The Wrongologist

What’s
Wrong Today:

Today,
let’s visit Russian history. There are two threads to discuss, Vladimir Putin’s view of the
world, and whether he is a successor to the legacy of Peter the Great. Second,
we look at a few troublesome facts from history that limit our actions in Ukraine today.

I.  Putin’s
Worldview

The
NYT’s David Brooks had an interesting perspective
on Mr. Putin:

Putin
was personally involved in getting Ilyin’s remains re-buried back in Russian
soil. In 2009, Putin went to consecrate the grave himself. The event sent him
into a nationalistic fervor. On that day, Brooks reports Putin as saying:

Brooks
cites Ilyin’s 1948 essay, “What
Dismemberment of Russia Entails for the World,” in which Ilyin describes
the Russian people as the “core of everything European-Asian and, therefore, of
universal equilibrium.” Yet the West is
driven by “a plan of hatred and lust for power.”

Brooks
concludes:

But
as history shows, Russia’s (and Putin’s) relationship with Crimea isn’t simple.
The Greeks held it, as did the Romans, the Byzantines, the Mongols, the Tatars,
the Ottomans, and in 1753, the Russians annexed it. In 1853, the French,
British, and Ottomans began a war in Crimea against Russia that was devastating
and ended with Russia defeated, but still in control of Crimea.

II.  Peter
the Great

Peter founded the modern Russian state. As Robert K. Massie’s
book, Peter the
Great, His Life and World shows, when Peter was born, Russia was still very deep in the Middle
Ages. Peter understood that a landlocked Russia could never be a great power,
or be able to even control its own geography from outside invaders. Much of his
career was dedicated to developing access to the Baltic Sea to the north and to
the Black Sea to the south. He built a modern army and navy.

Sweden’s monarch, Charles XII, was
Peter’s adversary in both the Baltic and the Black seas, and Peter’s lifelong
duel with Charles XII shaped Russia’s borders and its role in the world. As a
result of these wars, Russia extended its European frontiers southward to the Black Sea, southwestward to the Prut River, and south of the
Caucasus Mountains. Present day Ukraine was a major battlefield in many of these
wars.

Peter
founded the city of St Petersburg in 1703, allowing Russia to secure its
presence on the Baltic. He reformed the calendar and simplified the alphabet. He founded schools of Medicine,
Engineering, Science and Navigation and Mathematics. By the end of his reign, Russia
was a major power in Europe.

So, is Putin
the second coming of Peter the Great? No.

Expansion of its
domain from the interior to the seacoasts was the glory of Peter, while holding
sway over all the Slavic-speaking peoples was the triumph of the Soviet Union. Putin’s
plans by contrast, may echo the Tsarist dream of a powerful and expansive
Russia, but he is simply trying to recreate the trade bloc of the former Soviet
Union.

In fact, what David
Brooks really shows is how similar Mr.
Putin’s logic and rationale resembles that of some political zealots here in
the US. Think about it: To advance their cause, they need a worldview
that one side is pure and the other evil; that modern day changes are ruining
the nobility of the American spirit (in Russia’s case, this is the threat of the
gays), and that anything done in the name of God and country is preordained,
and thus good.

He’s a Great Putin, not
Peter the Great.

III.   Random,
Ukraine-related history

• The Budapest Memorandum: The US and UK signed the Budapest
  Memorandum in 1994 with Ukraine and Russia, to govern the removal of nuclear
  weapons from Ukraine to Russia, who was to dispose of them. Part of that memorandum was that Ukraine’s sovereignty was
  guaranteed. Due to their signatures, the US and the UK are both on the hook to resist incursions
  into Ukrainian territory. So, even if a majority of the population in Crimea
  now favors either independence or becoming part of Russia, we may have a duty
  to support the Ukraine’s objections.

Maybe
Obama and Cameron will forget about this document. Putin sure has.

• The
  unraveling of the USSR and its Soviet bloc (the Warsaw Pact) dismantled the largest
  empire in modern history. The NATO alliance was the outside threat that had
  held the Soviet Union together, so Russia had real concerns that could only be
  met by assurances that NATO would not
  move into the Warsaw Pact states. George H. W. Bush assured Gorbachev
  that if the Soviets dissolved the Warsaw Pact, NATO would not fill that vacuum.
  But as Steven Kinzer in the Boston
  Globe noted:  

This
may explain some of Putin’s belligerence after we and EU attempted to engineer
the Ukraine’s ascension into NATO and the EU trade bloc.

• In the event there is a
  need to escalate in Ukraine or Crimea, US
  and NATO access to the Black Sea may blocked by Turkey.

After the hostilities in
Georgia in August 2008, Turkey prevented the US and NATO from sending large
naval ships into the Black Sea. Turkey did so under the 1936
Montreux Convention which makes Turkey
the gatekeeper to the Black Sea and lays down the rules to be applied
by Turkey in allowing the entry of warships from the Mediterranean.

The US is not a party to the Convention. The
Convention contains a provision for
the parties to the Convention to amend it, but it gives Turkey a veto over any amendment
voted on by the conference.

In
Conclusion:

We
messed with Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union by not living by Bush 41’s
handshake about NATO. Our tangle of alliances, including Turkey through NATO, limits
our ability to move military assets into the Black Sea.

Our
European allies are dependent on Russian gas. Al-Monitor reports
that around 80% of EU gas imports from Russia pass through Ukraine. Turkey
uses Russian gas to produce 32% of its electricity. These countries have
experience with Russia cutting off their supply. In 2006 and 2009, Russia used
its gas monopoly as a political weapon in its dispute with Ukraine,
cutting gas flows to the EU via Ukraine.

We have no good options
for military engagement in Crimea or Ukraine, but we are looking at a win if we proceed on a hands-off basis.

Really?
 

The chances are that the Ukraine
(minus Crimea) will become a pro-Western, pro-EU government. That is the strategic
prize that Putin’s bellicose action has dropped in the lap of the West. If Russia accepts
the legitimacy of Ukraine’s new government in return for a partition that takes
Crimea back to Russia, we have a win, albeit with a price tag of $25 billion in aid. 

If the Ukrainians and their military
are determined to resist any further Russian incursions with force, then Putin’s easy territorial win comes to a
screeching halt and he faces the prospect of a guerrilla war, one that
is not likely to remain just in Ukraine.

That would be a huge loss for Putin.

The more that NATO, the EU and the
US intrude loudly in this process (that means you, John McCain), the less room
Putin has to back down, and the more likely Ukrainian military officials will have
to move to defend their own country.

Do we want a win, or are we just itching
for a fight?