Our So-Called Foreign Policy: My Ukraine Peace Plan

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diplomacy, energy, EU, European Union, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, sanctions, Ukraine, Ukraine War, World War 3

As I’ve repeatedly argued, every day the Ukraine war lasts, the United States runs an ever greater risk of the conflict going nuclear and the American homeland coming under attack. And as I’ve also argued, the creation of any such nuclear risk is completely unacceptable because despite all the military aid provided by Washington, the U.S government still hasn’t backed admitting Ukraine to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). That alliance of course is made up of countries whose security the United States has officially designated as vital, and thus by definition worth incurring such risks.

So in order to ensure that U.S. leaders don’t continue exposing the American population to a catastrophe that would make the September 11 attacks look like a mosquito bite on behalf of a country Washington still doesn’t regard as worth that candle, the war needs to end ASAP. And here’s a plan (or as they like to say in the political and policy worlds, a “framework”) that might do the trick.

First, an immediate ceasefire is declared, and then enforced by troops from some of the large developing countries that have voted to condemn the Russian invasion but failed so far to provide Ukraine with any support (like India or Indonesia or Brazil).

Second, (and the sequencing of the following steps can take any number of forms), NATO announces that it will never admit Ukraine as a member, But  NATO and other countries reserve the right to provide Kyiv with as much in the way of conventional armaments (including systems considered as “offensive”) as they wish.

Third (Version A), Russia gets to keep the Crimea but agrees that the the two eastern Ukrainian provinces with the big ethnic Russian populations will decide their own fates in internationally supervised referenda. In addition, any inhabitants of all three regions who wish to leave either before or after such votes get relocation assistance (preferably to Ukraine, but other European countries should feel free to take them in, too). The funding would come partly from the West (mainly by the European members of NATO), and partly from a percentage of revenues earned by Russia from the dropping of sanctions on Russian energy exports.

Third (Version B), same as above but Russia simply gets to keep the two eastern provinces and Crimea outright. Again, however, emigration by any of their inhabitants is funded by the West and by those Russian energy revenues. For the record, I like version A best.

Fourth, Russia drops its objections to Ukraine joining the European Union (EU).

Fifth, in order to enable Ukraine to maximize the economic benefits of EU membership, the West (again, mainly the European members of NATO) commits to large economic aid and reconstruction packages dependent largely on Kyiv’s progress in rooting out corruption. I’d also be in favor of empowering the donors to bypass the Ukrainian government in financing worthy recipients directly, to ensure that Ukrainian officials don’t steal most of the assistance.

Sixth, non-energy sanctions on doing any kind of business with Russia are phased out contingent on the absence of Russian aggressive actions against Ukraine (including efforts by Russian-funded paramilitary groups to destabilize Ukrainian territory). That is, the longer Moscow behaves well toward Ukraine, the more sanctions get dropped.

Seventh, the West agrees not to prosecute any Russian officials (including military officers) for war crimes.

Eighth and last, Russia and NATO begin negotiations to explore ideas for new arrangements that longer term could further enhance the security both of Russia and its European neighbors, including the Balkans and Moldova. These initiatives should be led by the Europeans.

Because the above proposals are just a framework, and neither set in stone nor presented in any great degree of detail, I’m absolutely open to suggestion regarding modifications, refinements, and additions. But for anyone wishing to pony up their ideas, I hope they consider first and foremost the needs to (a) defuse an exceedingly dangerous current situation with frightening potential to damage the American homeland gravely; (b) give both Russia and Ukraine significant reasons to claim at least partial victories; and (c) realize how easy it is to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

And on that last point, I hope that Ukraine war hawks and others who stress the imperatives of punishing any and all aggressions, and/or forcing the Russians to pay serious penalties for their invasion, and ensuring that Russia in the future becomes to weak to endanger Ukraine or any other country ever again, would keep the following in mind: The current regime in Moscow is so mismanaging the country and wasting its considerable resources (especially human), that it’s doing a great job of diminishing its power and potential all by itself.

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Making News: Podcast Now On-Line of NYC Radio Interview on Leading International Crises

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border security, China, Frank Morano, Immigration, Iran, Iraq, Iraq war, ISIS, Making News, Middle East, nuclear war, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Taiwan, terrorism, The Other Side of Midnight, Ukraine, Ukraine War, WABC AM

I’m pleased to announce that the the podcast is now on-line of a panel discussion I participated in last night in the wee hours EST on Frank Morano’s popular radio show “The Other Side of Midnight” on New York City’s WABC-AM.

Click here for a free-wheeling discussion of topics including updates on global hot spots Ukraine and Taiwan, the future of U.S. policy in the still chaotic Middle East, and what lessons should be learned from the second Iraq War that the United States launched twenty years ago.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Im-Politic: DeSantis’ Real Ukraine Mistake

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election 2024, foreign policy, Im-Politic, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, politics, Ron DeSantis, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine War, vital interests, Vladimir Putin

Since the Ukraine War is the first international crisis in decades that could draw the United States into a nuclear war, and since Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis could well become the nation’s next president, it’s vital to explain why the real mistake made by DeSantis in recently commenting on U.S. policy toward the conflict isn’t the one his critics have charged he’s made.

Instead, it’s a mistake that’s not only different, but actually serious, because it could eventually force him to support deeper and more dangerous U.S. involvement if he ever wins the White House.

The mistake DeSantis supposedly made in an interview published yesterday was flip-flopping, or at least seeming to walk back, an earlier statement downplaying Ukraine’s importance to the United States, and stating that because of nuclear war risk, should sharply limit its military aid and shift its focus to pushing for a peace deal.

Here’s his full statement to Fox News-talker Tucker Carlson. To me, the key passages are:

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.” And

“Without question, peace should be the objective. The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of American troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders. F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table. These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable.”

The core ideas: Ukraine’s fate is not a vital national interest of the United States’, and is therefore obviously not worth risking exposing America to a nuclear attack from Russia.

Full disclosure: At this point, DeSantis is my preferred presidential candidate. So keep that in mind as I evaluate his comments. And this Ukraine position is my position. But of course, it’s far from a consensus. According to supporters of current Biden administration policies (and even more aggressive actions), these first DeSantis remarks were fundamentally off-base because Ukraine is in fact a vital U.S. interest, and because therefore Russia’s aggression must in fact be defeated (a goal that could take several somewhat different forms) “no matter what,” as Mr. Biden recently declared.

It should be apparent even to DeSantis opponents or those neutral, though, that he was not proposing dropping all aid to Ukraine and leaving that country at Vladimir Putin’s mercy. But backers of the current (and even more aggressive) American policies thought confirmation of their flip-flop (or less dramatic “walk back”) claim came in yesterday’s DeSantis remarks. Here’s the passage they believe shows that the Florida Governor now sees the error of his ways in calling the war a “territorial dispute that’s not of “vital” importance to America:

“Well, I think the [“territorial dispute statement has] been mischaracterized. Obviously, Russia invaded (last year) — that was wrong. They invaded Crimea and took that in 2014 — That was wrong.

“What I’m referring to is where the fighting is going on now which is that eastern border region Donbas, and then Crimea, and you have a situation where Russia has had that. I don’t think legitimately but they had. There’s a lot of ethnic Russians there. So, that’s some difficult fighting and that’s what I was referring to and so it wasn’t that I thought Russia had a right to that, and so if I should have made that more clear, I could have done it, but I think the larger point is, okay, Russia is not showing the ability to take over Ukraine, to topple the government or certainly to threaten NATO. That’s a good thing. I just don’t think that’s a sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement. I would not want to see American troops involved there. But the idea that I think somehow Russia was justified (in invading) – that’s nonsense.”  

I don’t see how these words can be read in any way other than saying that “territorial dispute” was poor wording, and that DeSantis still opposes any U.S. steps to “escalate more involvement.”

But his rationale for opposition changed significantly here. As opposed to simply denying that Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity are vital U.S. security interests and therefore not worth the nuclear risk, here he’s saying that there’s not “sufficient interest for us to escalate more involvement because “Russia is not showing the ability to take over Ukraine, to topple the government or certainly to threaten NATO.”

That is, previously, DeSantis’ position focused solely on Ukraine’s intrinsic value to the United States. Russia’s strength or lack thereof was immaterial. Because he’s said nothing about changing, much less ending, the U.S. commitment to the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) alliance, whose members are protected by an American nuclear guarantee, I assumed that he believed that nuclear deterrence plus the major buildup of conventional forces from NATO members in those allies in Ukraine’s neighborhood would suffice to keep Putin at bay whatever Ukraine’s fate (which is my position).

But in the new interview, DeSantis made his opposition to a harder Ukraine line conditional on Russia’s capabilities, not Ukraine’s intrinsic importance. And I worry that if he becomes President this stance could trap him into a Biden-like Ukraine policy, with all the nuclear war risk, if Russia proves stronger (or more reckless) than he currently surmises, or after it becomes stronger in a post-Ukraine war world. As a result, he would wind up risking nuclear attack on America for a country that he may still consider of inadequate intrinsic interest to the United States – which I view as the height of foreign policy irresponsibility.

It’s still very early in the 2024 presidential cycle. In fact, DeSantis isn’t even a declared candidate yet. He’s a foreign policy newbie and it’s not even known yet who he’s been getting his foreign advice from – if he’s indeed getting any in a systematic way. So there’s still time for DeSantis to tack back to a genuine America First-type approach.

If he doesn’t, all else equal, I’d have to reconsider my support. And the next presidential campaign’s foreign policy debate, and the nation’s approach to Ukraine War and national security overall, will be all the poorer.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why the Morals of the Ukraine War Really Matter

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international law, Israel, Leon Hadar, morality, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, public opinion, sovereignty, The National Interest, Ukraine, Ukraine War, Volodymyr Zelenskyy

National Interest contributing editor Leon Hadar has just posted a groundbreaking article on U.S. policy toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine – something I’d thought had become nearly impossible after about a year into the war and upteen zillion words of commentary on and analysis of the conflict. In the piece, Leon (full disclosure: a close personal friend) examines whether Ukraine can develop the kind of relationship with the U.S. government and, more important, the American public, that Israel has long enjoyed: that of a valued ally mainly because it’s admired by Americans, not because its survival advances any important, specific U.S. interests.

Rather than summarize Leon’s reasons for skepticism – which you should definitely read yourself – I’ll deal in this post with a fundamental U.S. foreign policy issue he touches on but that deserves much more attention. That’s because it reveals the importance of an aspect of the national debate over Ukraine policy that I’ve mistakenly belittled – whether that embattled country is a paragon of democracy and other Western ideals and virtues, or just another foreign kleptocracy that’s waged a great propaganda campaign.

My discounting of such moral questions has stemmed from two related beliefs: First, that it’s vastly more important to determine Ukraine’s intrinsic worth in terms of U.S. security, independence, and prosperity than to figure out whether its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is a valiant freedom fighter or a repressive, corrupt scoundrel. Second, it strikes me as axiomatic that it will always be easier for Americans to agree on concrete, national interest-related questions such as whether Ukraine’s location is strategic, or whether it contains resources America vitally need, than on more nebulous issues like Zelenskyy’s personal character. (I made the underlying point at length here – thirty years ago!)

In fact, my support for such priorities has grown stronger the longer the war has lasted, and the more destuctive it’s become – as both belligerents use increasingly sophisticated and/or long-range weapons that could spread its effects beyond Ukraine’s borders, and increase the odds of conflict between the nuclear-armed U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nuclear-armed Russia.

I’ve also emphasized that such grave risks could be justified if Ukraine were deemed a vital interest whatever Ukraine’s virtues or vices. But by the same token, I’ve called incurring these risks for less than vital stakes – which is obvious if only because NATO has still chosen not to admit Ukraine and thereby to guarantee its security even if nuclear war might result – the height of recklessness.

At the same time, it shouldn’t be forgotten – and I shouldn’t have forgotten – how the undeniable fact of U.S. sovereignty needs to influence this discussion. Very loosely speaking, sovereignty is the well established notion that in the international sphere, political communities (or individuals, as in the case of monarchies) have a right to act as they wish. This right is constrained only by whatever failures these communities or individuals experience in maintaining control over their territory, and in the view of some, by international law. (Those in the realist/realpolitik camp, like me, put no stock in that latter concept.)

In the United States, the people are sovereign; it would therefore be legitimate if the public decided to support Ukraine’s war effort simply because they admired Ukrainians and/or their government, or loathed their Russian counterparts, or some combination of the two. And this proposition logically holds whether any significant concrete U.S. interests are at stake, and whatever the actual risks of this position might be. Those risks in turn logically include nuclear risks.

So even though I view the moral character of both sides of the Ukraine war per se as irrelevant to America’s well-being, I’m going to be less dismissive of efforts to win this particular debate. The American public has every right to prioritize such considerations, and if friends and foes of current policies believe they can sway opinion by praising or disparaging Ukraine’s qualities (either if they themselves have taken them to heart, or to debunk misconceptions they believe have been created by the other side), that’s now perfectly fine with me.

In fact, as Leon’s article argues persuasively, sentiment and not calculations of self-interest have been the main bases of U.S. support for Israel. This support for Israel hasn’t been cost-free, In particular, it’s no doubt greatly complicated U.S. relations with the Arab Muslim world and all the oil it controls. But it’s hard to argue that this emotion-based and therefore largely uncritical backing of the Jewish state has backfired on America in any major way.

I’d just ask one favor of Ukraine War backers who stress the conflict’s moral dimensions: When making these arguments, how about reminding the public of the nuclear risk issue. For there’s much polling evidence that however much Americans admire the Ukrainian cause, most don’t agree that it merits courting the danger of nuclear attack. (See, e.g., here.) In other words, they evidently realize that, however important and ethical it is to like and value admirable foreign peoples and governments and their survival, it’s even more important and at least as ethical to like and value your own.

Following Up: Podcast On-Line of NYC Radio Interview on Inflation, the Midterms, and Ukraine

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Biden, election 2022, Following Up, Frank Morano, inflation, midterms 2022, nuclear war, Ukraine, Ukraine War, WABC AM

I’m pleased to announce that the podcast is on-line of my inteview last night on Frank Morano’s popular “The Other Side of Midnight” program on New York City’s WABC-AM. The segment focused on the (inflationary) state of the U.S. economy, its likely impact on next week’s midterm elections, and why President Biden urgently needs to change a Ukraine policy that’s needlessly exposing the United States to the threat of nuclear war. Here’s the link.

And of course keep on checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Making News: Back on National Radio Tonight Talking Ukraine Fallout, Inflation, and China

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cost of living, energy prices, food prices, inflation, Lehman moment, Making News, nuclear war, stagflation, Ukraine, Ukraine War

I’m pleased to announce that I’m scheduled to return tonight on the nationally syndicated “Market Wrap with Moe Ansari.” Our scheduled subjects: the possibility I discussed recently that the U.S.’ strong support of Ukraine could trigger the kinds of global calamities it seeks to prevent, whether America’s torrid inflation has peaked, and what’s ahead for China’s increasingly troubled economy.

“Market Wrap” airs weeknights between 8 and 9 PM EST, these segments usually begin midway through the show, and you can listen live on-line here.

As usual, if you can’t tune in, I’ll post a link to the podcast of the inteview as soon as it’s available.

And keep on checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming media appearances and other developments.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Glimmers of Hope on Ukraine?

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Biden, Blob, chemical weapons, cyber-war, David Ignatius, Donbas, EU, European Union, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine-Russia war, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky

As known by long-time readers of RealityChek (see, e.g., here and here), I’m no fan of David Ignatius. Literally for decades, the Washington Post pundit has veritably personified the Blob – that mainly New York City- and really mainly Washington, D.C.-based mutually reenforcing network of current political leaders and senior bureaucrats, Congressional staff, former officials, other hangers-on of various kinds, consultants, think tankers, academics, and journalists who have long championed globalist U.S. foreign policies despite the needless national security and economic damage they’ve caused.

Not so incidentally, they keep moving in an out of public service so continuously that they’ve not only blurred the crucial lines between these spheres, but they’ve more than earned the term “permanent (and of course unelected) government.”

So imagine my surprise when I opened my Washington Post Thursday morning and discovered that Ignatius had written what may be the most important American commentary yet on the Ukraine War. His main argument is that President Biden and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin have each decided on a set of goals that could reduce the chances of the conflict spilling across Ukraine’s borders, and especially into the territory of neighbors that enjoy a strong U.S. defense guarantee. This chain of events could all-too-easily lead to direct U.S.-Russia military conflict that could just as easily escalate to the all-out nuclear war level.

But the goals identified by Ignatius are encouraging because they indicate that both Mr. Biden and Putin have retreated from dangerously ambitious objectives they’ve referred to throughout the war and its prelude. For the U.S. President, this means a climb-down from his administation’s declarations that Russia can’t be allowed to establish anything close to a sphere of influence that includes Ukraine, and that would prevent it and potentially any country in Eastern Europe from setting its own defense and foreign economic policies.

For Putin, this means confining his aims to controlling the eastern Ukraine provinces with large Russian-speaking populations, not the entire country

Ignatius’ most convincing evidence regarding the American position is Mr. Biden’s statement on Thursday that with its growing military support for Ukraine, the entire western alliance was  “sending an unmistakable message to Putin: He will never succeed in dominating and occupying all of Ukraine. He will not — that will not happen.” As Ignatius pointed out, this statement, “though resolute in tone, left open the possibility that Putin might occupy some of Ukraine, in the southeastern region where Russian attacks are now concentrated.”

Moreover, this Ignatius observation matters considerably in large measure precisely because the author is so well plugged in to the staunchly globalist Biden administration. If he’s putting points like this in print, the odds are good that it’s because he’s heard them from genuinely reliable sources, and even because those sources are using him as a vehicle for trial balloon floating.

Ignatius’ most convincing evidence regarding the Kremlin’s position is Putin’s statement the same day that the Russian forces that have virtually destroyed the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol have “sacrificed their lives so that our people in Donbas [the aforementioned eastern Ukraine region] live in peace and to enable Russia, our country, to live in peace.”

Those last words in particular suggest that Putin now believes a Russia-dominated Donbas can serve as an acceptable buffer between Russian territory and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) that expanded its membership in the 1990s and early 2000s to countries directly bordering Russia.

On this issue, though, big questions remain: Would Putin permit what’s left of Ukraine join NATO (in which President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he no longer interested) or the European Union (which Ukraine still wants)? Or would Moscow let a rump Ukraine do what it wished on these defense and economic fronts? At the same time, the very uncertainty created by these Russian and Ukrainian (and now U.S.) statements makes clear there’s a deal that can be struck before Ukraine experiences much more suffering.

But as Ignatius himself notes, this week’s Biden and Putin positions are anything but guarantees against disastrous escalation. The reason? As I’ve written, the longer the fighting lasts and especially the more intense it becomes, the likelier spillover gets – whether from air raids to artillery strikes to the spread of toxic clouds from exploded chemical or even nuclear weapons, to cyber attacks (e.g., by Russia against U.S. or other western computer systems intended to interfere with the Ukraine weapons supply effort or with the West’s intelligence sharing with Kyiv).

So the Biden and Putin statements may be necessary developments for securing a non-disastrous end to the Ukraine war, but they’re hardly sufficient. Some serious form of outside pressure looks to be essential — either President Biden on Zelensky, or (seemingly less likely) China on Putin. Without it, Americans — and Ukrainians — arguably are left with hoping for the best, a strategy with an historically unimpressive record of success.        

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ukraine War Demands Realistic U.S. Thinking About Sovereignty

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Antony J. Blinken, Biden, MIG 29s, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Poland, sovereignty, Ukraine, Ukraine-Russia war

It’s been especially great to read the news reports this morning about progress in peace talks between Ukraine and Russia (except for the poisoning thing).

After all, an end to the human suffering in Ukraine may be approaching. Moreover, as I’ve written, the longer the fighting continues, the higher the odds that it spills over Ukraine’s borders, drags in the United States, and escalates to the nuclear level.

Also important, though, but less well appreciated, a non-disastrous (at least for the United States) conclusion to the conflict would give America’s current globalist leaders a chance to rethink two truly bizarre ideas about the way the world either does or should work that (1) have needlessly magnified those nuclear-war-with-Russia dangers, and (2) therefore expose the country to less risk if trouble in this region breaks out again, or similar crises erupt elsewhere. And both stem from thoroughgoing misunderstandings about the nature of sovereignty.

The first arose because of Poland’s idea work with Washington to supply MIG-29 fighter jets from its own air force to Ukraine. Though President Biden ultimately nixed the idea (after Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken seemed to approve it), his administation muddied the waters considerably, and left himself wider open to charges of weakness, by insisting that “This is Poland’s sovereign decision to make.”

The second has emerged because of the peace talks, and holds that the United States won’t be pressuring Ukraine to accept peace terms Kyiv doesn’t itself support because Ukraine, too, is a sovereign country with an untrammeled right to pursue or defend its interests however it sees fit. Somewhat embarrassingly, I can’t find any supporting links, but I’ve been following the Ukraine War policy debate closely, and the notion definitely is in the air – especially in the ranks of the hawks.   

From a purely operational standpoint, both propositions should be rejected outright by Americans. Poland, after all, doesn’t exist geopolitically in isolation. It’s a member of an alliance that includes the United States. No reasonable person would object to any steps it took to defend its own territory if attacked. But when it comes to situations in which it’s not victimized by aggression, and in which its actions could affect the security of its fellow members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Americans and others in NATO should by all means object to any freelancing. And the more so since Poland wanted to join NATO specifically because it (rightly) doubted its ability to fend off Russia by itself.

Neither the United States nor any other NATO member should ever accept the argument that one of their ranks should enjoy complete freedom of action regardless of its larger consequences, but has the right to demand their help if it comes under attack (including because of its unilateral acts). In other words, receiving alliance benefits means accepting alliance responsibilities.

Similar considerations should govern U.S. policy toward Ukraine-Russia negotiations. Ukraine isn’t a treaty ally of the United States, but it’s sure receiving lots of military aid and humanitarian from America (and other NATO members) – and wants much more. If its bargaining tactics prolong the fighting, the United States’ own security could suffer. So Washington should never hesitate to take whatever steps are needed to ensure that – in America’s judgement – Kyiv’s aims (however understandable from Ukraine’s vantage point) don’t needlessly threaten U.S. interests.

For any thinking adult, the views here shouldn’t be the slightest bit controversial. So why are they so difficult to accept even for so many American leaders with lots of knowledge of and experience in foreign policymaking – and whose very success makes clear that they’re hardly babes in the woods in dealing with their careers and other areas of their lives? As indicated above, it’s because they hold views about sovereignty stemming from assumptions about world affairs that can only be accurately described as fanciful.

That is, sovereignty is evidently seen as a status that either actually commands universal respect, or should command such respect, at least from individuals and governments with any regard for (equally universal) standards of acceptable behavior. As with most long and deeply embedded assumptions, the bases for this status and its legitimacy are rarely spelled out anymore. When they have been specified, the argument seems to resemble that made for human rights – that it springs either from a Creator, or from some feature of existence that is so innate, and even defining, as to be inalienable (as the American political tradition terms it).

Without wading too deep into discussions philosophers have had since philosophizing began, and whose resolution seems nowhere in sight, I’ll just put forward the proposition that it’s one thing to articulate and propagate common standards of acceptable behavior for individuals. Without them, it’s difficult to imagine creating any community or society worth living in.

But sovereignty as an idea with autonomous power over the relations among different communities and societies – which in the case of world affairs means relations among states? Much less an idea that actually does command such respect? Where, specifically, are the commonly accepted standards of behavior that must underlie this construct? Yes, enshrined in heaven only knows how many international treaties and agreements. But when inconvenient, honored in the breach at best is the only answer that passes the all-important eyeball test.

The reason, moreover, could not be more obvious, at least to an empiricst: Since there are no commonly accepted standards of behavior in a de facto sense, states haven’t been able to agree on a system to enforce those standards. And yet this situation seems anything but obvious to America’s globalists, at least judging by how the idea of sovereignty shapes their policies and stated opinions.

One explanation for these illusions that my own work has pointed to is that globalists don’t see, or don’t want to acknowledge, any intrinsic and inevitable distinction between the communities (specifically, those they rightly admire) into which the world has long been divided, and a global community that they either suppose exists in meaningful ways right now, or is steadily forming. As a result, they also seem to believe that because of America’s immense weight, if their government acts as if that community exists now, its foreign policies will be able to bring it to completion that much faster.

To which I can only reply with the standard but still insightful warning about not permitting hope to triumph over (millennia of) experience.

Not that there’s no such thing as sovereignty in world politics today, and not that such sovereignty is anything new. But although it’s recognized in any number of international legal documents, it’s not a creation of these documents or any body of law. It’s a creation of capability. If states are able through their own devices (and these can include skillful diplomacy, not only the exercise of power) to preserve themselves in the forms they desire, they’re sovereign, and are treated as such by others as long as these capabilities last. If they can’t so defend themselves, ultimately they receive no such treatment.

Nor is the United States well advised to trample over others’ sovereignty at the drop of a hat – but mainly because there’s so seldom an urgent need for such an existentially secure and prosperous country as America. The Ukraine War, however,  has created the kinds of potential threats to the nation’s safety that haven’t been on the horizon since possibly the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. There are any number of strong arguments for various types of responses. But major concern about the so far chimerical idea of sovereignty, even of friends and allies, isn’t one of them.      

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: The Ukraine War is Creating Entirely New Nuclear Strategy Risks

Tags

Biden, biological weapons, chemical weapons, deterrence, NATO, North Atlantic treaty Organization, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, red line, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Ukraine-Russia war, Vladimir Putin

The increasingly blustery way leading American politicians and chattering class members (mainly conservatives) have been talking about nuclear weapons and the Ukraine war is getting scary enough for me, and should be for you. (See, e.g., here.) Unless it’s OK that a major American city (or ten) may wind up looking like besieged and decimated Mariupol because playing chicken more boldly (but so far mainly verbally) with Moscow pushes above zero the odds of them getting hit by Russian warheads?

But something that worries me even more about these cataclysmic possibilities: For two main sets of reasons, the war could well create possibilities for nuclear weapons use that differ markedly from the scenarios that have dominated American planning for decades – and all the evidence indicates still dominates it today.

The first entails both Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine itself and the Russian dictator’s apparent decision to react to Ukraine’s stunning success to date in fighting back by raining maximum destruction on that country’s population. The second entails expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) membership right up to Russia’s borders after the Cold War ended and the old Soviet Union’s satellites became truly independent states and sought to join.

Simply put, the longstanding and existing scenarios have gone something like this: The Soviet Union (and now Russia) thinks about invading a NATO member (almost always the former West Germany) with its vastly superior conventional forces, but is deterred paradoxically by the very weakness of NATO’s conventional forces. The likelihood of these NATO forces getting overwhelmed and destroyed (along with all the NATO civilian personnel located nearby), would supposedly leave an American President no choice but to try to repel the attackers with nuclear weapons. The prospect that this escalation would turn into an all-out, world-destroying conflagration would be enough to prevent Moscow from attacking in the first place.

Today, however, the situation and possible nuclear scenarios are vastly different. After all, Putin has invaded not a NATO member – that is, a country whose security has been guaranteed by the alliance – but a country that hasn’t been permitted to join NATO. On the one hand, that’s comforting (except for the Ukrainians) because President Biden and other NATO leaders have ruled out the idea of direct military intervention in the conflict – precisely for fear that Russia could respond by attacking NATO units in Ukraine with nukes, or by attacking NATO forces and bases in members bordering Ukraine, or elsewhere in NATO-Europe, or even by striking the United States.

On the other hand, the very fact of heavy fighting in a country right next door to NATO members raises the possibility of the conflict spreading into those countries. This spillover could occur either by accident, or because Putin decides to attack the alliance’s extensive efforts to supply Ukraine. In turn, either such Russian operations could kill or wound NATO personnel who might be accompanying the weapons and other aid shipments as they travel through Ukraine, or Putin could decide to take out the facilities in Poland and other NATO countries from which these supplies are being sent into the war zone.

And don’t forget the spillover possibilities even from Russian attacks on Ukrainian forces inside Ukraine. Because Ukrainian resistance has been so effective (an outcome that so far was not only totally unexpected to the U.S. national security apparatus, but that contrasts strikingly with the longstanding assumption of Russian conventional military superiority that still underlies the alliance’s deterrence strategy), Moscow might need chemical or biological or nuclear weapons to regain the initiative. If these threshholds are crossed, the effects could, as noted here, easily blow beyond Ukraine’s borders and into NATO territory. And if NATO territory is affected, wouldn’t that qualify as an attack on a NATO member, or members, that would activate the alliance’s Article Five obligation that members view such a development as “an attack on all” – the core of the NATO treaty and the ultimate key to whatever deterrence power it’s assumed to have created?

Much more than the violations of international agreements that would result from these Russian moves, that’s why Mr. Biden and other NATO leaders have been warning Putin about “red lines” that he mustn’t cross by using these weapons of mass destruction. Yet the vague terms NATO has used to describe its promised responses so far make clear that alliance leaders haven’t yet decided how they actually would respond, and how to convey that message convincingly to Moscow. And yes, a Russian cyber-attack on a NATO member would trigger the same kinds of questions, uncertainties, and outright dangers.

As I’ve written repeatedly (notably here), the U.S. military doctrine that resulted and still prevails never deserved high marks for prudence, common sense, or even the basic test of a healthy sense of self-preservation. So it’s not like there’s a compelling case that Washington’s strategists today will come up with anything more sensible to handle these radically different challenges. And that’s all the more reason to try to put much more energy into stopping the fighting ASAP by cutting a deal that will surely fail to satisfy either Ukraine or Russia, but that ends, at least for the time being, the kind of reckless nuclear weapons talk that could all too easily lead to catastrophic nuclear weapons use – even if neither the United States nor its allies are actually attacked.     

Following Up: A Learning Curve on Ukraine Polling

Tags

CBS News, No-Fly Zone, nuclear war, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Pew Research Center, polls, public opinion, Quinnipiac University poll, Reuters/Ipsos, Russia, The Wall Street Journal, Ukraine, Ukraine invasion, Ukraine-Russia war, YouGovAmerica

We’re getting some clarity from the – always imperfect – polls on whether Americans support direct U.S. military involvement in the Ukraine war, and the news is mostly good. Specifically, strong majorities currently reject “boots on the ground” and even the more limited no-fly-zone proposal for fear of risking nuclear war with Russia.

In other words, we know more than we did a little more than a week ago, when the Reuters news organization and the Ipsos polling concern asked respondents their views on the no fly zone, but didn’t mention the nuclear war thing in their question. That’s about as smart as asking someone whether they’d take medicine A to cure disease B without mentioning that medicine A could cause an even worse disease C.

Even weirder, the Reuters article describing the survey’s results actually pointed out this crucial omission. Just for the record, though, Reuters and Ipsos weren’t the only examples of polls completely ignoring vital context, as this YouGoveAmerica post makes clear.

But it seems that pollsters are displaying a learning curve – even in the foreign policy field in which, as the above linked RealityChek post shows, they’ve been especially clueless.

For instance, the YouGovAmerica outfit followed up its first ditzy survey on the No Fly Zone with another that – unlike its initial soundings – defined the idea (without naming it) rather than asking if people support it “without a definition.” What a concept! And once respondents were presented with the fact that American pilots shooting at Russian military planes, support fell support fell substantially.

A similar YouGov exercise for CBS News yielded much more opposition to the No Fly Zone. When it was simply mentioned by name, it enjoyed 59 percent to 41 percent backing. When respondents were told this would mean “U.S. forces might have to engage Russian aircraft, and be considered an act of war by Russia,” the results more than flipped. Sixty two percent opposed the idea and only 38 percent favored it.

Earlier this week, the Pew Research Center found that Americans opposed the United States “taking military action” in Ukraine “if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia” by 62 percent to 35 percent – a margin much wider than that in the YouGovAmerica poll.

Also this week, the polling center at Quinnipiac (Conn.) University mentioned that a No Fly Zone “would lead NATO countries into a war with Russia.” Opponents prevailed over supporters by 54 percent to 32 percent.

Interestingly, much more public caution was displayed concerning the question of whether the United States “should do whatever it can to help Ukraine, even if it means risking a direct war between the U.S. and Russia” or “do whatever it can to help Ukraine, without risking “such a direct war. The don’t-risk-war option won out by 75 percent to 17 percent.

I’ve found less information on an early March Wall Street Journal poll (including on the phrasing of the questions), but it, too, revealed meager support for direct U.S. military involvement in Ukraine. Only 29 percent of respondents backed the N0 Fly Zone, and only ten percent would “send U.S. troops” to the country.

So why did I say at the outset that the polling news was only “mostly good”? Because in my view, the shares of Americans reportedly willing to risk nuclear war over Ukraine are still alarmingly high – in the 30s and 40s percents, except for the Wall Street Journal poll. It makes me wonder whether the mere mention of nuclear war is enough to show the full potential magnitude of these positions. Maybe respondents should have to watch, for example, this movie, too.