It’s not really that simple. During the Cold War Presidents of all domestic political persuasions (from far left to far right) were very heavily involved in anything to do with the Soviets. This situation just never would have gone down in the same way if the U.S. President had been actively involved starting months ago. Complete U.S. fail like not realizing the Soviets were going to invade Afghanistan was considered a disaster during the Cold War precisely because it was expected you keep a close watch on all these conflict-countries. Now failures like that are the expected result, not an embarrassing misstep.
Given the position we were in yesterday there isn’t a whole lot Obama could do today without getting extreme. But that’s not the point, foreign policy during the Cold War in regard to Russia was understood to require constant, very deep engagement. We’re doing the exact opposite everywhere Putin is pushing, and as a consequence we are 2-3 steps behind him in any response we’ve had. Bush also failed in this by the way, in regard to Georgia. It’s not just Obama that’s done bad with Russia/Putin and I don’t want to make it seem like it’s a left/right issue. Since the Cold War ended foreign policy aptitude just doesn’t seem to be something we expect out of our Presidents and it’s showing, big time.
Too many people think the only important thing going on in FP is terrorism and how to deal with it, when in reality terrorism is a lot louder relative to its actual importance than this sort of thing which is supposed to be the bread and butter of running foreign policy.
The net result of events over the last week is that Russia is less of a new Soviet Empire. There has been a battle over whether Ukraine would turn towards Europe or Russia, and the ousting of Yanukovych has settled that question in Europe’s favor. The net result is that Russia has gone from having a puppet/client state in Ukraine to having a puppet/client state in Crimea.
In the future, the removal of the heavily pro-Russia Crimea has made the rest of Ukraine more Ukrainian/European leaning. It’s hard to imagine that the rest of Ukraine will turn back towards Russia. So the result is that the West gets Ukraine and Russia Crimea. Again, that’s a win for the West as prior to recent events Ukraine was nearly a client state of Russia.
Russia not getting all of Ukraine is definitely a good thing. But Putin being allowed to roll into other countries anytime he wants–especially ones the EU and the US just negotiated a political compromise with, is deeply concerning. Further, if Russia wants to I think they could very easily extend the “protecting ethnic Russian” argument to much of eastern Ukraine. I’m not going on the assumption Putin will stop in Crimea, but we will indeed have to see.
What’s also important is Russia has probably made it so we can’t get Ukraine into NATO now, which long term leaves it as vulnerable to Russian aggression. Just like with Georgia, by making the country destabilized Russia has made it so NATO is probably going to be too scared to add Ukraine because NATO doesn’t want to add a state that might actually be drawn into a conflict with Russia.
There’s also the obvious truth that Russia has gotten a puppet elected in Ukraine once, I’m not sure they may not try again especially if they move a troop presence out of Crimea and into the rest of eastern Ukraine.
Well, he might have tried strengthening US armed forces rather than making massive cuts. The Kremlin were sure to have read that as a sign of weakness. I think Putin privately has nothing but contempt for Obama and believes the man has no balls. He may well be wrong but nothing Obama has done in his Presidency will have convinced Putin otherwise.
And while I do agree it’s a positive Putin isn’t getting all of Ukraine I think that’s a bad comparison. Over the past few years, before the pro-Russian leader was elected Ukraine was basically an independent country moving towards Europe. Then Putin gets involved, helps get Yanukovych elected and is obviously bidding to turn Ukraine into a “client state.” That falls apart, mostly due to popular opposition within Ukraine (and not because of the West), but then Putin just grabs Crimea out right. So he started from “neutral” in which he didn’t control Ukraine, tried to control it all, failed, but ends up with Crimea. That’s not a net positive as I see it as it emboldens him to try other things elsewhere.
Yeah, we don’t need a bigger or stronger military to start boxing Putin in. It just takes a willingness to be involved. We can’t go to war with Russia anymore than Russia can with us, but the lessons of the Cold War show ways you can get involved so that Russia can’t act in Country A without it starting a war with NATO/US, which Russia is not willing to do. During the Cold War the Soviets and other Communist forces did the same to us, arguably in Vietnam we never went into North Vietnam due to an understanding it might draw China into the war like it did during the Korean war, for example. That was also a fear with the Iranian Revolution, that if we had tried to act decisively there we might get into it with the Soviets.
But Russia is far weaker than the Soviet Union, if we were engaged I think we could more effectively check Putin expansionism than we could with the Soviets and Russia wouldn’t have nearly the same ability to work against us as the Soviets did. Especially since I think by and large we aren’t trying to do stuff like that anyway. While we can talk for a long time about Iraq and Afghanistan the U.S. genuinely isn’t looking to make a bunch of client states like it did during the Cold War.
This is not about the objective power of each country’s army, it’s about the power of their leaders. This reminds me a bit of the Cuban Missile Crisis: a Russian Premier thinks that the US President is a weak idealist, and sets out to test him. The Cuban Missile Crisis was an exercise in brinkmanship that the USA won. Here, so far, Russia is winning
I’d say there’s a little difference. It’s a wee bit easier for the US to enforce a quarantine of Cuba than to have any military influence at all in the Crimean Peninsula. That Putin has never respected Obama to any degree is clear, that Obama or NATO have any cards to play is not.
Crimea is ethnically Russian and was only part of Ukraine by a somewhat odd decision made when it was all the Soviet Union. It was autonomous when it was part of the Ukraine, and pretty clearly does not want to be part of what the new Ukraine will be. So while this is an invasion, it’s also a popular uprising little different from what happened in Kiev. It’s very difficult to see how Crimea would remain effectively part of Ukraine, even without Russian intervention.
The idea that there could be a pro-west Ukraine that exerted control over Crimea is fantasy.
I’ve already said that, but what Putin is doing is actually important, not whether or not Crimea would stay with Ukraine or not. Putin has openly stated he does not see Ukraine as a legitimate State. I think you’re being very naive if you believe Putin isn’t still looking at Kiev and I’ve already heard Russian forces are active in the eastern border regions outside of Ukraine.
Putin’s given a speech in which he considers the collapse of the Soviet Empire the greatest tragedy of the 20th century, and he quite clearly views Ukraine as the biggest loss and the biggest crown jewel to add back. I don’t think Putin stops with just Crimea, and if you let him take Crimea at gunpoint while doing nothing I don’t see why he wouldn’t come back a few years later to push for the rest or re-vassalize the rest.
That’s not an accurate representation of the situation. Yakunovych won the election in 2010 legitimately, and Ukraine was on a clear path towards Russia. The recent revolution has decisively ended that. Putin is acting from a position of weakness here. His aid package was rejected and Ukraine was on the cusp of turning towards the west. His actions in Crimea are salvaging something from what was a total loss.
Taking over a pro-Russian region is far different than an invasion of the rest of Ukraine. Russia can take Crimea, and they can probably easily slice off some of the east and south of Ukraine, that is also pro-Russian. But they can’t do so in areas that don’t want to be part of Russia. If they try, Ukraine will be flooded with arms and it will be another Afghanistan for them.
Here’s the President smacking down Mitt Romney on foreign policy:
“Gov. Romney, I’m glad that you recognize that al-Qaida is a threat, because a few months ago when you were asked what’s the biggest geopolitical threat facing America, you said Russia, not al-Qaida. You said Russia … the 1980s, they’re now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because, you know, the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” Obama said.
What’s not accurate about it? You say it’s not accurate but this post doesn’t really dispute it. Tymoshenko was much more pro-West, then Yanukovych gets elected but he did not campaign on the promise of becoming a corrupt whore for Russia which is what he actually did as President. He has a $75m palace outside of Kiev with little indication of where he had the money to live so lavishly; so I think it’s fair to suspect this guy basically got elected and then was approached essentially with a giant sack of money in exchange for abandoning any pro-Western initiatives and signing on with Russia.
My point stands, we started from neutral, Putin bribed his way into Ukraine, that failed eventually, and now he gets Crimea and probably eastern border regions of Ukraine, and possibly later comes back for Kiev. Russia had not made Ukraine a client state or annexed any territory at all, now they have Crimea. It’s a clear positive for them, it’s just not “as positive” as Putin was hoping it would be.
Yanukovych was clearly pro-Russian and won the election legitimately. At that point Ukraine was not “basically an independent country moving towards Europe”. They had elected a pro-Russian leader and were obviously going to move closer to Russia, not Europe.
100% correct, except the small part where for 2 years Yanukovich drove Ukraine to sign association with EU, only to back down at the last minute under enormous pressure from Putin.
