Mikhail Gorbachev, Former Soviet Leader says, "I believe it's a mistake, it is a bad mistake and I am not persuaded by the assurances I hear that Russia has nothing to worry about...You can not, you may not humiliate a nation, a people and think that it will have no consequences. So my question is, is this a new strategy?"
Well, no, it was the same strategy as always, going back at least to the Crimean War, where the point was to keep the Russians bottled up in the Black Sea. The Brits were always wary of the Russians and after World War II, the Americans picked up that paranoia and ran with it. Why? Having a powerful (-ish) adversary is good for stoking the weapons industry back home and the American economy is, all these decades later, still pretty much built on materiel manufacture (*). If Russia stops being our preferred adversary, where will our high tech export manufacturing go? Well, we have China to shake our big stick at, but China is not the same (re: they're not gonna fall for that "missile gap" nonsense that the Soviets bought hook, line and sinker). China's military interests are not based on USA or Europe (or won't be for much longer) and don't offer the proper counterpoint to our wasteful gov't spending.
USA needs Russia to be the Russia it has always been: isolated, weird, paranoid and vaguely bent on world domination just like us. If we remove Russia as an enemy, American spycraft would turn inward, American politicians would have no easy targets, and our weapons industry would inevitably diminish. America would be a different country, a different place, a different economy and our political structure would be forced to deal with reality instead of the preferred daydreams the American electorate has been bred to enjoy. And, of course, without a common enemy, Europe may well collapse entirely.
Hatred of Russia--and the defense industry it inspires--is part of America's DNA at this point. Terrorism is a diplomatic (rather than military) threat and China is a productivity (rather than military) threat. We cling to our animosity with Russia like a blankie. The ensuing militarism is precisely what keeps the globe potentially destabilized and how USA keeps its grip on global infrastructure. We're just not ready to tackle a world of equals after all this time of preparing for a world of savages. It is not that the world is challenging us, it is that the challenge itself is melting away and as the tide rolls out, we'll be wildly overdressed. Though for the moment, Russia still lives in the same daydream we do.
Stephen F. Cohen on the Charlie Rose Show, June 28, 2006 (**)
Cohen: "...The Cold War didn't end in 1991..."
Not for us, anyway. USA's strategy after the fall of the Berlin Wall became to treat Russia as a "junior partner" rather than seeing Russia as a still powerful giant. Remember: mutually assured destruction didn't end when the Soviet Union collapsed. We still have great respect for their ICBM's, long range bombers and nuclear-tipped submarines, but otherwise the Americans have never even acknowledged that there is a Russian culture or People.
Cohen: "We've treated Russia like a defeated nation....there was no attempt to cooperate with Russia..."
USA used our antagonism with Russia through the Cold War to justify all kinds of military buildup around the world and grew wealthy and dominant on Russia's inability to keep pace. When the Berlin Wall came down, USA never stopped living off potential Russian aggression, though we'd already had five decades of watching Russia get weaker. We just assumed that Russia was out of the game and we called that a "peace dividend". Rather than seeing Russia as a rehabilitated member of the int'l order, USA and Europe continued to see Russia as the same threat as always because bullying the Russians was so god damn profitable.
Russia, on the other hand, has seen its territorial reach steadily decrease since May 8, 1945 (VE Day). Then Moscow controlled half of Germany and everything east of that, laid claim to oil fields in Syria and Iran and Stalin had his eye on Manchuria and a seat at the table for the carving up of Japan--all of which was given/promised by FDR and much of which was immediately rescinded by Truman. Make no mistake: Truman's insistence on using atomic bombs in Japan was precisely timed to keep Russia out of the Pacific theater of the war. What FDR promised Stalin, Truman took away.
I'm not suggesting that Russian deserved those territorial claims, merely that that was the basis of Western antagonism to Russia. And after 9/11 when Putin made great efforts to secure alliance with USA, Bush started to give in but then backtracked and isolated Putin further. Putin tried to come to the table but Western politicians needed an enemy and Putin was it. And the plan to encircle Russia never stopped, rather it intensified as Russia got weaker.
Cohen: "...(We must assure that) Russia's weapons of mass destruction and vast energy resources are not used against the West...we drove them in the direction (of using their resources as leverage)..." This could have been easily done by allowing Russia to become a modern nation like all the other modern nations and if they were defeated in the boardroom so be it. Using Russian resources as a sign of potential danger is a completely manufactured paranoia when the whole basis of the int'l order (right?) is fair development of natural resources to benefit the worldwide Human population (and let me make this clear: Western capitalism does that so much more efficiently and effectively than Eastern communism, so I am in no way rooting for Russian victory in anything). To bully Russia in this way is to cut off the Human population from our shared Earthly resources for shortsighted local political gains, which is the shameful by-product of the Western obsession with Democracy built on an us-vs-them dichotomy.
Cohen (in 2006, you will recall): "Ukraine in NATO is already announced policy...if we do that then it's over...." We can look to Putin's weird rambling speech back in February 2022 as an out of the blue example of his iron fisted tyrant nature....or we can acknowledge that we knew (long before 2006!) that Ukraine was sacred ground to the Russians. USA's only interest in Ukraine is to antagonize Russia (and if the Ukrainians themselves ever thought otherwise, well, god help them).
Foreign Affairs, May/June 2007 ("Containing Russia" by Yulia Tymoshenko) (pay wall)
"After the USSR's collapse, the West made the mistake of assuming that Russia's reduced status meant it was unnecessary to accord the Kremlin any special diplomatic consideration--that Russia neither deserved nor should be offered a major role in world affairs. Accordingly, instead of drawing Russia into a network of dialogue and cooperation when it was weak--and thereby helping it form habits that would carry on when Russia regained strength--the West ignored Russia. This indifference caused Russia to regard the West's attempts to reassure eastern European countries about their security and place in the West as unfriendly acts, leading to today's problems. Had Russia been handled better in the 1990s--had its sense of insecurity not been aggravated--the country's tendency toward expansionism might well have been moderated."
Who is Yulia Tymoshenko, you ask? Another one of these fly-by night Putin apologists coming out of the woodwork to justify Russian crimes and blame the White House in some right wing knee jerk fashion? No. She was the prime minister of Ukraine, hardly a Russian asset. And is still active in Ukrainian politics, even after losing to Zelensky and Poroshenko in the last two elections.
And it is no accident that she opens her op-ed by citing George Kennan's infamous telegram that became the architecture of the Truman Doctrine and the Cold War until....well, it is still the Western strategy. The encirclement of Russia is meant to limit Russian opportunities for trade and diplomacy in the Mediterranean and the Pacific specifically and itself is more or less based on the traditional Russian desire to surround itself with "buffer states" to ward off invaders. (Gotta admit: I never understood the Russian need for buffer state--it's a thousand miles to anywhere once you get inside Russia and six months of the year that thousand miles would be mostly mud, so what is Russia afraid of, exactly?) This has kept Russia isolated, and outside of gold and oil (and occasionally, timber) exports, Russia has never otherwise had any basis for interaction with the rest of the world. (This is, incidentally, also how we treat North Korea--and what has that gotten us?)
In 2007, Tymoshenko was clamoring for Ukraine to join the European Union "to confront instability and insecurity with a lasting structure of peace and prosperity in which all of Europe's nations and neighbors have a stake." The desire to break from Russia and move westward is not unpopular in Ukraine and has been in the air since the 1990s. But, first, she advocates that the EU "(must) negotiate a new EU-Russia treaty to replace the one written at the nadir of Russia's power....Angela Merkel must...forge a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship" with Russia. This is tough to do considering that "Germany will depend on Russia for 80% of its gas imports", which is why Germany during the Merkel years developed an utterly unique relationship with Russia, rather than a Euro-centric one where everyone has an equal stake.
Tymoshenko here has already undone her belief in the European Union: the countries aren't equal or on the same page and adding Ukraine in 2007 would not have changed that. And without first coming to some understanding with Russia, adding Ukraine to EU would have been catastrophic (well, at least for Ukraine). And she acknowledges that the Western belief that "peaceful evolution can be insured by democracy and...developing (Russia's) market economy" is not really appropriate, so what exactly does Tymoshenko think the EU was going to do for Ukraine? If there isn't really equal protection in the Union and the Western view of Russian adventurism is misguided, then what does the West really have to offer Ukraine? And if, as she says, "Russia will change from within or not at all", then how does Ukraine jutting ever westward benefit the Ukrainian People?
Then she spends two pages complaining about Gazprom and we are reminded of the dog Tymoshenko has in this fight: she made her fortune through the oil/gas industry and while she speaks as a knowledgeable industry insider, she is not without her own personal motivations. Then the essay closes with some bland pabulum about "serious offers to participate on an equal basis", though I'm not sure what she's referring to since she's already acknowledged that those offers never came from the West.
So while Tymoshenko was an early vocal advocate for Ukraine joining the EU, she is clear that the West needs to re-establish its ties to Russia first. And since this re-establishing of ties never came...how was the Ukraine supposed to join the EU? Even in Ukraine the idea of moving westward is not really a credible belief. They may wish for European "equality" but do Europeans even believe that really exists? And though she never really mentions NATO, though that is really more likely the "equality" she's dreaming of, or the IMF, clearly these organizations aren't really available to Ukraine until they work out some kind of realistic relationship with Moscow.
The desire is there but the conditions are not realistic in 2008. And, frankly, that has nothing to do with Moscow but with the West.
Radio Free Europe. September 8, 2009 ("Fears Rise Obama's 'Reset' May Run Aground in Former Soviet Bloc")
"...Russia's biggest trump in Moldova is its support for breakaway region Transdniester, which split after a brutal war in 1992."
I highlight this merely to point out that I think that Moldova is Putin's next objective. Located along the southwestern edge of Ukraine, it is not yet a NATO country and Putin is eager to gobble it up before it can fully break away.
Why does Putin want to keep hold of all the former Soviet republics? Because those states have been getting invited into NATO and/or the EU for the purposes of isolating Russia. As Russia melts, the West has been luring away all of its traditional allies--but not Russia itself! Where is Russia's invitation to the EU?
Boris Yeltsin once brought up the idea of joining NATO, which he was eager to entertain; no one in the West entertained this idea because the West needs an adversary to justify its military spending and Russia is that adversary. China is too far away and its military development will be of a different nature (***) and the West just doesn't have the same historical relation to it. We love hating Russia like we love hating Brussel sprouts.
Russia is the enemy and no matter how hard they strive for inclusion, it ain't coming. We need an enemy to justify our own bad habits and that enemy is Russia. The encirclement will continue on into the future simply by inertia. That means that eventually the West must gouge away Ukraine no matter how devastating it is for the people living there.
Center for Eastern Studies, November 27, 2013 ("Ukraine Withdraws from Signing the Association Agreement in Vilnius: Motives and Implications")
But even then, Ukraine must come the way the West wants it to. So in 2013, when the offer to join the EU was first on the table for Ukraine, the president at the time, Viktor Yanukovych, had to back away because the deal would have been ruinously expensive in the short term and would've negatively impacted their trading alliance with Russia. "At the same time, Kyiv suggested the creation of a tripartite commission of Ukraine, Russia and the EU, which would work to remove barriers in mutual economic cooperation and trade liberalization." This tripartite suggestion is later referred to as supported by Putin, so it was the EU that refused to countenance the notion of a Ukraine that was still even somewhat connected to Russia--a full 6 years after Tymoshenko was already warning that a new understanding with Russia was a necessary first step.
Though Yanukovych had jumped through numerous hoops since 2010 ("...the Ukrainian Parliament began to rapidly pass the so-called 'European laws' which Brussels' condition for signing the agreement" and "45% of citizens favored moving closer to the EU"), it is the next sentence that I suspect tells the real story: "However, despite efforts and pressure from EU member states...the problem of Yulia Tymoshenko remain unresolved." From Wikipedia: On 2 October 2013, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution calling for the immediate release of Tymoshenko and, two days later, Pat Cox and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, representatives of the European Parliament mission, handed president Yanukovych a petition to pardon Tymoshenko.[389][390]
Tymoshenko (author of the Foreign Affairs article cited above) is Yanukovych's political arch-rival and in 2013 was in jail as a convicted criminal. But she's the one the EU and the Americans wanted to deal with, not Yanukovych. So even when the West does reach out to Ukraine, it is picking and choosing who it will favor.
Putin responds by cutting off Ukrainian exports to Russia, reminding them Russia is still at least 1/3 of the Ukrainian economy, a figure not likely to be matched by the EU. Yanukovych realizes he can't move forward with the EU in a manner that cuts off a third of his exports. The EU isn't interested in ponying up the dough necessary to make the transition viable. The Agreement is a non-starter.
Later the article, with an amazing lack of sources says: "...Kyiv hoped the EU itself would decide to block the signing of the document in connection with the failure to resolve the Tymoshenko issue. However among the member states, voices favouring consent to...adopting the Agreement began to predominate...(W)hen it became impossible to blame the EU...for any failure...the Ukrainian gov't began to publicly highlight the negative consequences that would arise from implementing the agreement and to demand financial compensation from Brussels..."
This is just positioning the facts for a Western audience. The idea that Yanukovych hoped the EU would "block the signing" comes off as little more than a convenient excuse for the author and the rising "voices" in Europe to sign the deal is a signal that they knew they had Yanukovych over a barrel and wanted him to cut his own throat. The fact that Yanukovych needed extra economic inducements to join the EU should have been obvious the whole time meaning the EU was negotiating in bad faith from the first meeting. This article is an attempt to put all the blame on Yanukovych, when it seems like the EU was trying to squeeze political concessions (re: Tymoshenko, Yanukovych's arch enemy), knowing full well that Ukraine could not leave the Russian economic sphere. The Europeans are playing with Ukraine the way a cat plays with a dead mouse and letting Yanukovych take all the blame, when actually Yanukovych was going pretty far out on a limb to make even considering this move to the EU possible.
The article is sympathetic to the idea that Ukraine's economy at the time could not afford to join the EU, though they still couch this in terms of "the ruling elite", who "fear that the difficult reforms that the Agreement requires would lead to a further decline in support for the gov't and destabilize the economy." So the fact that Ukraine's entry to the EU would tank the economy and prove fatal to the rulers (democratically elected rulers, incidentally) is presented as a short-sighted blunder when compared to "the positive effects of joining the EU (which) would only be felt in the long term." And, of course, there's no guarantee of any positive effects! If Yanukovych had signed this Agreement in November 2013, it would have been guaranteed to tank the economy and destabilize the nation with absolutely no guarantee that EU membership would actually provide any stability. Where is the political leader that would sign on to that? (Presumably Western darling Tymoshenko....?)
Indeed, the Ukrainian economy already needed help: "Negotiations with the IMF have been under way since last year. Kyiv may have been hoping signing the Agreement would positively influence the IMF's decision...but the IMF's demand that the price of gas be increased by 40%...and the need for painful budget cuts....(make it) highly unlikely that Ukraine will reach any agreement with the IMF this year..." So Ukraine needed economic relief from the IMF, but without the Agreement with the EU all they got was the immediate austerity. The Agreement with the EU would not come with any offsetting funds to minimize Russian trade so....Ukraine joining the EU never had a chance. And nor did getting a workable deal from the IMF.
Yanukovych got dragged through a negotiation with the EU that would have damaged his domestic stranding, crushed his economy, and pissed off his largest trade partner with no hope of immediate gain and nothing but crippling debt to the IMF. All because, it would seem, he refused to pardon his main political rival that (for better or worse) had been duly convicted in court. If we don't trust Ukraine's court system to properly prosecute its own citizens, then why does the EU even want to extend to membership? Oh yeah: it pisses off Russia.
But not signing the deal, which would've been ruinous, pissed off his own population and from there Yanukovych's downfall was already underway. Yankukovych is still the scapegoat for Ukraine not joining the EU, when in fact there was never a glimmer of a fuckin' chance that the conditions would be favorable for Ukraine--which the EU and the IMF (and NATO) knew the whole time.
As for the Agreement: "The Ukrainian gov't's statements clearly indicate that it has lost interesting in signing the Agreement with the EU, which they see as a threat to economic situation and the country's relation to Russia....in addition, the economy is in crisis which would make it difficult for (Yanukovych) to win fair elections....the decision to opt out of the Agreement has paradoxically weakened Ukraine's negotiating position with Russia...."
Conclusion: "....Ukraine has entered a period of political instability...." Notice that it's not that Ukraine will enter but "has entered". The whole point of the 2013 negotiation was to destabilize Ukraine and Yanukovych was the sucker that took the bait (and the blame).
And there we have it: the EU and the IMF knew from the get-go that there was no credible chance of Ukraine getting any worthwhile agreement with them and that even entering into the negotiation was political suicide for Yanukovych, the guy the Europeans wanted to get rid of. This was a coldly calculated assassination from day one. Yanukovych's fatal mistake was thinking that the EU would actually accept Ukraine and help them detach from Russia. The West concocted his downfall by taking advantage of his actual desire to join the EU--all of which made Ukraine even more dependent on Russia.
Seems like the EU got what it wanted, right? It gave Yanukovych just enough rope and that guy got hung.
A few weeks later this Reuters report gives another look at what Yanukovych was going through. In September he was eager--screamingly eager!--to move Ukraine away from Russian influence. But by November it's plainly obvious that the Europeans are just leading him on ("...the unwillingness of the EU and IMF to be flexible in their demands....(made) them less attractive partners").
The EU was not willing to even come close to covering Ukraine's short term needs.
And again, it seems to hinge on Tymoshenko. Clearly the Europeans were willing (possibly) to fight for her but not for Yanukovych, who soon fled to Russia.
Meanwhile, here's then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland handing out cookies to Ukrainian police in December 2013.
Notice that photographers are as prominent in this picture as the cops. Seems like Nuland knows how to orchestrate a photo op. It is the American State Department celebrating a job well done.
Cohen is more or less reiterating what he said to Charlie Rose 6 years earlier. But as the violence on the streets of Ukraine is ramping up, he is clearly more impassioned.
Also, check out the clips of President Obama's statement on the subject, about which Cohen is absolutely correct: how can we be promoting democracy and uprisings in the street at the same time? The whole nature of democracy is that there's another election around the corner where the citizenry is able to make its desires clear without resorting to street violence. (His thought experiment of an uprising in the US Capitol feels a bit creepy in hindsight, don't it?) Is it because USA cares about Ukrainian stability? Or the true spread of democracy?
Furthermore, Yanukovych was no threat to elections--indeed, he even moved up the elections as per outside demands. All so that it would look like it was an election that got him out of office rather than protests in the street (though technically Yanukovych abdicated and an interim gov't was in place before the next election).
Robert Perry on Real News, March 3, 2014
Journalist Robert Perry reminds us that Yanukovych was an elected leader who made every effort to convene a new election--one he was likely to lose!--when militia groups took over the capitol and forced him into exile. Just a reminder that this was never about "Democracy" since Ukraine's elections were never in danger and it wasn't until Yanukovych called for police to stand down that the (American-backed?) militias rose up.
(*) And salty snacks and sugary beverages, an observation I'll expand on if I ever get back to Covid-19, which I probably won't.
(**) Wow, remember Charlie Rose? Now seems like a fine time to admit that I always thought Rose was a useless fuckin' idiot but he had good guests--that he would pepper with repetitive dumb questions. The only people Rose was really good at interviewing were journalists, which actually made him a sneaky good deep dive news guy back in the day, but an incredibly overrated cultural interlocuter.
(***) China will want a massive Navy and all the cyber-capabilities it can muster but will likely eschew for the most part all those Cold War armaments. China doesn't care about ICBMs or long range bombers. China is pursuing outward protection for potential trade, not for potential territorial conquest.
(****) Hat tip to Spondulix99 from whom I cannibalized a good deal of this deep dive.
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