March 30, 2021 ?
The Shadow of a New Cold War
Hangs over Europe
The Ukraine
question is at the crux of European security.
Temperatures are rising again in
eastern Ukraine with informed commentators suggesting that intensive military action might start
when the “mud season” passes. Quite understandably, Americans could suffer from
Ukraine fatigue after observing the often bizarre conspiracies that have arisen connecting Kiev and Washington political
machinations over the last five years.
Even as Presidents Joe Biden and
Vladimir Putin traded insults, the Russian president celebrated Russia’s control of the Crimean Peninsula.
Unfortunately for Europe, Ukraine remains as the simmering crisis that still
threatens to overturn the continent’s “long peace.” Indeed, even as
Ukraine-Russia tensions are at the root of almost all of the most acute
problems in European security, this tortured bilateral relationship also points
the way toward common-sense solutions too.
Some noteworthy American national
security commentators claim that the “New Cold War” has little in
common with the experience 1945–90, because the new centers of competition are
in the cyber and high-tech realms, rather than concerning military competition
and nuclear weapons. Yet, such assessments seem oblivious to the steady
ramp-up of exercises by large military formations across Eastern Europe
in the last five years. Escalating tensions along the front between
Russian and U.S. forces are visible along a huge geographic front from
the Arctic all the way to the Caucasus and even reaching deep into the Middle East.
U.S. bombers that have been
flying regularly along Russia’s flanks have now been permitted to “nest” for the first time in Norway, a neighbor of Russia in
the “High North.” Likewise, America’s most advanced submarines have visited the region recently in the wake of NATO’s
largest exercises since the end of the Cold War. U.S. forces,
including tanks and attack helicopters, have deployed into the
Baltic states with new regularity and are now a permanent fixture in Poland. Meanwhile, American drones now patrol
along Russia’s sensitive southern flank, including within Ukraine and all along
the perimeter of the Crimean Peninsula. Is it any wonder that Russia has at
least five major modernizations underway simultaneously for its nuclear
strike forces, including new ICBMs, bombers, submarines, drones, and tactical
nuclear weapons too?
Too many Washington defense
analysts prefer to talk about cyber weaponry while peddling projects for new
patches with upgraded cyber defenses. Yet, the broader public remains quite in
the dark regarding hundreds of billions going to feed the intensifying nuclear
arms race, not to mention the new forces now deploying to Europe—admittedly
a friendly locale for the troops. Yet, are these escalatory steps warranted?
Conventional coverage of the
Ukraine issue asserts that the country was invaded by Russia after an allegedly
corrupt pro-Russian leader was ejected from office by angry protests—the
so-called Euro-Maidan events of early 2014. After Crimea was seized by “little
green men,” Moscow was unsatisfied and decided to lop off a few more slices of
Ukraine in the Donbass region too. While the storyline is not completely false,
it fails to recognize some important nuances. For example, the leader of
Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovich, may indeed have been corrupt, but he was also
elected in a legitimate, democratic election. An angry mob is hardly the ideal
way to remove a democratically elected president, it must be admitted.
Moreover, the “invasion thesis” does not quite comport with facts on the
ground. For example, there occurred in early May 2014 a major flare-up of
pro-Russian sentiment in Odessa that included grave atrocities. Such
events fit better into the civil war explanation than the invasion narrative
that is so popular in Washington today.
Memories in Washington do not
seem to go back any further than the disputed 2016 election or the Euromaidan
of 2014. The pervasive lack of historical knowledge in the American capital is,
unfortunately, feeding escalating tensions in Eastern Europe. Indeed, American
strategists should consider how it was that Americans were highly sympathetic to
Tsarist Russia during the Crimean War when Russia faced off against perceived
French and British imperialism. Likewise, they should reflect on the fact
that if Soviet forces had not paid so dear a price defending the
fortress at Sevastopol until mid-1942, they likely could not have prevailed at
Stalingrad subsequently. In other words, the Kremlin’s stubborn hold on
Crimea in the face of Nazi aggression proved exceedingly important to the
Allied victory in 1945. Finally, there is no understanding in the American
foreign policy establishment that Soviet internal borders were of little importance,
so their impact on post-Soviet politics is also limited. No wonder a giant
Russian naval base existed in Crimea after 1991 through 2014 to the present. In
other words, the Crimea situation and that of Ukraine generally is much grayer,
and less black and white than most Americans appreciate.
So, what is to be done
ultimately, besides dusting off some history books?
First, the United States should take overt and obvious steps to uproot the
militarized rivalries now in full bloom from the Arctic to the Caucasus to see
if such steps aimed at de-escalation might be reciprocated by the Kremlin.
Second, Washington should seek to re-energize the so-called “Normandy process”
that brings Russia and Ukraine into a negotiating format with the leaders of
Germany and France to stabilize the situation in eastern Ukraine.
Finally, American diplomats
should consider a “grand bargain” that accords full NATO membership to Ukraine
in exchange for complete diplomatic recognition of Russian sovereignty over
Crimea. While neutralization of Ukraine would be preferable for U.S. national
security, such a step is probably necessary in order to get Kiev (not to
mention Washington’s myriad hawks) to sign on to any larger compromise that
could lead to a relaxation of tensions. For Moscow, the extensive economic
benefits would almost certainly outweigh the security concerns. This agreement
to “meet halfway” may be the only way Europe can escape the ever-tightening
grip of the new Cold War.
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