Tag Archives: foreign policy

US “Policy to Counter Putin Still Evolving”

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President Barack Obama has threatened to consult with allies to see about beginning to think of what might be done vis-à-vis the Russian attack on Ukraine.  He even spent 90 minutes over the weekend on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin being chastised by Putin for his effrontery in demurring from that invasion.

Secretary of State John Kerry has decried Putin’s “unopposed entry” into Ukraine as a 19th century move in the 21st century—as though that means that Russia’s invasion hasn’t actually occurred.  On Tuesday, he was enroute to Kiev while, as the Fox News headline put it, our “policy to counter Putin still is evolving.”

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel hasn’t said anything at all.  That may be the wisest move of the three: remaining silent and being thought a fool, rather than speaking and removing all doubt.  Even if he is silent only because he doesn’t make policy.

How is it, after this administration’s five years in power, the last 14 months with the current crowd, that we’re only now getting around to start to begin developing some sort of policy to deal with Russian behavior?

Could it be because the grade school amateurism of a community organizer, a motor boat skipper, and a guy who won’t be making defense policy is unequal to the task of facing the world?

In the meantime, keep an eye on the Senkaku, Spratly and Paracel Islands.

The People are not Sovereign

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…government is.  Or so says Czar of all the Russias President Vladimir Putin.

Of course people wanted change.  But [people] cannot impose illegal change…you need to use only constitutional means.

Never mind that the will of the people is what gives “constitutional means” legitimacy, since those means are the will of the people given concrete effect.  But not in Putin’s world.  In his world view, “constitutional means” are what government says they are, and government is constituted the way the men populating the organs of government say it is.  No people, no citizens, are involved.

Putin also insisted that [Interim President] Oleksandr Turchynov was

not legitimate.  From the legal perspective it is Mr. Yanukovych who is president.

No.  Plainly no.  From the legal perspective, Yanukovich had lost all legitimacy the moment he lost the consent of the Ukrainian people to be their President.  That he had lost that consent is amply demonstrated by all those months in the streets—and not only in Kiev—by the people protesting, at first his actions, and ultimately his political status.  The firmness of their will is corroborated by the violence against and the murders of the protestors sanctioned by that government, and the people’s continued protests despite those atrocities.

Putin also has announced that he has no obligation to respect the wishes of the Ukrainian people as expressed in the upcoming May governmental elections, if he doesn’t get the results he wants.

Never mind that exactly those elections are what will express the will of the people, if the elections are allowed to go forward freely and fairly.  The only interference there will be “such terror as we see now” in the form of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The only “terror as [Putin] see[s] now” is his own terror of the will of the people—perhaps of the will of the Russian people, as well.

Finally, this:

Putin said Tuesday that Moscow reserved the right to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine by any means necessary….

This was Hitler’s excuse for Sudetenland.  However, the “ethnic Russians” are Ukrainian citizens, not Russian citizens, and it is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government to protect its citizens.  If Putin is claiming a right (oddly, not a duty) to protect the badly abused citizens of another sovereign nation, than we have to ask: where is his duty in Syria, in northern Korea?  Oh, wait….

What Does Russia Do for Us?

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Or, more to the point, what’s the value of Russia’s good opinion of us?  After all, it’s this perceived need that’s among the barriers to providing meaningful aid to Ukraine in the face of the present Russian invasion of that country.

Max Boot, at Commentary, suggests that one aspect of the pseudo-thinking going on inside President Barack Obama’s head and that of his State Department Secretary is this:

Russia…remains an important power that Washington hesitates to antagonize because of a general feeling that we need Russian help to deal with Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, and other important issues….

What help?  How has Russia “helped” us in any way there, or anywhere else?  In Iran, the Russians are actively helping build nuclear reactors and actively blocking attempts to slow, much less stop, the Iranian drive to acquire nuclear weapons.  In Syria, the Russians are actively propping up Bashar al-Assad and sending him both arms to replace combat losses and SAMs with which to oppose the Israeli air force.  In Afghanistan, the Russians routinely interfere with (though they’ve not actually blocked, yet) our access to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, from which a major portion of our Afghan-based troop resupply flows.

Those “other important issues?”  Russia has replaced us in Egypt.  Russian is propping up a failed Venezuelan government that is antagonistic to us.  Russian is back to sending naval units, including electronic surveillance assets, to Cuba.  And now they’ve invaded Ukraine, with a view of anschluss and partition.  And so on.

Since Russia isn’t helping us anyway, what “help” will we lose if we support, materially, the nascent Ukrainian government?

Aside from the morality of the situation (the strong should protect the weak), and the improvement to our credibility, it’s in our national interest to actively support the new Ukrainian government, to facilitate their—and the bulk of their people’s—move to closer ties with Western Europe and the West generally.

It’s in our interest to do this regardless of what the Russians might think of us as a result.  Or even because of that.

Are We Retreating from Engagement?

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William Kristol in The Weekly Standard:

Kiev is ablaze.  Syria is a killing field.  The Iranian mullahs aren’t giving up their nuclear weapons capability, and other regimes in the Middle East are preparing to acquire their own.  Al Qaeda is making gains and is probably stronger than ever.  China and Russia throw their weight around, while our allies shudder and squabble.
…
Having withdrawn from Iraq, and seeing it now fall apart, the administration is nonetheless determined to get out of Afghanistan.  Its Russia “reset” is a joke, and its “pivot to Asia” an empty slogan.  Secretary of State John Kerry huffed and puffed when Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons last year, and asserted it was a Munich moment.  How right he was! Kerry came back brandishing a piece of paper, and Assad remains in power.

Indeed.  But it’s OK, because—look! Shiny!

Kerry now says that global climate change may be the weapon of mass destruction we should most fear.

It’s going to be a hard two years.  And it’s going to be harder, for many more than just two, repairing the damage.

Susan Rice…Has No Regrets

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Susan Rice, currently President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor, said this on Sunday to NBC Meet the Press‘ David Gregory:

[W]hat I said to you that morning, and what I did every day since, was to share the best information that we had at the time.  The information I provided, which I explained to you, was what we had at the moment.  It could change.  I commented that this was based on what we knew on that morning ….

Compare that with this transcript of a conference call in which a State Department official described real-time reporting of the events in Benghazi by folks present in and during the attack.

State knew the truth in real-time, as that transcript demonstrates.  And Susan Rice, then State’s Ambassador to the UN, surely knew, also, at least by the time she went on those Sunday talk shows a week after the attack and murders.  She knew at the least because she was, and is, a highly intelligent, dedicated woman who would have moved to corroborate the talking points she was given and not simply have parroted them.  She knew because, of course, State would have passed along the above transcript for her review before sending her out on the talk tour.