It depends on how
top-level decisions are made. By the end of the first week in April it appeared
that Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has decided to try his Crimea tactic for
size in eastern Ukraine.
Pro-Russian mobs, guided by infiltrators from Russia
(who looked very professional in news media), violently seized a number of
government buildings and police stations in several eastern cities,
overwhelming thesecurity services and capturing weapons.
Attempts by government forces to recapture the buildings
very likely would lead to a shooting confrontation and possibly a pretext for
Russian troops to move from across the border. Mr. Putin then could manipulate
this scenario in a westward move as far as he considers manageable. This could
lead to pealing off major parts of Ukraine’s territory.
This tactic is feasible mainly because the areas in question
are heavily pro-Russian and, for that reason, are practically indefensible by
Ukraine’s army dilapidated by years of neglect.
This phase of the conflict may either be an introduction to
a real war or it could simmer down as Mr. Putin may see it as prudent not to
push too far all at once. But Ukraine’s regions of Luhansk and Donetsk and
possibly more, would be lost at that stage.
And what would come next? Inaction of the West (besides
sanctions) is in itself a curiosity.
“Human behavior is
the aggregate of instinctive impulses”, wrote one of my favorite social
scientists. In retrospect, such impulses seem to have
underpinned the behavior of all war-making leaders, at least in the recent
memory. This goes for both World Wars, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan {accelerating the collapse of the Soviet
Union}, and in the subsequent little wars waged by the United States and funded
by borrowed money that ran US economy into a ditch, spread its military all
over the planet and diverted attention from the resurgent Russia, America’s
principal adversary.
This last note is not an exaggeration.
A well-known host on Russia’s state main
news channel boasted on March 16 that “Russia is still the only country capable
of turning the US into radioactive dust.”
And, not incidentally, Russia has
done plenty to facilitate US military to stay busy in Afghanistan for as long
as possible, by providing a land route through Russia for US war supplies in an
agreement with the Bush administration in December 2008. Russia also has been selling
helicopters for American forces.
Even NATO was pulled into Afghanistan, the same NATO that is
now scrambling in panic over its inability to defend its member Baltic states
that could be overrun by Russian forces in a single afternoon. NATO charter requires
this pact to defend its member states. How can it be done when the US has only
two battle-ready brigades in Europe (about 8,000 ground troops) and the EU has
only its “Rapid Reaction” force ready (about 16,000 troops to be expanded
later)?
US military force now in Europe is about 44,000, most of it
air force and logistics personnel.
Would NATO declare war on Russia in this scenario if the
Baltics are overrun? And then do what? Perhaps “defend” could be redefined as unleashing
sanctions against the aggressor? A
stunning humiliation for Western alliance
— if they have not gotten one
already by refusing to provide some form of military help for Ukraine.
While dwelling on that question, consider Russia’s President
Vladimir Putin as already inducted into a hall of fame for
instinctive-impulsive thinkers — because going haywire over losing his bark in
Kyiv was most likely part of his decision to invade the Crimea. However,
history may be a more compelling guide in predicting Russian leaders’ behavior.
More precisely, their theology tells them that an independent Ukrainian state
should not exist. Combined with impulsive tendencies this is a flammable mix.
Putin’s Plan A is an outright invasion, which may begin with
Crimea style moves. His Plan B is to pressure Ukraine to “amend its
Constitution”, which would “federalize” the country and make secession of
various regions easy. It is another way to dismantle and subjugate Ukraine, and
it was rejected by US Defense Secretary John Kerry. But the ball was passed to
Kyiv for 4-way talks (including Ukraine, Russia, the US and EU), if they
materialize.
Meanwhile on April 11, Ukraine’s interim prime minister Arseniy
Yatseniuk was hearing suggestions from local officials in Donetsk (who are on a
hot seat) how the Constitution might be changed to delegate more power to the
regions — and couch it in milder words, such as
“decentralization” instead of “federalization”.
It is fairly obvious that if Kyiv
bows to this subterfuge, Ukraine will be in a worse jam two years from now, if
not sooner, than it is today. And so, Yatseniuk should be reminded of his “We
shall not surrender” stance when visiting in the White House last month.
On the West side, U.S. President Barack Obama has been
preaching negotiations and sanctions in trickles, to the point and beyond of
being accused of messing up the American foreign policy all over the globe. But
none of his American critics specifically said what they would do differently
with respect to the Ukraine crisis, except for U.S. Sen. John McCain’s putative request to Obama to rearm
Ukraine. That’s what should be done, and is not being done.
At this moment, the West is reacting from a position of
fear. But there is no way President Obama can be blamed for today’s NATO
impotence. It can be placed squarely at the door the Administration that
preceded Obama’s presidency. If anything, Obama has been in the process of
pulling out from US military entanglements in Asia, which must be done if the
US has any chance of regaining its ability to stand firm against Russia’s
historic westward expansion into Europe.
Before Russia’s grab of the Crimea, Washington had totally
misjudged the significance of “Ukraine crisis” – its implications for Europe
and for the US. It was viewed as something the EU and Russia could handle. The
US was too busy for such a sideline. Literally. Here was the take of US former
ambassador to Kyiv, Steven Pifer as recently as Dec. 8 in a Kyiv
Post op-ed:
“The EU and Russia are the outside players that can exercise
the most of influence, while the US sits more in the background. And in current
situation, it may not be a bad place for Washington to be”. And: “The major
foreign policy issues for the Obama administration lie elsewhere: the broader
Middle East (Iran, Syria, Arab-Israeli peace process), Afghanistan and the
pivot or rebalancing to Asia. There are only so many hours in a day and larger,
more pressing questions push Ukraine off the agenda”.
There you have it. Washington has dismally failed to
recognize that the “Ukraine crisis” is not simply an issue for the EU, but a
historic time of reckoning between Ukraine and Russia, with consequences far
beyond what the Brooking Institution’s gurus could grasp.
And even when the big boys panicked, waking up to NATOs
inability to do its chartered mission, they are acting as if Ukraine is already
a lost cause that can be “Muniched away”, and are refusing to offer “lethal
aid” (notice the language). Actually, the US could do more than supplying some
weapons, with a display of its air power without firing a shot. A Kyiv Post
op-ed (“America’s secret weapon to stop Russia”, by Robert Spalding III, April
3) suggests how:
A purely defensive deployment of US fighter aircraft can be
diplomatically effective if coming with an American promise to defend Ukrainian
air space. Such deployment would immediately change Putin’s invasion calculus.
Russian aircraft then could not be able to support a ground invasion.
One of Ukraine’s
weaknesses in the ongoing confrontation with Russia is the mistrust between
corrupt bureaucracy and the people who achieved the revolutionary victory at
Maidan. Police and a dysfunctional army
are part of the former. Cleansing (“lustracia”) seems to be stalled, despite
planned “dismissal of 20,000 government employees”.
But the self-organizing pro-Ukrainian phenomenon of the
people throughout much of Ukraine is what Putin’s clique fears the most in his
bid to dismantle the Ukrainian state, according to people I met who were and
still are at the heart Maidan events. The spirit of resistance to Russia’s
probable invasion, reminiscent of the UPA legend, seems to be reviving in
central Ukraine as far east as Chernihiv and Baturyn — the
historic invasion route — no matter what language they speak, Ukrainian
or Russian.
Baturyn was Hetman Ivan Mazepa’s capital city besieged and
captured by Russians, killing all inhabitants, women and children in 1708, the
year of the battle at Poltava.
When conversation
shifted to Petro Poroshenko, skepticism was voiced what he would really do in
relation to Moscow if he becomes president as a “compromise candidate”. In a contrast, no such doubts are raised about
Yulia Tymoshenko. And there is a conviction, expressed earlier by Yuriy Lutsenko
that “the next president should be coming from prison, not from a Mercedes”.
There is always a temptation for the next president to side
with the bureaucrats for the “stability” (as did President Viktor Yushchenko), which
means corruption and not rocking the boat in relations with Russia.
On the other hand, there is a cold fact that it fell to the
present interim government to pull together the constructive forces of the
country trying to rise from the ashes of misrule, abuse and dysfunction that
thrived for many years.
At the same time, this government is in charge of defending
Ukraine from a brazenly hostile Russia, a historic enemy that again stands on
the brink of invading in the east. And, lo and behold, this government seems to
be doing somewhat better than could be expected in mobilizing the country and,
yes, its armed forces in the latest count, and trying to confront the sabotage
of swarms of Russia’s agents that incite rebellion and separatism in southeast
regions.
If presidential and parliamentary elections are held on May
25 — and not disrupted by unpredictable
events — it would be a mistake to take
for granted a big win by democratic forces. Pro-Russian orientation and
sympathies remain strong in southeast. Also, despite Petro Poroshenko’s lead in
straw polls, it is not yet clear who would be the strongest (or the best)
candidate for president.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey
