UKRAINE

The one thing a Presidential candidate never addresses, at least not publicly, are the external, unforeseen circumstances that suddenly arise (coming out of the blue) and were not scripted in an otherwise carefully choreographed playbook. These are the “Black Swans” that Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes about in his book under the same title. These are the events, which, if they were foreseeable, might have changed a Presidential contender’s mind about running for the most powerful – and challenging – job in the world. These are the events that throw a Presidency off course and call for a complete review and reboot of policy and priorities. Just ask George W. Bush about 9/11 or the crash of 2008. Black Swans have a disproportionate influence over political agendas, including foreign policy agendas, compared with other events that were somewhat foreseeable if not predictable.

The inescapable fact is that Presidents, once elected, will get to deal with world events that neither they nor their staff have considered and prepared for.

For President Obama the developments in the Ukraine may constitute just one of such events. As if, from a foreign policy perspective, he does not already have his hands full with Iran, Syria, Egypt, North Korea and Palestine! (If you seriously consider all this, why would Hilary Clinton, who, better than most, will understand the vagaries of foreign policy, even want to run in 2016?).

Now Obama has to establish a measured response to the events in the Ukraine and Putin’s interference with what is happening there. He has to find the right response in a highly charged political atmosphere where Republicans are looking for new ground to attack him on (there was a time that Republicans and Democrats alike united behind the President in case of a foreign policy crisis) and where the public is firmly on the side of the underdog and loves to teach Putin a lesson. Even though the Cold War has been over for 22 years and the Soviet Union has fallen apart, we still tend to see Russia as the latent enemy (a sentiment stoked and kept alive by Putin’s words and deeds). The public sentiment, which is loudly echoed in Congress, limits Obama’s options and pushes him to over react.

An objective observer of the Ukrainian situation would base his analysis on the following considerations:

·         The Ukraine has been an independent nation only since December 1991 when the Soviet Union, to which it belonged, dissolved. It was an undisputed part of Russia since 1783. Prior to 1783 most of the current Ukrainian territory was split between a Cossack dominated Hetmanate and a Tatar dominated Khanate (which included Crimea).

·         The current boundaries of the Ukraine were established in 1921 following the Russian Revolution.

·         Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783. At the time of the Russian revolution it was a stronghold for the anti-Bolshevik White Russian Army until the end of 1920. It became the Crimean Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in October of 1921 as part of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.

·         In 1954, at the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, who was of Ukrainian origin, Crimea was transferred from the Russian to the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

·         Crimea is an autonomous republic within the Ukraine and is governed by the Constitution of Crimea in accordance with the laws of Ukraine. On March 11, 2014, the Crimean Parliament declared Crimea a sovereign state.

·         The legitimacy of the current interim government of Ukraine is questionable as it was put in power by the Ukrainian Parliament following the overthrow of the democratically elected former President Yanukovych. The fact that he grossly abused his power and that his election may have been rigged, does not, by itself, lend legitimacy to his overthrow and the new regime.

By Western standards, Ukrainian democracy has been plagued by corruption and mismanagement under every elected leadership since the birth of the nation in 1991. It is a showcase for the realization that elections alone do not create a democracy, which requires a modern constitution, strong democratic institutions and a leadership that is solely devoted to the prosperity of the nation and its people. It remains to be seen if the Presidential elections scheduled for May 25 will signal a new beginning.

None of this whitewashes the behavior of Vladimir Putin in the Ukrainian crisis that is still unfolding. But, let’s face it, Putin can read the tealeaves and he holds all the cards in his poorly disguised takeover of the Crimea. He could go a lot further than that without anyone seriously standing in his way, at least militarily. The Ukrainian crisis is dangerous, not so much because of what happens next in the Crimea or other parts of the country, but because of the signals it sends of how much of a paper tiger we are in that part of the world. We may be paying a price sometime soon for expanding NATO right up to the Russian border and with countries like the Baltic States which, like the Ukraine, have significant Russian speaking population segments. I believe that history will consider the whole aggressive, post-Soviet, NATO expansion with countries like Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria a major strategic mistake for the West. This was just rubbing it in to the Russians that they had lost the Cold War and it deprived Russia of a cordon of militarily neutral countries. We should have left it at economic integration with the West while leaving the military balance of powers unchanged. If Putin, God forbid, decides that he also needs to “protect” the Russian speaking population of Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, NATO will be obliged to go to war with Russia or lose any and all credibility as a military alliance. That would be an unmitigated disaster, either way.

Obama, as the leader of the West, should discipline his troops, including members of Congress and the press, to stop elevating the rhetoric on the Ukrainian crisis and dispense with uttering empty threats. We need to stop grandstanding in front of the cameras and wagging our finger at Putin for public consumption. We certainly don’t need another red line, like we drew in Syria, and then erase it when it gets crossed because we don’t have the means or the will to do anything about it. A demonstration of powerlessness is the last thing we need and thus we should let actions speak louder than words. And our actions should be measured, targeted and strategic rather than tactical. They should be like winning moves in chess play.

Thomas Friedman, in a column in the NYT on March 4 titled “Why Putin Doesn’t Respect Us”, told us exactly what we need to do instead: refrain from emotional spontaneous reactions but put a long term strategy in place that reduces Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas. In other words, hit Putin where it hurts most, in his dependence on oil and gas revenues. None of this means that we should not apply diplomatic pressure where we can, but we should do that quietly, away from the spotlights, where we can leave face saving openings for the Russians who will not be intimidated by empty threats anyway.

At the same time we should do what we can, together with the European Union and the IMF to strengthen the democracies and the economies of the countries, like the Ukraine, that want to lessen their dependence on the Russian sphere of influence. We need to realize that, as powerful a country Russia is, its GDP is smaller than Brazil’s and barely larger than Italy’s and that it is severely oil and gas export dependent. The markets seem to realize that vulnerability better than the loudmouths in the media do, having taken big chunks of value out of the Russian stock market and the Ruble since Putin started throwing his weight around in the Ukraine. Above all we need to realize that the Ukrainian crisis is developing in a part of the world where the U.S. sphere of influence is very limited. Our ideas and ideals can take a hold there but only if the Ukrainian people aspire to them. Our military might is powerless there under any scenario other than all-out war, which we should avoid at any price.

Putin is bullying his own people as much as the Ukrainians, the Moldovans, the Georgians and the Belarus. We should allow him to defeat himself by quietly undermining his economy and by exporting the principles and power of good democratic governance based on free and entrepreneurial economies.