Ukraine

Threat to the International Order? or Much Ado About Nothing?

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Let me start by admitting that I don’t know anything about Ukraine. I have no serious grounding in European history, including post-WWII Cold War history. I don’t know the 1,00-year old history between Russia and Ukraine, or the more recent flare-up in relations between the two countries. Let me say that differently: I have no idea why there is a flare-up; it seems to have been manufactured and birthed in the last six months.

Having said that, I look at the situation through the lens of some values that are important to me. I’m FOR freedom and democracy. I am FOR liberal societies, by which I mean societies that practice freedom of speech, assembly, and conscience. I am FOR capitalism, especially the non-rapacious, non-kleptocratic kind. And I am FOR what use to be quaintly known as the right of self-determination: people should be free to decide who governs them, including their national integrity and borders.

Those values put me on the side of the Ukrainians, as far as I understand the issues. And I am trying to understand the issues better — history, culture, economics, international laws and norms. I’ve been trying to read up and broaden my knowledge — not news reports about the transient and evolving situation (which is bad), but think pieces about the historical and geopolitical forces at play in this situation.

Here are some readings — I will limit myself to three — that have been helpful to my understanding. I share those with you, would love if you’d share some of your resources in the comments.

Stalin's Revenge

Tom Nichols, Peacefield, February 3, 2022

Some background on how the national boundaries of the old Soviet Union were generated, and what happened when it fell apart — and why it should matter to us.

Why should Americans care about all this, anyway? Because the foundational order of the international system is at stake.

Every American administration … has stuck to the most important point, which is that international borders must not be changed by force. Sovereignty matters because we all agree that it matters. Membership in the United Nations and adherence to its charter should mean something. And in Europe, where the United States came to join its allies in two world wars, American policy since the end of the Cold War has been, as George H. W. Bush said in 1989, a Europe whole and free.

Putin hates all of that talk. He regrets the fall of the U.S.S.R. and he thinks that borders near Russia should be his to decide. He wants to be the ultimate arbiter of who counts as a state, and who may join which international organizations. Americans who don’t care about Ukraine itself should care—very much—that a dictator wants to redraw world maps to his liking. If they ignore such moves long enough, at some point they will find themselves living on a planet governed by rules imposed from Moscow and Beijing.

The Reason Putin Would Risk War

Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, February 3, 2022

Putin is preparing to invade Ukraine again—or pretending he will invade Ukraine again—for the same reason. He wants to destabilize Ukraine, frighten Ukraine. He wants Ukrainian democracy to fail. He wants the Ukrainian economy to collapse. He wants foreign investors to flee. He wants his neighbors—in Belarus, Kazakhstan, even Poland and Hungary—to doubt whether democracy will ever be viable, in the longer term, in their countries too. Farther abroad, he wants to put so much strain on Western and democratic institutions, especially the European Union and NATO, that they break up. He wants to keep dictators in power wherever he can, in Syria, Venezuela, and Iran. He wants to undermine America, to shrink American influence, to remove the power of the democracy rhetoric that so many people in his part of the world still associate with America. He wants America itself to fail.

Putin Has the U.S. Right Where He Wants It

Fiona Hill, The New York Times, January 24, 2022

Mr. Putin plays a longer, strategic game and knows how to prevail in the tactical scrum. He has the United States right where he wants it. His posturing and threats have set the agenda in European security debates, and have drawn our full attention. Unlike President Biden, Mr. Putin doesn’t have to worry about midterm elections or pushback from his own party or the opposition. Mr. Putin has no concerns about bad press or poor poll ratings. He isn’t part of a political party and he has crushed the Russian opposition. The Kremlin has largely silenced the local, independent press. Mr. Putin is up for re-election in 2024, but his only viable opponent, Aleksei Navalny, is locked in a penal colony outside of Moscow.

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