The Next Ukraine Crisis - Doug's Brief Case

Pro-Russian Crimeans celebrate referendum results. Putin won this round of the Ukraine crisis. How should the West prepare for the next one? [Credit: China Daily]

President Obama and his Administration have been proclaiming for weeks that the Russians would suffer if they didn’t withdraw from Crimea.

They haven’t withdrawn. They’re not suffering. Now what?

Vladimir Putin seems once again to have prevailed, annexing Crimea without military or economic reprisals of consequence. Our government’s veiled threats of military action and explicit warnings of deep economic pain have thus far proven empty, though both the US and Europe are expected to add to the list of Russians on whom it will impose travel and financial restrictions. The crisis may soon wind down, but we can expect another in a few months when new elections are to be held and bills come due for a Kiev government on the edge of bankruptcy. The Administration should handle this next crisis differently.

It should begin by reviewing what went wrong. Since the 1990s, the EU and Russia have competed for the affections of debt-ridden Ukraine. Each promises the country money to ally with its side. Voters have gone back and forth in the ethnically divided nation, sometimes electing pro-Russian leaders, at other times politicians who favor the West. The resulting governments have almost invariably been corrupt, unstable and ineffective. The economy over the past 20 years has been among the worst in the region, as this chart from the Economist illustrates.

Inexpicably, the uglier and more undesirable Ukraine grew, the more fervent the competition for its loyalties became. When the ethnic Ukrainian faction lost, it appealed to the Europeans for aid; when the Russian faction lost, it ran to Moscow. Ukraine plumbed new depths during the 2004 presidential campaign when a pro-Western candidate was poisoned by government security forces. They are suspected of having obtained the poison from Russian agents.

Meanwhile, panhandling for euros and rubles became the leading economic program of a series of Ukraine governments. In 2010, the IMF agreed to provide Kiev with $15 billion in assistance. But Ukraine’s pro-Russian President, Viktor Yanukovich refused to comply with the loan’s conditions, which essentially required Ukraine to behave like responsible adults. The IMF suspended assistance in 2012, and the Yanukovich government looked to Russia for handouts. But the Europeans weren’t about to give up. So they spent most of 2013 negotiating with Yanukovich on reviving the $15 billion aid package.

Putin ultimately persuaded Yanukovich last December to spurn the IMF and instead to accept his offer of $20 billion. That prompted demonstrations by pro-Western forces, which included neo-fascists, calling for Yanukovich’s deposition. Tensions reached a boiling point during last month’s Sochi Olympics. With Putin trying to burnish his image as the genial host of the games, demonstrators seized the moment by seeking to topple his lackey Yanukovich.

Government forces fired on the demonstrators, killing scores of people. (Russia blames the demonstrators themselves for the atrocities, arguing that they did it to provoke Western intervention.) Then came the February 21 agreement between the EU, Russia, the Yanukovich government and leaders of the demonstrations. It provided for constitutional reforms, an international investigation into the shootings and new elections by year’s end.

The February 21 agreement died on February 22. Parliament, pressured by the demonstrators who detested the agreement, deposed Yanukovich, who fled the country. The West walked away from the accord. Europe and the US recognized the new government, whose leader promptly declared, “the Ukrainian economy is heading into the abyss and is in a pre-default state.” Translation: send money now.

Once the Olympics concluded, Putin responded with an outrage of his own: ordering Russian troops to remove their insignia and seize Crimea, all the while denying Russian responsibility. The results of the invasion were ratified by a questionable referendum, in which 97 percent of Crimeans allegedly chose annexation by Russia.

Let’s assume that Putin contents himself with annexing Crimea and that ethnic violence, which both sides see as a way of advancing their interests by provoking the intervention of sympathetic foreign powers, does not get out of hand. That will keep things quiet in Ukraine for a couple of months. That quiet will likely be disrupted when elections are held on May 25 or perhaps in late June when the government has to roll over a large chunk of debt.

Both are potentially de-stabilizing events. With Crimea no longer part of Ukraine, anti-Russian candidates are likely to sweep the May elections. That means the new government will almost certainly be hostile to Moscow and that Russian speakers will appeal for Putin’s help. And although the IMF is promising Ukraine aid, the government may be forced to restructure its obligations. In any event, the conditions that attach to the aid will cause political problems for the newly-elected government. A return to crisis seems inevitable.

What should the US do?

Refrain from inflammatory rhetoric. The President and his Secretary of State are being made to look foolish because they spewed threats they couldn’t back up. Next time, they should save the smack talk for the golf course (or, in Kerry’s case, the yacht club) and take a more tempered approach to international crises.
Recognize that Ukraine is primarily Europe’s problem. If the Obama Administration’s foreign policy has any guiding principle, it appears to be that the US will not pursue its national interests but defer instead to the erstwhile “norms” of the “international community.” That principle is vacuous and elusive, but it suggests that the US should refrain from trying to solve Europe’s problems. The case for deference to Europe (which, in the current circumstances, means Angela Merkel) is underscored by the fact that economic sanctions will go only as far as the Europeans are willing to take them. The lesson: follow Europe’s lead.
Quietly encourage our European allies to seek a unified Ukraine policy with Russia. While we shouldn’t try to establish Western policy on Ukraine, we have every right to kibitz. We should urge the EU to stop competing with the Russians over Ukraine and instead work in concert. After 20 years of being played by Slavic welfare queens, the West and Russia should insist that Ukraine take responsibility for its own economy. Instead of exacerbating ethnic divisions by enticing the country to join the EU or ally more closely with Russia, Moscow and Western Europe should agree on a common aid package that imposes conditions that Ukraine must meet in order to repair its economy.

The conflict between East and West over Ukraine is not one of good guys vs. bad guys. Everyone has behaved badly: the West in disowning the multilateral agreement concluded on February 21 and embracing as legitimate a government incited by a street mob, Russia by responding with a cowardly invasion (that it continues, implausibly, to deny) and a sham plebiscite.

That is now in the past. Crimea is today part of Russia and what remains of Ukraine is penniless and riven by ethnic division. The US should encourage the EU to use this period of quiescence to negotiate with the Russians on a common approach to the next Ukraine crisis. Absent such agreement, Ukraine will remain volatile, prone to violence and dependent on the kindness of strangers.

It’s time for Mamma Merkel and Papa Putin to tell the Ukrainians to move out of the house, get a job and make their own way.

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