Blaming NATO Expansion
I appreciate Tom Friedman’s effort to eschew simplistic Russia-bashing and try to put the Georgia crisis in some sort of larger context. I don’t, however, think that Friedman’s monomaniacal focus on the initial decision to expand NATO really makes a ton of sense. The first wave of Central European states — Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic — came on board back in 1997 and tons of additional stuff went down in the intervening years. What’s more, the NATO expansion process actually accomplished something useful in terms of helping to consolidate democratic norms (especially in the field of civil-military relations) in a swathe of countries that’s now pretty big and prosperous and somewhat important.
Contrast that with alienating Russia over, say, the Bush administration’s abrogation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and subsequent determination to plow ahead with a national missile defense system. That angered Russia and accomplished nothing. Similarly with the Bush administration slow-and-steady moves toward the militarization of space. Then we recognized Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence even though Russia specifically said that would lead to consequences for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then we helped Georgia upgrade its military at a time when Georgia’s political leadership wanted to re-assert control over those territories by force while simultaneously pushing for Georgian (and Ukrainian) membership in NATO.
That’s a whole lot of stuff and suggests to me that we could have given more consideration to Russian interests without conceding nearly as much as Friedman seems to think we should have. Suppose Russia agreed to recognize Kosovo independence and to allow a genuine independent peacekeeping force in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and in exchange we agreed to drop the missile shield, leave Ukraine and Georgia out of NATO, and sharply reduce military assistance to Georgia with the understanding that that assistance would be stepped up if Russia tried to coerce Georgia — who would that have left worse off? That deal would address Russia’s strategic concerns much better than a tenuous occupation of Gori does. It would have saved the United States money and allowed us to focus our bilateral relationship with Russia on Iran and terrorism issues. It would have saved Georgia from devastating Russian attack. It would have put Kosovo independence on a firm footing, and as best one can tell (which, admittedly, isn’t that far) it would have reflected the desires of the Ossetians and the Abkhaz. Georgian nationalist sentiment wouldn’t have liked it, of course, but look where nationalism has gotten the Georgians.
But the contours of that specific proposal aside, the point is simply that you can’t draw a straight line from the initial NATO enlargement decision to war in the summer of 2008. There were any number of points at which wiser leadership could have prevented the situation from deteriorating to the current point, and any number of bargains that could have been struck that would have better-served everyone’s interests.
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August 21st, 2008 at 8:52 am
Excellent post. Much better than Friedman or the cheerleading we read in the press.
August 21st, 2008 at 8:53 am
Real men don’t make concessions.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:04 am
we agreed to drop the missile shield
Never gonna happen so long as the GOP is in charge. This has risen to an article of faith with these guys, overriding any and all common sense.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:05 am
The vain love of his own simplistic cleverness, unfettered by data, argument and sense are the core of Friedman as a writer.
His unaccountability to anyone for his facts explains why he’s able to find so many fellow travellers amongst the cab driver and jet setting classes who put his words into their own mouths. His unaccountability to anyone for his writing explains the hideous abuses to which he’s put the English language in pursuit of metaphoric frames.
Ugh.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:09 am
This seems to be a reasonable post.
You can see why the Czech Republican could be included in NATO with geography and all. Poland, goven its history, a case could be made. And trade offs of peoples living within boundaries of province or countries drawn up after WWI is an issue for those people and grown ups to address. Of course these are not easy matters to address.
But it is funny how those with the easy answers to the complicated questions in the world (Bush, McCain, and the rest) are the ones that yell the loudest when their simplistic approach turns out to be dead wrong.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Friedman’s argument seems to be slightly different, although possibly sillier, than the argument that Yglesias is refuting here.
Friedman is not arguing that our enlarging of NATO is the reason that President Putin chose to invade Georgia this month. Rather he is arguing that our enlarging of NATO is the reason that there is a President Putin to choose to invade Georgia this week.
That is, he seems to be claiming that the enlarging of Russia is the reason that Russia chose to elect a former KGB agent to replace Yeltsin rather than someone who actually values democracy.
The plus of that version of the argument is that it explains why Friedman thinks he has the timing right. But the obvious negative is that it ignores the greater importance that Russian economic issues played in its move away from democracy. And that is rather silly.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:16 am
I don’t think the Russian’s big concern is that the Czechs, Poles, Slovaks and Hungarians are in NATO.
I think their concern is that former Sov Republics (including the Baltics) are now in NATO, and that now there is talk of including former Russian Empire/former Sov Republics like Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
(The Balts are a bit weird, but Ukraine in NATO is just beyond the pale to the Russians, since Ukraine had been tied to Russia for centuries. Ditto, though with a little less time, for Georgia, and the Central Asian ‘Stans).
August 21st, 2008 at 9:28 am
This is better than a lot of what Matt has written on Georgia but overlooks one, hugely important point - NATO has always operated an open door policy. Making the kind of ‘grand bargain’ that Matt proposes would necessarily concede the point that Moscow should have a veto on what countries can and cannot accede to NATO.
JRJV brings up the especially salient issue of Ukraine. Russia has had a deeply difficult time accepting Ukrianian independence, mainly due to psychological reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact that Ukraine is independent and should be allowed to pursue whatever foreign policy course it sees fit. The best analogy for the relationship I’ve seen used is that of the ‘jilted lover.’ Russia, the ex-boyfriend (or girlfriend, its Mother Russia after all) simply cannot accept that Ukraine doesn’t want to be with him (or her) any more. Does that mean that other potential suitors shouldn’t touch Ukraine, that special accomodations should be made to accomodate Moscow’s irrationality? Of course not. Eventually the jilted lover has to get over it.
And big up to Michael McLawhorn for one of the best descriptions of Friedman I’ve ever seen. Bravo sir. Bra-vo
August 21st, 2008 at 9:34 am
“…The first wave of Central European states — Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic — came on board back in 1997 …”
I think Russia had particularly little grounds for diplomatic indignation over the inclusion of these countries in NATO. It invaded them all - Czech R. in 1968, Hungary in 1956, and Poland in 1939. The same is true for the three Baltic states which were invited during Bush’s term, though 2 of those border Russia.
I think the final straw was the statement in Jane’s (4/16/2008) that at a NATO summit it had been decided that Georgia and Ukraine would certainly be in NATO eventually. This was while Russia still had leases on Ukrainian naval bases and had issued Russian passports to a large number of people in Abkhazia and S. Ossetia, assuring them that they would not fall under Georgian rule. They had made it clear for years that they condsidered it their right to act toward Georgia as NATO acted toward Serbia. When they believed that that option needed to be exercised promptly or not at all, they decided to act.
There should never have been a consideration that any nation with territorial issues like Georgia’s could be in NATO. Even if it were decided that it would be desireable to have Georgia in NATO, it should have been made clear that it would be impossible without satisfactory resolution of it’s current disputes.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:35 am
Western military aid to Georgia was not intended to help the Georgians deal better with the separatist movements in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Instead, it mostly took the forms of counterinsurgency training, to help Georgia fight Muslims in a border area near Chechnya.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:38 am
Lon’s got a point.
Free market economics was a disaster to corrupt post-Soviet Russia. Putin came in took control of the oil wealth and went after the oligarchs. That’s why Russians love him. But Friedman would never admit that sometimes, in some places, privitizing and moving to a free market economy is not the best choice and can sometimes be a nightmare for a citizenry. So Friedman ignores reality and tries to make the case Russians support Putin because of NATO expansion.
By the way, NATO is a military alliance, all this NATO expands democracy stuff is besides the point. NATO has served its purpose, now it’s time we got rid of it.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:38 am
Friedman is right. NATO is a military alliance, not a common market or a social club for democracies. We should never have used NATO to “cement” the commitment of Eastern European nations to democracy, liberalism or anything else.
The point isn’t just the “initial decision” back in the nineties to expand NATO, as though that were just some isolated event that is one small link in a long chain of other stuff. That initial decision amounted to the establishment of a deeply wrong-headed policy that has been in effect ever since. The policy could be called “Containment II”. What the NATO expansion policy communicated to the Russians is that as far as the West is concerned, the Cold War wasn’t actually over; it was just in a dormant period. Despite some conciliatory words toward Russia, our actions showed that our intent was to gobble up quickly as many former Soviet territories as possible from their side, and incorporate them into our side to prepare for the day that the Cold War went live again. In other words, the policy renewed and perpetuated the conceptualization of Europe and Eurasia as a contested battleground for two competing sides.
I believe the fundamental issues are buried under an excessive reliance on metaphors about “irritating” and “provoking” Russia. To indulge these metaphors over and over is to see the issues entirely through the lens of Russian nationalism and pride, as though Russia is just a dumb, brutish and irrational animal - the “Bear” - whose actions are motivated entirely by pique, spite or a bruised ego. But the real point, again, is that NATO is a heavily armed and powerful military alliance formed to counter the Soviet Union - the ancestor state of Russia. Any rational Russian security policy-maker would have to regard the encroachment of NATO closer to Russia, and right up to the Russia boarder, as extremely dangerous for the Russians it is his job to protect. That security policy-maker is likely, and quite rationally so, to respond by finding ways of resisting the encroachment, including through a show of military force and resolve.
One other matter that seems to get the goat of Russians, but is seemingly verboten in the US press, is the role of the support of the US and US allies in the nineties for the Russian oligarchs and their international criminal network. Marc Rich, a global-scale gangster and pertroleum market shake-down artist and outlaw, was seen by many as the godfather of these oligarchs. These guys were nothing less than crooks, thugs, major league mafiosi, who preyed upon and looted Russia and its assets. Rich was even a major target of our own FBI. And yet our President, Bill Clinton, pardoned the guy. If you are an ordinary Russian, what conclusion would you draw from such an action? With a stroke of the pen, a pardon like that undermines years of words, agreements and conciliatory talk. It tells people you are actually in cahoots with criminal gangs out to ransack your country, and that your aim is to turn your country from a place with a functioning central state into a degenerated and anarchic War of the Five Families straight out of the Godfather, and to help the crooks ship your looted wealth to their buddies around the world. If I were a Russian, I would conclude that the unstated aim of the United States is to impoverish me, and weaken and destroy my country, and to reduce my country to a crippled and immiserated wreck.
If some Berezovsky crony is poisoned by a Russian assassin, Americans might see that as a diabolical strike of the enemies of “freedom” against those seeking to “liberate” Russia. Russians probably see Putin as Elliot Ness, striking back hard against murderous, anti-Russian criminal gangs and their media mouthpieces.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
Matt seems to have developed a more nuanced view on what NATO is trying to accomplish through the membership process, which is nice.
That said, I agree that it would be problematic to let Russia simply veto NATO membership for otherwise qualified countries. Unless, of course, Russia would like to join NATO itself–then it would get such a veto.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:39 am
Pretty good points, but Kosovar independence is a larger issue than can be addressed by U.S.-Russia bilateral relations. There are many instances where the Bush administration’s complete lack of diplomatic capacity have degraded U.S.-Russian relations (what is the point of abrogating the ABM??), but Kosovo has been formally recognized by 46 countries now. Germany was the first to establish formal diplomatic relations with Kosovo.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:45 am
monomaniacal
I do not think that word means what you think it means. Monomania is a psychological state of paranoid obsession on a single subject. Ahab had a monomaniacal focus on the white whale. Dick Morris has a monomaniacal hatred of Hillary Clinton. Tom Friedman does not have a monomaniacal focus on the effects of NATO expansion, he simply overweighted its importance in an essay. Hanging all of an argument on a single point is a monocausal argument.
Sorry for the pedantry, but if you’re going to throw around five-dollar words, you should use them correctly.
August 21st, 2008 at 9:48 am
Daragh McDowell,
The thing is, what is NATO’s purpose?
Historically, it was to contain the Sovs (which was mainly the Russians).
How should the Russians feel if they now have NATO at its doorstep? (Ukraine and Georgia).
Yes, the Russians hate that they no longer control Ukraine, but that’s their problem. But the Russians have a very good reason to feel weary about having NATO on its doorstep, because they no longer have their cordon sanitaire in place (Poland/Czech Republic/Hungary/Rumania).
Granted, the Russians have Belorussia in the bag, but Ukraine is not, and that’s a huge corridor for invasion from the West from the Russian geopolitical perspective (Georgia is a side show in many ways).
August 21st, 2008 at 9:57 am
“That said, I agree that it would be problematic to let Russia simply veto NATO membership for otherwise qualified countries. Unless, of course, Russia would like to join NATO itself–then it would get such a veto.”
I don’t think there is a question about whether Russia should be allowed to veto admission to NATO. The point is recognizing when inviting a country to join NATO harms our relations with Russia such that the invitation is a net negative to our own interests. The Bush foreign policy has been conducted as if Russia had no capacity to harm or promote our interests.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:03 am
JRJV -
That’s a damn good question and to be clear, I agree with a lot of what you say.
However, we can say what NATO is not - its not an offensive alliance. Its not even a traditional defensive alliance. Its a security community that is as much about defending collectively shared values as it is about defending territory. One of those values is, no spheres of influence. NATO membership is voluntary and open to all. If a state can’t handle that, then tough.
But you ARE right that the Russian’s are extremely worried about NATO on the door step and we should take this into account. I’d still argue this is largely due to the paranoid and zero-sum world view that has tended to be the mark of the Kremlin leadership. There have been numerous offers by NATO to enhance co-operation with Russia, even towards full integration, to which Moscow has usually at best, responded in bad faith. A big question in post-Soviet studies for the past couple of years has been ‘how do we get Russia to act like a ‘normal’ nation-state?’ There are two answers to this. The first is that Russia will never be fully ‘normal’ because of its SC seat and nukes. The second is if we want it to be as ‘normal’ as it can be within those constraints, it has to be treated ‘normally’ i.e. not as though it has special prerogatives in other countries or in international affairs generally.
And one last, nit-picky point. I disagree Georgia is a sideshow - the current military leadership sees the Caucasus as Russia’s achilles heel, and is VERY concerned with the political orientation of non-Russian states in the region. That’s why so many of Russia’s finest troops were available so quickly to implement the invasion.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:05 am
Njorl -
I have to say I think that there isn’t much difference between an actual ‘veto’ and the kind of ’soft veto’ you describe. If Russia threatens to make life uncomfortable for the West, or new NATO member states because they’ve chosen to join the alliance, and the West backs down because of this, that is effectively the exercise of a tacit Russian veto.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Matt, I think the whole NATO membership stabilizing democracies is totally overblown and reflects a North-American view. EU membership was quite sufficient.
It is back to the counterfactuals again, but much of the hubris that we are seeing now started at the end of the cold war, not in 2001, and NATO expansion into Eastern Europe is part of that mindset. The Neocons just took it to pathological extremes. The whole programme was very aggressive, unnecessary and short-sighted.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:14 am
Daragh, you said
Really? No spheres of influence? Defensive? Then how do you explain NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia? Who in that dog fight was a NATO member to defend?
It’s a military alliance against the Soviets. Its purpose has been served, time for it to go.
Tap dancing on a defeated power is no way to prevent further aggression… we should have learned that after Versailles
August 21st, 2008 at 10:17 am
Njorl,
I am also having a hard time seeing the practical distinction between what you described and a veto. If the question is whether admission will “harm[] our relations with Russia,” that seems like a button Russia can push at will.
That said, I am certainly not advocating NATO ignore Russia either. Most generally, I do think the long term goal should be to have Russia itself join NATO. With respect to other countries in the meantime, I think NATO should satisfy itself that those countries are determined to resolve whatever conflicts they might have with Russia by peaceful means (a requirement already implied by the existing NATO membership process). Finally, to the extent possible I think NATO should be making it clear to Russia that NATO is no longer oriented toward containing Russian imperialism (assuming Russia is in fact no longer imperialist).
August 21st, 2008 at 10:27 am
Chris Dornan,
The thing is that EU membership requires a lot more than NATO membership in terms of economic integration. So, EU membership won’t necessarily be coextensive with NATO membership, and indeed is not.
Hankest,
Well, obviously the Kosovo War doesn’t fit with your claim that NATO is necessarily an anti-Soviet alliance either. NATO’s true modern mission potentially includes any military matters where Europe and North America have common interests, and certainly isn’t limited to dealing with Russia (nor even really focused on Russia anymore, although perhaps for obvious reasons some of the newer members are more focused on Russia than some of the older members).
August 21st, 2008 at 10:27 am
I can’t believe how many people blindly applaud NATO, and NATO expansion. It was this exact sort of idiotic alliances that lead to WW1.
Should Russia have a say? i don’t know, i expect we’d have a say if Mexico decided to join a military alliance with China.
If Georgia were in NATO, this little dust up that most Americans do not (and should not) care about could have been Sarajevo 1914.
NATO served it’s purpose, it needs to go.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:29 am
Daragh,
Let’s remember that the Russians have been invaded TWICE (Napoleon and the Nazis) from what is the West to them.
They are paranoid because history has taught them to be paranoid. Add to that a cowboy President like Bush, and believe me, the Russians are obviously concerned geopolitically about having NATO next door.
That’s why I don’t see the reason for extending NATO to Ukraine and Georgia (really, what strategic interest is served by having Georgia in NATO?).
As to the Caucasus, yes, obviously Russia is concerned about the Caucasus, but Russia is never going to be invaded through the Caucasus (i.e., to the extent that the Caucasus are a problem, it’s because they’re so messy, and they’re breeding ground to asymmetrical warfare).
August 21st, 2008 at 10:30 am
You know, I get concerned that our ability to see and analyze events clearly is once gain being crippled by blind partisan stupidity and election-season point scoring. To read many of the liberal blogs, the analysis of the Russia-Georgia crisis seems to boil down to this: Most of what Clinton did in Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia in the nineties? Good. Most of what Bush has done since? Bad.
But the problems we have now have been two decades in the making, and are the result of deeply wrong-headed American and European policies that transcend the recent continuation of those policies by the Bush administration. The US and Europe both made a wreck of the Yugoslavia situation, for example. And the various “principles” we have applied diplomatically to Yugoslavia, over and over, have not been applied to South Ossetia and Georgia. This reveals those principles as a hypocritical sham, trotted out conveniently when they suit our darker Machiavellian purposes, and just as conveniently repudiated when they don’t.
In 1991, the US and Europe had an economic and security establishment built over 45 years for Cold War. While demanding the the Russians dismantle their own Cold War machine, we did not move aggressively enough to fully dismantle ours. We allowed the inertia of those existing institutions to be carried over into the post-Cold War period, thus launching a period of predatory triumphalism. The profound strategic failure here seems akin to the long-acknowledged, tragic failure of the Union states in the period after the Civil War and the Lincoln assassination to establish an enlightened policy of reconstruction. Reconstruction was allowed to degenerate into a period of punitive and predatory plunder by carpetbaggers and scalawags.
The security policy we followed in the post-Cold War period should have been more aggressively Russia-centered. The security and comfort-levels of the former Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact satellites could have been confirmed and guaranteed by a strong, new and vibrant US-Russia relationship, in the same way that the US has developed a very tight relationship with Japan in the post-WWI period. Instead we decided to try to incorporate those states into a new, expanded Western bloc that would be used to subordinate Russia and bring it to heel. To some extent, this was actually a (wrong-headed) strategic policy. But I suspect that it was really just a case of the US government, as usual, caving in to the desires of business opportunists and bargain-hunters eager to buy up the pieces of the former Soviet Union in the post-Cold War fire sale, just as the Iraq War was seen as an opportunity to make a buck on the hostile takeover and forced privatization and “opening” of Iraq.
We also should have worked to strengthen and maintain the Russian state, rather than strive to virtually do away with the state by uber-free market, unregulated “shock treatment”. The “defeat of communism” created a triumphalist mania for laissez faire economics, anti-state neoliberalism and turbo-capitalism.
And rather than articulate policies based on “national self-determination” for ethnic groups and ancient principalities and kingdoms, our policy should have emphasized state integrity, with state breakups as truly a last resort. If we had followed this policy, we would have a stronger case now when we try to explain to the world why the South Ossetians, a clear majority of which don’t want to be part of Georgia any longer, should nevertheless stay in Georgia.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:34 am
DTM
I said it was formed as an anti-Soviet alliance (do you doubt that) which is why it is no longer needed. (Note, the Balkan interventions were post soviet of course, but interesting we sided against Serbians, who have traditionally been under Russia’s protection. Did we side with them because they were anti-Russia, no, but would Russia see it that way?)
And i recognize the NATO invasion of Afghanistan was not anti-Soviet or even anti-Russia.
Nevertheless, thinking that pushing to have NATO members surround Russia would not be taken by Russians (or anyone with sense) as a measure to contain/control Russia is laughable.
The purpose of the military alliance (anti-soviet) is gone, so it should be as well.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:38 am
NATO may not be offensive on paper. But since the end of the Cold War, neoliberals of the “left” and “right” have sought to transform NATO into what is effectively and offensive alliance: the military muscle behind a revolutionary program of perpetual “democratic enlargement”, i.e. the expansion of the triumphant military-economic-ideological system of the liberal Western powers into a globe-spanning hegemonic enterprise. They are still at it with various plans for democracy leagues, democracy concerts, democracy alliances and whatnot.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:49 am
On the Russian “veto” of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine: it seems excessive and self-destructive to continue to push for the strategically onerous enlargement of NATO simply to prove the point that the Russians can’t make us not enlarge NATO. This is the kind of stubborn pissing contest that compromises security all around.
Russia is a big and important state. Sometimes the decisions we make will factor Russian preferences into the accounting. Call that a “veto” if you want, but nobody can say we’ve been running around the world pleasing Russia at every turn. It’s been quite the opposite. Taking Russian security anxieties and preferences into account from time to time does not all of a sudden turn us into Russia’s bitch. At the same time we are backing off a bit on Georgia and Ukraine, we are putting missile defense systems in Poland. We are hardly bending over for the Russian Bear.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:51 am
hankest,
I don’t see why NATO can’t have different focuses over time as the nature of the threats confronting the countries of Europe and North America change. Do you really think those countries need to form an entirely new military alliance every time the world around them changes? Why can’t the same military alliance keep functioning with a new focus appropriate to the times?
Incidentally, we already have a country on our borders which is part of a military alliance with foreign countries–Canada is a member of NATO too. Obviously we don’t mind that, which is in part because we are also members of NATO. And that is why the long term solution to these issues is having Russia join NATO as well, in which case it should no more be concerned about Georgia being part of NATO than we are concerned about Canada.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:53 am
You know, I get concerned that our ability to see and analyze events clearly is once gain being crippled by blind partisan stupidity and election-season point scoring. To read many of the liberal blogs, the analysis of the Russia-Georgia crisis seems to boil down to this: Most of what Clinton did in Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe and Eurasia in the nineties? Good. Most of what Bush has done since? Bad.
Right, also some people believe everything the US (and Europe!) does is malicious. And some gung-ho conservatives believe the US can do no wrong.
But the problems we have now have been two decades in the making, and are the result of deeply wrong-headed American and European policies that transcend the recent continuation of those policies by the Bush administration. The US and Europe both made a wreck of the Yugoslavia situation, for example. And the various “principles” we have applied diplomatically to Yugoslavia, over and over, have not been applied to South Ossetia and Georgia. This reveals those principles as a hypocritical sham, trotted out conveniently when they suit our darker Machiavellian purposes, and just as conveniently repudiated when they don’t.
Russia provided diplomatical cover for the ethnic cleansers in the former Yugoslavia out of Orthodox Christian solidarity. Russia never even went to the UN before unilaterally invading a UN member state, Georgia. You just don’t know what you’re talking about. Russia was pretty much handling the “peacekeeping” in South Ossetia like how India is providing the “peacekeeping” in Kashmir. They’re not a neutral party.
I was pretty much agonstic about NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, leaning towards no. Now I’m leaning towards membership, especially after the Poles accepted the missile system. What can Russia do? Not cooperate? They don’t coopertate on anything anyway. Leave them in the G8 since they’re tied in with Europe economically.
August 21st, 2008 at 10:57 am
JRJV -
For sure, the Russians have had a terrible time of it from the West, and while I do label them as ‘paranoid’ its not entirely unwarranted. As the great man once sang, just because you’re paranoid/don’t mean they’re not after you. And of course President Charles-in-Charge makes everyone nervous, myself included.
But there’s one thing the Russian’s still don’t quite get - they have gobs of nuclear missiles. There is no way that NATO would begin an anti-Moscow crusade, simply because its unwilling to trade Moscow for Munich. And they should also be smart enough to realise the ABM system is an annoyance, at best, which they should be happy the US is sinking billions into, instead of weaning itself off oil and gas. Their paranoia, while real and historically based, is still unfounded
And speaking of hydrocarbons - that’s why Georgia and Ukraine in NATO, to keep it as close to the hand on the pipe as possible. Moreover a strong, independent Georgia (and a stable Caucasus) keeps a transport route open for Central Asian oil and gas that bypasses Iran and Russia. And for those immediately willing to morally denounce foreign policy in support of oil-pipelines consider this: Moscow currently buys Central Asian oil and gas at sub-market prices to re-export to Europe at massive profits (and to subsidise their own, hugely energy inefficient and environmentally catastrophic economy.) Giving the ‘Stans direct market access would allow them to demand a better price for their goods, and incentivise the Russians towards energy accomodation. Good for everyone no? As for Ukraine - Russia has been pretty bellicose ever since independence, and its unlikely a theoretical future war could be kept to the two of them (either in terms of belligerents or ultimate effects.) An iron-clad security guarantee that keeps war from breaking out in the first place, is again, not a bad solution.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:00 am
Peter K.
Of course Russia is not a neutral party, but do you doubt that the clear majority of South Ossetians are grateful for Russian intervention on their behalf, and do not want to continue their relationship with Georgia?
And perhaps there would never have been any ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia if there had been no fragmentation of Yugoslavia into statelets, thus precipitating a struggle for ethnic control over shares of the devolved successor states. I think we - and the Germans and others - were much too enthusiastic about, and encouraging of, ethno-religious secessionist movements in Yugoslavia.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:00 am
Dan Kervick,
To say Russia should have a veto over NATO membership isn’t the same thing as saying we should add NATO members just to tweak Russia. As I outlined, generally I think NATO should be making it clear that NATO is not anti-Russia in focus, and that eventually it would be good for Russia itself to join NATO.
By the way, these days Russia is no longer such a big country by population or economy. Of course it does have additional importance due to its location, nuclear weapons, and Security Council membership, but still I think we should be careful about overblowing Russia’s position.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:02 am
Why is it simply taken for granted on the right that we should be up in Russia’s face at every opportunity? Russia shed its empire, and did it without a catastrophic war. Do we really need to encircle them with more-or-less hostile regimes? Is there some great Russian territorial aggression I’ve been missing for the last twenty years? Is Russia trying to rule the world? What the fuck is our policy aiming at?
August 21st, 2008 at 11:05 am
Back at #9, “It invaded them all - Czech R. in 1968, Hungary in 1956, and Poland in 1939.”
It also invaded Poland in 1920, and in 1812 (after which Poland was part of the Russian Empire until 1918; during this time Russia also crushed major uprisings in 1830 and 1863; whether these count as invasions is left as an exercise), and participated in the partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795. Prior to 1772, wars between Poland and Russia are almost too numerous to list.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:06 am
And that is why the long term solution to these issues is having Russia join NATO as well, in which case it should no more be concerned about Georgia being part of NATO than we are concerned about Canada.
You are really missing the point here…..
August 21st, 2008 at 11:13 am
Well, we could use countries like Georgia and Ukraine as bargaining chips, but it would be better if we didn’t. Those countries want to be in NATO. It might piss the Russians off that their former colonies are now nations of their own and can make their own decisions about such things, but tough shit.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:16 am
JRJV brings up the especially salient issue of Ukraine. Russia has had a deeply difficult time accepting Ukrianian independence, mainly due to psychological reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact that Ukraine is independent and should be allowed to pursue whatever foreign policy course it sees fit. The best analogy for the relationship I’ve seen used is that of the ‘jilted lover.’ Russia, the ex-boyfriend (or girlfriend, its Mother Russia after all) simply cannot accept that Ukraine doesn’t want to be with him (or her) any more. Does that mean that other potential suitors shouldn’t touch Ukraine, that special accomodations should be made to accomodate Moscow’s irrationality? Of course not. Eventually the jilted lover has to get over it.
It’s worth pointing out that polls show that most Ukrainians oppose joining NATO, although it’s possible that the crisis in Georgia changed public sentiment.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:18 am
(Sorry, my italics were messed up..)
JRJV brings up the especially salient issue of Ukraine. Russia has had a deeply difficult time accepting Ukrianian independence, mainly due to psychological reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact that Ukraine is independent and should be allowed to pursue whatever foreign policy course it sees fit. The best analogy for the relationship I’ve seen used is that of the ‘jilted lover.’ Russia, the ex-boyfriend (or girlfriend, its Mother Russia after all) simply cannot accept that Ukraine doesn’t want to be with him (or her) any more. Does that mean that other potential suitors shouldn’t touch Ukraine, that special accomodations should be made to accomodate Moscow’s irrationality? Of course not. Eventually the jilted lover has to get over it.
It’s worth pointing out that polls show most Ukrainians oppose joining NATO, although it’s possible that the crisis in Georgia changed public sentiment.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:23 am
But there’s one thing the Russian’s still don’t quite get - they have gobs of nuclear missiles. There is no way that NATO would begin an anti-Moscow crusade, simply because its unwilling to trade Moscow for Munich.
I don’t think the point is so much a fear of an anti-Moscow crusade. It’s just a case of building security and confidence by maintaining a balance of power. You have to plan for the wars and crises you can’t fully predict, as well as the ones you can. In a period of geopolitical tension, what will help keep war from breaking out? A balance of power. To the extent that all of the advantage shifts to one side, the other side loses confidence that it can defend itself if things goes sour. That gives it an incentive to be more aggressive now to prevent vulnerability later, and that can lead to a destabilizing cycle of conflict. Also, the more advantage shifts to one side, the more that sides grows cocky and the more tempted it may be to do something stupid and overly aggressive.
Kiev is about 500 miles from Moscow; Georgia cuts almost all the way across the land bridge between Russia and the Middle East. Russian fear of NATO forces and assets positioned in these places is very reasonable. It’s not a paranoid and crazy fear that the West wants a self-destructive war. It’s a sensible fear that if a war nobody really wants ever come about though the kind of failure of best intentions abundantly evident throughout history, Russia won’t be able to protect itself against a crippling first strike and annihilation.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:26 am
Of course Russia is not a neutral party, but do you doubt that the clear majority of South Ossetians are grateful for Russian intervention on their behalf, and do not want to continue their relationship with Georgia?
And perhaps there would never have been any ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia if there had been no fragmentation of Yugoslavia into statelets, thus precipitating a struggle for ethnic control over shares of the devolved successor states. I think we - and the Germans and others - were much too enthusiastic about, and encouraging of, ethno-religious secessionist movements in Yugoslavia.
I think Yugoslavia was neglected, I don’t think “we” encouraged anything. As James Baker famously put it so callously “We don’t have a dog in that fight.” Your history is wrong and slanted. And I’m curious why you spin it that way. The way to work it out is through the UN, which Russia didn’t even attempt. Is Russia planning on giving South Ossetia their own little country? No, they’re going to annex them.
http://www.slate.com/id/2197704/
August 21st, 2008 at 11:27 am
How should the Russians feel if they now have NATO at its doorstep?
So we’re pushing more and more military capacity right up to Russia’s borders. How do you think Russia will react? How long before Russia puts ballistic missiles in Cuba? How about Venezuela? How many other Caribbean nations are there that would gladly give Russia some land for a military installation for a bit of hard cash (pouring in because of oil prices)?
I wonder how McCain and the rest of the Bully Brigade crap their pants when the shoe ends up on the other foot. And with Putin in charge (and make no mistake, he’s still in charge), it probably will.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:00 pm
You’re all missing the main driver here: the defense industry.
Abrogating ABM was a gift to Northrop-Grumman and Lockheed, who have the contract to develop NMD. And that’s a *big* contract.
Those are the same companies that benefit most from expanding NATO since new NATO members have to upgrade their entire militaries with Western arms to meet NATO “interoperability” requirements.
Not coincidentally, the same people (Scheunemann, e.g.) show up in both places (lobbied for Lockheed, works for McCain, sole job for years has been lobbying for NATO expansion). It’s amazingly consistent: if you cross-ref the defense lobbyists working for McCain, they all work for Lockheed (e.g. Charlie Black), N-G, and EADS — almost none for Boeing, etc.
Russian-baiting is big business, kids.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
There is no possibility of a “balance of power” between Russia and the combined might of North America and Western Europe–with the possible exception of the power to make nuclear war, since that is more of a threshhold issue–due to the massive disparities in population and economic size. And where you line up Georgia or Ukraine does not change that fundamental fact.
So, a “balance of power” approach is doomed to failure when it comes to Russia. And in my view the only viable long term alternative, given the nuclear situation, is to convince Russia that is should be on the same “side” as North America and the rest of Europe, and thus eliminate the need for a “balance of power” that in any event cannot be achieved.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Diplomacy doesn’t have to be binary in its outcome. There are all sorts of agreements that could be made regarding NATO membership. A nation could join the alliance to get the defensive protection, but agree to base no foreign troops for XX years. Russia could offer inducements to dissuade joining NATO, such as demilitarizing areas around borders. NATO could have made referendums for independence in Abkhazia and S. Ossetia a precondition for entry for Georgia.
Instead, we made it a less-than-zero sum game.
August 21st, 2008 at 12:54 pm
A balance of power is not the same thing as equality of power. The way European and American forces and interests are arrayed in Russia’s neighborhood could be sufficient to maintain a balance of power in that neighborhood, even if the United States and Europe posses greater overall power combined than is possessed by Russia.
I think it is overly optimistic to hope for one big happy global “side”. Competition is a fact of life. Russian and US interests do not perfectly coincide, and both are large countries. So they will compete. But we can work to make sure the competition never becomes catastrophic.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Dan Kervick
I think it is overly optimistic to hope for one big happy global “side”. Competition is a fact of life. Russian and US interests do not perfectly coincide, and both are large countries. So they will compete. But we can work to make sure the competition never becomes catastrophic.
I think it’s better to have democracies who have some sort of checks and balances. Yes they may be more susceptible to nationalism as Georgia demonstrated, but if you get a bad dictator you’re stuck with him. I think the free-market ideology of the west is overrated but still.
Interestingly Russia is backing the dictatorship in Belarus. The US let Musharraf go, better late than never. Yes the Pakistan political parties are dysfunctional and corrupt, but they are everywhere (Ted Stevens?).
Sometimes you get someone like Hamas in Gaza, but that’s because Israel gave nothing to Fatah to show the Palestinians.
Syria is a dictatorship too, so it’s not surprsing that Russia is working with them.
Saudi Arabia’s royal family is probably not happy with the elections in Iraq.
Speaking of Iraq, why did none of the liberal “anti-war” blogs I enjoy reading mention this story?
Iraq Poised to Revive Oil Contract With China
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/world/middleeast/20oil.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=China%20Iraq&st=cse&oref=slogin
BAGHDAD — Iraq is on the verge of reviving an 11-year-old contract with China worth $1.2 billion, its largest oil deal since the invasion in 2003, an Oil Ministry official said Tuesday.
The deal sets new terms for an agreement reached between China and Iraq under Saddam Hussein in 1997. Unlike that agreement, which included production-sharing rights, the new one is a service contract, under which China would be paid for its work at the Ahdab oil field southeast of Baghdad but would not be a partner in the profits.
Hussein al-Shahristani, Iraq’s oil minister, is expected to complete the negotiations when he is in China late this week or early next week, said a ministry official who declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the news media. Mr. Shahristani was in Poland with other ministry officials to study its oil industry, the official said.
———
Did Juan Cole mention this? No, doesn’t fit in with his worldview.
August 21st, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Dan Kervick,
Above you wrote in favor of a “balance of power” that “[t]o the extent that all of the advantage shifts to one side, the other side loses confidence that it can defend itself if things goes sour.”
You are now proposing “[t]he way European and American forces and interests are arrayed in Russia’s neighborhood could be sufficient to maintain a balance of power in that neighborhood, even if the United States and Europe posses greater overall power combined than is possessed by Russia.”
I don’t see how that addresses the problem you originally identified–even if Europe and North America array their forces artificially far from Russia (and since Russia is partly in Europe, that is kinda a trick), if “things go sour”, nothing will really prevent Europe and America from bringing those forces back to where they would have been. Generally, any arrangement that depends on one side voluntarily not making use of its full power isn’t really a balance of POWER.
You also write: “I think it is overly optimistic to hope for one big happy global ’side’. Competition is a fact of life. Russian and US interests do not perfectly coincide, and both are large countries. So they will compete. But we can work to make sure the competition never becomes catastrophic.”
But you could say the same thing of other NATO countries, including the UK, France, Germany, and so forth. And they do compete with the U.S.–but not militarily. And that is why they can be in a military alliance with the U.S., while still competing at the same time. So just because Russia is a decent-sized country (and again, not so big these days), that alone isn’t a reason it can’t be a part of NATO, and can’t relegate its competition with other NATO countries to non-military means.
August 21st, 2008 at 2:38 pm
At a certain point, unmitigated greed and hubris took over which led inexorably to the point we are at now. Where was that point? Was it the 2002 National Defense Strategy that said that we are the universal hegemon and we are not going to listen to anyone else? Was that the clear point of the death of diplomacy? That strategy was retracted without comment in 2006 and led to some progress, e.g., North Korea and Iran. What strategy are we following with Russia today? How damaging will it be to our national security to continue doubling down like this?
August 21st, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Peter K –
For what it’s worth, Russia did in fact go to the UN. They had to. Russia’s has been quite clear that the UN is a necessary and useful institution. It is actually the US that takes the contrary position. Witness John McCain’s League of Democracies. I agree with Dan that our hard, aggressive turn against Russia has to do with their putting the brakes on our program of opening markets.
I also think that we will see that this is what happened to Georgia. We overthrew Shevardnadze in 2003 with Saakashvili (champion of democracy!) based on the charge that he was corrupt. Turns out not so much! Saakashvili a champion of democracy? Not so much!
I don’t want to seem overly Russophiliac, but one of our sub-rosa charges against Putin is that he, also, is corrupt. We sneer at the Russian millionaires feasting in this pool of corruption when, before Putin put the brakes on the looting of the Russian state under Yeltsin, we were cheering along to Russia’s adoption of democratic values. Since when does America sneer at millionaires!
In 2006, Dick Cheney lectured the world that Russia was reversing all of its democratic gains under Putin. When Putin stated in 2007 that America was not practicing, itself, world democracy in its practice of unipolar hegemony, we sneered at him that he was disappointing and should be ignored as someone who runs his government in an unworthy manner. See, for example, the reactions of Senators Lieberman and McCain to Putin’s 2007 speech in Munich.
Russia knows it has to open her markets, but wants to do so in a controlled manner. We won’t have that. I suspect that this is why Shevardnadze overthrown in Georgia. I also suspect that a thorough expose would reveal that Saakashvili is to Georgia as Yeltsin was to Russia.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:45 pm
If NATO is not fundamentally an offensive military alliance against Russia, then have Russia join NATO!
That clears that up.
NATO was and is formed to be a military bulwark against Russia. Russia was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to provide a buffer zone against anybody invading Russia like the Germans did in WWII. To put NATO on Russia’s borders by trying to get Georgia and the Ukraine into it is simply stupid. If you’re going to do that, and if you’re going to claim that NATO is some kind of “democracy-building” or “democracy-recognizing” institution, then by definition Russia should be in NATO.
The fact that nobody is asking Russia to be part of NATO clearly shows that NATO is an antagonistic organization against Russia - and we’re not supposed to be antagonistic toward Russia these days - and it’s not smart to be so when Russia has nukes and is not trying to conquer the world like they did under Communism.
If you listen to the rhetoric coming out of Washington in the last couple days, it’s quite clear that the neocons are still in control and are trying to ratchet up tensions between the US and Russia in a really dangerous way.
Matt is wrong that the issue of NATO isn’t first and foremost the problem. All the ABM treaty and Kosovo stuff is mostly irrelevant compared to actually putting military bases and training other country’s military forces by the US on Russia’s borders. The other stuff is stuff that MIGHT be a threat to Russia at some point in the future. Military bases and ABM launch sites in Eastern Europe are a DIRECT threat to Russia.
Bottom line: The US needs to stop directly threatening Russia (and China and Iran.) That’s how you avoid war. Right now we’re heading directly for a new Cold War with Russia and China.
The other thing that should happen is that NATO is either disbanded, or the military side of it is reduced to the main European powers like it used to be before the Soviet Union broke up. Any economic or other sides to NATO can possibly be extended to other countries if that is desired, but the military side must not so as to continue to provide a “buffer zone” of countries between Western Europe and Russia. The goal of those buffer zone countries should be to be neutral in terms of conflicts between the US and Russia.
August 21st, 2008 at 4:49 pm
RSH - NATO membership for Russia has been explored several times. Each time Russia was the one that in the end decided not to pursue it.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:25 pm
My point wasn’t that it was a serious proposal - as the Russian refusal shows. My point was that if you’re going to maintain the fiction that NATO is a “security alliance” against “security threats” from nameless countries - but not Russia, and if NATO is going to import all the former Russian republics into NATO, then Russia certainly should be part of NATO.
The fact that it isn’t and that Russia sees no reason to be and the fact that the US is pushing to put NATO on Russia’s borders clearly establishes that NATO is anti-Russian on the face of it, just as it was during the Cold War against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The bottom line, however, is that times have changed, contrary to the notions of Putin being Stalin. Russia has no interest in taking over Europe, just in getting rich off selling oil and gas to Europe.’
The neocons, however, have an explicit philosophy: NO other country on Earth can have even a REGIONAL influence, let alone a “superpower” influence, in the world. This - and the desire to get all the money from all the oil everywhere - leads them to want to control the Caspian oil region, which necessarily entails marginalizing Russia, surrounding Russia with hostile republics loaded with US bases and missile systems, and generally “caging the bear”.
All this is going to do - as it has so far - is stimulate a robust Russian response - which eventually could lead to military conflict.
Ergo, the only logical solution, as I indicated, is that NATO either ceases to be or restricts the “military alliance” aspect to the Western European countries - and both Russia and the West treat the Eastern European countries as “neutral” buffer states - while competing otherwise in economic terms.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:26 am
RSH - You get less and less coherent with every post. I can’t figure out whether you’re arguing that Russian refusal to join NATO either shows the proposals were serious or were not serious. Either way the argument makes no sense.
And its perfectly valid to form a security community to secure against ‘unnamed’ threats. A better term might be ‘unknown’ especially considering the only time NATO has invoked Article 5 (the ‘all for one and one for all clause’) was after September 11th i.e. in the face of an (historically) unanticipated non-traditional threat.
You then claim that the Eastern European states be treated as neutral buffer states, despite the fact that all of them have repeatedly rejected this option and expressed a strong desire to integrate with Euro-Atlantic political and economic structures. Indeed the national security and foreign policy of Ukraine has always considered the country’s transformation into the kind of state you’re proposing to be a nightmare scenario for the country.
You constantly rail against the imperialist assumptions of the despised neo-cons (and never miss an opportunity to invoke them as the source of all evil, BTW) and yet go on to declare that hundreds of millions of people in Eastern Europe should have no say in their own foreign policy destiny. It may be very comforting to see the world through such simplistic moral trophes RSH, but a good foreign policy it does not make.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 am
To Daragh McDowell
Do you want really to get nuked over Poland, the Czech Republic,Romania, and especially the Baltic states? The Poles have a really bad history of recklessness in foreign affairs. For instance the Poles got themseleves involved in the Russian Civil War in the early 1920s and nearly for got taken over by the Soviets. I also find it very conceivable that the Poles get could get themselves involved in a possible Ukrainian civil war. Do you really want to get over the Ukraine? It was very stupid to put that nation into the NATO alliance. If some of those eastern european nations adopted the same course as Finland, Russia would not need get so upset with the West right now. Also from a realist perspective Russia has thousands of nukes, and could help the Americans out with Iran, China, and Afghanistan. What really the Eastern European nations have that benefits the United States?
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:50 am
Henninger -
Leaving aside the fact that your brief history of the Polish-Soviet war is profoundly simplistic at best in blaming the Poles for getting involved, what other countries who made dumb foreign policy moves in the past 100 or so years should be excluded from NATO. Turkey backed the wrong side in WWI, Italy in WWI, and lets not forget the Germans. The Polish state, in its current form as an independent nation has existed for less than 20 years, and its done a pretty good job of staying out of trouble in the meantime.
As to your other comments - the very fact that these states are in NATO makes a nuclear confrontation LESS likely. It gives them concrete security guarantees as well as the influence needed to restrain their foreign policy establishments. Put it this way - IF some form of inter-state war broke out in the former Warsaw-Pact states, do you really think NATO would be able to stand by and watch it without getting involved anyway? Isn’t it better to be on the ground to keep that from happening in the first place.
Glad to see you’ve read the CIA’s dire predictions of Civil War in Ukraine from 1994 - funny though, didn’t happen and doesn’t look like its gonna happen. Perhaps you should take the trouble to research what you speak of.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Daragh McDowell
The Poles were the ones who initiated the Soviet-Polish War in the early twenties by invading the Ukraine and trying to reclaim what they considered to be former Polish lands before the Partition of Poland in the late eighteenth century. It also appears to me the situation in the Ukraine has gotten progressively worse since 2004. In the 2005 elections, eastern and western Ukrainian voted in completely different directions. With the eastern Ukrainians voting for parties that favor Moscow while the western Ukrainans vote for parties that favor Poland. I could easily imagine civil war breaking out in the Ukraine in the near future. Moreover the risk of getting nuked by the Russians increases dramatically if NATO backs Poland in a future conflict with Russia. NATO has nuclear weapons and so does the Russians. Also I persoanlly believe that there would be no stomach in the West to really take sides in a potential Russo-Polish conflict due to the risk of nuclear war. So we are basically making empty security agreements while angering the Russians. Also you have not ask me the question about why we should risk nuclear war protecting these countries when an alliance with Russia would so be much strategically better for the United States.
August 24th, 2008 at 6:33 am
Henninger -
Party of Regions, the ‘pro-Russian’ party in Ukraine now runs on a slogan of ‘One History, One People, One Country.’ Its not that the Eastern Ukrainians want to be annexed, or even surrender substantial sovereignty to Russia. They simply want their own distinct ethno-cultural identity to be recognised and respected within a single Ukrainian state. They recognise that if the gas gets turned off, it’ll be just as off in Donetsk as it will be in Lvov, and will support Ukraine against Russia if the latter threatens the former’s interests. The only real exception to this is Crimea, and even there its 50/50.
Your characterisation of the Polish-Soviet war implies both a stable recognised border, and a lack of aggressive intent on the Russian side. It was far more complicated than you think. But leaving aside all that - if Poland invaded Russia, NATO would be under no obligation to defend her under article 5. It would be a suicidally stupid move, as well as an extremely unlikely one, but not one that would threaten ‘us’ with nuclear war. A Russian attack on Poland, however, would have dire consequences for Western European security as a whole - not only would NATO invoke article 5 in such a scenario, it should.