Ukraine and the Need for Caution

No Time to Go Wobbly....
No Time to Go Wobbly….

Talk is cheap, but in diplomacy, even cheap talk can be dangerous. And right now there is a lot of cheap talk with regard to the overt Russian military intervention in the Crimea region of Ukraine.

Newly installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk can be forgiven for his emotional “We are on the brink of disaster.” comment over the weekend.

Others should know better, including Secretary of State, John Kerry, who has been extraordinarily loose-lipped as events in Ukraine and the Crimea have unfolded.

In a remarkable series of comments over the weekend, Kerry laid out an escalating series of coordinated actions against Russia for its Crimean adventurism, running the gamut from visa bans and asset freezes, to more substantive, potential economic sanctions on investment and trade.

But then we had this from the Secretary of State:

“…the people of Ukraine will not sit still for this. They know how to fight.”

Speaking to NATO unity in opposing Russian actions, Kerry said, “All of them, every single one of them [NATO allies] are prepared to go to the hilt in order to isolate Russia with respect to this invasion.”

Egging on the Ukrainians? “Invasion“?

Them’s fightin’ words….

In a world where it took the Obama administration two weeks to call Benghazi a terrorist attack, the much larger and more sensitive diplomatic and legal ramifications of characterizing Russia’s actions in this way are nothing less tha careless bordering on reckless.

What’s more, talking about potential US responses, Kerry stated, “The last thing anyone wants is a military option,” thereby raising the one response that no one really wants.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel went down this road as well, albeit in a more circumspect manner, stating that, “This could be a very dangerous situation if this continues in a very provocative way. We have many options, like any nations do.”

Options?  Does anyone seriously believe that the US is going to commit military power to force the Russians to give up their primary, historic military bases on the Black Sea? It is not a sign of weakness to rule out the ridiculous. It is ridiculous to keep implying that such planning is part of a Western response.

Right now, the single most useful thing the US and its allies can do is take a deep breath and count to ten, then take an analytical look at the situation that suppresses unnecessary emotionalism, which only serves to complicate a constructive response by the West.

Yes, the situation is very serious. Crimea is legally part of Ukraine. Moving Russian troops into the Crimea without Ukrainian approval is a violation of the UN Charter and a direct violation of the 1994 agreement under which Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons (based on Ukrainian territory after the fall of the Soviet Union) in return for specific Russian guarantees that allowed Russia to use former Soviet military facilities in the Crimea, subject to Ukrainian authorizations and limits. Constraints that Russia has since ignored.

Ukraine has mobilized its military.  Over a million reservists have been called up. While the Ukrainians have so far refused to fire on Russian troops (or their surrogates who took part in the take over of the Crimea without uniform insignia) and thus provide Putin with an excuse for more direct military action, that does not mean that Ukraine will not eventually retaliate or try to take back what it considers to be sovereign territory. Even if the Ukrainians are outmatched by Russian military forces, all bets are off if real shooting begins.

And indeed, the West has to do something. Putin cannot be allowed to simply flout international law at his own whim when it involves a country on the Russian border – his unnerving nostalgia for the former Soviet Union not withstanding. It may very well be the paucity of options open to the West that has channeled such strident rhetoric on the latest developments.

But cooler heads need to prevail, preferably with people who have at least a passing knowledge of the history with the region and the cultural and political forces that have been integral to the latest Ukrainian revolution.

Diplomats, speculating publicly on the crisis, have noted Vladimir Putin’s determination to call Ukraine a “territory” and not a “country.” Ukraine’s post-1991 independence and subsequent agreements notwithstanding, Putin has a point.

What makes up Ukraine today actually has three parts that came together between 1919 and 1954.

There are the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine that were for centuries part of the Russian empire. It is Russian Orthodox, and culturally and linguistically close to Russia, seeking closer ties with Moscow.  Then there is the western Ukraine. Before WWI, this area was known as eastern Galicia as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It was expanded after the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. This area is predominantly Roman Catholic and remains more oriented with the Europe and the West.

The Crimea, a peninsula that juts out into the Black Sea, makes up the third piece, and is the least “Ukrainian.”By way of historical background, courtesy of Adam Tayl0r of the Washington Post, the Crimean region was rich with different ethnic minorities, including Tatars, Greeks and Armenians that moved into the area with the ebb and flow of historical empires.  Russia annexed the land that is currently Crimea in 1783. It remained in Russian control until the Russian revolution in 1917, where, after a brief period of independence, the Crimea was incorporated into the USSR as the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and later as the Crimean Oblast – an administrative region of Russia.

Some of the heaviest fighting in WWII occurred in the Crimea. Nazi troops occupied the whole region and very nearly destroyed Sevastopol, one of the largest cities. When Soviet forces liberated the Crimea in 1944, Stalin deported the entire population of Crimean Tatars to central Asia, as well as large numbers of Greeks and Armenians – citizens who had made the Crimea their home for generations – forcibly removed amid accusations by Stalin that they had collaborated with the Nazis. The demographic result in the mid 20th century was a very Russian Crimea. Today, 60 percent of Crimea’s citizens speak Russian.

Crimea’s association with Ukraine is almost accidental. In 1954, Nikita Khrushchev impulsively transferred Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR for reasons that are still not entirely clear.  While the realignment seemed administrative when there was a USSR, the real world implications were apparent after the Soviet fall in 1991.

Given the strategic military importance of the Crimea to the Russians – it is home to the Russian Black Sea fleet –  expectations were that after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia would insist on the return of Crimea to Russian control. But Boris Yeltsin, Russia’s first post-Soviet president, never did.

During Ukraine’s referendum on independence in December 1991, 54 percent of the Crimea region voted for independence from Russia. Though a majority it was the lowest majority in all of the Ukraine. The Crimea agreed to stay as part of Ukraine, but negotiated significant autonomy for itself as part of the deal. The 1994 agreement between Russia and Ukraine, referenced above, created the template for continued Russian use of Crimean military facilities with Ukrainian permission and control.

The message of this history on today’s crisis is that not all “invasions of the Ukraine” are created equal, and the West needs to internalize that.

While it is legally correct to state that the Russians have violated Ukrainian sovereignty, Russian actions can just as easily be seen as a great power securing historic and important pre-existing military bases amid political tumult of the host country, while also offering protection to a Russian speaking majority in that region. The intervention so far has been focused, limited and  gratefully, executed without bloodshed.

It is vitally important at this stage of the crisis to recognize what the Russians have not attempted –  an invasion of what would be Ukraine as the nation is properly understood in light of recent history. It is also important to recognize that while Putin has no use for the new government in Kiev, and its pro-Western orientation, he also appears to have no use for the now former Ukrainian president Viktor F. Yanukovych, who has taken up residence on Russian soil, but has been kept far away from Putin. According to British Prime Minister David Cameron, who spoke with the Russian President, Putin agreed to new Ukrainian elections in May, which if true, is a sign of a limited Russian objectives as events in Kiev unfold.  This is not only a positive sign, but also a pivot point for Western action.

Due to compelling historical factors at work in today’s crisis, and the genuine lack of meaningful sanctions which can truly impact Russia, the West and the United States need to be both principled and pragmatic. This involves two major initiatives:

1) Obtaining the right assurances from the Ukrainian government for the protection of Russian speaking peoples in eastern and southern Ukraine, as well as the Crimea. Similar assurances to the Russians on access to their military bases in the Crimea in return for a Russian troop withdrawal. Above all, no shooting war, which would only give Putin the justification that he so far does not believe he has to be more aggressive.

2) A large, coordinated Western aid package to Kiev that will stave off the current financial crisis, implement a reform program to root out corruption in government and jump-start the economy, providing opportunity for the average Ukrainian, all setting the stage for elections in May that will hopefully install a decisively pro-Western government.

The geo-political play here is not in the Crimea. The Russians have the deck stacked in their favor in every possible way. If we make this about the Crimea alone, we lose. But nothing uniquely Ukrainian – except pride – is lost in a compromise arrangement on the Crimea.

The big stakes are in Ukraine proper. A vibrant, democratic, growing Ukraine, associated with the West, is the greatest long-term deterrent to Putin’s aggrandizement   in the “near abroad” on Russia’s borders. This is important not only for Ukraine, but for the Baltic Republics of Latvia, Lithuania  and Estonia who are also home to minority Russian-speaking populations. More serious, these three countries are members of NATO who have the ability to call upon the American security guarantee if attacked.  Drawing a defensible line in Ukraine is not only essential to end the current crisis, but to stave off new Putin adventurism that could spark a more serious test of wills between Russia and the West. NATO and the United States have it in their power to help Ukraine in this vital way.

So John Kerry and the West need to settle down, stop the loose talk and focus on a deal the deescalates the crisis and rapidly moves from trying to force concessions from Putin and onto aid and support for Ukraine proper that Putin is in no position to do anything about. That will secure Ukraine and help restore stability to the region.

The West and western ideals can win here, if we play chess instead of checkers.