Open Letter to President Obama
Open Letter to President Obama: Secure Ukraine, Isolate Russia, and Strengthen NATO
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Fifty former U.S. government officials and foreign policy experts have signed a bipartisan letter to President Barack Obama, urging a decisive response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. The group recommends responsible steps “to strengthen Ukraine’s sovereignty and democratic transition, to impose real costs on the government of President Vladimir Putin, and to enhance the deterrence posture of NATO.”
The full text of the letter follows. The letter was organized by the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI), a non-profit and non-partisan 501(c)3 organization that promotes U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military engagement in the world.
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March 21, 2014
The Honorable Barack Obama
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President:
As Russia moves ahead with its illegal annexation of Crimea, we share your determination to “isolate Russia for its actions and to reassure our allies and partners.” America’s next steps should be designed to strengthen Ukraine’s sovereignty and democratic transition, to impose real costs on the government of President Vladimir Putin, and to enhance the deterrence posture of NATO.
Russia’s invasion of Crimea threatens the democracy that the Ukrainian people have sacrificed so much to achieve. A critical test of Ukraine’s newfound freedom will be its presidential elections on May 25, which Russia may seek to disrupt. As you have noted, Russia must recognize “the rights of all Ukrainians to determine their future as free individuals, and as a sovereign nation.” In order to help Ukraine secure its democratic transition, the United States should:
- Provide Ukraine’s transitional government with technical expertise, international monitors, and other assistance for the May presidential election. The United States should also enhance support for the civil institutions that are necessary to consolidate Ukraine’s democratic gains.
- Approve loan guarantees to help stabilize the Ukrainian economy, while working with the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and other partners to provide long-term support for economic reforms in Ukraine.
- Conduct an assessment of Ukraine’s self-defense needs and expand the scope and scale of U.S. military assistance available to the government of Ukraine, including intelligence sharing, training, and other support for Ukrainian forces, in coordination with NATO and the European Union.
Washington and its international partners should also impose real costs on Vladimir Putin and his key supporters. In this effort, we must distinguish between the corrupt regime surrounding Putin, and the Russian people who are the victims of his misrule. In this regard, it is essential to fully utilize the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 and other legal authorities to sanction gross human rights violators in Russia. The United States should:
- Increase the number of Russian officials who are subject to sanctions, including President Putin and those closest to him, both for their role in the invasion of Ukraine and the gross violations of human rights described under the Magnitsky Act.
- Expand the scope of sanctions in order to isolate Russian financial institutions and businesses that are either complicit in Russia’s invasion in Ukraine or support the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The designation of Bank Rossiya is an important first step in this effort.
- Expose the extent of political and economic corruption among the senior leadership of the Russian Federation, including an unclassified report on the assets of President Putin and other senior Russian officials.
- Suspend all civil nuclear cooperation pursuant to the “123” Agreement that was entered into force between the United States and the Russian Federation in December 2010.
Russia’s intervention in Ukraine poses a threat to all its neighbors, including our NATO allies among the Baltic States and Poland. We believe that the United States and its NATO partners must reexamine commitments under the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act to refrain from deploying additional forces into former Warsaw Pact countries, as Russia’s recent actions demonstrate that the “current and foreseeable security environment” described in the Act has changed. In this regard, the United States should:
- Conduct an assessment on how to strengthen NATO’s deterrence posture vis-à-vis Russia, including the deployment of additional ground forces, missile defenses, or other assets to former Warsaw Pact members of NATO. Your deployment of U.S. fighter aircraft to Poland and the Baltic States is an important first step in this regard.
- Press America’s NATO allies to agree to a Membership Action Plan for Georgia at the NATO Summit scheduled for September 2014, while expanding U.S. military rotations to Georgia. The United States should also support Ukraine, Sweden, Finland, and other European security partners, if they seek NATO membership.
- Work to reduce European dependence on Russian natural gas, including by expanding liquefied natural gas exports from the United States, as well as supporting new pipelines into the Continent and other proposals to diversify Europe’s energy supplies, such as developing indigenous natural gas reserves.
We believe that these responsible steps will be essential to secure Ukraine’s future, to deter the Putin government from further acts of aggression, and to strengthen the NATO alliance and other security partnerships. We thank you for your consideration, and look forward to supporting you in taking these measures.
Sincerely,
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Dr. Michael Auslin |
Craig Kennedy |
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Dan Blumenthal |
James Kirchick |
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Ambassador John R. Bolton |
David Kramer |
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Max Boot |
William Kristol |
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Ambassador L. Paul Bremer |
Dr. Robert J. Lieber |
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Senator Norm Coleman |
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman |
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Ambassador William Courtney |
Tod Lindberg |
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Seth Cropsey |
Mary Beth Long |
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Jack David |
Dr. Thomas G. Mahnken |
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Dr. Larry Diamond |
Robert C. McFarlane |
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Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky |
Thomas C. Moore |
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Thomas Donnelly |
Dr. Joshua Muravchik |
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Dr. Colin Dueck |
Governor Tim Pawlenty |
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Dr. Nicholas N. Eberstadt |
Dr. Martin Peretz |
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Ambassador Eric S. Edelman |
Danielle Pletka |
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Douglas J. Feith |
Arch Puddington |
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Dr. Jeffrey Gedmin |
Randy Scheunemann |
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Reuel Marc Gerecht |
Dr. Gary J. Schmitt |
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Christopher J. Griffin |
Dan Senor |
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General Michael Hayden |
Vance Serchuk |
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Dr. William C. Inboden |
Dr. Daniel Twining |
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Ash Jain |
Ambassador Kurt Volker |
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Dr. Kenneth D. M. Jensen |
Dr. Kenneth R. Weinstein |
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Ambassador Robert G. Joseph |
Leon Wieseltier |
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Dr. Frederick W. Kagan |
Robert Zarate |
The Neocons Discover (Re-Discover) Nato, eh?
From the NYT June 29, 1997 (Jeff Gerth and Tim Weiner):
Don’t listen to the barking dogs of American and Western punditry. Follow the money and follow the ideology and follow the power. Power, money, ideology.
Hello, Foreign Policy Institute?
The Cold War called, and they want their strategy back.
In order for the policy detailed here, all of the undersigned must station themselves in Kiev or other appropriate Ukraine community to ensure proper compliance with the stated goals. Unless they are personally present, there is no expected chance of success.
Watching the discussions on Ukraine here (SWC) and elsewhere it appears it is being driven in the US by local party political / ideological positions. This is regrettable but probably what Putin anticipated.
Those responding to the invasion of Crimea and its annexation by Russia would be forgiven for thinking was a pretty serious matter.
What to do about it?
From far away it appears that the ‘left wing’ of US politics – democrats and liberals – are happy to let Crimea go and the message to Russia is – take one small bite at a time with suitable periods in between – and we will let you do what you want as we don’t care / don’t have the stomach for a confrontation over this.
While the ‘right wing’ the Republicans are saying – we told you so (which they did, McCian, Palin, Romney) – and the leftists (Democrats and liberals) screwed it up now the US and the EU have a crisis to deal with.
It is intellectuallly immature to start pointing fingers those who are putting their hands up to provide a solution to a problem of the Obama administaration’s making.
The Ukrainians (and others) are still to learn the sad truth that ‘with a friend / ally like the US who needs enemies’.
In the meantime someone has to fix the mess created by the Obama administration… and it is not going to be the Obama / Biden circus.
While I do not necessarily disagree with the respected authors opinion, I take particular offense to this sentence. “In this effort, we must distinguish between the corrupt regime surrounding Putin, and the Russian people who are the victims of his misrule.” This is exactly the kind of misguided belief that got us into trouble in Iraq ans Afghanistan, the belief that everyone wants to be like us.
Russians are an ethnic groups who are going through a revival of communal values and a nostalgia for their superpower past. To imagine that they are somehow repressed by Putin, that Putin is not, instead, exactly who they want in charge, is to misread the situation.
What we currently have with Russia and the Crimea goes further back than just the Empire and we have I would say since about the late 1980s not talked about something we in international relations use to call “nationalism”.
Whole books were written on the subject and hundreds of university/college classes were held on the topic from the 50s through to the early 80s.
“Nationalism” is a strange word and it is not often heard in our intellectual exchanges since the Wall came down–wonder why?
In order to understand currently Putin and his motives one must understand the depth of the belief in the current propaganda/disinformation that is originating from the Russian State/Russian oligarch owned mass media that is flooding over the Russian population 24/7.
Nationalism is an easy thing to turn on but extremely difficult to turn off.
Wikipedia: Russian nationalism is the nationalism that asserts that Russians are a nation and promotes the cultural unity of Russians. Russian nationalism has its roots in the 18th century. It was closely related to Pan-Slavism. There are a number of individuals and organizations in Russia today, consisting of both moderate and radical nationalists.
If one read the exchanges between NATO’s Rasmussen and the Russian Ambassador in the OCSE Friday —the Russian myth and it is a myth of NATO expansion was shot down because in the OCSE documents Russia signed in 1999 it contains a single sentence “allowing” all members of the OCSE to select the block or organization freely they wanted to join ie NATO/EU and yes even rejoin Russia.
So the constant bitching about NATO is just a smoke screen for something else—namely nationalism. By the way Russia, Ukraine, K’stan and Belarus all signed the 1999 OCSE agreements which the Ambassador was reminded of and he agreed that Russia has signed the agreement.
So is “wag the dog” a valid explanation of the Crimea and any future tactics that Putin uses in the reestablishing the old Soviet Union?
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article…n-ukraine.html
This article—excerpts below— is extremely interesting to read as it goes to the heart of Russian “nationalism”.
Consider this widely shared Facebook post by a Moscow yuppie named Artem Nekrasov: “If Putin manages to annex Crimea and the southeast of Ukraine peacefully I personally forgive him everything: wild corruption, the lawlessness of officials, lack of any prospects in the economy, disorder in education and journalism and even the common stupefaction of the people….” The post is popular because, as polls show, it reflects the common mood in Russia. Putin’s approval rating is 75 percent since he announced the annexation of Crimea.
Roman Kokorev, a senior researcher in the International Law Department of the Russian Federation government, goes still further. “The next step is Moldova and all Ukraine!!!” he writes on Facebook. He wants all the old territories of the Soviet Union back; he wants Russian military power, once again, to reign supreme. He wants the Baltics and Finland and Poland and “Alaska will be returned,” he writes, “because all these lands are Russian.” (Sarah Palin, watch out.)
As journalist and political scientist Alexander Morozov writes in his widely-read essay “Conservative Revolution: Making Sense of Crimea,” Putin’s logic is no longer tied to those rational considerations of cooperation and economic interdependence on which the West puts so much faith. His is now a “revolutionary” mindset in which he and his followers are ready to sacrifice Western capital, risk having their assets frozen, and rely on “political myth”—a focus on heroism, sacrifice and martyrdom—to generate public support. There is no rational response to this. Those infected by the myth cannot imagine any other possibility for the future but success: “Crimea is ours!”
As always, an interesting letter followed by more interesting comments. The evident care with which this letter is worded, together with back-and-forth in the comments, indicate the anxiety clearly felt that miscalculation could have dire consequences. No one wants a war with Russia. As with any complicated situation like this one, “all of the above” is a great starting point for understanding what is driving Russia’s aggression. My personal preference is that there are three prime motivators.
First, President Putin feels he must take the focus off of the problems in his house and focus the ‘fervor’ elsewhere. In this respect, I felt, as a college student in early 1980, that one reason why the U.S.S.R. had invaded Afghanistan was to send a message to the large Muslim minority not to take their cue from radical shi’ite and sunni Muslims creating havoc in Teheran, Islamabad and Mecca. The Putinistas are not only distracting the captive populace from the sorry state of Russia under their man’s leadership but also letting the pro-euro activists know that they will be crushed if they step out of line (by saying in effect, “Hey, if I am willing to take this public flak over Ukraine for its uppitiness, imagine what I will do to you away from international accountability…”).
Second, the regime is pursuing this aggression because it wants to. The Russian mob may be mobsters and the oligarchs may be pillagers but I doubt that the Putineer is alone in “going bed dreaming of Peter the Great and waking up thinking like Stalin…”
Third, Russia believes it can get away with it. That is obvious; people know why I think this unhappy state of affairs has unfolded. Yet this ‘why’ is open to the lively debate already taking place on web-sites like this one, over dinner tables and in hallowed halls.
Here’s the catch: all of the proposed costs — whether on elites or on an innocent population — are too far in the future. The ‘now’ doesn’t give a damn about six months from now. Even this letter from these muckety-mucks, with its reference to ramping up support for Georgia in September 2014, is (in view of a day-by-day time horizon) irrelevant to the ‘now’.
If the U.S. and the West are serious about preventing further land-grabs and a re-play of 1938, the United States will have to do something now (together with Germany and Britain), lest a possible perception of dithering be interpreted as a window of opportunity to take parts of Georgia and Moldova while the “gettin’ is good”.
Yet that concern of timing then begs the fear expressed that regions of 0.5 to 2.5 million people could drag the world into war as great powers are snared in a web of alliances too brittle for everybody’s good. One President, like him or no, who really understood this double-edged sword of Damocles — with one side of the blade being appeasement and the other miscalculation — was President Kennedy. That is to say, there is a middle course:
> at the invitation of Ukraine, enforce an imperfect aerial blockade over Eastern Ukraine outside of the Crimea, particularly Odessa and other key cities;
> bring the carrier fleet engineering that overflight into the Black Sea, with Turkey’s consent, to maintain a ‘patrol zone’ of fifty miles off of Sevastopol; as well as,
> sponsor special forces exercises immediately in Kiev and elsewhere in Western Ukraine (for any type of practice; does not matter).
The no-fly-zone and naval quarantine will not be comprehensive; we need, rather, to focus on presence rather than perfection. It does revert to one Cold War idea: the trip wire. Now these ideas of mine may need major re-doing to enable what is possible and plausible. One gets the general idea. It re-sets the context of pushing back on Russia without firing a shot. With that breathing room established for all parties, the international community can act to resolve outstanding issues in the Crimea, Transniestra and South Ossetia.
There are legitimate historical questions underlying the claims over these disputed areas. A referendum would make sense in each case, if there were a compelling sentiment in the region in a less contentious time, expressing its desire through a petition to some international body to be validated, followed by a referendum monitored for authenticity.
The situation in Crimea reminds me an awful lot of the Falklands hassle of 1982. I was out of college an interning for a non-standing Senate policy committee. One morning, the gracious foreign policy expert gave me a pile of C.R.S. reports and others texts. She asked me to come up with an idea of why the Chairman should support Great Britain — by lunch.
Going in, I was all in favor of Great Britain. Over the next two hours, as I read through material, I came to be sympathetic with the historical claim of the Argentines. Yet, it was obvious that the invasion was occurring because of the impending collapse the repudiated regime of a militaristic dictator (hmmm…familiar?) in Buenos Aires trying to buy time, through reclaiming ‘the Malvinas’, perhaps to ‘disappear’ the opposition leaders. Who knows?
We do not know because Great Britain was willing to risk an all-out war with Argentina to maintain her hold on those islands. The Malvinas indeed should revert to Argentina. Some day they will, but in a manner consistent with cross-border comity within a community of nations willing to abide by an international rule of law. I submit to you that the disparity of power between the U.K. and Argentina in 1982 may be analogous to that of the U.S. over Russia today.
P.S. I have heard or read that roughly 41% of Crimeans favoured secession a year or two ago (i.e., a less contentious time) — about the level of Quebecois who have historically wanted to secede from Canada; not an overwhelming mandate. Gee, what would happen if France grabbed Quebec? How long would that last? As long as the Falklands were officially re-christened as the Malvinas. Why is this situation in Ukraine significantly different? Four letters: F-E-A-R.
Seems like Americans want to give back Alaska to Russia—-wonder if the neocons have a strategy for that?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/25/alaska-petition-secede-russia-going-strong-18k-sig/
Wonder what the neocons would say to this article from FP today.
The Russian Divisions are still sitting there fully manned, fully armed and with sufficient supplies for a true run to Moldavia all the while Russia states they are on an exercise and are no threat.
BUT the exercise has been ongoing for two weeks which is a tad long to be in theory running a CPX which was the PR they released.
Until now they have not indicated that the CPX is over and the troops headed back to their barracks.
During the Cold War days we always anticipated an invasion coming out of a large scale field exercise just as this one is.
Putin also claimed one week before troops entered Crimea he had no interest in the Crimea so do the neocons really trust what is coming out of the Kremlin?
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/03/25/russia_s_window_of_opportunity_in_ukraine
Two, shall we say, generalizations re: the Russian people (and, indeed, people everywhere):
a. From the authors of this open letter:
“In this effort, we must distinguish between the corrupt regime surrounding Putin, and the Russian people who are the victims of his misrule.”
This statement embraces, it would seem, the idea of “universal values” and suggests (as our Curmudgeon points out) that “everybody wants to be like us.”
b. From our Curmudgeon:
“Russians are an ethnic groups who are going through a revival of communal values and a nostalgia for their superpower past. To imagine that they are somehow repressed by Putin, that Putin is not, instead, exactly who they want in charge, is to misread the situation.”
This statement suggests that the Russian people — much like many other people around the world — are not motivated by so-called “universal values” but, instead, wish to be more like themselves.
We might say that on 9/11 we received a message that supports the Curmudgeon’s position, to wit: that many people do not want to be like us and, instead, wish to be more like themselves.
One would think that ten years of inconclusive war would also tell us that many people have no desire to be like us.
In order to see that the Russian people want to be more like themselves, must Putin take even more aggressive and decisive action?
It was largely based on this erroneous idea of “universal values” that we recently undertook missions to liberate populations from their oppressive regimes and, thereafter, transform these populations along modern western lines.
It is my understanding — based on how these mission have turned out (bad: too expensive; counterproductive results)– that we have now abandoned this idea.
Herein, and in acknowledgement that we now understand that people, everywhere, wish to be more like themselves, we now have decided to work — not with the populations but, once again, with the oppressive regimes — to achieve our desired ends (states and societies transformed more along modern western lines.)
What further evidence must we have to understand that the idea of “universal values” (and the corresponding concept of working by, with and through the populations) is/are dead?
Having first watched President Obama’s speech yesterday, and now having read this open letter to the President. I have to admit I’m feeling rather sad that the WH didn’t seem to get the message.
What is the saying? “Si vis pacem, para bellum”.
Here’s a link to Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace For Our Time” speech (the actual footage is on youtube and etc.)
http://eudocs.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Neville_Chamberlain's_%22Peace_For_Our_Time%22_speech
It seemed clear to me, listening to the President’s speech, something I very very rarely do, that a) his speech writers certainly know their Carl Sandburg and Martin Luther King; b) his speech writers don’t know very much about European history. Poets and Civil Rights Leaders can certainly be Great men within the context of their own eras and struggles and subjects, but neither spring to mind when considering the practical business of crafting effective, successful National Policy.
Putin, on the other hand, has obviously read his Tolstoy.
“At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man’s power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.”
LEO TOLSTOY, War and Peace
Say what one will of Putin, he’s been running rings around this Administration, and being a KGB Colonel at heart, must be enjoying himself immensely whilst doing so.
A. Scott Crawford
– Michael McFaul, Washington Post, 2004
Given the fact that so many retired Special Forces types have fallen for the Gene Sharp/USIP line, I’m not surprised that the crowd here missed the potentially negative second, third, and so-on, order effects of dumping millions of dollars into a foreign system and essentially attempting to mediate outcomes.
Thinking three or four steps down the line is not a strong suit with certain military intellectuals. Col. Petit was right in the article printed around here sometime ago–some people need to read more widely, including digging through policy papers of the intellectual class that is a permanent feature of Washington. I know we have civilian control of the military but you are still supposed to be educated beyond what you think you already know.
Outlaw is correct, the neoconservatives never did understand strategy. They hated Reagan for this very reason–look at their criticisms of him. This letter reads no differently. I wrote the following at War on the Rocks:
No matter what you think Russia is today, from a misunderstood failing power, to a revanchist imperially minded nation, the drawing of unclear lines is strategically stupid. Especially between two nuclear powers.
This is the problem with the democracy promotion/spending millions to buy elections Gene Sharpified State Department line, Special Forces Gene Sharp alcolytes.
Don’t fall in love yourselves as Masters of Chaos. Ain’t no one a master of chaos. The second you think that, chaos already won.
I may not have the military background of people here but my time in Boston and Palo Alto–however brief–taught me a lot about the intellectual feeder class of Ivy league intellectuals. Them, you don’t know so well.
I know them because once upon a time I wanted to be one.
This letter is very much in line with the criticism of Reagan by the neoconservatives:
– Gene Healy, CATO Institute “Reagan Was No Neocon”
I encourage younger folk lurking–aw, I know you’re around, students!– to go back to newspaper articles and primary resources of the time and read some of the criticisms by the same class of intellectuals. Don’t they seem remarkably similar to this one?
Venting and emotion is not strategy.
Many in the military–despite the need to be outside politics–view themselves as conservatives. And yet, on many milblogs, few seem interested in tracing intellectual histories and disagreements and how arguments developed. Curious.
The authors of this letter seem to want to go down the same road again.
In the last decade or so, we have tried their approach of:
a. Calling the regimes “bad” (because they don’t want to be like us and don’t want to work with us) and the populations “good” (because we believe they did want to be like us and did want to work with us).
b. Thereafter, the US working to undermine, overthrow and/or replace such uncooperative regimes.
Once these “oppressive” regimes were overthrown, however, what we hoped to achieve (states and societies effectively organized and oriented more along modern western ways) has not materialized.
Rather, what we got was Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates (“You never know what you’re gonna get!”). To wit: states and societies which might (1) descend into chaos and/or (2) adopt ways of life and ways of governance that were even more detrimental to US interests. (Would we want either of these things to happen with nuclear Russia?)
So: Badmouthing, undermining and overthrowing the regime came to be seen as a huge mistake.
Lesson learned:
a. One’s instruments of power and persuasion can, indeed, be brought to bear against a single entity, such as a regime, and, via this approach and relationship, cause the outlying state and society — at some point — to come to work with us to accomplish our policy objective (the transformation of the state and society more along modern western lines).
b. On the other hand, one’s instruments of power and persuasion cannot — as cheaply, as easily and/or as reliably — cause the diverse populations to (1) drop all of their selfish wants, needs and desires and (2) organize the state and society per our requirements.
c. These facts causing us to understand that the population, (1) because of its more-conflicted and unreliable nature, (2) because it lacks inherent governing experience and legitimacy and (3) because it lacks an organized and effective military, police and intelligence force to enforce change, is not the way to go.
Bottom line: As with Russia and Putin — likewise with other “difficult” states and leaders today — we have determined that we must find a way to work, primarily, by, with and through the regimes (rather than with the populations) to achieve our desired ends. The regimes, here, to be seen, and for the reasons indicated above, as the more viable option.
Bill M recently wrote about Russian nationalism that Putin is riding—more to that topic is as follows:
This goes to the current nationalism that is driving in some aspects Putin who is riding it and the US who has not spoken about nationalism for a long long time in our political discourse.
“I was born in the Soviet Union,” wrote Udaltsov on his movement’s website, “and it will always be my homeland. Those who destroyed it and their supporters today will always be my political opponents. The rebirth of the Soviet Union in new forms is necessary, crucial and urgent.”
Komsomolskaya Pravda journalist Ulyana Skoibeda, whose claim to fame is the scandal last year when she regretted that the ancestors of today’s Jewish opposition activists hadn’t been killed by the Nazis, was ecstatic over the Crimean annexation.
“As I listened to Putin’s speech about Crimea, I hugged my child close and said, ‘Look, son. You will remember this for the rest of your life,'” Skoibeda wrote. “Entering a conflict with the whole world to defend your rights and interests — that is the U.S.S.R. And being willing to live in poverty — that is also the Soviet Union. So what if Russia has been kicked out of the Group of Eight? The Soviet Union always lived in isolation. My homeland is back.”
A large swath of the Russian population shares Skoibeda’s views. Almost everyone who supports using force against Ukraine sees it primarily as a path to resurrecting the Soviet Union. This may be explained by the fact that the majority of these people never lived in the U.S.S.R. and do not remember it. For them, it is just a mythical golden age of a great power that could provide stability to several generations of Russians.
… “The best way to deal with Russia’s aggression in Crimea is not to present it as routine and national interest-based foreign policy that will be countered by Washington in a contest between two great powers. It is to point out, as Obama did eloquently this week in Brussels, that Russia is grossly endangering a global order that has benefited the entire world.
Compare what the Obama administration has managed to organize in the wake of this latest Russian aggression to the Bush administration’s response to Putin’s actions in Georgia in 2008. That was a blatant invasion. Moscow sent in tanks and heavy artillery; hundreds were killed, nearly 200,000 displaced. Yet the response was essentially nothing. This time, it has been much more serious. Some of this difference is in the nature of the stakes, but it might also have to do with the fact that the Obama administration has taken pains to present Russia’s actions in a broader context and get other countries to see them as such.
You can see a similar pattern with Iran. The Bush administration largely pressured that country bilaterally. The Obama administration was able to get much more effective pressure because it presented Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to global norms of nonproliferation, persuaded the other major powers to support sanctions, enacted them through the United Nations and thus ensured that they were comprehensive and tight. This is what leadership looks like in the 21st century.” …
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fareed-zakaria-obama-pursues-the-right-response-to-russias-19th-century-behavior/2014/03/27/a7b8dc2a-b5df-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html
Retro 90’s history, young Americans:
April 29, 1998, Phyllis Schafly, Eagle Forum
http://www.eagleforum.org/column/1998/apr98/98-04-29.html
And before anyone says, yeah, but 9-11 changed things and the neocons and ought-cons got it, remember, the Atlanticists and some neocons are the biggest block-and-tacklers for the Saudi/Pakistan axis.
It’s one reason you didn’t get your Northern Distribution route earlier. It’s one reason that China jumped ahead so quickly while the Atlanticists were obsessed with Europe.
Plenty of European centric proposals for defense were, well, proposed. They were squashed by various constituencies, and the writers of this letter are among that group. They are partly to blame for the situation today. By pushing Iraq, by preventing Europeans from focusing on their own defense, by pushing NATO expansion and regime change, sorry, democracy promotion IN RUSSIA, the geniuses helped to get us to today.
None of this takes away from domestic Russian or other factors.
There is no end to the being made fools of, is there?
http://lithspringfield.com/business-professions/u-s-senator-richard-j-durbin/
While I have great admiration and sympathy for some of the communities in the US that lobbied for NATO expansion, it didn’t happen in an orderly way within any kind of strategic framework. It was an ad hoc, money making, pandering, sort of thing and its come back to bite the US in the a$$. And one wonders if the expat community prevented a better way of organizing defense for certain countries because they created false expectations. A shame.
And apparently no one got the British Ukranian business reference, did they? One set of oligarchs fighting another set, with innocent Ukranians in between. Anyone wishing to join the EU should read the fine print, especially toward everyday people. Remember, the bankers always get paid first. And the big three (UK, France, Germany) have no intention of making any hard sanction calls, none whatsoever. No American President can change this reality.
Fascinating. Digging through 90’s era op eds, newspaper articles, and congressional hearing transcripts, you find so many warnings about NATO expansion.
And it’s not an either/or thing. The WAY in which it was done and its context is very important:
http://www.fas.org/man/eprint/bene.htm
United States Marine Corps
Command and Staff College
Marine Corps University
2076 South Street
Marine Corps Combat Development Command
Quantico, Virginia 22134-5068
MASTER OF MILITARY STUDIES
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF MILITARY STUDIES
Author:
Captain Gyula Bene, Hungarian Army
AY: 1996-97
If NATO expansion had occurred in a different way, without the stripping of the Russian economy, without aggressive democracy promotion as regime change, without Iraq and Libya and a “global” NATO diluting its capabilities, and so on, what then?
Counterfactuals. Hard but always interesting.
I’m struggling to determine what, if anything, a helicopter driver can tell us about grand strategy. Beyond the tactical implementation of air strikes or vertical insertions or whatever else can be done with the platform, what would a pilot, by dint of his or her profession, know about the realm of force or suasion in the highest clouds of diplomacy, economics, intelligence or military applications?
Perhaps before one trots out the CV and pushes mere credentials as a form of rhetoric, one should pursue a line of reasoning, culling examples from history or other disciplines.
But I digress…
2008 statement from then Senator Hillary Clinton (2008 Presidential Candidate)
Very similar to 90’s era speech from Bill Clinton and his attempts to create a domestic constituency for NATO expansion and counteract critics who said he was too domestically focused. You can see echos in the Open Letter to President Obama in its attempts to leverage a kind of domestic American partisan space.
Research is hard for many of our finest foreign policy and military pundits, it seems. Julia Ioffe comes to mind but then it is The New Republic we are talking about:
This 1995 Strobe Talbott piece on NATO expansion is about as confused and contradictory as the Talbottian Brookings wallah South Asian stuff. I know the retrospectoscope is powerful, but what an intellectual and conceptual mess:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1995/aug/10/why-nato-should-grow/NATO has decided it should accept new members for three main reasons.
What I’ve noticed many in the military do is project a sort of perfect idea of NATO as a defensive alliance onto the messy project of democratization and 90’s era rooted nation-building project it has been. Add it to local politics within a background of global power politics and you have the disaster you see before you today.
And the nukes. No one ever wants to talk about how Russian nuclear doctrine or how the meddling by all sides takes us to a very dark place.
After Iraq, you’d think people could spot American Foreign Policy propaganda but I guess if it fulfills some emotional need to be at war with a forever enemy worthy of a certain type of American maleness or femaleness, then what the heck, eh?