New Year’s Reflections

I remember the collapse of the Soviet Union thirty years ago as if it were yesterday. All of a sudden, there were fifteen newly independent countries, including the Russian Federation—which itself consists of almost two dozen semi-autonomous republics, many being majority Muslim.

It was a time of political vacuums and brazen thefts of billions of dollars worth of national assets by oligarchs who were in control of specific industries at the time of the collapse. I had a ringside seat to much of this, and was among the hundreds of western experts who were deployed to the former Soviet Union to assist in “nation building.”

One project I specially recall involved establishing a legal framework for prisoner transfers. The Soviets had almost a lottery system under which sentenced prisoners were sent to prison facilities all over the country, without regard to the prisoner’s home republic. All of a sudden, most prisoners were being confined in foreign countries. Anyway, there were lots of interesting legal challenges.

The United States decided to help build new legal institutions and more democratic civil societies in the former Soviet Union. Millions of US AID dollars flooded the newly independent states, all tied to building a society based on the rule of law and democratic principles. New Constitutions were drafted and approved, courts were freed of Communist Party controls, and many new laws were enacted that were intended to support foreign investment and empower individuals and civil society institutions. Young people were excited, but their parents and grandparents were wary. New laws do not change the way people think. That takes many generations.

All of which brings me to the current crisis involving the Russian Federation and the Ukraine. These peoples have a long history. Kiev existed centuries before Moscow. In 1954, the Soviet Union ceded Crimea (a strategically significant area for the maintenance and deployment of Soviet naval power) from the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialist Republics (RSFSR) to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR). The cession of Crimea was heralded as “a noble act on the part of the Russian people” to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the “reunification of Ukraine with Russia” (a reference to the Treaty of Pereyaslav signed in 1654 by representatives of the Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate and Tsar Aleksei I of Muscovy) and to “evince the boundless trust and love the Russian people feel toward the Ukrainian people.”

It’s hard for citizens of the United States to fully comprehend the century’s old historical connection between today’s Russia and Ukraine. Most of us only study American history, over and over, and are generally ignorant about world history. Nor do most Americans understand that ethnic Russians make up 17% of the population of Ukraine (the largest single Russian diaspora in the world). Most live in the eastern half of the country. As an aside, how often have we in the US justified using military force to come to the aid of our citizens in another country?

Putin has been claiming that the countries of NATO and the West in general have been poking Russia in the eye ever since the demise of the Soviet Union. This is akin to complaining that we kicked them when they were down. And to be honest, there is more truth to that than we like to acknowledge. Countries formerly in the Warsaw Pact have been integrated into NATO, and US forces and weapons systems have moved steadily eastward, much closer to the Russian frontier.

Russians remember WW II like it was yesterday. They lost two hundred million of their people in that conflict. They are paranoid about foreign military threats, even when this to us seems irrational. They simply don’t think like us. We must understand that if we want to avoid another world war.

Putin has pressed us and the West not to bring Ukraine into NATO, and to redeploy military forces further west of the border of the former Soviet Union. Our leaders reply with the simplistic position that NATO can decide its own membership. We threaten Putin with massive economic sanctions if his forces invade the Ukraine, but take care to emphasize we are not going to use armed force to repel such an invasion. It seems similar to China threats against Taiwan. Definitely not in our sandbox when it comes to military intervention.

Sometimes it is helpful to try to see things through the eyes of one’s adversary. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor did not happen in a vacuum. After Japan attacked China in 1937, we partnered with the British and the Dutch to organize and enforce an oil embargo against Japan, which imported ninety percent of its oil needs. Without oil, Japan’s military could not function. Without trying to justify Japan’s attack upon our forces at Pearl Harbor, it was essentially an act of economic desperation. Economic sanctions against a heavily armed adversary can indeed reach a point where military response seems like a rational act of national survival.

Let’s imagine an unthinkable but realistic scenario, in which Texas secedes from the United States after years of political stalemate in Washington. Texas has over eight percent of the US population and the second largest GNP of any U.S. state. It also has many US military installations. Assume further that other US states threaten to follow Texas, and a distracted and overwhelmed Washington does not immediately try to use the military to subdue the crazy Texans. Then those Texans invite Putin to deploy land, sea and air forces to the new Republic of Texas to help deter future military attacks by the U.S. And the Texans join a military defensive alliance with Russia.

Not a perfect analogy by any means, but do you see the connection to the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine? One country’s people and military assets, not to mention oil and gas resources, due to political and economic upheaval, become part of a separate country. Were this to happen, it would make the Cuban Missile Crisis seem like child’s play. Our national reaction would be outrage. “This is our sandbox, stay out!”

So yes, Russia’s annexation of Crimea was a violation of Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty, but in the context of history, it appears rational through Russian eyes. So also, Russian troops entering eastern Ukraine to come to the aid of its fellow ethnic Russians who are in conflict with the central government. As it is with Russian paranoia about Ukraine’s being so influenced by the west that it becomes a part of NATO—where an attack upon one member state is deemed an attack upon all.

At a time when the United States is bitterly divided, our republic seems on the brink of its own demise, and many of our people in some ways seem ready to take up arms against each other, would we really come together if we were attacked by a powerful adversary? It appears that Russia is banking on an end to the great American experiment in government by the people. They are banking on our self destruction and transformation into a more autocratic system of governance. But when we play in the Russian sandbox, we risk an acceleration of our own demise. A miscalculation that could prove disastrous.

The Soviet Union never truly died. Soviet mentality still reigns. The masses prefer order over chaos, and do not truly share our idea of government by the people. Cookie cutter (almost verbatim) laws have been enacted throughout the former Soviet Union. And rule of law simply means the people in power change the law when it seems like an obstacle to achieving their goals. Or they interpret the law in favorable ways. But they have zero intention of having law as a real limitation on their power.

Corruption is endemic throughout the former Soviet Union. Our Justice Department used to say that if you could keep organized crime from controlling more than five to eight percent of our economy, that was an acceptable ceiling. In practical terms, it could not be totally eradicated. But in the former Soviet Union, that figure in many areas is over eighty percent. There is a marriage between political leaders and criminal bosses, and sometimes they are the same persons. So unfortunately the wishes of the ordinary citizens do not really count, and we are forced to deal with the political and economic systems that exist.

Look at Ukrainian history since 1991, and you will see successive shifts between pro-Moscow leaders and those who seek to align with the West. Look closely and you will see massive corruption on all sides. It’s a fact of life with which we must deal.

A reasonable compromise with Putin on the current impasse would be an exchange of diplomatic notes that make it clear the US will not support integration of Ukraine or any of the other eleven former Soviet Republics (excluding the three Balkan states) into NATO, and that we will work together to create a two hundred kilometer buffer zone where neither side will position military forces or offensive weapons systems. I know this would not be politically feasible in the US Congress, but it would be a sensible exercise of Presidential authority.