In a previous article about the Ukraine Crisis, I compared the modern-day EU-Russia confrontation over Ukraine to that a hundred years ago between Austria-Hungary and Russia over Serbia, that followed from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914.
As obviously illegitimate the Crimean referendum appears, what is beyond doubt is that Crimea only became part of Ukraine as a result of the fall of the USSR; when it was given to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s, it was only in "Ukraine" on paper, and Russia has obviously felt that way ever since.
In fact, I read a good analogy regarding Russia's relationship towards Ukraine, comparing it to England's toward Scotland. Russians and Ukrainians are often intermarried, with many ethnic Ukrainians even working in the Kremlin; similarly English and Scots intermarry, with many Scots having recently been an integral part of the British government. For Russians then, the idea of Ukraine drifting away from Russian orbit (and Russian culture) would seem as unthinkable to many English people as Scotland breaking away to become part of,the Eurozone. Britain as an idea would simply not longer exist in reality.
For many Russians, Ukraine is more simply, "western Russia", in the same way that in Victorian times many Scots themselves preferred to call themselves "Northern British". This analysis of Russia-Ukraine goes further: if Russians had known back in 1989 what they know was happening to Ukraine now, they would probably have gone to war then to prevent Ukraine from splitting from Russia.
The elephant in the room: self-determination
For many of the EU leaders, Angela Merkel included, Russia annexing Crimea marks an unacceptable changing of borders of the European continent, redrawing the accepted geo-political map from the end of the Cold War.
Except it doesn't. Not by any criteria you could think of.
Such a statement by European leaders includes such appallingly-willing blindness to the reality: Europe's borders have been changing ever since the end of the Cold War, with Europe's happy acquiescence. Czechoslovakia was the first to divide, even though it was far from clear if the decision was forced on their populations or not. Yugoslavia, of course, divided into five parts initially in the early nineties, followed by Kosovo's semi-detached status from 1999 becoming properly independent in 2008; Montenegro was the last to be resolved, separating from Serbia in the mid-2000s.
The real problem for the EU is that in recent years various constituent states of the EU have been trying to kill off any further fracturing of Europe's borders, for the sake of their own selfish desires. Having encouraged non-EU European states to settle issues using peaceful self-determination, they are terrified of having to apply the same principle to themselves.
This explains why the Scots are being treated as the bete noire of Europe's establishment. The EU is terrified of the potential "domino effect".
The EU currently has around half a dozen well-established independence movements to deal with within its constituent states: apart from Scotland's (continually mocked) independence referendum, Catalonia is the well-known for its desire for self-determination from Spain. The Basques have their own self-determination campaign (from Spain, as well as claiming part of France); the Galicians of north-west Spain even have (less well-known) independence movement. The Flemish in Belgium have brought Belgian government affairs intermittently to a standstill in recent years due to their desire for a division of the Belgian state. Just in the last week, even Veneto (the Italian region of Venice, at one time known as the Venetian Republic) had an "online referendum" that gave overwhelming support for independence from the Italian Republic.
Apart from Scotland's senior partner in The UK, England, no EU nation-state is willing to even consider handing over the right to self-determination (or in many cases, even the chance of a legally-binding vote) to any of these people. The reason? That it would violate their constitution.
Why is the EU so appalled and terrified of upsetting the status quo of its internal borders? Yet why does it see fit into interfering into others'?
The 21st century Austria-Hungary?
It should be remembered that the EU is first and foremost a political project. It was initially a free-trade zone from the 1950s onwards, that expanded in the 1980s and 90s into supra-national political and legal entity. The economic transformation was complete with the establishment of the Eurozone, that became fully-functional in 2002. Put into practice, this means that the parliament in Westminster has as much say over some fully-binding EU legal issues that, say, Michigan has over aspects of US federal law.
Austria-Hungary was also a political project, in a manner of speaking. Originally the Hapsburg Empire, by the 1860s, it had been constitutionally modified into the "dual monarchy" of Austria-Hungary. This meant that while the Austrian Emperor was technically its combined ruler, many key decisions (such as national and foreign policy) had to be done by mutual agreement with Hungary. Austria-Hungary had a multi-national parliament (like the EU) that included all national tongues. This invariably led to a chaotic process, but as the parliament's role was mostly advisory, it was easy to play off one side against the other, and for the empire's ruling council to ignore it when necessary.
Skip forward a hundred years, and the modern EU has some unwelcome similarities. Like Austria's, the EU's parliament is an unwieldy multi-national cauldron, which, also like Austria's has little real power; like Austria, the EU has its own (electorally-unaccountable) ruling council, called the European Commission, whose members are chosen at the whim of various European statesmen. It is the European Commission who decide what happens in the EU. Just like it was with the ruling council in Austria-Hungary.
The issue of self-determination within EU member-states now is as prickly an issue as was minority rights within Austria-Hungary. Indeed, it was the partially an impasse between Austria (who were minded to give the Slavs more rights) and the Hungarians (who wanted to preserve their own heightened status at the expense of the Slavs) that led to ethnic Serbians within Austria-Hungary plotting to kill Franz Ferdinand.
In this sense, the EU is little better than the European empires of yesteryear. Things may be dressed up in "democratic clothes", but if the EU uses all of its resources to dampen the wishes of self-determination of some of its peoples, it is no better than an empire. Indeed, it is, by definition, an "empire".
Europe as the new "sick man of Europe"?
Austria-Hungary was once called the "sick man of Europe" (as was the Ottoman Empire) a hundred years ago. It was considered a "doomed empire", though this analysis is retrospective. No-one thought that at the time.
The EU today, especially after the financial crisis, looks in increasingly shaky shape.
Its constitution looks like an awkward instrument of controlling over a wide variety of national and economic interests, as did Austria-Hungary's a hundred years ago. The EU's economy looks geographically top-heavy, relying on Germany in particular, and Northern Europe in general, to off-set the malfunctioning and creaking economies of the South. This is no model for long-term stability. The Euro as a currency was designed as much as a political as an economic project, setting up the "Eurozone" for a disaster in the making. Reaching its first real test, the financial crisis, no-one in their right mind can say that the Euro has truly "worked" as a currency for all of Europe.
The EU's "drive to the east" (as I've mentioned before), looks more like imperial over-stretch, while forgetting the potential problems that bringing in these new territories create. Austria faced a similar dilemma when it annexed the ethnically-mixed Bosnia in the years prior to the First World War, including those ethnic Serbs that would go on to kill Franz Ferdinand. In the same way that Russia and Austria battled for strategic influence over the Balkans a hundred years ago, the EU and Russia are doing the same with Eastern Europe. Reaching the gates of Kiev was a sign of how far Europe's leaders were prepared to go to boost their own vain "sense of destiny", regardless of how that would be interpreted in Moscow.
Europe's leaders cry foul over Crimea's referendum and Ukraine's national integrity, but only do so from the perspective of being an imperial rival to Russia's influence. They can claim no moral high-ground. They cannot even rule their own subjects without stifling their rights; how much longer can the EU continue living as though its problems do not exist?
It was the First World War that killed the multi-national empire that was Austria-Hungary: its many nationalities were given their self-determination, and the empire dismembered. As already mentioned, its minority problem with the ethnic Serbs in Bosnia was an indirect cause of the empire's downfall.
With the rise of nationalism across Europe on the back of the financial crisis, and the EU's support for a Kiev government that includes nationalist extremists, is Ukraine the straw that broke the camel's back, with the EU sowing the seeds of their own demise?
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
Monday, March 24, 2014
Putin's psychology: is he really the "new Hitler"?
Following Putin's annexation of Crimea and the Russian-inspired unrest in Ukraine following the February "revolution", there has been lots of talk of Putin as the "new Hitler". For this reason, it's worthwhile to look at that comparison in more detail, to see how much it stands up to scrutiny.
The "new Hitler" theory
To give this theory a better standing, it also makes sense to compare Nineties Russia with Weimar Germany. To a large extent, this historical comparison rings true.
The effect of the Cold War on Russia/the Soviet Union was politically, socially and economically similar to what the Great War had on Imperial Germany.
After the Great War, Imperial Germany was constitutionally ripped apart (by losing its imperial status and converted to a republic), with some of its territories hacked off to create (or re-create) other nation-states. In the decade following the Great War, Weimar Germany went through two economic collapses, both stemming from Western influences; one immediately following the empire's destruction (about repayment of war compensation), and another following the Great Depression, around ten years later.
After the Cold War, the Soviet Union began to collapse in on itself, in a similar manner to what happened to Imperial Germany, its constituent former "SSRs" broke away into independent nation-states, leaving Russia proper as a republic. At the mercy of the triumphant Western powers, Russia went through economic "shock therapy", resulting in massive inflation and a destruction of living standards. For the rest of the nineties (like Weimar Germany in the 1920s), Russia was ruled by a weak government, resulting in rampant corruption and the selling-off of assets to various new "oligarchs". The Russian default of 1998 created another economic meltdown, socially comparable to what Germany experienced after 1929. As the social and economic conditions in Germany were ripe for someone like Hitler to seize power, the same could be said for Russia in 1999. All it needed was the right man.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Adolf Hitler as young men were both products of their respective governments.
Hitler was a man happy to fight for his native Austria in the Great War, and thus was emotionally bound to his government and what it stood for; he was devastated by its dismemberment, searching for a new purpose, an explanation, and someone to blame. To the first point, his answer was to restore the "Reich" that had just been wiped out by the Western allies; to the last point, his answer was the Jews.
Putin was a Soviet careerist, making good on his dreams as a youngster to work for the KGB; when the Berlin Wall came down, he was working in East Germany. Similarly, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin was searching for a new role, eventually getting Yeltsin's attention and nomination as Prime Minister in 1999, as Russia was still fighting its way through the effects of the default of the previous year.
According to this angle on Putin, advocates of this theory argue that Putin now represents the biggest threat to Europe and Western stability since Hitler, because he wishes to restore Russia to greatness, in effect turning the clock back twenty five years, and the de facto restoration of the Soviet Union.
But there are other very important factors to consider, that make this above theory too simplistic, and largely erroneous.
The Stalin template
I've written before about how Stalin came to power, and the lengths he was prepared to take to keep hold of it. Stalin lives long in Soviet mythology, more because of what advances he achieved in the economy and living standards while he was in power.
Putin no doubt knows all about how Stalin came to power, and ruled the Soviet Union for thirty years until his death. Hitler's motivation to power was to gain revenge on his perceived enemies and to dominate Europe. Stalin's motivation was much more simplistic: the amoral pursuit of power. Stalin couldn't really be said to have an "agenda" beyond his own advancement and preservation; and at this, he was ruthlessly successful and cunning to achieve it. Similarly, while Hitler used the Nazis to dominate Europe military as a geo-political goal, Stalin's domination of Eastern Europe was almost accidental. Stalin was simply in the right place at the right time to advance his interests in Europe in the best way he saw fit. In this way, Stalin could be called a ruthless opportunist, not a megalomaniac like Hitler.
Looking at things in this perspective, Putin's psychology and motivation is more comparable with Stalin than Hitler. While both Hitler and Putin's young careers and outlook came from their governments, both Stalin and Putin's childhoods were similar in more ways.
Hitler was a introverted and socially-awkward youth and young man. Stalin was a brat as a child, getting into fights, hanging out with kids some years older than him, and not taking school seriously; Putin, born and raised in Soviet Leningrad (St Petersburg), was the same. With Stalin, it was discovering Communism as a teenager that straightened him out to an extent and gave him a purpose; with Putin, it was the KGB.
Putin's psychology is therefore bound with the paranoia of the mind of a former spy-master, as well as the cunning of a ruthless opportunist.
It is clear that Stalin is much closer to the template that Putin follows; Stalin, after all, ruled the largest country in the world for half of his lifetime like a "mafia Don", made it second only to the USA, a nuclear power and entered the space race; the fact that he also killed tens of millions of his own people (many more than Hitler) in order to do it, was only a detail to Stalin.
Putin's rise to power, and the manner of holding on to it, follows the same pattern as Stalin. Like Stalin, Putin is in reality an unconvincing speaker; he has used the "cult of personality" like Stalin in order to create a "Putin myth". This serves both to boost his image, but also to boost the image of Russia in Russians themselves; in the same way that "Stalin was the Soviet Union", "Putin is Russia". If Putin is seen as strong, then so, by extension is Russia.
Putin has used ruthless (if modern) methods to achieve and hold power internally; while Stalin killed millions to achieve it, Putin uses modern, legal (but no less politically ruthless) methods. After gaining the financial support of the oligarchs to become Prime Minister and President, he quickly destroyed the power of those same oligarchs who dared to think of themselves as his superior; similarly, the media was brought into line using ruthless methods; newspapers and TV stations being discredited, closed down; people who persisted in displeasing the Kremlin (after stubbornly not getting the message) had a habit of dying in mysterious circumstances or being fatally mugged. And so on.
A clash of civilisations
Like Stalin, Putin's approach to foreign affairs is guided by self-interest and opportunism. Putin's reaction towards the Ukraine Crisis is exactly that: a reaction. There is little indication that there has ever been a long-term plan to restore the "glory of Russia" like some modern-day Hitler, wanting to dominate Europe. Putin simply sees world and Russian affairs through the idea of "spheres of influence"; Stalin thought in a similar way. Stalin occupied Eastern Europe because the opportunity presented itself; Putin has done the same thing with Crimea.
Putin is reacting towards the Kiev government in the way he is because he feels politically threatened by its existence, and the precedent it sets. Stalin got the Soviet Union involved in the Spanish Civil War for similar reasons: he feared the spread of Fascism throughout Europe, and the threat it potentially posed to his position; Putin's support for Yanukovich and the rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine is framed through his own self-interest. His motivations are far from benign, of course; like Stalin, he has already declared that he is perfectly willing to do whatever is necessary in Ukraine. If, after non-military options have been exhausted, that means invading, so be it. Putin has no moral qualms about his actions; the main thing that guides his actions are their beneficial convenience. War is inconvenient, until it becomes the only method to achieve an aim.
Western fears of him pushing his tanks as far west as Moldova, and fears of aggression in the Baltic States, may be over-stretched in the latter, but not in the former. For Putin, it is simply a matter of what is the most convenient geo-political arrangement for his interests in Europe.
No doubt, Putin would smile at the thought of being compared to Stalin; this is precisely what he would like people to think. For older Russians, Stalin represents stability and strength; his amoral ruthlessness is a side-issue. This issue about how Russians view their government puts it at the direct opposite to a Westerner. A Westerner fears a strong government, because of the West's culture of liberal individualism; a Russian fears a weak government, because of a Russian's desire to feel protected. This fundamental difference in perspective is what marks the emergence of a "clash of civilisations" between an Eastern and Western mentality and world-view.
This also explains why Putin continues to champion "conservative" values against Western immorality, and why his opportune nationalism is him pushing at an open door.
In the same way, Erdogan in Turkey is championing traditional Islamic values. Both Putin and Erdogan are natural authoritarians who have played a very cunning same over the last ten years to preserve and extend their power.
They follow a number of other authoritarian European figures in the last hundred years, and are simply the modern version of an old style of politics.
The "new Hitler" theory
To give this theory a better standing, it also makes sense to compare Nineties Russia with Weimar Germany. To a large extent, this historical comparison rings true.
The effect of the Cold War on Russia/the Soviet Union was politically, socially and economically similar to what the Great War had on Imperial Germany.
After the Great War, Imperial Germany was constitutionally ripped apart (by losing its imperial status and converted to a republic), with some of its territories hacked off to create (or re-create) other nation-states. In the decade following the Great War, Weimar Germany went through two economic collapses, both stemming from Western influences; one immediately following the empire's destruction (about repayment of war compensation), and another following the Great Depression, around ten years later.
After the Cold War, the Soviet Union began to collapse in on itself, in a similar manner to what happened to Imperial Germany, its constituent former "SSRs" broke away into independent nation-states, leaving Russia proper as a republic. At the mercy of the triumphant Western powers, Russia went through economic "shock therapy", resulting in massive inflation and a destruction of living standards. For the rest of the nineties (like Weimar Germany in the 1920s), Russia was ruled by a weak government, resulting in rampant corruption and the selling-off of assets to various new "oligarchs". The Russian default of 1998 created another economic meltdown, socially comparable to what Germany experienced after 1929. As the social and economic conditions in Germany were ripe for someone like Hitler to seize power, the same could be said for Russia in 1999. All it needed was the right man.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Adolf Hitler as young men were both products of their respective governments.
Hitler was a man happy to fight for his native Austria in the Great War, and thus was emotionally bound to his government and what it stood for; he was devastated by its dismemberment, searching for a new purpose, an explanation, and someone to blame. To the first point, his answer was to restore the "Reich" that had just been wiped out by the Western allies; to the last point, his answer was the Jews.
Putin was a Soviet careerist, making good on his dreams as a youngster to work for the KGB; when the Berlin Wall came down, he was working in East Germany. Similarly, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Putin was searching for a new role, eventually getting Yeltsin's attention and nomination as Prime Minister in 1999, as Russia was still fighting its way through the effects of the default of the previous year.
According to this angle on Putin, advocates of this theory argue that Putin now represents the biggest threat to Europe and Western stability since Hitler, because he wishes to restore Russia to greatness, in effect turning the clock back twenty five years, and the de facto restoration of the Soviet Union.
But there are other very important factors to consider, that make this above theory too simplistic, and largely erroneous.
The Stalin template
I've written before about how Stalin came to power, and the lengths he was prepared to take to keep hold of it. Stalin lives long in Soviet mythology, more because of what advances he achieved in the economy and living standards while he was in power.
Putin no doubt knows all about how Stalin came to power, and ruled the Soviet Union for thirty years until his death. Hitler's motivation to power was to gain revenge on his perceived enemies and to dominate Europe. Stalin's motivation was much more simplistic: the amoral pursuit of power. Stalin couldn't really be said to have an "agenda" beyond his own advancement and preservation; and at this, he was ruthlessly successful and cunning to achieve it. Similarly, while Hitler used the Nazis to dominate Europe military as a geo-political goal, Stalin's domination of Eastern Europe was almost accidental. Stalin was simply in the right place at the right time to advance his interests in Europe in the best way he saw fit. In this way, Stalin could be called a ruthless opportunist, not a megalomaniac like Hitler.
Looking at things in this perspective, Putin's psychology and motivation is more comparable with Stalin than Hitler. While both Hitler and Putin's young careers and outlook came from their governments, both Stalin and Putin's childhoods were similar in more ways.
Hitler was a introverted and socially-awkward youth and young man. Stalin was a brat as a child, getting into fights, hanging out with kids some years older than him, and not taking school seriously; Putin, born and raised in Soviet Leningrad (St Petersburg), was the same. With Stalin, it was discovering Communism as a teenager that straightened him out to an extent and gave him a purpose; with Putin, it was the KGB.
Putin's psychology is therefore bound with the paranoia of the mind of a former spy-master, as well as the cunning of a ruthless opportunist.
It is clear that Stalin is much closer to the template that Putin follows; Stalin, after all, ruled the largest country in the world for half of his lifetime like a "mafia Don", made it second only to the USA, a nuclear power and entered the space race; the fact that he also killed tens of millions of his own people (many more than Hitler) in order to do it, was only a detail to Stalin.
Putin's rise to power, and the manner of holding on to it, follows the same pattern as Stalin. Like Stalin, Putin is in reality an unconvincing speaker; he has used the "cult of personality" like Stalin in order to create a "Putin myth". This serves both to boost his image, but also to boost the image of Russia in Russians themselves; in the same way that "Stalin was the Soviet Union", "Putin is Russia". If Putin is seen as strong, then so, by extension is Russia.
Putin has used ruthless (if modern) methods to achieve and hold power internally; while Stalin killed millions to achieve it, Putin uses modern, legal (but no less politically ruthless) methods. After gaining the financial support of the oligarchs to become Prime Minister and President, he quickly destroyed the power of those same oligarchs who dared to think of themselves as his superior; similarly, the media was brought into line using ruthless methods; newspapers and TV stations being discredited, closed down; people who persisted in displeasing the Kremlin (after stubbornly not getting the message) had a habit of dying in mysterious circumstances or being fatally mugged. And so on.
A clash of civilisations
Like Stalin, Putin's approach to foreign affairs is guided by self-interest and opportunism. Putin's reaction towards the Ukraine Crisis is exactly that: a reaction. There is little indication that there has ever been a long-term plan to restore the "glory of Russia" like some modern-day Hitler, wanting to dominate Europe. Putin simply sees world and Russian affairs through the idea of "spheres of influence"; Stalin thought in a similar way. Stalin occupied Eastern Europe because the opportunity presented itself; Putin has done the same thing with Crimea.
Putin is reacting towards the Kiev government in the way he is because he feels politically threatened by its existence, and the precedent it sets. Stalin got the Soviet Union involved in the Spanish Civil War for similar reasons: he feared the spread of Fascism throughout Europe, and the threat it potentially posed to his position; Putin's support for Yanukovich and the rights of Russian-speakers in Ukraine is framed through his own self-interest. His motivations are far from benign, of course; like Stalin, he has already declared that he is perfectly willing to do whatever is necessary in Ukraine. If, after non-military options have been exhausted, that means invading, so be it. Putin has no moral qualms about his actions; the main thing that guides his actions are their beneficial convenience. War is inconvenient, until it becomes the only method to achieve an aim.
Western fears of him pushing his tanks as far west as Moldova, and fears of aggression in the Baltic States, may be over-stretched in the latter, but not in the former. For Putin, it is simply a matter of what is the most convenient geo-political arrangement for his interests in Europe.
No doubt, Putin would smile at the thought of being compared to Stalin; this is precisely what he would like people to think. For older Russians, Stalin represents stability and strength; his amoral ruthlessness is a side-issue. This issue about how Russians view their government puts it at the direct opposite to a Westerner. A Westerner fears a strong government, because of the West's culture of liberal individualism; a Russian fears a weak government, because of a Russian's desire to feel protected. This fundamental difference in perspective is what marks the emergence of a "clash of civilisations" between an Eastern and Western mentality and world-view.
This also explains why Putin continues to champion "conservative" values against Western immorality, and why his opportune nationalism is him pushing at an open door.
In the same way, Erdogan in Turkey is championing traditional Islamic values. Both Putin and Erdogan are natural authoritarians who have played a very cunning same over the last ten years to preserve and extend their power.
They follow a number of other authoritarian European figures in the last hundred years, and are simply the modern version of an old style of politics.
Monday, March 17, 2014
The Ukraine Crisis: Crimea's referendum, Putin's power-play, and Russian irridentism
The Crimean "referendum" has been damned in the West as a sham, and its merger with Russia as nothing more than a military annexation, but it's clear that the West has been out-foxed by Vladimir Putin, yet again.
I've described in a previous article about Putin's perspective on the "revolution" in Kiev. In simple terms, "regaining" Crimea was opportunism gained from the position of the new and weak Ukrainian government. The West supported a "coup" against Putin's ally, Yanukovich, so Putin then supported a parliamentary coup in Crimea a few days afterwards. Crimea's new prime minister, Sergei Aksyunov, prior to the events in Kiev, was a non-entity in Crimea, with a history as a former gangster and smuggler in "Transdnistria", the internationally-unrecognised (pro-Russian) statelet on the eastern side of the Dniestr in Moldova, along Ukraine's western border; after unidentified armed men took control of Crimea's parliament, he was nominated as the new prime minister, and promptly declared Crimea's unilateral independence, to be confirmed in a referendum later on. In other words, Crimea has become the latest appendage of what has been called a "Mafia State", appropriately ran by a former gangster.
The Ukrainian game
Russia's behaviour since the new interim government was established in Kiev shows a consistent pattern: provocation, propaganda and psychological terror. This follows the same behaviour that led to the Georgia war in 2008; Russia provoking, Georgia rising to the bait, only to be hammered, leaving Putin's gambit successful. The 2008 war left Georgia's semi-detached regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia permanently out of their grasp and firmly in Russia's control, even if not recognised by the rest of the world.
Putin's view of the government in Kiev is both ambivalent and mocking. He is ambivalent due to the worrying precedent that the "revolution" represents to his control over Russia, and the real concern he has that it could spread to Moscow.
To that end, he treats the interim government as though it doesn't really exist, using the language of legitimacy and the fear of fascism to breed anti-Ukrainian propaganda in the Russophone sphere. The Russian media is full of exaggerated coverage of violence in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, and the "provocative" behaviour and words of the new Kiev government.
At the same time, Russia's acts appear as everything short of full-on war: Ukraine is Putin's psychological game on a grand scale; "prodding" Ukraine's military (like with Georgia's in 2008) time and time again, using a wide variety of methods, to see if they will react, and therefore justify war; creating an atmosphere of fear and anticipation in Ukraine through military manoeuvres, provoking Ukraine's government to mobilise its forces, obligating Russia to do the same, and bring the situation closer to war; instigating violence in the east and south of Ukraine, to display the impotence of the Kiev government in controlling its own people, while at the same time blaming Kiev for the violence.
Putin is the puppet-master in this psychological power-play, manipulating events, toying with Kiev's government, while at the same time gaining adulation at home. And that doesn't even begin to deal with Putin's play with the West, as the master chess player, as well as an expert poker player of the West's impotence.
The return of the irridentism menace
I've compared these events to those of 1914 before. Politicians often prefer to play events according to the last war, which is why Western comparisons to a "new Cold War" are understandable, if inaccurate. Similarly, wilder comparisons of Putin's behaviour to that of Hitler are also far off the mark.
While some of Putin's tactics might resemble those last used by the Soviet Union, and why Putin's behaviour might seem similar to the cold-blooded fanaticism of Hitler, Putin's motivations seem more similar to those of Serbian nationalists that justified the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in late June, 1914. Serbian nationalists in the early twentieth century were obsessed with the "restoration" of Serb lands to the Serbian state. These people said that wherever there were Serbs, that was Serbia; borders and other ethnicities were irrelevant. Many in the Kremlin seem to have the same view about Russians.
In this way, Russia in 2014 is far similar to Russia in 1914: irridentism fuels the Kremlin's "near abroad" strategy. Whether this is a means to an end - stability and power throughout the Russian-speaking world, and an effective restoration of the Russian Empire - or a genuine cultural belief, is immaterial. The evidence suggests that Putin's interest in Russian irridentism is simply one of cynical convenience and opportunism: a means to project power at home by increasing it abroad.
The cultural clock is turning back to a hundred years ago. Serb nationalists are in Crimea, projecting their irridentist faith just like in 1914. At the same time, now Poland has rediscovered its historical (Catholic) links to Lithuania and Ukraine, by planning a joint military brigade of the three countries forces (against Russia). This last development is the most worrying for the West. As I mentioned in a previous article:
"While the rest of Europe and America may dismiss some of their fears as paranoia, the fact that there are a large number of East European countries in NATO means that the number of variables increases accordingly. If Russia decided to invade Ukraine, it is unclear what the reaction of Eastern Europe (especially Poland) would be; history and emotion are two very powerful motivations that can make governments and statesmen do irrational things"
It was always the reactions of the Eastern European countries that would be most likely to drag the rest of NATO into the ultimate nightmare confrontation with Russia. A similar point can be made about Turkey, and its cultural and historical ties to the Crimean Tatars.
No, this is no "new Cold War": it's potentially much more serious than that. To learn more about the history, it's better to look back to the continental situation one hundred years ago, or that during the many European wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Looking around the world, China is an acquiescent (if awkward) companion to Russia's world view; India's role has been to firmly sit on the fence. While Europe and the USA appear united, no-one is sure how long that will last if (or more accurately, when) their sanctions on Russia are returned in kind. Meanwhile, centuries of historical forces are returning to the European theatre, with no-one having any idea where things will lead; we may all have modern technology, but we're are as infallible and complacent as a hundred years ago.
All it needs is a spark.
(Update, Tuesday, 18 March
Vladimir Putin gave a speech to grant Crimea into Russian rule proper, using this as another opportunity to emphasize his angle on events, the "legitimacy" of Crimean independence, using Western precedents as in previous speeches, while calling into question the legitimacy of the Kiev government and his concerns at the "instability" in Ukraine towards Russian speakers; at the same time, he makes claims of Russia's non-aggression while simultaneously questioning the stance of Kiev.
With exquisite timing, shortly after the conclusion of this speech and the formal inclusion of Crimea into Russia, Russian troops storm a Ukrainian base in Crimea, resulting in shots being fired, and a soldier killed. Russia claims that the victim was one of Crimea's "self-defence forces", while Ukraine says it was a Ukrainian serviceman shot by the Russians.
Is this the spark to the next "act" of Putin's power-play?
Also, I mentioned in the above article about the planned joint brigade of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, which would doubtlessly be seen by the Kremlin as a provocation, and a method of informally including Ukraine into NATO's orbit. This is an example of NATO being callously and dangerously used as a vehicle for centuries-old historical issues, as western Ukraine belonged to Poland-Lithuania until the late 18th century; something I alluded to previously (see the last couple of paragraphs in the linked article).
Turkey is similarly using historical and emotional links to Crimea's Tatars, as Erdogan is reported to today have threatened Putin with closing the Turkish straights to Russia if violence against Tatars escalates. Such an act could only be considered tantamount to war by Putin if carried out.
Poland and Turkey are showing themselves to be the "weak points" in NATO in regards to Russia. Like in 1914, it was the Balkans that provided the spark to a European war; it is Poland and Turkey's reaction to Russia's actions in Crimea and Ukraine that could provide a domino effect that drags in all of NATO.)
I've described in a previous article about Putin's perspective on the "revolution" in Kiev. In simple terms, "regaining" Crimea was opportunism gained from the position of the new and weak Ukrainian government. The West supported a "coup" against Putin's ally, Yanukovich, so Putin then supported a parliamentary coup in Crimea a few days afterwards. Crimea's new prime minister, Sergei Aksyunov, prior to the events in Kiev, was a non-entity in Crimea, with a history as a former gangster and smuggler in "Transdnistria", the internationally-unrecognised (pro-Russian) statelet on the eastern side of the Dniestr in Moldova, along Ukraine's western border; after unidentified armed men took control of Crimea's parliament, he was nominated as the new prime minister, and promptly declared Crimea's unilateral independence, to be confirmed in a referendum later on. In other words, Crimea has become the latest appendage of what has been called a "Mafia State", appropriately ran by a former gangster.
The Ukrainian game
Russia's behaviour since the new interim government was established in Kiev shows a consistent pattern: provocation, propaganda and psychological terror. This follows the same behaviour that led to the Georgia war in 2008; Russia provoking, Georgia rising to the bait, only to be hammered, leaving Putin's gambit successful. The 2008 war left Georgia's semi-detached regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia permanently out of their grasp and firmly in Russia's control, even if not recognised by the rest of the world.
Putin's view of the government in Kiev is both ambivalent and mocking. He is ambivalent due to the worrying precedent that the "revolution" represents to his control over Russia, and the real concern he has that it could spread to Moscow.
To that end, he treats the interim government as though it doesn't really exist, using the language of legitimacy and the fear of fascism to breed anti-Ukrainian propaganda in the Russophone sphere. The Russian media is full of exaggerated coverage of violence in the Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, and the "provocative" behaviour and words of the new Kiev government.
At the same time, Russia's acts appear as everything short of full-on war: Ukraine is Putin's psychological game on a grand scale; "prodding" Ukraine's military (like with Georgia's in 2008) time and time again, using a wide variety of methods, to see if they will react, and therefore justify war; creating an atmosphere of fear and anticipation in Ukraine through military manoeuvres, provoking Ukraine's government to mobilise its forces, obligating Russia to do the same, and bring the situation closer to war; instigating violence in the east and south of Ukraine, to display the impotence of the Kiev government in controlling its own people, while at the same time blaming Kiev for the violence.
Putin is the puppet-master in this psychological power-play, manipulating events, toying with Kiev's government, while at the same time gaining adulation at home. And that doesn't even begin to deal with Putin's play with the West, as the master chess player, as well as an expert poker player of the West's impotence.
The return of the irridentism menace
I've compared these events to those of 1914 before. Politicians often prefer to play events according to the last war, which is why Western comparisons to a "new Cold War" are understandable, if inaccurate. Similarly, wilder comparisons of Putin's behaviour to that of Hitler are also far off the mark.
While some of Putin's tactics might resemble those last used by the Soviet Union, and why Putin's behaviour might seem similar to the cold-blooded fanaticism of Hitler, Putin's motivations seem more similar to those of Serbian nationalists that justified the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in late June, 1914. Serbian nationalists in the early twentieth century were obsessed with the "restoration" of Serb lands to the Serbian state. These people said that wherever there were Serbs, that was Serbia; borders and other ethnicities were irrelevant. Many in the Kremlin seem to have the same view about Russians.
In this way, Russia in 2014 is far similar to Russia in 1914: irridentism fuels the Kremlin's "near abroad" strategy. Whether this is a means to an end - stability and power throughout the Russian-speaking world, and an effective restoration of the Russian Empire - or a genuine cultural belief, is immaterial. The evidence suggests that Putin's interest in Russian irridentism is simply one of cynical convenience and opportunism: a means to project power at home by increasing it abroad.
The cultural clock is turning back to a hundred years ago. Serb nationalists are in Crimea, projecting their irridentist faith just like in 1914. At the same time, now Poland has rediscovered its historical (Catholic) links to Lithuania and Ukraine, by planning a joint military brigade of the three countries forces (against Russia). This last development is the most worrying for the West. As I mentioned in a previous article:
"While the rest of Europe and America may dismiss some of their fears as paranoia, the fact that there are a large number of East European countries in NATO means that the number of variables increases accordingly. If Russia decided to invade Ukraine, it is unclear what the reaction of Eastern Europe (especially Poland) would be; history and emotion are two very powerful motivations that can make governments and statesmen do irrational things"
It was always the reactions of the Eastern European countries that would be most likely to drag the rest of NATO into the ultimate nightmare confrontation with Russia. A similar point can be made about Turkey, and its cultural and historical ties to the Crimean Tatars.
No, this is no "new Cold War": it's potentially much more serious than that. To learn more about the history, it's better to look back to the continental situation one hundred years ago, or that during the many European wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Looking around the world, China is an acquiescent (if awkward) companion to Russia's world view; India's role has been to firmly sit on the fence. While Europe and the USA appear united, no-one is sure how long that will last if (or more accurately, when) their sanctions on Russia are returned in kind. Meanwhile, centuries of historical forces are returning to the European theatre, with no-one having any idea where things will lead; we may all have modern technology, but we're are as infallible and complacent as a hundred years ago.
All it needs is a spark.
(Update, Tuesday, 18 March
Vladimir Putin gave a speech to grant Crimea into Russian rule proper, using this as another opportunity to emphasize his angle on events, the "legitimacy" of Crimean independence, using Western precedents as in previous speeches, while calling into question the legitimacy of the Kiev government and his concerns at the "instability" in Ukraine towards Russian speakers; at the same time, he makes claims of Russia's non-aggression while simultaneously questioning the stance of Kiev.
With exquisite timing, shortly after the conclusion of this speech and the formal inclusion of Crimea into Russia, Russian troops storm a Ukrainian base in Crimea, resulting in shots being fired, and a soldier killed. Russia claims that the victim was one of Crimea's "self-defence forces", while Ukraine says it was a Ukrainian serviceman shot by the Russians.
Is this the spark to the next "act" of Putin's power-play?
Also, I mentioned in the above article about the planned joint brigade of Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, which would doubtlessly be seen by the Kremlin as a provocation, and a method of informally including Ukraine into NATO's orbit. This is an example of NATO being callously and dangerously used as a vehicle for centuries-old historical issues, as western Ukraine belonged to Poland-Lithuania until the late 18th century; something I alluded to previously (see the last couple of paragraphs in the linked article).
Turkey is similarly using historical and emotional links to Crimea's Tatars, as Erdogan is reported to today have threatened Putin with closing the Turkish straights to Russia if violence against Tatars escalates. Such an act could only be considered tantamount to war by Putin if carried out.
Poland and Turkey are showing themselves to be the "weak points" in NATO in regards to Russia. Like in 1914, it was the Balkans that provided the spark to a European war; it is Poland and Turkey's reaction to Russia's actions in Crimea and Ukraine that could provide a domino effect that drags in all of NATO.)
Monday, March 10, 2014
The Ukraine Crisis: Understanding Europe's "proxy battleground"
Although the "Ukraine Crisis" cannot be called a "war" in the sense of being as a "shooting war", in almost every other manner, it is a war.
Russia has been using "war" strategies against Ukraine for ten days already: surrounding Ukrainian bases and holding their soldiers effectively hostage in their own bases; attempts to storm Ukrainian bases and ships in Crimea have been neutered by the Ukrainian blockading themselves in and preventing Russian soldiers from the chance of boarding their ships; even more aggressively "war-like" tactics have included blockading Sevastopol's harbour that the Russian Black Sea fleet share with Ukraine's naval headquarters; another Ukrainian naval base in an inlet elsewhere in Crimea has been blockaded even more aggressively, by scuttling mothballed Russian ships in the bay, trapping those Ukrainian naval ships inside the bay. Shots have been fired at a Ukrainian military observation plane passing by the "border" between Crimea and Ukraine proper.
In the meantime, Russia has been steadily building up its forces in Crimea. For what purpose? They already have had effective military control of the peninsula for a week. Are they preparing for the next part of the campaign?
Europe's chessboard
With the status of Crimea now effectively settled by a Russian fait accompli, Putin's "chess game" enters its next phase. As one business insider put it last week, while Russia may have Crimea, the rest of Ukraine is still very much "in play". This revealing expression tells you all you need to know about the maturity and mentality of some the European and American "players" involved in Ukraine's future.
The path that led to this current crisis was begun back in November last year. The EU offered Yanukovich a deal that was very much "take it or leave it"; or more exactly, Ukraine was squeezed between a rock and a hard place: to side with Europe or with Russia. Unwilling to spurn his Russia ally, Yanukovich turned down the EU and took the politically "safer" option of a sweetened deal from the Kremlin. It was then that "Euromaidan" movement began, and a three-month long campaign that involved right-wing fascists led to shootings and Yanukovich's flight to Russia. The West had won, or so it seemed.
Using the chessboard analogy of Europe versus Russia, the "Ukrainian revolution" was a case of "knight takes bishop". Russia reacted almost at once; after initially appearing to retreat, the Crimea annexation was taking away a highly-prized "chess piece" of Ukraine's that was deep in Russia's "half" of the board. The Russian "knight" takes the Ukrainian "rook". The Kiev government's position still looks shaky and vulnerable, while Russia has a more dominant position, and looks to assess its next move.
Both Europe and Russia appear to be moving their pieces around the "Ukrainian chessboard", but there seems little real room for manoeuvre: for both sides there is a lot at stake. Europe has invested a lot of time and energy into the current situation in Ukraine, while Russia cannot afford to "lose" the country to Europe. The situation in Ukraine looks destined to be either a stalemate where both sides agree they cannot "win" decisively and reach some kind of face-saving agreement, or Russia decides to go for the "nuclear" option (i.e. invades Ukraine proper), and then all bets are off. But whatever the outcome will be, it will not be a simple one; Europe has opened a can of worms that could have far-reaching consequences.
The EU's drive to the east brought it inevitably into Russia's "near abroad", and to the current situation where Europe finds itself deep into Russia's "side" of the "chess board". Europe can hardly be surprised at Russia's reaction to its conspicuous flaunting of its "wares" to Ukraine. A temporary respite seems to have occurred, as both Europe and Russia wait and see what the effects of the Crimea "referendum" on 16 March will be. After that date, things could get very messy.
Whatever apparent respite there is now, may only be temporary, and entirely illusory: the players are still moving their pieces on both sides, and tensions below the surface are as high as they have been. There are reports of violence in the east of Ukraine, strongly promoted by the Russian foreign ministry; very convenient for Russia to use these events as a justification to enter Ukraine proper for the sake of restoring order. Last week, Russia changed the law to make it much easier for any Russian-speaking person to get Russian citizenship. The equivalent of this would be if the USA made it very easy for any native English-speaker to get US citizenship, for the purposes of extending its "soft power".
No doubt, the Kremlin has a longer-term aim in mind here; less the restoration of the Soviet Union and a "new Cold War "(there are no Communist ideologues in the Kremlin), but the the restoration of the "glory" of Russia, and dominance over the regions once controlled by the former Russian Empire. Accelerating the path to citizenship for people across Russia's "near abroad" creates the rationale for coming to the aide of any of its aggrieved citizens in neighbouring countries, and changing "soft power" to "hard power".
A crisis of complacency
I've written before about the parallels to the current crisis and that which followed the assassination of Franz Ferdinand on 28 June, 1914.
While no-one in the West is talking about war with Russia if they invade Ukraine, it should be remembered that neither was anyone talking about a general European war in the immediate aftermath of the events in Sarajevo.
What is odder is that while the rhetoric of the West is far from bellicose, its actions seen from a Russian perspective look highly-threatening, and yet the West cannot see that. Talk of sanctions is one thing; movements of NATO's airborne assets to close to the Russian border is quite another. Similarly, while the West's rhetoric towards Ukraine has been strongly supportive of the new government in Kiev; the danger here is that the inexperienced (and politically-immature) government reads phrases as "unconditional" Western backing as a green light for Kiev to start a military campaign against Moscow. In the same way, Moscow may also (more correctly) interpret such Western talk as nothing but words, giving Moscow the tacit assurance that any military action in Ukraine will meet with only diplomatic reactions.
In this sense, we're very, very far from out of the woods yet, even if the story seems to be dropping off the leading headlines of Western media due to the impression of a hiatus in the crisis. Going back to 1914, it's worth remembering that it was a month before Austria reacted by declaring war on Serbia due to its indirect involvement in the assassination. It was another ten days after that before all the major European powers were militarily involved. The "July Crisis" of 1914 that led to the Great War took nearly six weeks to reach the point of no return; it was more than three weeks before Austria even sent an ultimatum to Serbia.
This "crisis" has only really existed for two and a half weeks; two weeks ago was when Yanukovich first fled Ukraine and the opposition took the initial steps to try and form a government. While no-one it the West is even contemplating "war", there are also a lot of variables to factor in; possibly even more than in the initial crisis in that summer of 1914.
In Crimea itself, there are the Tatars, whose reaction to joining Russia is an unknown quantity. Might a flash-point there have a cascade effect of encouraging other Muslim countries to come to their aid? Turkey's unpredictable Prime Minister (who himself is embroiled in scandal - and in need of a helpful distraction?) has made some statements that Russia could read as being unhelpful at best.
There is the reaction of the other East European countries. Some of them have a personal experience of Russia, and have no wish to see themselves become "another Ukraine". While the rest of Europe and America may dismiss some of their fears as paranoia, the fact that there are a large number of East European countries in NATO means that the number of variables increases accordingly. If Russia decided to invade Ukraine, it is unclear what the reaction of Eastern Europe (especially Poland) would be; history and emotion are two very powerful motivations that can make governments and statesmen do irrational things.
The Baltic States, too, would feel themselves in a bind, hemmed in between Russia and the sea. They have already put pressure on NATO to bolster their forces; the chances that this could be interpreted as a direct threat by Russia is large.
In short, the Ukraine Crisis has re-opened issues and emotions in Europe that have laid dormant since the end of the First World War, let alone the "Cold War".
Western Europe and the USA are now beginning to realise that historical forces have been unleashed in "battle for Ukraine"; forces that, in their complacency, they did not even begin to comprehend. The next time, perhaps they should read a history book first.
Russia has been using "war" strategies against Ukraine for ten days already: surrounding Ukrainian bases and holding their soldiers effectively hostage in their own bases; attempts to storm Ukrainian bases and ships in Crimea have been neutered by the Ukrainian blockading themselves in and preventing Russian soldiers from the chance of boarding their ships; even more aggressively "war-like" tactics have included blockading Sevastopol's harbour that the Russian Black Sea fleet share with Ukraine's naval headquarters; another Ukrainian naval base in an inlet elsewhere in Crimea has been blockaded even more aggressively, by scuttling mothballed Russian ships in the bay, trapping those Ukrainian naval ships inside the bay. Shots have been fired at a Ukrainian military observation plane passing by the "border" between Crimea and Ukraine proper.
In the meantime, Russia has been steadily building up its forces in Crimea. For what purpose? They already have had effective military control of the peninsula for a week. Are they preparing for the next part of the campaign?
Europe's chessboard
With the status of Crimea now effectively settled by a Russian fait accompli, Putin's "chess game" enters its next phase. As one business insider put it last week, while Russia may have Crimea, the rest of Ukraine is still very much "in play". This revealing expression tells you all you need to know about the maturity and mentality of some the European and American "players" involved in Ukraine's future.
The path that led to this current crisis was begun back in November last year. The EU offered Yanukovich a deal that was very much "take it or leave it"; or more exactly, Ukraine was squeezed between a rock and a hard place: to side with Europe or with Russia. Unwilling to spurn his Russia ally, Yanukovich turned down the EU and took the politically "safer" option of a sweetened deal from the Kremlin. It was then that "Euromaidan" movement began, and a three-month long campaign that involved right-wing fascists led to shootings and Yanukovich's flight to Russia. The West had won, or so it seemed.
Using the chessboard analogy of Europe versus Russia, the "Ukrainian revolution" was a case of "knight takes bishop". Russia reacted almost at once; after initially appearing to retreat, the Crimea annexation was taking away a highly-prized "chess piece" of Ukraine's that was deep in Russia's "half" of the board. The Russian "knight" takes the Ukrainian "rook". The Kiev government's position still looks shaky and vulnerable, while Russia has a more dominant position, and looks to assess its next move.
Both Europe and Russia appear to be moving their pieces around the "Ukrainian chessboard", but there seems little real room for manoeuvre: for both sides there is a lot at stake. Europe has invested a lot of time and energy into the current situation in Ukraine, while Russia cannot afford to "lose" the country to Europe. The situation in Ukraine looks destined to be either a stalemate where both sides agree they cannot "win" decisively and reach some kind of face-saving agreement, or Russia decides to go for the "nuclear" option (i.e. invades Ukraine proper), and then all bets are off. But whatever the outcome will be, it will not be a simple one; Europe has opened a can of worms that could have far-reaching consequences.
The EU's drive to the east brought it inevitably into Russia's "near abroad", and to the current situation where Europe finds itself deep into Russia's "side" of the "chess board". Europe can hardly be surprised at Russia's reaction to its conspicuous flaunting of its "wares" to Ukraine. A temporary respite seems to have occurred, as both Europe and Russia wait and see what the effects of the Crimea "referendum" on 16 March will be. After that date, things could get very messy.
Whatever apparent respite there is now, may only be temporary, and entirely illusory: the players are still moving their pieces on both sides, and tensions below the surface are as high as they have been. There are reports of violence in the east of Ukraine, strongly promoted by the Russian foreign ministry; very convenient for Russia to use these events as a justification to enter Ukraine proper for the sake of restoring order. Last week, Russia changed the law to make it much easier for any Russian-speaking person to get Russian citizenship. The equivalent of this would be if the USA made it very easy for any native English-speaker to get US citizenship, for the purposes of extending its "soft power".
No doubt, the Kremlin has a longer-term aim in mind here; less the restoration of the Soviet Union and a "new Cold War "(there are no Communist ideologues in the Kremlin), but the the restoration of the "glory" of Russia, and dominance over the regions once controlled by the former Russian Empire. Accelerating the path to citizenship for people across Russia's "near abroad" creates the rationale for coming to the aide of any of its aggrieved citizens in neighbouring countries, and changing "soft power" to "hard power".
A crisis of complacency
I've written before about the parallels to the current crisis and that which followed the assassination of Franz Ferdinand on 28 June, 1914.
While no-one in the West is talking about war with Russia if they invade Ukraine, it should be remembered that neither was anyone talking about a general European war in the immediate aftermath of the events in Sarajevo.
What is odder is that while the rhetoric of the West is far from bellicose, its actions seen from a Russian perspective look highly-threatening, and yet the West cannot see that. Talk of sanctions is one thing; movements of NATO's airborne assets to close to the Russian border is quite another. Similarly, while the West's rhetoric towards Ukraine has been strongly supportive of the new government in Kiev; the danger here is that the inexperienced (and politically-immature) government reads phrases as "unconditional" Western backing as a green light for Kiev to start a military campaign against Moscow. In the same way, Moscow may also (more correctly) interpret such Western talk as nothing but words, giving Moscow the tacit assurance that any military action in Ukraine will meet with only diplomatic reactions.
In this sense, we're very, very far from out of the woods yet, even if the story seems to be dropping off the leading headlines of Western media due to the impression of a hiatus in the crisis. Going back to 1914, it's worth remembering that it was a month before Austria reacted by declaring war on Serbia due to its indirect involvement in the assassination. It was another ten days after that before all the major European powers were militarily involved. The "July Crisis" of 1914 that led to the Great War took nearly six weeks to reach the point of no return; it was more than three weeks before Austria even sent an ultimatum to Serbia.
This "crisis" has only really existed for two and a half weeks; two weeks ago was when Yanukovich first fled Ukraine and the opposition took the initial steps to try and form a government. While no-one it the West is even contemplating "war", there are also a lot of variables to factor in; possibly even more than in the initial crisis in that summer of 1914.
In Crimea itself, there are the Tatars, whose reaction to joining Russia is an unknown quantity. Might a flash-point there have a cascade effect of encouraging other Muslim countries to come to their aid? Turkey's unpredictable Prime Minister (who himself is embroiled in scandal - and in need of a helpful distraction?) has made some statements that Russia could read as being unhelpful at best.
There is the reaction of the other East European countries. Some of them have a personal experience of Russia, and have no wish to see themselves become "another Ukraine". While the rest of Europe and America may dismiss some of their fears as paranoia, the fact that there are a large number of East European countries in NATO means that the number of variables increases accordingly. If Russia decided to invade Ukraine, it is unclear what the reaction of Eastern Europe (especially Poland) would be; history and emotion are two very powerful motivations that can make governments and statesmen do irrational things.
The Baltic States, too, would feel themselves in a bind, hemmed in between Russia and the sea. They have already put pressure on NATO to bolster their forces; the chances that this could be interpreted as a direct threat by Russia is large.
In short, the Ukraine Crisis has re-opened issues and emotions in Europe that have laid dormant since the end of the First World War, let alone the "Cold War".
Western Europe and the USA are now beginning to realise that historical forces have been unleashed in "battle for Ukraine"; forces that, in their complacency, they did not even begin to comprehend. The next time, perhaps they should read a history book first.
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
The Ukraine Crisis: Putin's psychology, and the failure of the West
Since the Russian military annexation of the Crimea began in earnest last Friday, Russia has been slowly tightening its grip on the peninsula; taking control of Ukrainian military assets, and surrounding Ukrainian military garrisons and its navy. The Russian noose has been getting ever tighter day by day, making the Ukrainian military units a hostage in their own bases and ships, with nerves getting ever more frayed as time passes.
Tuesday evening saw a seemingly alarming escalation, with reports of an ultimatum, giving Ukrainian units until the following morning to surrender.While this "deadline" passed without incident and the Russian military manoeuvres over the border finished on Wednesday, events and the stand-off hang by a thread. There are daily disturbances in the cities of the east and south of Ukraine.
What is going on?
Putin's psychological game
I've talked before about my theory of the "Russian Gambit":
"What are Russia's intentions? While accepting a de facto split of Ukraine on the ground (at least in the short term), accepting it de jure would be another matter, and we know that Russia follows the line that the opposition now in power in Kiev is engineered by fascists that have come to power through a violent coup. On Saturday, having fled Kiev, Yanukovich may well have asked for Russian protection for a Russian-speaking eastern and southern rump state. But the Kremlin may have explained their own motivation, based on their analysis of the opposition: to allow the opposition a taste of power in Kiev (while having no control of the east), playing a waiting game for the disparate opposition to violently turn on each other, allowing Yanukovich and his party to return to power in Kiev soon afterwards, with Russian help or not, depending on the situation."
Putin's press conference yesterday gave more weight to this ruse.
In it, he spoke of Yanukovich still being the legitimate president, even though he accepted that he had no real future in Ukraine. Putin talked of there being "no-one to talk to in Kiev", as there was no legitimate government; the only plan worth mentioning was the one that Yanukovich signed (agreeing to some form of all-party coalition, and elections in December). As the opposition has reneged on that deal (as Putin saw it), it seems clear that the planned elections in May would only be "legitimate" to the Kremlin if they voted in Yanukovich's "Party Of The Regions"; if not, then there surely would be no hope of a thaw in relations between Kiev and Moscow in the foreseeable future.
Putin gave the impression of being happy to cause as much political mischief as possible to the "interim government" in Kiev as long as they (or indeed any future "fascist" elected successor government) existed. At the moment, this has included the pro-Russian party being in effective control of the east and south of Ukraine, not recognising the Kiev government, and causing regional instability. On top of that was mood of casual harassment of Ukraine's sovereignty by the Russian military; air incursions, patrolling close to the border, and so on. If there was no government in Kiev as Putin saw it, then Moscow was within its rights to move almost at will across Ukrainian territory. Then there was the economic punishment, with the threat to Ukraine's gas supply, its nuclear energy, and many other financial instruments that could be used and payments withheld. In short, Putin would make the Kiev government's existence a living nightmare; everything short of out-and-out war. This would continue to be psychological torture for Kiev, and for the whole of Ukraine.
The Crimean land-grab was a piece of convenient opportunism, from the Kremlin's point of view, righting a "wrong" that has been done by the ethnic Ukrainian Soviet leader, Khruschev, during the Cold War. Crimea had been ethnically Russian since Stalin purged it of Tatars in the Second World War, and had been a key part of Russian territory since the late 18th century.
Putin's motivations are more internal than external: he cannot allow the Kiev government to exist with impunity as it would send a fatal message to his own standing at home, and give encouragement to the pro-Western opposition. The effective annexation of Crimea was an act of opportunism; nothing more. His "gambit" in Ukraine is about securing a friendly government there; nothing more. How he achieves that depends more on the actions of Kiev. It would be more convenient that he not use the military to achieve it, but Putin has no moral qualms about using it if he feels he has no other choice. That was the underlying message from his press conference.
The political game continues, as Putin and his adept foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, twist the West's logic of foreign intervention in unto itself, while making an art-form of the apparent barefaced lies about the situation on the ground in Crimea. In the meantime, the West looks on at a nightmare largely of its own making.
The West's nightmare scenario
The road to this crisis came partly from creating some awful geo-political precedents. The Kosovo War of 1999, and the Iraq war of 2003 were both US-led military engagements without UN support that led (either indirectly or directly) to regime change. While both situations were very different, under different administrations, and provoked very different moral responses, they both followed the same precedent: military unilateralism that could skirt international law (i.e. through the use of the UN).
Furthermore, it was hard in Moscow to dispel the feeling that Russia was being encircled economically and militarily, by the EU and NATO; the American use of military bases in Central Asia as part of its "War On Terror" can't have helped either.
Putin duly took note of this. Russia has historically always been protective of its right to intervene to protect its interests in its "near abroad": the Russian equivalent of the "Monroe Doctrine". In this way, the West's accusation of Putin starting a "new Cold War", while easy to throw, is a misleading comparison. Other Western politicians (such as even Hillary Clinton), have accused Putin of behaving like a "new Hitler". Again, while it is tempting to make the comparison, this also an exaggeration: he has no wish to overwhelm Europe. Russia has been the largest nation on earth for well over a century, and Putin has made Russia one of the world's leading economies.
The fall of the Soviet Union (and loss of Russian territory and prestige) may be compared historically with Germany's punishment at the end of the First World War; even the twenty-year period of transition to German/Russian military "aggression" matches. In this sense, Hillary Clinton's comparison of Putin to Hitler makes some sense, though it is too simplistic an analogy.
This is no "new Cold War". There is no "ideological war" as twenty years ago; also, we are no longer living in a bipolar world, but nowadays one of various "power blocs" and key players (more on that in a moment). A better historical comparison is to the period of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with imperial powers (or these days, "neo-Imperial powers") re-learning their historical roles in the world after the chaotic period between the First World War and the end of the "Cold War".
The wider precedent that the West has created stems from a) the precedent of military unilateralism, and b) allowing countries to cross artificial "red lines" with impunity. The example of Syria last year was critical. Together, these two signals are fatal to Western prestige and respect across the world; the West is hypocritical to accuse others of acting aggressively in their one interests, and in any case, no-one believes that the West have the moral courage to act against anyone.
Kim Jong-un is probably making note of this.
But that is only one of a number of effects that the West's reaction to the "Ukraine Crisis" may have.
The talk of a "new Cold War" may be overblown, but the real change that this crisis is likely to bring about is the hardening of "power blocs" that have been forming over the last ten years: by this I mean the waning power of the USA in comparison to that of China; the EU becoming more of a "inter-national grouping" for the sake of economic and military influence; the role of Russia as a power balancing its interests between that of China and the others; and the rising influence of smaller players such as Brazil, and regional players like the Arab states (GCC) and Turkey.
In other worlds, "multilateralism" may be now definitively fading, being replaced by a world power unilateralism, last seen in the decades prior to the First World War. The West's influence is fading; the East's is rising. The lack of appetite for intervention in the West may now be seen as a "weakness" in the dominant nature of democracy, while the East has no such political inhibitions to hold back its wishes.
The split between the West on the use of sanctions also seems to be opening rifts between those East European countries that had recently joined the EU and NATO (or both), and what Donald Rumsfeld once called "Old Europe"; the original members of the EU. The USA seems to be taking the side of the East Europeans, already making promises to be a more conspicuous guardian of its new NATO allies along the Russian border. In this sense, historic differences between Eastern and Western Europe, their different perspectives and motivations, are coming to the surface after decades (even centuries) of slumber. The divergent attitudes towards Russia of the UK and Germany compared to Poland, Hungary, the Czechs and Lithuania are now plain to see. This may put huge strain on a united European front towards Russia. Putin will also be watching this issue closely.
No-one in Europe has any real clue what will come of the new government in Ukraine, but the far-right, nationalist elements are hiding in plain sight. One unintended consequence of the EU so conspicuously supporting "fascistic" elements is the damage it does to its own reputation (it has already given masses of political ammunition to Russia); it also may encourage further support for the far-right all across the member-states of the EU itself.
That would be a real nightmare for the EU.
Any sanctions on Russia, as Putin smartly pointed out, can be returned in kind by Russia. The economic effect of this across the globalised market is uncertain; the only thing that does seem certain is that this will create more uncertainty about the future of open multinational trade, and therefore may tip the world into another recession.
Lastly, Obama has been receiving sharp criticism from the right, that now his chickens have come home to roost. In effect, Obama has created a "neo-isolationist" policy since the end of the Bush administration. Apart from Libya, the military has disengaged from Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is little appetite for any other conflict for the remainder of Obama's tenure. This "weakness" in foreign policy can potentially open things up in the 2016 elections: it would be a reverse of the 1940 election between the "isolationism" of the Republicans at the time, and the interventionist tendency of Roosevelt's Democrats.
The word on people's lips these days is "appeasement".
(Update Thursday, 6 March
In the last twenty-four hours, the USA has ramped-up its rhetoric on sanctions, as well as making explicit orders to increase its air-force assets to Lithuania, as well as reminding Russia that a US navy vessel will soon be entering the Black Sea.
This escalation of pressure by the USA seems to be aimed at reversing the more mealy-mouthed statements of the last week on the Ukraine crisis. This may be aimed at a) the critics at home, and therefore nipping in the bud any perceived foreign policy weakness ahead of the elections later this year, and in 2016, and b) the explicit support for the Eastern European nations in NATO against the perceived threat of Russia.
In other words, there is now a clear divergence between a "pacifist" and cautious Western Europe unwilling to harm its Russian assets, and a "militant" Eastern Europe, supported by the USA.
This can only lead to the "Balkanisation" of Eastern Europe now becoming widened to the conflicting motivations of Eastern and Western Europe, and now the USA and Russia are now involved in a longer-term "proxy war" of influence over the European continent.
In many respects, this is less the clock has turning back to the "Cold War" politics of the past, but more to the similar form of conflicting "alliances" and "agreements" that existed in 1914)
Tuesday evening saw a seemingly alarming escalation, with reports of an ultimatum, giving Ukrainian units until the following morning to surrender.While this "deadline" passed without incident and the Russian military manoeuvres over the border finished on Wednesday, events and the stand-off hang by a thread. There are daily disturbances in the cities of the east and south of Ukraine.
What is going on?
Putin's psychological game
I've talked before about my theory of the "Russian Gambit":
"What are Russia's intentions? While accepting a de facto split of Ukraine on the ground (at least in the short term), accepting it de jure would be another matter, and we know that Russia follows the line that the opposition now in power in Kiev is engineered by fascists that have come to power through a violent coup. On Saturday, having fled Kiev, Yanukovich may well have asked for Russian protection for a Russian-speaking eastern and southern rump state. But the Kremlin may have explained their own motivation, based on their analysis of the opposition: to allow the opposition a taste of power in Kiev (while having no control of the east), playing a waiting game for the disparate opposition to violently turn on each other, allowing Yanukovich and his party to return to power in Kiev soon afterwards, with Russian help or not, depending on the situation."
Putin's press conference yesterday gave more weight to this ruse.
In it, he spoke of Yanukovich still being the legitimate president, even though he accepted that he had no real future in Ukraine. Putin talked of there being "no-one to talk to in Kiev", as there was no legitimate government; the only plan worth mentioning was the one that Yanukovich signed (agreeing to some form of all-party coalition, and elections in December). As the opposition has reneged on that deal (as Putin saw it), it seems clear that the planned elections in May would only be "legitimate" to the Kremlin if they voted in Yanukovich's "Party Of The Regions"; if not, then there surely would be no hope of a thaw in relations between Kiev and Moscow in the foreseeable future.
Putin gave the impression of being happy to cause as much political mischief as possible to the "interim government" in Kiev as long as they (or indeed any future "fascist" elected successor government) existed. At the moment, this has included the pro-Russian party being in effective control of the east and south of Ukraine, not recognising the Kiev government, and causing regional instability. On top of that was mood of casual harassment of Ukraine's sovereignty by the Russian military; air incursions, patrolling close to the border, and so on. If there was no government in Kiev as Putin saw it, then Moscow was within its rights to move almost at will across Ukrainian territory. Then there was the economic punishment, with the threat to Ukraine's gas supply, its nuclear energy, and many other financial instruments that could be used and payments withheld. In short, Putin would make the Kiev government's existence a living nightmare; everything short of out-and-out war. This would continue to be psychological torture for Kiev, and for the whole of Ukraine.
The Crimean land-grab was a piece of convenient opportunism, from the Kremlin's point of view, righting a "wrong" that has been done by the ethnic Ukrainian Soviet leader, Khruschev, during the Cold War. Crimea had been ethnically Russian since Stalin purged it of Tatars in the Second World War, and had been a key part of Russian territory since the late 18th century.
Putin's motivations are more internal than external: he cannot allow the Kiev government to exist with impunity as it would send a fatal message to his own standing at home, and give encouragement to the pro-Western opposition. The effective annexation of Crimea was an act of opportunism; nothing more. His "gambit" in Ukraine is about securing a friendly government there; nothing more. How he achieves that depends more on the actions of Kiev. It would be more convenient that he not use the military to achieve it, but Putin has no moral qualms about using it if he feels he has no other choice. That was the underlying message from his press conference.
The political game continues, as Putin and his adept foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, twist the West's logic of foreign intervention in unto itself, while making an art-form of the apparent barefaced lies about the situation on the ground in Crimea. In the meantime, the West looks on at a nightmare largely of its own making.
The West's nightmare scenario
The road to this crisis came partly from creating some awful geo-political precedents. The Kosovo War of 1999, and the Iraq war of 2003 were both US-led military engagements without UN support that led (either indirectly or directly) to regime change. While both situations were very different, under different administrations, and provoked very different moral responses, they both followed the same precedent: military unilateralism that could skirt international law (i.e. through the use of the UN).
Furthermore, it was hard in Moscow to dispel the feeling that Russia was being encircled economically and militarily, by the EU and NATO; the American use of military bases in Central Asia as part of its "War On Terror" can't have helped either.
Putin duly took note of this. Russia has historically always been protective of its right to intervene to protect its interests in its "near abroad": the Russian equivalent of the "Monroe Doctrine". In this way, the West's accusation of Putin starting a "new Cold War", while easy to throw, is a misleading comparison. Other Western politicians (such as even Hillary Clinton), have accused Putin of behaving like a "new Hitler". Again, while it is tempting to make the comparison, this also an exaggeration: he has no wish to overwhelm Europe. Russia has been the largest nation on earth for well over a century, and Putin has made Russia one of the world's leading economies.
The fall of the Soviet Union (and loss of Russian territory and prestige) may be compared historically with Germany's punishment at the end of the First World War; even the twenty-year period of transition to German/Russian military "aggression" matches. In this sense, Hillary Clinton's comparison of Putin to Hitler makes some sense, though it is too simplistic an analogy.
This is no "new Cold War". There is no "ideological war" as twenty years ago; also, we are no longer living in a bipolar world, but nowadays one of various "power blocs" and key players (more on that in a moment). A better historical comparison is to the period of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with imperial powers (or these days, "neo-Imperial powers") re-learning their historical roles in the world after the chaotic period between the First World War and the end of the "Cold War".
The wider precedent that the West has created stems from a) the precedent of military unilateralism, and b) allowing countries to cross artificial "red lines" with impunity. The example of Syria last year was critical. Together, these two signals are fatal to Western prestige and respect across the world; the West is hypocritical to accuse others of acting aggressively in their one interests, and in any case, no-one believes that the West have the moral courage to act against anyone.
Kim Jong-un is probably making note of this.
But that is only one of a number of effects that the West's reaction to the "Ukraine Crisis" may have.
The talk of a "new Cold War" may be overblown, but the real change that this crisis is likely to bring about is the hardening of "power blocs" that have been forming over the last ten years: by this I mean the waning power of the USA in comparison to that of China; the EU becoming more of a "inter-national grouping" for the sake of economic and military influence; the role of Russia as a power balancing its interests between that of China and the others; and the rising influence of smaller players such as Brazil, and regional players like the Arab states (GCC) and Turkey.
In other worlds, "multilateralism" may be now definitively fading, being replaced by a world power unilateralism, last seen in the decades prior to the First World War. The West's influence is fading; the East's is rising. The lack of appetite for intervention in the West may now be seen as a "weakness" in the dominant nature of democracy, while the East has no such political inhibitions to hold back its wishes.
The split between the West on the use of sanctions also seems to be opening rifts between those East European countries that had recently joined the EU and NATO (or both), and what Donald Rumsfeld once called "Old Europe"; the original members of the EU. The USA seems to be taking the side of the East Europeans, already making promises to be a more conspicuous guardian of its new NATO allies along the Russian border. In this sense, historic differences between Eastern and Western Europe, their different perspectives and motivations, are coming to the surface after decades (even centuries) of slumber. The divergent attitudes towards Russia of the UK and Germany compared to Poland, Hungary, the Czechs and Lithuania are now plain to see. This may put huge strain on a united European front towards Russia. Putin will also be watching this issue closely.
No-one in Europe has any real clue what will come of the new government in Ukraine, but the far-right, nationalist elements are hiding in plain sight. One unintended consequence of the EU so conspicuously supporting "fascistic" elements is the damage it does to its own reputation (it has already given masses of political ammunition to Russia); it also may encourage further support for the far-right all across the member-states of the EU itself.
That would be a real nightmare for the EU.
Any sanctions on Russia, as Putin smartly pointed out, can be returned in kind by Russia. The economic effect of this across the globalised market is uncertain; the only thing that does seem certain is that this will create more uncertainty about the future of open multinational trade, and therefore may tip the world into another recession.
Lastly, Obama has been receiving sharp criticism from the right, that now his chickens have come home to roost. In effect, Obama has created a "neo-isolationist" policy since the end of the Bush administration. Apart from Libya, the military has disengaged from Iraq and Afghanistan, and there is little appetite for any other conflict for the remainder of Obama's tenure. This "weakness" in foreign policy can potentially open things up in the 2016 elections: it would be a reverse of the 1940 election between the "isolationism" of the Republicans at the time, and the interventionist tendency of Roosevelt's Democrats.
The word on people's lips these days is "appeasement".
(Update Thursday, 6 March
In the last twenty-four hours, the USA has ramped-up its rhetoric on sanctions, as well as making explicit orders to increase its air-force assets to Lithuania, as well as reminding Russia that a US navy vessel will soon be entering the Black Sea.
This escalation of pressure by the USA seems to be aimed at reversing the more mealy-mouthed statements of the last week on the Ukraine crisis. This may be aimed at a) the critics at home, and therefore nipping in the bud any perceived foreign policy weakness ahead of the elections later this year, and in 2016, and b) the explicit support for the Eastern European nations in NATO against the perceived threat of Russia.
In other words, there is now a clear divergence between a "pacifist" and cautious Western Europe unwilling to harm its Russian assets, and a "militant" Eastern Europe, supported by the USA.
This can only lead to the "Balkanisation" of Eastern Europe now becoming widened to the conflicting motivations of Eastern and Western Europe, and now the USA and Russia are now involved in a longer-term "proxy war" of influence over the European continent.
In many respects, this is less the clock has turning back to the "Cold War" politics of the past, but more to the similar form of conflicting "alliances" and "agreements" that existed in 1914)
Sunday, March 2, 2014
The Ukraine Crisis: Europe versus Russia, and parallels to 1914
In a previous article about the now rapidly-escalating, ten-day old Ukraine crisis I asked:
"What on earth are the EU doing so conspicuously supporting a government of uncertain designs and unstable character, that was brought to power with the help of a fascist militia? It looks for all the world that the EU has seriously lost the plot"
The reasons for such marked support for the "revolutionaries" of the Euromaidan at first don't seem obvious. While the fascist-style extremists who supported the forceful change of government are in a clear minority, their existence is beyond doubt. And while the fact that Yanokovich government was deeply corrupt and used bullets to suppress dissent in its final days is also beyond doubt, it still leaves the EU and the USA in a very uncomfortable place politically.
European emotions
So, why did the EU come out so strongly in the opposition's favour?
For all the talk of Ukraine being a "European nation", the reality is that the territory as it exists today is on a clear cultural divide between East and West. For historical reasons, the north and west are largely Ukrainian-speaking, with the south and east Russian-speaking; the former looks to the west, the latter to the east. This divide goes back hundreds of years, and I don't need to go into the details. Since independence, this divide has been political as well as cultural, with the national elections see-sawing between Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking victors.
The many EU and Western pronouncements in favour of the Ukrainian opposition's desire to be a "European nation" sound more emotional than rational, certainly when you look at facts on the ground. It is this lack of rationalism to the political reality that has made the new Kiev government's ardent Western support so dangerous. Regardless of the supposed support for the Ukrainian-speakers of Ukraine for their country to side with Europe, this ignores the contrary wishes of their Russian-speaking compatriots; in other words, it is rule by majoritarianism rather than by considered consent. It also smacks of Western hubris, but I'll come to that point in a moment.
The EU has been expanding to the east for the last decade. I wrote before about Russia's perception of Western encirclement; paranoid or not, this is the psychology that exists in the mind of many Russians. Bringing in the former-Communist Eastern Europe and Baltic States into the EU may have seemed like a natural progression of the EU to gather together all historic "European nations" into an economic club, but such hazy and emotional ideas are not the stuff of hard-headed and sensible politics.
In the same way the founding of the Euro currency was based as much (if not more) on emotional ideas as economic reality; the price of that "emotionalism" is being felt in Southern Europe now. The Euro as a currency was implemented without the proper checks being put in place on all its member states. It was implemented as a piece of European hubris, at a time of emotional idealism.
So the EU's support for bringing Ukraine into the fold smacks of the same type of emotional hubris; European policy decisions based on emotion than on rationalism. We've been there before, but more about that later.
Economic "lebenstraum"
There is another important point to mention; an economic motivation for European support for Ukraine. Apart from the emotional arguments, having a Western-oriented Ukraine fast-tracked into signing EU treaties (and the eventual aim of joining the EU fully), introduces large economic and labour-market opportunities to Europe.
The admission of the group of East European countries (Poland in particular) into the EU provided a boon for business; a pool of cheap labour from these new member states enabled European businesses to bring down labour costs, allowing them to save a great deal on salary overheads. I've mentioned this point about "UK PLC": how Britain's establishment and business sector in instinctively pro-Europe because it saves them so much money on labour costs.
This point is true across all of the EU. In this way, the financial crisis, on top of the free movement of low-wage East Europeans across the EU, massively brought down costs to the large employers. A larger pool of unemployment is therefore economically useful (provided it doesn't affect productivity), as it allows employers to dictate terms.
After bringing in Poland (itself with a population the size of Spain), Ukraine would be the final step in this process, with a population even bigger than Poland; with the European east providing a seemingly limitless supply of cheap labour for the rich corporations of the West.
No wonder some commentators compare corporations to fascists; seen in this light, Eastern Europe and the EU's "drive to the east" (once fantasised about by Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany) is seen in similar terms to the Nazis.
To the Russians, this is a very old tale, being re-hashed for the 21st century.
One more point to mention, which is relevant to this expansion: what happened to Turkey? If Ukraine, why not bring in Turkey?
Turkey's bid to enter the EU was never popular with the "big two", France and Germany. The main reason was said to be cultural: Turkey was a Muslim country, so would be difficult to fit in with "Christian" Europe. Another reason was its size, with a population the same as Germany's, it would act as huge counter-weight to Franco-German dominance (though now the dominance is clearly just German); this was also a reason why Britain was a big fan of Turkey's entry to the EU.
There is another, very economic, reason why Turkey's bid has floundered. Turkey's economy is strong, in many ways modeled on that of Germany's. Turkey has a strong manufacturing sector of its own, and while its own workforce, like Ukraine's, would bring down costs to European employers if they entered the EU labour market, Turkey's large manufacturing-sector economy would be a clear rival to Germany and (to a lesser extent) France, not to mention Italy. This would be very bad news for the big European corporations.
Ukraine is a good candidate for EU in the long-term because all it really has to offer is its own workforce; its factories cannot hope to compete with Europe. This explains why the EU and the IMF are so interested in dividing up Ukraine's assets like a post-war victor. By contrast, Turkey's economy could be a real rival. So it is also for this (very economic) reason why the EU is shining on Ukraine's European future, while forgetting about its one-time plans for Turkey.
Parallels to 1914
Europe's siding with the new Kiev government in then, on one hand emotional, and on the other economic, but in both ways is a sign of dangerous hubris.
The expansion of the EU in the last decade has therefore seen a sort of "Balkanisation" of Eastern Europe into pro-European and pro-Russian camps. On the Russian side, there is only Belarus and Ukraine left; the rest are all firmly in the European economic camp. In the years leading up to the First World War (and especially following the Balkan Wars of 1912-13), the Balkans was divided up into camps supporting either Russia or Austria. So the parallels are there to see.
Putin's recent desire for a "Eurasian customs union" to rival the EU makes sense when seen in this light. It is a way to hold on to his remaining allies. So Ukraine's decision to side with Moscow and not Brussels in December was pivotal.
What's often forgotten about the "July Crisis" following Franz Ferdinand's assassination is that no-one truly wanted a European war. The alliances in place were purely defensive in character, and in the diplomatic period between Franz Ferdinand's death in late June an the outbreak of European war in early August, no-one in the European capitals thought that a general conflagration was a serious possibility. Everyone thought that everyone else was bluffing. Because crises in the years prior to that had never led to a serious escalation, everyone believed it would be equally impossible this time around.
While Russia (and to a lesser extent, France) have a lot of the blame for escalating the crisis beyond being a war between only Austria and Serbia, it has always been Germany that has received the most blame historically.
Coming back to the present day, we can see that Russia's military annexation of the Crimea is Putin's reply to the pro-European opposition taking power in Kiev. Russia's military seem to be on the verge of an invasion of Ukraine proper. As Putin considers the government in Kiev to be usurpers, he feels he has the right on his side; furthermore, he clearly believes that the West will do nothing.
Here we are back again to the dangerous game of bluff that led to the First World War. Because the West did nothing against his war against Georgia in 2008, Putin believes the same will be true now. While it is easy to understand why he would think that, Ukraine is not Georgia, for a number of reasons.
As said before, the Europeans feel they have some kind of stake (emotional and economic) in Ukraine's future; the USA also has a stake in the Ukraine crisis, both politically and strategically. Furthermore, Russia has thwarted American plans over Syria and other issues in recent years, so the mood in Washington seems like one of "thus far, and no further". That doesn't bode well for a quick resolution.
For Russia and Putin, Ukraine really is a "line in the sand" issue. Now that Ukraine has issued a mobilisation of its forces, it has also cited an agreement from 1994 that Russia and the USA signed to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity and her nuclear assets, imploring for Western support.
This sounds ominously like when the different European powers cited various alliance treaties, leading to war.
The reaction of Europe and the USA will be key. It was emotionalism and calling each other's bluff that led to war a hundred years ago. It looks like those in power have yet to learn those lessons.
"What on earth are the EU doing so conspicuously supporting a government of uncertain designs and unstable character, that was brought to power with the help of a fascist militia? It looks for all the world that the EU has seriously lost the plot"
The reasons for such marked support for the "revolutionaries" of the Euromaidan at first don't seem obvious. While the fascist-style extremists who supported the forceful change of government are in a clear minority, their existence is beyond doubt. And while the fact that Yanokovich government was deeply corrupt and used bullets to suppress dissent in its final days is also beyond doubt, it still leaves the EU and the USA in a very uncomfortable place politically.
European emotions
So, why did the EU come out so strongly in the opposition's favour?
For all the talk of Ukraine being a "European nation", the reality is that the territory as it exists today is on a clear cultural divide between East and West. For historical reasons, the north and west are largely Ukrainian-speaking, with the south and east Russian-speaking; the former looks to the west, the latter to the east. This divide goes back hundreds of years, and I don't need to go into the details. Since independence, this divide has been political as well as cultural, with the national elections see-sawing between Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking victors.
The many EU and Western pronouncements in favour of the Ukrainian opposition's desire to be a "European nation" sound more emotional than rational, certainly when you look at facts on the ground. It is this lack of rationalism to the political reality that has made the new Kiev government's ardent Western support so dangerous. Regardless of the supposed support for the Ukrainian-speakers of Ukraine for their country to side with Europe, this ignores the contrary wishes of their Russian-speaking compatriots; in other words, it is rule by majoritarianism rather than by considered consent. It also smacks of Western hubris, but I'll come to that point in a moment.
The EU has been expanding to the east for the last decade. I wrote before about Russia's perception of Western encirclement; paranoid or not, this is the psychology that exists in the mind of many Russians. Bringing in the former-Communist Eastern Europe and Baltic States into the EU may have seemed like a natural progression of the EU to gather together all historic "European nations" into an economic club, but such hazy and emotional ideas are not the stuff of hard-headed and sensible politics.
In the same way the founding of the Euro currency was based as much (if not more) on emotional ideas as economic reality; the price of that "emotionalism" is being felt in Southern Europe now. The Euro as a currency was implemented without the proper checks being put in place on all its member states. It was implemented as a piece of European hubris, at a time of emotional idealism.
So the EU's support for bringing Ukraine into the fold smacks of the same type of emotional hubris; European policy decisions based on emotion than on rationalism. We've been there before, but more about that later.
Economic "lebenstraum"
There is another important point to mention; an economic motivation for European support for Ukraine. Apart from the emotional arguments, having a Western-oriented Ukraine fast-tracked into signing EU treaties (and the eventual aim of joining the EU fully), introduces large economic and labour-market opportunities to Europe.
The admission of the group of East European countries (Poland in particular) into the EU provided a boon for business; a pool of cheap labour from these new member states enabled European businesses to bring down labour costs, allowing them to save a great deal on salary overheads. I've mentioned this point about "UK PLC": how Britain's establishment and business sector in instinctively pro-Europe because it saves them so much money on labour costs.
This point is true across all of the EU. In this way, the financial crisis, on top of the free movement of low-wage East Europeans across the EU, massively brought down costs to the large employers. A larger pool of unemployment is therefore economically useful (provided it doesn't affect productivity), as it allows employers to dictate terms.
After bringing in Poland (itself with a population the size of Spain), Ukraine would be the final step in this process, with a population even bigger than Poland; with the European east providing a seemingly limitless supply of cheap labour for the rich corporations of the West.
No wonder some commentators compare corporations to fascists; seen in this light, Eastern Europe and the EU's "drive to the east" (once fantasised about by Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany) is seen in similar terms to the Nazis.
To the Russians, this is a very old tale, being re-hashed for the 21st century.
One more point to mention, which is relevant to this expansion: what happened to Turkey? If Ukraine, why not bring in Turkey?
Turkey's bid to enter the EU was never popular with the "big two", France and Germany. The main reason was said to be cultural: Turkey was a Muslim country, so would be difficult to fit in with "Christian" Europe. Another reason was its size, with a population the same as Germany's, it would act as huge counter-weight to Franco-German dominance (though now the dominance is clearly just German); this was also a reason why Britain was a big fan of Turkey's entry to the EU.
There is another, very economic, reason why Turkey's bid has floundered. Turkey's economy is strong, in many ways modeled on that of Germany's. Turkey has a strong manufacturing sector of its own, and while its own workforce, like Ukraine's, would bring down costs to European employers if they entered the EU labour market, Turkey's large manufacturing-sector economy would be a clear rival to Germany and (to a lesser extent) France, not to mention Italy. This would be very bad news for the big European corporations.
Ukraine is a good candidate for EU in the long-term because all it really has to offer is its own workforce; its factories cannot hope to compete with Europe. This explains why the EU and the IMF are so interested in dividing up Ukraine's assets like a post-war victor. By contrast, Turkey's economy could be a real rival. So it is also for this (very economic) reason why the EU is shining on Ukraine's European future, while forgetting about its one-time plans for Turkey.
Parallels to 1914
Europe's siding with the new Kiev government in then, on one hand emotional, and on the other economic, but in both ways is a sign of dangerous hubris.
The expansion of the EU in the last decade has therefore seen a sort of "Balkanisation" of Eastern Europe into pro-European and pro-Russian camps. On the Russian side, there is only Belarus and Ukraine left; the rest are all firmly in the European economic camp. In the years leading up to the First World War (and especially following the Balkan Wars of 1912-13), the Balkans was divided up into camps supporting either Russia or Austria. So the parallels are there to see.
Putin's recent desire for a "Eurasian customs union" to rival the EU makes sense when seen in this light. It is a way to hold on to his remaining allies. So Ukraine's decision to side with Moscow and not Brussels in December was pivotal.
What's often forgotten about the "July Crisis" following Franz Ferdinand's assassination is that no-one truly wanted a European war. The alliances in place were purely defensive in character, and in the diplomatic period between Franz Ferdinand's death in late June an the outbreak of European war in early August, no-one in the European capitals thought that a general conflagration was a serious possibility. Everyone thought that everyone else was bluffing. Because crises in the years prior to that had never led to a serious escalation, everyone believed it would be equally impossible this time around.
While Russia (and to a lesser extent, France) have a lot of the blame for escalating the crisis beyond being a war between only Austria and Serbia, it has always been Germany that has received the most blame historically.
Coming back to the present day, we can see that Russia's military annexation of the Crimea is Putin's reply to the pro-European opposition taking power in Kiev. Russia's military seem to be on the verge of an invasion of Ukraine proper. As Putin considers the government in Kiev to be usurpers, he feels he has the right on his side; furthermore, he clearly believes that the West will do nothing.
Here we are back again to the dangerous game of bluff that led to the First World War. Because the West did nothing against his war against Georgia in 2008, Putin believes the same will be true now. While it is easy to understand why he would think that, Ukraine is not Georgia, for a number of reasons.
As said before, the Europeans feel they have some kind of stake (emotional and economic) in Ukraine's future; the USA also has a stake in the Ukraine crisis, both politically and strategically. Furthermore, Russia has thwarted American plans over Syria and other issues in recent years, so the mood in Washington seems like one of "thus far, and no further". That doesn't bode well for a quick resolution.
For Russia and Putin, Ukraine really is a "line in the sand" issue. Now that Ukraine has issued a mobilisation of its forces, it has also cited an agreement from 1994 that Russia and the USA signed to protect Ukraine's territorial integrity and her nuclear assets, imploring for Western support.
This sounds ominously like when the different European powers cited various alliance treaties, leading to war.
The reaction of Europe and the USA will be key. It was emotionalism and calling each other's bluff that led to war a hundred years ago. It looks like those in power have yet to learn those lessons.
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