Putin’s Munich Moment

Protected by two oceans with friendly neighbors on our northern and southern borders, Americans aren’t naturally inclined to concern themselves with disruptions in other parts of the world. Nothing shows our global disinterest and detachment more than not knowing the location of a country or much about it – unless it’s one of the biggies like Germany, Russia, China, and maybe a handful of others.

Take Ukraine, for example. Where the heck is that place? What’s all the fuss about Russia and Crimea? And why should I care?

Google a map and you’ll see that Ukraine is due south of Moscow. Russia borders about half of its northern border and its entire eastern border. On the Ukrainian south is the Black Sea. Jutting out into it like the Greek Peloponnese is Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula so much in the news.

When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed the day following Christmas in 1991, Ukraine was one of the 15 Republics to escapee the embrace of the Russian bear hug. Like the other escapees, Ukrainians are bilingual – Russian was the required lingua franca – and many were multilingual since a great number of ethnic groups make up their society. But Slavic Ukrainian is the mother tongue for two-thirds on the country – increasingly so as one travels west today– and one-third are Russian speakers with Ukrainian as their second language. The majority of Russia speakers are concentrated in Crimea.

Looking at a map of the former USSR, one is struck with the size of Russia – 11 time zones wide – and the indicators of its poor economic condition: Russia has 30% fewer miles of paved road than the state of Texas and its GDP is slightly less than Brazil’s and slightly more than Italy’s. Russia’s GDP is one-eighth (12%) of the US GDP.

Crimea is an autonomous province within Ukraine. It was created in 1954 when Nikita Khrushchev, who was half-Ukrainian, transferred it to Ukraine oversight. At the time it meant nothing since both Crimea and Ukraine were part of the USSR. But lately Vladimir Putin has been crying, “We wuz robbed,” as he disputes the legality of the 1954 transfer. Since Putin was two years old at the time he was not consulted. About 60% of Crimean residents are native Russia speakers, many of them living around Sevastopol, the principal port for the Russian Black Sea fleet. Crimea has a governing parliament, but the Ukrainian government has veto power over its actions. As the USSR was falling apart in 1991, 90% of Ukraine voted to secede. The Crimean vote for independence was 56% despite its large Russian population.

While Crimea may be an autonomous province, its economy and infrastructure is integrated with Ukraine. Over a billion dollars of Crimea’s annual budget revenue comes from the Ukrainian capital at Kiev. Most of its water, 80% of its electricity and two-thirds of its natural gas comes from Ukraine. In other words, Crimea is not a country that can go it alone.

The decade following independence was difficult for Ukrainians (including Crimeans) as its economy converted from the centralized Soviet command economy to a market-based economy. But relative prosperity arrived and continued until the 2008 world economic meltdown. As Ukrainians tasted the good life, they tilted toward the west. The west in turn tilted toward Ukraine, inviting the country to join the European Union provided it cleaned up its political act. One of several conditions required freeing Yulia Tymoshenko from prison, the details of which can be read at her hyperlink. (You may recall that she was Prime Minister when Viktor Yushchenko became the third post-independence president. He allegedly was poisoned by Russian agents who favored the pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovych. Yushchenko’s face was grotesquely pocked by the poison but he eventually healed.)

A victim of the 2008 global meltdown, the Ukrainian economy went south along with Yushchenko’s popularity. He lost the 2010 presidential election to Viktor Yanukovych, a corrupt Russian stooge. Despite Yanukovych’s promise to join the EEU, when the time came to sign on the dotted line, he reneged. His best bud, Vlad Putin, had made him a better offer – a $15 billion loan, discounts on natural gas imports from Russia, and membership in the Eurasian Union, also called the Customs Union, which Putin intends to be a counterweight to the EEU. The Customs Union does not even exist at this time and won’t exist until early 2015, if then. But one fact is certain: no democracies need apply.

The Customs Union will be a political and economic union more in the mold of the former Soviet suppression of civil, political, and economic liberty. It will be a throw-back to old style Cold War paranoia. Putin’s Kremlin suspects the real motive behind the EEU flirtation with Ukraine is to weaken Russia and its influence in the world. Thus, Putin’s Syrian mediation, which bested Team Obama-Kerry game, set, and match, showed his commitment to be a global alternative to the influence of the west.

President Yanukovych’s repudiation of the EEU last November squelched hopes for westernizing Ukraine. Gone were the hopes of improving the lives of its citizens through the much needed economic, political, and judicial reforms which EEU membership would have compelled. Protestors responded by taking to the streets. This is what they did to dispute the rigged 2004 election which Yanukovych supposedly won but the Court nullified it allowing Yushchenko to become President. Unlike 2004 in which street protests were peacefully tolerated by the government, this time the incompetent Yanukovych government fought back. A number of protesters were killed.  Yanukovych fled Kiev for eastern Ukraine which was more pro-Russian. Parliament voted to remove him from office and replace him with an interim President. And Tymoshenko was released from prison allowing her to fly to Germany for treatment of spinal injuries she received while imprisoned.

Seizing upon Ukrainian political instability Putin expanded his military presence in Crimea. He alleged the move was made to protect the security of the Russian fleet base and Russian revenues from natural gas lines which went through Ukraine to Black Sea ports. Hogwash. Russian troops also crossed the Crimean-Ukraine border to seize a natural gas plant on Ukrainian soil.

An extraordinary election was called to give the pro-Russia Crimean peninsula the opportunity to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Mother Russia. The election ignored all constitutional requirements. People opposed to secession and Russia repatriation failed to vote, fearful of their lives. Some who voted may have done so illegally, including voting more than once. Election observers and cameras weren’t allowed. Remarkably, 125% of the registered voters voted. Not so remarkable, secession won by 96.7%. Therefore, as of Sunday, Crimean time was set to Moscow time, banking reorganization began to integrate with Russian banking, and other forms of Russian integration were initiated.

Putin further claims he has the right to "defend" "Russian citizens" anywhere in Ukraine. Since Russians are scattered throughout the country, that means he can invade at will, despite the fact that more than a few Russians don’t want repatriation with Mother Russia.

If you’re a student of history thinking all of this seems strangely familiar, you’d be correct. In 1938 Hitler demanded that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudetenland – that portion of Czechoslovakia which was populated by German speakers. The cowards in the west led by British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier did nothing – but talk.

Like Hitler, Putin is a bully and one heck of a good poker player. He effectively invaded Georgia almost six years ago and annexed two provinces. As it had done 70 years earlier, the west did nothing but talk. Putin now invades Crimea, crosses into Ukraine to seize a gas production facility, and reserves the right to make further incursions. Obama and Kerry talk, warn, wag fingers, and do nothing.

Putin has seen these two clowns in action before. Obama-Kerry established Syrian red lines and did nothing. They warned Iran that going nuclear wouldn’t be tolerated and did nothing. They warned North Korea about firing provocative missile test shots and did nothing. They warned China about maneuvers in the international waters of the South China Sea and did nothing. Putin watched as America shed its military might to increase welfare spending. He watched as Obama pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan so inadvisably as to squander all gains paid by American blood and treasure. He watched as Obama abdicated the US role as world leader and focused his administration on US income inequality. He watched and watched and watched, and rightly concluded that Obama is an over-cautious professorial politician in the Woodrow Wilson mold … a good talker but a feckless leader.

We don’t have to respond to Putin with military action. In many respects Russia is a third-world country. Shutting down all business – and I mean ALL BUSINESS including our energy purchases – with Russia and trying to get our allies to do likewise would bring Russia to its knees. Who will give Russia economic aid then? China? It has its own economic problems. Sending military aid to Ukraine would help salvage “Ukraine military” from its current oxymoron status, arming it to resist. There are other non-military initiatives we could take to let Putin know he was in a bare knuckle fight. But alas, Obama hasn’t the spine to face down Putin as his hero Kennedy did to Khrushchev in the Cuban missile crisis.

With a little imagination anyone can see where Putin is headed. He wants to reconstruct the collapsed Russian empire, which he has called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. Putin's geopolitical mentor, Aleksandr Dugin, promotes a radical ideology that sounds very much like Hitler’s Anschluss – except now reuniting of all of the Slavic people in Europe. "Only a global crusade against the US, the West, globalization, and their political-ideological expression, liberalism, is capable of becoming an adequate response. ... The American empire should be destroyed.” And the Russian empire should be resurrected. Tough talk. Google Dugin’s name. You’ll get an eyeful.

Putin hasn’t been jetting around Eurasia making friends, loans, and weapon deals because he’s collecting frequent flyer points. As Admiral Painter famously told Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October, “Russians don't take a dump, son, without a plan.”

Those who think my concerns are just conspiracy theories should remember that six months after the 1938 Munich Agreement, Hitler swallowed up all of Czechoslovakia. Six months after that he invaded Poland and massacred its citizens. Six months later he invaded France, defeating it in one month. For the next five years, the world fought a war that cost 60 million lives. Almost one and a half million were Ukrainians – 15% of the Soviet losses.

Evil cannot reveal its aims when it initially appears. Its course and ultimate consequence are  determined by the neglect of men anxious to minimize their response it.

Now, what was that prophetic statement by George Santayana?

Ah, yes: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

The Pros and Cons on Syria

The Syria civil war has been going on for 30 months and despite “red line” threats from Obama he has not sought to insert the US into that conflict. Even the promise of weapons to the rebels has yet to produce the delivery of one rifle. The war’s toll is estimated to have caused over 100,000 deaths and over two million refugees thus far. But last month’s alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, killing between 500 and 1,500 civilians and insurgents, raised the table stakes and forced Obama to make good on his red line threat or look feckless in the eyes of the world, which include eyes in Iran and Russia.

I use the term “alleged” because several analyses of the photos and videos believe them to be staged. Moreover, the intelligence is suspect that the deaths, if indeed they occurred, were the result of chemical weapons because the ratio of survivors to deaths is 10:1 – unheard of in a chemical attack. The videos of the attack showed people “dying” unlike they die in gas attacks, and the people shown handling the corpses and survivors did so without any protection. The White House “evidence” is detailed in a carefully-worded statement available online.

Oddly, when Obama and Friends were persuaded that Assad had violated the Chemical Weapons Convention – a curious piece of morality that specifies the right and wrong way of killing one’s enemies – there was no move to call Congress back into session to collaborate on a red line response. Instead, Obama took in a round of golf and then hopped on Air Force One to go abroad for a while, as he is wont to do when confronted with a dilemma. Abroad he denied he had set a red line, blaming the world for setting it. And while denying that he needed congressional approval for him to commit an act of war against Syria, the US Constitution notwithstanding, Obama asked for speedy congressional approval for him to commit an act of war against Syria. Helping the insurgency topple Assad, whom Obama says must go, would ally America with al-Qaeda, against whom we’ve declared war, because AQ fighters are fighting with the Free Syrian Army.

Are you following all of this?

Meanwhile Secretary of Bumbling, John Kerry, held up his end of this Keystone Kops routine. In London he put his size 13½ in his mouth by saying Syria could avoid an American attack by handing over its chemical weapons to international authority. Russia said, “I’ll take that bet,” and Syria seconded the motion. Oops. Checkmate. The attack is on hold while Syria and Russia pretend to negotiate the international control agreement – for a couple of years. Stunned, the State Department tried to walk back what Kerry said, calling it “rhetorical” and “hypothetical.” Kerry rhetorically gave Assad one week to turn over his chemical arsenal.

After calling Assad a “thug” and a “murderer” and comparing him to Hitler, Kerry parried a London reporter’s thrust about involving America in another war, Kerry said that what his boss had in mind was “a very limited, very targeted, very short-term effort” attack that would be “unbelievably small.” Unbelievably small? You mean compared to Hiroshima? Like a wrist slapping maybe? And an unbelievably small attack is going to make Assad behave and be a good boy? Kerry is being relentlessly mocked for his unbelievably unconvincing rationale for doing anything against Syria and Obama’s chances of getting congressional approval went from slim to none.

The Syrian situation is a mess, made worse by the incompetence of Obama’s non-existent Middle East policy. When your enemy (and friends) can’t predict what you’ll do, you’ll be tested – a lot. Whether a chemical weapon attack happened or not, Obama and Friends have signaled they believe it happened. Now what? What are the pros and cons for taking action now?

First the pros.

There is a consequence for doing nothing. With Obama’s red line rhetoric, he loses credibility if he does nothing. Worse, America loses credibility with allies and potential allies around the world. Future presidents will assume office with Obama’s credibility gap and will be forced to prove themselves. Given the choice between the world – friends and foes – fearing the US or not, I’ll take fear every time. You tend to be left alone when feared. So high on the pros list would be that as a country, we don’t win with a weakened president, even one whose performance is unacceptable to 57% of the people. We still have 40 more months to put up with this guy.

Another pro, somewhat related, is that our enemies – notably Iran and Russia which have high stakes in the Middle East – are watching our response to a violation of the International Chemical Weapons Convention. Syria is not a signatory, but we are and so are most of the 190 countries in the world. I fail to see the distinction between killing people with bullets or gas – they are just as dead either way – but if opponents are going to fight to the death both sides ought to have an equal chance to die. If bad guys can use chemicals and get away with it, a new normal is established.

An argument in favor of toppling Assad is that he does possess a known chemical arsenal. For all of its other nasty attributes, chemical weapons are instruments of terror as much or more weapons for killing. The knowledge that they can be used has force in the balance of power. As a client of Iran and Russia, Assad is a threat that weapons of this ilk will proliferate in the region if not beyond and threaten regional stability including American military assets in the region.

Another pro for intervention in the Syrian war is that it is spilling over into neighboring countries that are our allies – Jordan and Turkey, for example. The al-Qaeda jihadists who are fighting alongside of the Free Syrian Army cannot be allowed to establish a presence in these other countries. If they do, they will cause instability which could ultimately topple governments that are on “our side” more than the side of the region’s bad guys.

America is the world’s only super-power. With that arguably comes the responsibility to keep the global neighborhood safe and away from US shores. Thus, another possible pro is that there is no practical way to be isolationist in today’s world. A threat to peace that is allowed to flourish and gain power like a hurricane at sea ultimately comes ashore as a threat to US interests. Think about the rise of Nazism between 1933 and 1940 which went unchallenged, swallowed almost all of Europe, and became a threat to the free world. Conquering it required almost five years and cost 60 million lives, half of them Russian.

Finally, Americans are a compassionate people. We can’t right every wrong, but it’s hard to sit on the sidelines while a petty despot slaughters his people or warring factions kill each other as happened in Rwanda and Darfur, and until UN sanctions, Bosnia.

Now for the cons.

There are no American interests involved in the Syrian civil war. After 2½ years of fighting neither side can claim victory and no end is in sight. While Assad has the military assets, his army is becoming demoralized. Desertions and defections are a growing risk as the war goes on. The chemical weapons attack may have been an act of desperation by Assad since he has been unable to land a knockout punch. We should all be repelled that a despot would kill his own people, but the chemical attack killed between 500 and 1,500 allegedly. Over 100,000 have been killed since the war started which failed to move the Obama administration (or the UN) to act.

When Obama made his Rose Garden announcement at the beginning of this month arguing that Assad’s use of chemical weapons was a threat to our national security and justified a US military strike, it apparently was not enough of a threat to justify calling Congress back into session. Schlepping off to Sweden and a meaningless G-20 meeting for three days in which most of his time was spent sightseeing didn’t signal that this new threat to national security was keeping him awake at night.

The second con, in my opinion, is that the insurgency fighting against Assad has become radicalized since the war started. Al-Qaeda jihadists are pouring into the fight. Look at Libya and Egypt to see how this is likely to turn out with Assad gone. We should ask ourselves if life is better for the Egyptians and Libyans now than it was under Mubarak and Gaddafi. If Assad is toppled the chemical weapons are in play. We would be compelled to intervene to prevent their ending up in al-Qaeda hands.

Unintended consequences – my third con – always follow intervention into the affairs of another country. Our batting average for interventions in this part of the world isn’t good. Saddam Hussein’s army was defeated in months; we spent years dealing with the insurgency. So let’s say we lob a few missiles into Syria. What are we going to do if Assad uses chemical weapons again? What will we do if all of the Israel-haters in the region rain hell on that country in retaliation? What if our naval assets in the region are attacked, Middle Eastern oil is disrupted, sleeper cells in the US repeat Boston bombings, and/or Russia, Iran, or China enter the fray we cause? There are real threats that these things can happen today without our intervention in Syria. Will we increase their likelihood with an intervention?

How effective will an “unbelievably small” strike be? Obama has practically given Assad the date, time, and targets. Everything that can be hidden among the civilian population will be. Our strike will surely kill civilians. What then is the difference in our killing Syrian civilians and Assad doing it? Images – real and fake – of the collateral damage caused by our attacks will be streamed to the world. Our image in the world, already in tatters, will become even worse.

Another con is Obama himself. Who has confidence in his leadership, especially in things military? He has no grand strategy for the Middle East. What he says and what he ultimately does are often different. He is a politician turned amateur president whose silver-tongued oratory and two elections confirmed H. L. Menken’s famous observation: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public” – at least the majority that voted for him twice.

With a job approval rating in the low 40s he is not likely to risk his reputation further in bold strikes. The strike he has in mind will be mostly symbolic. Last week’s Reuters poll had 56% of the public opposed and 19% for Syrian intervention. Congressional phone-ins are running ten to one against intervention. Only 33% of this week’s Wall Street Journal poll favored congressional authorization of a strike and less than one in four believed military action was in the nation’s interest.

Obama the dove is suddenly Obama the hawk. The UN, which Obama has argued repeatedly should always sanction US interventions, hasn’t authorized US action and isn’t likely to with Russia and China on the National Security Council. The British Parliament embarrassed its Prime Minister by turning thumbs down on any involvement in a Syrian retaliation – the first time a Prime Minister’s request has been rejected by Parliament since the 18th century. Only the vast military armada and fighting resolve of France stands with us. Bottom line. We go it alone – another con. We are trying to be the world cop even as Obama is stripping the military to feed money into his domestic agenda.

With the IRS scandal, the NSA snooping, the unanswered questions on Benghazi, the looming debt ceiling debate, and government spending, among many domestic issues dogging Obama, one has to wonder if Syrian intervention is a “wag the dog” deflection of the public’s attention. Too cynical? Remember when Clinton ordered a missile attack on an aspirin factory in the Sudan on the same day Monica Lewinsky appeared before Ken Starr’s grand jury? Stranger things have happened.

Since a Tunisian street vendor immolated himself in late 2010 igniting the “Arab spring,” Obama and Friends have been behind the power curve – paralyzed by if and how to provide leadership in the developing situation. Obama’s paralysis has not gone unnoticed by Russia’s Putin, who threw our amateur president a life line this week by playing the chemical weapons control chip.

Russia is no longer a world super power, but unlike Obama’s faux red line, Russia’s red line for sustaining the Assad regime has teeth in it. Among other reasons, Russia’s only Mediterranean seaport is in Syria – a deal sealed in 1971 when big daddy Assad was running the family business. Its anchorage there may only be rusting Soviet era ships but it is symbolic that Russia is still a player to be reckoned with in Middle East politics. Putin won’t stand aside for another ally to be toppled as happened with Gaddafi in Libya.

Candidate Obama promised to transform America if elected president. Criticizing America’s so-called colonial past, as reflected in its intervention in foreign countries, he went on an apology tour and shocked Americans by bowing to foreign leaders as if bent on destroying this country’s power and influence in the world.

At least in one commentator’s mind, he has succeeded. A week ago Conrad Black began his weekly column with these words

Not since the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, and before that the fall of France in 1940, has there been so swift an erosion of the world influence of a Great Power as we are witnessing with the United States.

I’ll second that.