Ukrainian interests and American interests

Somehow it always seems timely to recall one of Hegel's most famous passages: "When philosophy paints its gray on gray, then has a form of life grown old, and with gray on gray it cannot be rejuvenated, but only known; the Owl of Minerva first takes flight with twilight closing in." ("Preface" to Philosophy of Right)

Of course, the quote implies that we can only really understand historical trends as they are coming to an end. So it's hard to know what to make of the pandemic followed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February in terms of historical trends. But some big things are changing fast.

Jamie Galbraith recently observed, "The world crisis that erupted on February 24, 2022, with the outbreak of open warfare between Russia and Ukraine has already radically reorganized trade and financial relations."

I don't know if he has a back channel to Minerva's Owl. But he's always worth paying attention to. I will likely have more to say about this article in a later post.

Here I want to call attention to this interview with Anatol Lieven and the article that is its main topic. Anatol Lieven: U.S. Lawmakers' Framing of Ukraine as Proxy War Is Wonderful for Putin's Propaganda 05/09/2022:

In Giving Ukraine intel on Russian generals is a risky gamble Responsible Statecraft 05/05/2022, he writes about the risks of (massively) fatal escalation:

Any of these actions would create a fierce reaction in the United States, and no-doubt renewed calls for a no-fly zone, enforced by fighters flown out of NATO bases in Poland. These bases would then be subject to missile attack by Russia, even as U.S. planes over Ukraine were being shot down by missiles based in Russia itself. Russia would also very likely declare its own no-fly zone over much of the Baltic Sea. Two things would then probably happen: the United States and the West would lurch towards mutual nuclear annihilation; and seeing this, France, Germany, and other NATO members would break ranks with Washington and seek a peace agreement.

To ward off this threat, the Biden administration must move immediately to assure Russia that U.S. strategy is to help defend Ukraine, but not to impose a complete defeat on Russia and use this to weaken or destroy the Russian state.

Lieven here addresses a critical point: The perceived US interests in the Ukraine war are not identical to those of Ukraine's own government. Given how Vladimir Putin has described the aims of the war, Ukraine and its leaders have to assume that they are fighting for their national existence.

The US existence as a nation is not at stake in this war. Unless, of course, it should escalate into a nuclear war. In which case it's not just the existence of the US as a national entity at stake, but the physical existence of Americans, and Russians, and pretty much the whole species of homo sapiens.

But Russia taking over Ukraine in itself is not an immediate threat to the US. Nor even immediately to other NATO allies. Adding a war-ravaged Ukraine to Russia itself, which Putin has said the goal is, would actually be a huge, expensive burden on Russia's economy.

But thanks to the NATO enlargement, there are several member nations that border on Ukraine: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Rumania. And the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all formerly part of the Soviet Union, border on Russia. In the most practical sense, the NATO alliance has to reinforce its defenses against a further Russian attack.

The New Cold Warriors are trying to make it completely unrespectable to even talk about how US and NATO policies may have influenced Russian behavior in previous years. Which on the face of it is fairly bizarre. But politics is politics, and war propaganda is war propaganda.

Lieven in the interview explains that he supports NATO countries arming Ukraine. At the same time, he has a suggestion on how the alliance can push for meaningful negotiations.

And this is why it's important to distinguish between Ukrainian and American interests as understood by those setting foreign and military policy. It seems to be the general assumption that meaningful negotiations won't take place until both the Ukraine and Russia are more-or-less tired of the fighting. Or, more precisely, that both sides decide that continued fighting has more downside risks than likely gains.

Since Ukraine is apparently doing well militarily for the moment, NATO weapons can conceivably bring that time closer without Ukraine being fully conquered and occupied. That would open the opportunity for a ceasefire and possible negotiation of a political settlement. At this point, I would presume the most likely form would be a practical recognition of Russian control in Crimea and in some or all parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the Donbass area in Ukraine's east. But without Ukraine formally surrendering any of those territories to Russia permanently.

Assuming that the agreement was reasonably stable, that would represent some form of "frozen conflict," comparable to situations like the division of Germany from 1945-1990 and the still-persisting post-Soviet Russian control of Transdnistria (Moldova, Ukraine's neighbor, vs. Russia), Nagorno-Karabakh (Armenia vs. Azerbaijan) which un-froze for a while in 2020, and the two separatist republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia claimed by Georgia but officially recognized by Russia.

But if the US sees its interest as primarily weakening Russia, then a long, continuing war could well be judged as serving that interest better than a "frozen conflict", even one acceptable to Ukraine's government. On this issue see:

• Julian Borger, Pentagon chief’s Russia remarks show shift in US’s declared aims in Ukraine Guardian 04/25/2022
• Is Weakening Russia a Bad Idea? (A discussion between Emma Ashford and Matthew Krownigh, both of the Atlantic Council) Foreign Policy 04/29/2022
• Noah Robertson, On Russia, is US policy edging from defense to offense? Christian Science Monitor 05/03/2022
•  John R. Deni, Yes, the United States Should Weaken Russia Foreign Policy 05/04/2022

It's important to remember that advocating overly-aggressive foreign policy positions, even when they turn out to be disastrous in practice, virtually never diminishes the standing of members of the US foreign policy establishment. The rule that it's better to be conventionally wrong than to be unconventionally right very much applies there.

And a considerable part of respectable US foreign policy opinion assumes that the USSR's war in Afghanistan resulted in its downfall, making it "Russia's Vietnam." In the real world, it certainly contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. But so did other major factors, like eastern European nationalism and - very notably - the USSR's vulnerability as a petrostate to swings in the oil market. Not unlike Russia now, it was heavily dependent on oil exports.

There's a well-publicized controversy now in Germany over a petition against German arms shipments to Ukraine sponsored by the German feminist Alice Schwarzer. Without doing into detail on that controversy, I'll quote here what Schwarzer told the Austrian news magazine Profil (05/08/2022). Responding to the criticism that she and the other petitioners are advocating Ukrainian surrender, she says:

[C]apitulation [is] something different than a compromise. Negotiations are not capitulation. We have a localized war so far. It is terrible and must be ended as soon as possible. I already know that Ukraine's aim is to improve the basis for negotiations. But Russia is the strongest nuclear power in the world. And Ukraine also has a responsibility for its people. With the first day of the war, all men between the ages of 18 and 60 were forcibly mobilized. Many of these men have never had a rifle in their hands before - they may already be dead. We talk openly, we sit on the balcony and watch. But we have an obligation to spare people as much suffering as possible, including Ukrainians. And for the world, a world war! Should we have crossed the red line, we will not know until it has happened.

(The general mobilization in Ukraine restricted men between 18 and 60 from leaving the country with some specified exceptions. It did not induct them all into active service.)

One doesn't have to agree with her position on German arms shipments to recognize that she is addressing very real, practical issues here. Like every other government at war, Ukraine's must make judgments on and regularly revisit the question of whether the expected gains from continuing the war would be better for the people of Ukraine than ending it with some kind of compromise or even surrender. People are getting killed. And millions of Ukrainians are leaving the country, currently nearly six million of them as of the UN's May 9 estimates.

And, of course, all parties have to take account of the fact that Russia has a large stockpile of nuclear weapons. That doesn't mean for any government that they are going to just completely fold the moment Russia threatens to use nukes. That's a silly New Cold War talking point. The entire strategy of nuclear deterrence is based on the notion that our nukes threaten you, and we know your nuclear weapons threaten us.

Yes, Putin's public hints at threatening to use nuclear weapons are diplomatic signals whose meanings constantly have to be evaluated in a hard-headed way. But all governments have to be aware of the military capabilities of their current or potential opponents, very obviously including their nuclear capabilities. The US still has draconian sanctions in place against Iran because of the possibility that they might build nuclear weapons.

That is not a "pacifist" position, although any pacifist in their right mind, just like any hawk, neocon, liberal interventionist, or realist in their right minds, would certainly consider paying attention to opponents' nuclear weapons an obvious necessity.