For some smart commentary on what’s going down in the Ukraine and how (not) to cover it, I point you to former Duck Dan Nexon on his personal blog (*and also cross-posted below). Dan knows a thing or two about the region having served in the Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia regional office in the Office of the Secretary Defense as a CFR International Affairs Fellow in 2009-2010.
Here, Dan bemoaned the coverage in the WaPo of the Ukraine crisis by one Scott Wilson. Wilson lambasted the Obama administration’s strategy in the Ukraine writing that:
The signal Obama has sent — popular among his domestic political base, unsettling at times to U.S. allies — has been one of deep reluctance to use the heavily burdened American military, even when doing so would meet the criteria he has laid out. He did so most notably in the aftermath of the U.S.-led intervention in Libya nearly three years ago.
Dan’s post and related ones are worth a read. Dan’s problem with the logic of the piece is, unsurprisingly, smart, and, yes, I’m going to sound like a fanboy:
There’s no obvious counterfactual set of Obama policies that would better position the United States to handle Russia’s gambit in Ukraine.
Moreover, it’s not as if demonstrations of more resolve earlier (pace Daryl Press) would have necessarily changed the current outcome. Dan writes:
Indeed, this lack of any correlation between American ‘resolve’ and Russian aggression is, in fact, pretty consistent with the evidence from international-relations scholarship. That evidence suggests that a government’s display of resolve in one setting has, at best, a rather attenuated relationship with later estimates of its willingness to use force.
Finally, the other bit that I thought especially salient was his takedown that Obama has been insufficiently attuned to realpolitik:
At the same time, it isn’t clear that adopting a more “realist” posture points in the direction Wilson thinks it does. After all, the baseline realpolitik approach would be to let Russia have its sphere of influence in Ukraine and the North Caucuses. Wilson, on the other hand, seems to think the test here is whether the Obama Administration is insufficiently aggressive when it comes to liberal-democratic enlargement and a commitment to aggressive hegemonism.
I’ll try to weigh in with some thinking of my own on this. Coverage on Twitter suggests limited options, that nobody is prepared to go to war with Russia over the Ukraine. Travel bans on Russian officials and a decision en masse to not attend the G-8 meeting in Sochi are probably symbolic and won’t alter Russia’s decision calculus.
I also wonder aloud if partition and secession of Crimea might not be a bad thing. Crimea only became part of the Ukraine in 1954. Given that a majority of people in Crimea are ethnic Russians and would prefer to be part of Russia, would this be enough to satisfy Russian concerns about ethnic Russians in the Ukraine?
Given the large populations of ethnic Russians in other parts of eastern Ukraine, possibly not, but this is a situation where the West has limited options. If the future of the Ukraine is possibly Russian domination or something worse a la Syria (though Georgia’s semi-cleaving might be more likely), both Ukranianians and the international community might want to think about how this ends as well as possibly for them. Much of the Ukraine staying in the Western fold would still be an improvement, right?
The language/politics issue is very complex. Ethnic Russians may be Ukrainian citizens loyal to their country. Except for very concentrated Russian enclaves, probably most people speak some of both Ukrainian or Russian, although they may not be willing to admit to one or the other. And while a map at this scale makes partition look reasonable, when you get to smaller scales, it’s more difficult.
Also, “the Ukraine” is the Russian preference. I suspect that’s not what you intended.
Cheryl,
Thanks much for your comment. I take your point about the challenges of partition at the local level, especially since these are not ethnically homogenous areas. I guess the issue is what other end game is there, given Russia’s intense interest and military power.
So I’d read that somewhere along the way that “the Ukraine” had given way to “Ukraine.” Was it Russia’s preference to call it “the Ukraine” to connote a region rather than a country?
The Ukraine means outskirts/countryside thus Russians who do not necessarily see Ukraine as a forein country use that in condesending way. There is a Russian saying, used for Bulgaria during Cold War but now adopted for UKR. Chicken is not a bird, Ukraine is not abroad. Tells a lot about Russian mentality.
Yes, when Ukraine became an independent country rather than a Soviet republic in 1991, it dropped the definite article. I’m not sure of the whole story, but Skeptical’s observation is part of it.
In Slavic languages, a different preposition is used to connote an area vs a country (and don’t get me started on islands, which are all kinds of wacky). Prior to independence in 1991, you would have said “na ukraine”; post independence, “v ukraine”. Slavic languages don’t have articles (definite or indefinitely), but that’s how the distinction is carried into English. It is not a minor distinction, at least for those in that part of the world. It carries a lot of meaning.
Calling it “the” Ukraine is not a funny joke. “The” means a region. Ukraine is a country.
There’s something to be said about not speculating in public that secession would be best for a country. Especially on a blog that purports to be social scientific. See discussions this morning on other blogs about ethics of commenting on politics.
Not intended to be a joke. I think raising the question about secession is a fairly important question, both from a normative and social scientific perspective. We see that instances of secession haven’t resolved tensions in other places, South Sudan, Eritrea, and that partition in the former Yugoslavia resulted in depredations among minority populations and led to more ethnically homogenous countries. If you have observations along those lines that suggest partition would lead to worse consequences than trying to keep the country together, make them. Trying to shut down the conversation by saying you can’t talk about it is not helpful.
The problem with raising the secessionist question in this way in this forum, with the set of supporting evidence you put alongside it, is that you are inherently picking up on a Russian-sympathetic reading of the situation. That reading is that there is a grievance among the Russian-speaking population and that they are secessionist and/or want to join Russia. This is not agreed upon (see for example links below). Alongside what I would characterize as a poor choice of strikethrough text, the post comes off as flippant and pro-Russian. I find this problematic in a forum that is, I thought, intended to reflect objectively on the situation (or in which the author is otherwise obligated to state her/his biases). Thus, because, in its framing and writing style, the post leans toward one side, I worry about its usefulness in promoting the mission of the blog and social science engagement more generally. (I also guess that none of this was your intention.)
I would strongly prefer to see the secessionist question discussed in context – picking up on longstanding minority issues in the region (Tatar), a context that problematizes the narrative and that does not take the claim at face value. I am not uncomfortable with raising the question per se. I am uncomfortable with the flippancy of turning the situation into a game of Risk, to engage in hyperbole. I mean this last comment not as a strike against you, but rather as a critique of the more general style of IR engagement with an issue in which I feel emotionally invested (to reveal my biases).
https://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/01/ukraine-haze-propaganda/
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/opinion/crimea-the-tinderbox.html?hp&rref=opinion&_r=0
I had initially written the Ukraine, and a reader reminded me that this itself buys into a Russian framing of the country’s name. So I changed it accordingly but left the original in strikethrough so that someone could read the comments stream and follow the discussion. I agree that Charles King does a good job putting the issue in a wider historical context and the longstanding claims of the Tatars as well. I thought the issue of secession was worth putting out there precisely to generate a discussion. Maybe I’m unwittingly buying into a Russian framing of the name and the problem itself, but I think if the objective is to think through measures that would avoid a civil war in Ukraine, defacto or dejure secession/partition might be part of the mix of options that ought to be under consideration.
Forgive me, Rachel, but I thought the purpose of a blog was to provide commentary on events, not to arbitrarily decide whether something was pro- or anti-Russian and take positions accordingly.
I don’t quite understand the argument about Ukraine giving up the Crimea just because it obtained it only 60 years ago. Should we look at the political map of the world and see which other countries only obtained their territory since 1954? Do we seriously expect Israel to give up the Golan Heights? Is China going to give up Aksai Chin? Better yet, is Russia going to give up its claims to Abkhazia and South Ossetia? Sure, Ukraine obtained the Crimea under unorthodox conditions and Russia did a “good” job of ethnically cleansing the place beforehand, but does that somehow minimize the strategic and tangible value of that territory? Do the territorial explanations for war tell us that territorial disputes are likely to escalate, except if the territory was obtained within the last 60 years?
Thanks for your comment. I think your points are well taken. I guess the question is how does this end without all of Ukraine coming under the Russian umbrella? Or, is there a plausible end like OSCE consultation/negotiation that results in Ukraine whole but with a continuation of its federal structure but also greater protections for ethnic Russians and other minorities? Partition may be undesirable for lots of reasons, but like you, I agree it is a question worth exploring even if it is rejected (either normatively by those of us from afar or on the ground by the actors themselves).
I’m not aware of any law the new government wants to pass that would undermine the rights of Russians, unless everyone has the right to have their language as an official state language (I should note that the Crimean Tatars are worried much more about discrimination or worse from Russians than from Ukrainians). It’s not like Russian-speakers were oppressed under Yushchenko. The whole basis for the Russian intervention is that “Nazis” took power in Kiev and then killed Russian soldiers in the Crimea, the latter of which was later revealed as a complete fabrication.
I think this issue is being thought about in the wrong way: Putin didn’t start this intervention because of any legitimate grievance; he did so because he sensed an opportunity and took it. Any compromise will be a function of the carrots and sticks used against Russia, and not a function of resolving any kind of an underlying issue. If Ukrainians aren’t willing to fight for the Crimea and Western powers aren’t willing to do anything substantial to punish Russia, then letting the Crimea have “independence” might end up as a “compromise”, but only because we’d up with the Melian scenario of the strong doing what they can and the weak accepting what they must. Hopefully the world learned something from the Georgian conflict in 2008 though and we don’t set ourselves up for a Russian invasion of Azerbaijan or even the Baltics a few years down the line.
My point wasn’t to flag legitimate grievances or not but merely to flag the steps that one would have to take convince the Russians that Russian-speakers in the east would not be marginalized in a new Ukraine (even if those fears are unfounded, some efforts to announce that Russian-speakers’ interests would be looked after might need to be a face-saving compromise if Putin thought that escalation was undesirable). The Tatar issue might have to be addressed more substantively though if Russia ends up with de facto control over Crimea.
To the extent there are legitimate grievances, and it sounds like you know about this already, but if you look up language law Ukraine, you get Russian complaints from Russian media. Former US ambassadors to the Ukraine flagged that item in their op-ed today in the Post urging restraint on Ukraine’s leaders to deny Russia pretext for reprisals and military intervention. They praised the Ukraine government for action by: “Interim President Oleksandr Turchynov’s veto of legislation that would have demoted the Russian language is one concrete action to highlight.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ukraine-must-exercise-restraint-in-the-face-of-russian-aggression/2014/03/02/ba72c218-a252-11e3-a5fa-55f0c77bf39c_story.html
The Russian-speakers are upset that a pro-Russian government was overthrown. I’m not aware of them being upset at any actual policy or action of the new government (other than it existing). I realize that Putin is claiming that the Russians are being mistreated, but can someone actually direct me to the specific ways in which their rights are being violated? I’m sure the Ukrainian government would be happy to consider a change to these policies if anyone actually figures out what they are. It seems to me that the only “correction” the pro-Russian group will accept is the overthrow of the new government and its replacement by a Russian puppet.
Besides, Russia’s current intervention is in the Crimea, which has a Russian majority, significant autonomy, and where the rights of non-Russians are the ones that get infringed.
The former ambassador makes some wise recommendations, but I don’t really understand the part about bringing in the Party of Regions into the government. Last I checked, the parliament wasn’t dissolved. That means a majority of seats are still controlled by pro-Russian political parties (whether they remain pro-Russian after the current Russian actions is a separate issue). What’s stopping those parties from legitimately representing the interests of the Russian-speakers today? I’m also curious what the recommendation will be if the Russian troops are still in the Crimea on March 30 and the people vote for independence in their referendum (which they probably will).