraine’s geopolitical alignment is a vital interest for the Kremlin and Russia will insist on getting something tangible. U.S. President Joe Biden has already made it clear that the United States will not go to war to defend Ukraine, and those who think it can and should—in an area that lies right next door to Russia—apparently believe we are still in the unipolar world of the 1990s and have a lot of attractive military options.

Yet with a weak hand to play, the U.S. negotiating team is apparently still insisting that Ukraine retain the option of joining NATO at some point in the future, which is precisely the outcome Moscow wants to foreclose. If the United States and NATO want to solve this via diplomacy, they are going to have to make real concessions and may not get everything they might want. I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but that’s the price to be paid for unwisely expanding NATO beyond reasonable limits.

The best hope for a peaceful resolution of this unhappy mess is for the Ukrainian people and their leaders to realize that having Russia and the West fight over which side ultimately gains Kyiv’s allegiance is going to be a disaster for their country. Ukraine should take the initiative and announce it intends to operate as a neutral country that will not join any military alliance. It should formally pledge not to become a member of NATO or join the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization. It would still be free to trade with and welcome investment from any country, and it should be free to choose its own leaders without outside interference. If Kyiv made such a move on its own, then the United States and its NATO allies could not be accused of giving into Russian blackmail.

For Ukrainians, living as a neutral state next door to Russia is hardly an ideal situation. But given its geographic location, it is the best outcome Ukraine can realistically expect. It is certainly far superior to the situation Ukrainians find themselves in now. It is worth remembering that Ukraine was effectively neutral from 1992 until 2008—the year NATO foolishly announced Ukraine would join the alliance. At no point in that period did it face a serious risk of invasion. Anti-Russian sentiment is now running high in most of Ukraine, however, which makes it less likely this possible exit ramp can be taken.

The most tragic element in this whole unhappy saga is that it was avoidable. But until U.S. policymakers temper their liberal hubris and regain a fuller appreciation of realism’s uncomfortable but vital lessons, they are likely to stumble into similar crises in the future.

[a fan]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/01/19/uk ... st-ukraine

Liberal Illusions Caused the Ukraine Crisis[/i}

Liberal??

Yeah, Bush was a liberal. And no, it doesn't matter which one I'm talking about here. Both espoused right wing ideologies, and it's RIDICULOUS that a man teaching this cr*p at Harvard needs to be told that the liberals wouldn't have one single solitary troop any-freaking-where in Europe, let alone the Middle East. They'd leave NATO to it, and would have FORCED NATO to take care of business post Soviet fall-------the very thing that you want, Old Salt.

Every freaking policy he mentioned was right-wing. 100% of them. But sure, make a bunch of nonsense up, and give it the liberal tag.

Libs want NATO and the UN to rule the roost. Like it or not? THAT is what a real lefty-liberal would want. Don't believe me? Ask one.

The greatest tragedy about Russia’s potential invasion is how easily it could have been avoided.

Liberalism sees world politics differently. Instead of seeing all great powers as facing more or less the same problem—the need to be secure in a world where war is always possible—liberalism maintains that what states do is driven mostly by their internal characteristics and the nature of the connections among them. It divides the world into “good states” (those that embody liberal values) and “bad states” (pretty much everyone else) and maintains that conflicts arise primarily from the aggressive impulses of autocrats, dictators, and other illiberal leaders

Who the firetruck does he think he's fooling here? If his students are THIS stupid? They need to change their entry requirements.

This is, verbatim, right wing American foreign policy thought. Commies v. Democracy ring a bell anywhere? Who the F does he think came up with that one? Pot-smoking, barely conscious, sandal wearing lefties? You're either with us, or against us? He thinks a liberal came up with that? Freedom Fries? That was a liberal term, was it, Professor? Right.

Do you know what a liberal policy looks like from your era, OS? Nixon choosing TRADE over a Cold War with China. Brilliance, defined. We'd STILL be running duck and cover drills in 2022 if it weren't for Nixon's liberal genius on this particular issue.

For liberals, the solution is to topple tyrants and spread democracy, markets, and institutions based on the belief that democracies don’t fight one another, especially when they are bound together by trade, investment, and an agreed-on set of rules

The is literally the right wing CIA Post WWII handbook. Like EXACTLY what they did in Iran, Nicaragua, and coups we'll never hear about, I'm sure. The firetruck this is liberalism. A liberal would NEVER use force to topple a regime, or use the CI freaking A to do the dirty work of cowards hiding in DC.

Yet with a weak hand to play, the U.S. negotiating team is apparently still insisting that Ukraine retain the option of joining NATO at some point in the future, which is precisely the outcome Moscow wants to foreclose. If the United States and NATO want to solve this via diplomacy, they are going to have to make real concessions and may not get everything they might want. I don’t like this situation any more than you do, but that’s the price to be paid for unwisely expanding NATO beyond reasonable limits.

I love how the good professor glosses over Russia taking Ukraines nukes away, and reneging on that deal like it's just a footnote. They signed a paper saying they'd respect Ukraine's borders. Remember that, Professor? Naaaahh, who cares about that....let's blame "the Squad" for getting us in this mess, instead of Putin.

Let them keep their nukes, and guess what, Professor? Ukraine doesn't need to join NATO anymore, and can remain neutral for another hundred years.

But sure, this is all AOC's and her liberal buddies at work. Totally. Obviously.

I wouldn't take Prof. Walt's advice on where to take my car to be serviced, let alone ask him about how to handle Putin.