Category Archives: foreign policy

Surrender

Posted on by
Reply

Under threat of sanctions from the US and Europe, the Russians have finalized their annexation of Crimea.  One of the targets of the US’ “sanctions,” Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, expressed his feelings about them in a tweet:

Comrade Obama, what should those who have neither accounts nor property abroad do? Have you not thought about it?  I think the decree of the President of the United States was written by some joker.

The “sanctions?”  They

freeze any assets the targeted individuals have under US jurisdiction, make it illegal for Americans to do business with them and discourage international banks and financial institutions from having relationships with them, administration officials said.  The officials, however, would or could not say if those targeted actually have assets in US jurisdictions.

Hence the joke.  Does anybody believe, given the length of time this administration has been nattering on about freezing personal assets that there are any left that we can “freeze?”  Other than the amateurs in the White House, I mean.

Meanwhile, Europe has done even less.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Tuesday that leaders of the Group of Eight world powers have suspended Russia’s participation in the club amid tensions over Ukraine and Russia’s incursion into Crimea.

Travel bans and the freezing of a few personal bank accounts—yeah.  That’ll show ’em.

And echoing John Kerry’s pleas to Putin not to take US actions personally; we really don’t mean to hurt your feelings, ” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier bleats that sanctions must leave “ways and possibilities open to prevent a further escalation that could lead to the division of Europe.”

Also meanwhile, Ukrainian government officials met with US lawmakers pleading for military aid—not troops, but arms and ammunition.

“They wanted arms,” [one of the US] lawmaker[s] said, “even recognizing that it could be cited by Putin as an excuse, a provocation for further military action by him.  They said Putin’s goal has never been Crimea; his goal is Kiev.”

But this administration already has said, “No.”

For all of this abject surrender in the face of Russia’s naked aggression, though, President Barack Obama is happy to meet with terrorists, directly and personally.  He even insists that any “peace” agreement be based on Israel’s pre-1967, and so wholly indefensible, borders.

In the final meanwhile, watch Iran and their nuclear weapons program and the People’s Republic of China and their territorial grabs in the East and South China Seas.

A Dangerous Precedent

Posted on by
Reply

In a speech before the assembled state legislature of Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered a number of justifications for his invasion and partition of Ukraine.  One of the more chilling “justifications” was this:

Crimea is our common property and a very important factor in the stability of the region.  This strategic territory should be under a strong, sovereign state and that in fact can only be Russia.

And, of course, Russia is the only “strong, sovereign state,” and so Russia can, under this logic, occupy the rest of Ukraine, and it can use this rationale for seizing the Baltic States to the west (a useful set of outlets into the Baltic Sea and thence the world’s oceans), the ‘Stans to the south (a useful buffer against the People’s Republic of China), expand its holdings in Syria (a useful outlet directly to the Mediterranean Sea), and any number of other states who aren’t a strong militarily as Russia, and so can’t be held to be sovereign and whose acquisition might be discovered to suit Russian…interests.

A Twist on Sanctions

Posted on by
Reply

It turns out that all Crimean fresh water, 75% of its electricity, and—wait for it—a third of its natural gas run through the Ukrainian province of Kherson, which sits just on the mainland side of the peninsula that connects Crimea with the mainland.

Last week, Kherson’s regional legislature overwhelmingly passed a motion supporting the preservation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Kherson’s leadership also said they’ll shut everything off if the referendum on joining Russia goes forward this weekend.

Hmm….

No War is Painless for Either Side

Posted on by
Reply

But the war Russia is waging against Ukraine, and against Western values generally (against little things like the right of the citizens of a sovereign nation to govern themselves, the right of the people of a sovereign nation to run their economy their own way, the right of the citizens of a sovereign nation to hold their own, fair votes) can only hurt Russia in any serious way, if only Western leaders can find the courage to stand with Ukraine in a more meaningful and direct fashion than merely sitting courtside cheering the Ukrainians and clucking their tongues at the Russians.

There’s little to do, militarily, in the near term, but there are a number of devastating economic things that can be done, and these things will have their effect immediately and in the near and middle term (there’s unlikely to be a need for far term effects, but those would remain from the steps that can be taken now).  Such steps include

Treasury and State departments can much more aggressively target Russian banks and trading firms for their alleged involvement in such areas as arming Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or developing Iran’s nuclear program.  [To which I add Treasury and State can much more aggressively target the Russian banking system for its involvement in a nation committing this naked aggression against a sovereign country.  No special reasons are needed.  Full stop.]

Additional steps also can be taken, as I and others have outlined already.

Western leaders are fearful, though, and looking for bloodless solutions to an affair that’s bloody by its nature:

The US and other leading Western powers are focusing on individual, targeted sanctions because broader economic sanctions could directly harm Western businesses and lead Moscow to make good on its threats to retaliate against businesses from the countries pushing sanctions, according to current and former officials.

What these Nervous Nellies are ignoring, though, is that while Russian retaliatory sanctions will, indeed, hurt those Western businesses, Russian sanctions “would inevitably hit [Russia] like a boomerang.”  Russia, quite literally, has no economy beyond its oil and gas exports without those Western businesses and Western investments in Russia.  On top of that, as Western (read: US and Canada) oil and gas production and export increase, with special attention initially to exporting to Europe and Ukraine, and as prices drop from those increases, Russia would lose that remaining vestige of its economy.

And be unable to sustain its forces in Ukraine.  At that point, a suitable treaty would have Russia formally renouncing all claim on any territory outside the borders of the Russian Federation, canceling its lease on the naval base in Sevastopol and withdrawing all of its military units from Crimea, and removing all of its military and quasi-military units away from the Federation’s European borders by a distance of at least 200 miles.