by Hall Gardner
US aid has also been allocated to help build the defense capacity of new NATO members in addition to assisting potential NATO members, which include Georgia, Macedonia, Moldova, and Ukraine. Yet proposed NATO membership for the latter states continues to fuel tensions with Moscow. The latter interprets US calls for greater NATO defense spending as an anti-Russian gesture that is intended to force Moscow to spend much more on defense against the combined forces of NATO in return.
Nevertheless, members of the US Congress, the Pentagon, and European hardliners have continued to argue for a permanent NATO deployment, while Russia already considers the decision to be a “permanently rotating” deployment—and thus a violation of the NATO-Russia Founding Act. Hardliners have also argued for NATO to display a nuclear capability in military maneuvers in order to symbolically counter Russian threats to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad, for example. But these measures would most likely be met by Russian counter-threats. And the risk is that Ukraine's 1,300-mile-long and porous border with Russia can only be defended by NATO's use of nuclear weapons if relations between Ukraine and Russia remain acrimonious. A NATO defense of Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and the Baltic states could easily escalate into a nuclear conflict given the Russian tactical advantage in each area.
In effect, President Obama had argued that Ukraine was part of Russia's vital interests, but not those of the United States—and left the situation dangerously ambiguous.24 Obama did not seek to formally renounce NATO enlargement. Nor did he seek to formally establish Ukraine as a neutral country. Despite the fact that Ukraine is not a NATO member, NATO has become involved in defending Ukraine with what it considers defensive assistance. This is in part because NATO and Ukraine formed the NATO-Ukraine Commission just after NATO first formed the NATO-Russia Council in 1997.25 In 1997 the idea was to approach both sides and suggest cooperative measures but give Russia priority. Now NATO appears to be granting Ukraine priority in its conflict with Russia. Members of the US Congress, the Pentagon, and some members of the Trump administration, have been considering greater military supports for Kiev, including lethal aid, which Russia could easily counter.26 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and other European leaders have proposed a policy of “defense and dialogue” vis-a-vis Russia. But the question remains: How much defense? And how much real dialogue?
WAR OVER CRIMEA AND EASTERN UKRAINE
From the Russian perspective, the events that resulted in the Russian annexation of Crimea and Russian political-military interference in eastern Ukraine in 2014 stem from US and European attempts to expand their spheres of influence into the Russian “near abroad.” In effect, Moscow feared that its naval base at Sevastopol would fall into the hands of NATO, while its political-economic interests in eastern Ukraine would be undermined by the more competitive European economy.27
Moscow not only opposed US and European efforts to engage in “democracy engineering” against former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych in 2013–2014, but also opposed any political-economic deal between the European Union and Ukraine that did not also incorporate Russian gas, Ukrainian debts to Moscow, and other political-economic interests. Moscow then pressured Yanukovych to refuse to sign the EU Association Accord—which helped spark the Euromaidan protests in Kiev in 2013–2014. Moscow then took advantage of the chaos once the kleptocratic, but not always pro-Russian, Yanukovych leadership collapsed.
The general chaos then taking place in Ukraine permitted Moscow to engage in preclusive actions intended to rapidly annex Crimea by means of deploying “little green men” without insignias in strategic locations throughout the isthmus. Moscow also began to engage in clandestine political-military intervention in eastern Ukraine in support of Ukrainian “autonomists.” This also meant that Moscow seized waters surrounding Crimea in which Ukraine had just offered US and European multinational energy companies, such as ExxonMobil, to explore.
By March 2014, Moscow had formally annexed Crimea after staging a public referendum that ostensibly legitimized Russian actions. This put an end to Kiev's controls over the peninsula and thus safeguarded the Russian Black Sea fleet from possible eviction by the new government in Kiev. Moscow, of course, denied any wrongdoing in that it saw Yanukovych as being overthrown by an “illegal” coup (even if Ukrainian lawmakers backed that “coup” by opposing Yanukovich's corruption and kleptocracy).
In effect, Moscow claimed that it was fighting Ukrainian “fascists” by supporting the right of self-determination for the ethnic Russian majority of the Crimean populations, according to its own national security interests defined during the Yeltsin administration. At the same time, whether Moscow has been able to improve the living conditions, quality of life, and sociopolitical freedoms of both Russian and non-Russian minorities, such as Tatars and Ukrainians, living in Crimea after the annexation is another question. The potential failure to do so could undermine Moscow's rationale for the annexation.
As fighting intensified between pro–Ukrainian government supporters and Russian-backed autonomists in the Donbas region, the Minsk I accords were signed in September 2014 talks between representatives from Russia and the opposing two Ukrainian factions under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The Minsk I agreement, which had followed previous attempts to stop fighting, tried, but failed, to implement a cease-fire. These accords were then followed by the February 2015 Minsk II accords between Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, once again under the auspices of the OSCE.28
The February Minsk II accords urged greater “decentralization” by means of a reform of Ukraine's Constitution. By mid-July 2015, the new Ukrainian Prime Minister Petro Poroshenko introduced a bill to the parliament that would ostensibly devolve powers to localities. Poroshenko insisted that these constitutional changes would not turn Ukraine into a “federation” or “special status” as demanded by Moscow. Kiev has opposed greater “autonomy” or “federation”—a position opposed by many in the Ukrainian parliament and violently opposed by right-wing centralists—in the fear that greater autonomy for the Donbas could eventually lead to political secession and independence. On March 16, 2017, three of Ukraine's major far-right groups—Svoboda, Right Sector, and National Corps—signed a manifesto that called for “establishing and developing a great national state.”29
Nevertheless, Poroshenko has claimed that he would grant local authorities more power throughout the country.30 But this is to be done by the strengthening of presidential control over local self-governments by means of “centrally assigned ‘prefects’ with broad powers.”31 Kiev's efforts to find an in-between position that will somehow satisfy both centralists and “autonomists” who demand a special status (while actually asserting presidential powers over localities in the process), appears to have failed miserably with the resumption of fighting in mid-2016. At the same time, despite pressures from the World Bank and NGOs pressing for greater governmental transparency, corruption runs high. Ukraine is tied with Russia as two of the most corrupt states in the world, with a rating of 131 out of 176 countries.32
In May 2015, Moscow's own propaganda in favor of the Novorossiya movement for a potential union with the Donbas region and other southern Ukrainian regions suddenly ceased.33 Not only was such an option opposed by France and Germany in the Minsk II accords, but the costs of such a venture, coupled with strong Ukrainian resistance, the probable need for a long-term Russian occupation force, the costs of long-term Russian political-economic isolation from the United States and Europe, and the general collapse of global energy prices, appeared to put a damper on such imperialist expansion. In an effort to show that it does not possess an imperial design, Moscow had permitted a series of Ukrainian overflights under the Open Skies Treaty in March 11, 2014, and it likewise granted Ukraine's request to conduct an inspection of a “non-declared military activity” in a border region.34 (NATO, however, was not impressed by what it called Moscow's “selective” implementation of the Op
en Skies Treaty.35)
Moreover, the very fact that Moscow has been unwilling to admit to its own population the role of Russian special forces in Ukraine appears to indicate that Moscow does not want to take over the burden and responsibility for the entire region, as has been the case for Crimea. Moscow does not want an unpopular war in which it must enlist the general population. Whether or not the killing was orchestrated by Putin, as alleged, one of the purported rationales for the assassination of Boris Nemtsov, an opposition politician, in February 2015 was that he was attempting to make public proof that Russian forces were involved in the intervention in eastern Ukraine.36 (See discussion, chapter 3.)
Ukrainian autonomists have still not given up their struggle, despite the fact that they are not obtaining full backing from Moscow. In August 2016, Russian-backed forces engaged in a major military buildup around Ukraine (to north in Bryansk, to the east near Rostov, to the south in Crimea, and to the west in the Transnistria area of Moldova) after it claimed that Kiev had engaged in a military incursion and terrorist sabotage in Crimea. This incident followed a number of sabotage attempts—which may or may not be backed by Ukrainian authorities. These include efforts to disrupt the supply of electricity to Crimea and to blockade transportation routes and water supplies.
Kiev does not appear willing to accept the loss of Crimea and has sought US and NATO support to regain it. The Trump administration has now supported Kiev's position since February 2017—particularly after conflict flared up again after Kiev engaged in a “creeping offensive” in mid-December 2016, which has nonetheless stepped deeper into the grey zone between the two sides. This offensive was ostensibly intended to check supplies going to the Russian-backed autonomists, while trying to preempt militias from the Donetsk and Luhansk “people's republics” from seizing more territory.37 The autonomists have, in turn, begun to expropriate Ukrainian businesses in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions.38 For its part, Kiev has claimed that Moscow was building up its forces in Crimea to turn it into an “isolated military base” and was attempting to justify “aggressive actions of [Russian] military units…on the territory of the currently occupied peninsula.”39
Kiev's strategy has been intended to further divide and then defeat the “autonomist” Russophone forces that have generally split between those seeking independence (the self-proclaimed yet unrecognized “republics” of Donetsk and Lugansk) and those seeking greater autonomy from Kiev's centralized controls, but who are not necessarily pro-Putin. The dilemma is that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko appears incapable of implementing the February 2015 Minsk decentralization proposals, which would involve changes to the constitution and would permit local elections.
Concurrently, Moscow appears reluctant to make good on its security commitments because of its commitment to eastern Ukrainian autonomists. The latter see the open border with Russia as key to their survival. At the same time, Kiev has, particularly in 2015–2016, insisted on being able to control the Ukrainian-Russian border first before implementing the Minsk accords. This is a major factor that has led to a breakdown in discussions—and which, in addition, led to Kiev's December–February 2016 “creeping offensive” into the grey zone between the two sides that is in or near the war-ravaged cities of Avdiivka, Debaltseve, Dokuchaievsk, Horlivka, and Mariupol, closer to the positions of the eastern Ukrainian autonomists. Control of the Mariupol region for the autonomists appears key in geo-economic terms—as it opens up the possibility of trade and transportation links with Russian-held Crimea.
The United States and European states have appeared to have granted Kiev sufficient financial and military assistance in order to counter autonomist movements that are not-so-secretly backed by Russia. Yet the fighting in the Donbas has moreover proved very costly for all sides, and rebuilding the region will prove very difficult. A collapsed Donbas region that is potentially separated from a partitioned Ukraine could soon become a much larger and unstable version of Russian-backed Transnistria, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia combined. Such political-economic instability will continue to pollute the whole area with black marketeering, weapons smuggling, and other forms of criminality.
Moreover, a failed “state” in eastern Ukraine would prove very troublesome not only for an essentially bankrupt Kiev and the rest of the region, but for Moscow as well—as the latter, for example, will need to deal with refugees fleeing to Russia. Some 1,554,497 people have already fled the country, with the vast majority (1,226,104) moving to the Russian Federation—which has not necessarily accepted them with open arms. Roughly 148,867 have gone to Belarus.40 The costs of reconstruction and development in the aftermath of the conflict will be considerable.
Putin's annexation of Crimea has been proving unexpectedly costly for Moscow to achieve rapidly in the short term—and even more so with US and European sanctions in place. Moscow has needed to augment salaries and pensions of the Crimean population to Russian standards, while tourism will remain much lower than normal until the situation stabilizes. The Kerch bridge that is needed to supply Crimea from Russia will probably cost much more than the officially estimated $4.5 billion and may not prove long-lasting due to the harsh nature of the surrounding climate.41 In addition to the need for Moscow to supply Crimea with gas and electricity, Kiev's blockade of the North Crimean Canal has negatively impacted Crimean agriculture, as well as the overall Crimean economy, ecology, and population.
By blocking the North Crimean Canal, for example, Kiev has prevented as much as 85 percent of Crimea's water supply from entering Crimea. In this new form of hybrid and environmental warfare, these actions have already provoked a crisis in agricultural production and could force migration back to Russia—if Moscow cannot soon find ways to provide water for the isthmus.42
THE FAILURE OF US POLICY
The NATO-Russia Founding Act—which was intended to bring NATO and Russia into closer post–Cold War cooperation—is now being challenged. The breakdown of the NATO Founding Act could potentially result in the permanent deployment of troops and nuclear weaponry in eastern Europe. This could not only result in a new partition of Europe but also provoke an even more dangerous Russian backlash—if the crisis cannot soon be abated. It could also lead to a major arms race in which Moscow will seek to counter US military superiority by asymmetrical and “hybrid” methods. Not only do “rotating” deployments risk undermining that fundamental NATO-Russia Founding Act, but so does the deployment of the F-35 stealth fighter, which is capable of carrying the renovated B-61-12 tactical nuclear bomb, in NATO military exercises along the Estonian-NATO border, for example. Although this is not the official explanation, these exercises are designed to demonstrate capabilities that could counter a potential Russian advance into the region.43
The essential dilemma is this: As long as NATO, Ukraine, and other countries “will not” recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, and as long as Moscow claims it “will not” give up that sovereignty, there will be no lasting peace. Other diplomatic options to a military buildup and arms race must be forthcoming, and yet not only is the State Department divided, but the White House and Congress appear totally at odds on this issue—as the passage of the “Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act” in August 2017 has indicated. There is a real risk that an eventual partition of Ukraine, coupled with the permanently rotating deployment of NATO forces in the Baltic region, could in turn lead to a new partition of Europe though Ukraine—followed by the polarization of the world into two rival alliances. (See chapters 9 and 10.)
US and NATO policies have thus far been pushing Russia and China closer together. While Trump was initially right to seek a rapprochement with Russia, despite the controversial way he has gone about it, the dilemma is that the Trump administration's policy flip-flops could push Beijing and Moscow even closer together. This is true given the Trump-Pence administration's newfound support for Kiev's claims to Crimea combined with Trump's initial threat to support Taiwanese independence (even though he b
acked off to support the One-China policy). Washington has also been seeking to check China's access to islands in the South and East China Seas, while concurrently threatening trade sanctions against both North Korea and possibly China itself—if Beijing cannot convince North Korea to give up, or at least freeze, its nuclear weapons program.
On a geostrategic level, Washington has been raising China's suspicions of a US-inspired “encirclement” by calling on India to join the United States, Japan, and Australia to deal with common security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, through the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (or Quad). For its part, Japan, China's historical rival, has called for the formation of a “democratic security diamond” that would include Japan, the United States, Australia, and India to counterbalance China. Washington's threat to build up naval forces and alliances in the Indo-Pacific region, plus the deployment of US missile defense systems in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia since the Obama administration, has accordingly begun to press Russia and China into an even closer defense relationship against US conventional and nuclear weapons superiority. China has furthermore opposed US-South Korean, THAAD missile defense deployments.1 A close Sino-Russian defense relationship could then lead to tighter Sino-Russian defense relations with Iran—and possibly with India.
For its part, Beijing has hoped to overcome its century of humiliation since its Opium wars with Great Britain and its subsequent political-economic exploitation by the Europeans, by the United States, and particularly by Japan. Now China wants to establish itself as a major power in the twenty-first century. Beijing first seeks to make itself a major political-economic and financial actor by expanding its global political-economic hegemony through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and by working to develop a massive trading bloc, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). China's huge financial, economic, and technological capabilities will then permit it to develop significant military capabilities.
