russia – Unspoken Politics

Will Russian expansion provoke a serious EU/NATO response?

When asked this question two days ago, I gave a long comment on the subject. Here’s what I wrote. It’s not meant to be authoritative, just my feelings as an American outsider. The question was both about Russia vs. EU/NATO, with special concern to Estonia, given rhetoric that seems similar to that over Crimea.

It’s not a rosy situation. A couple things are clear-

a) Russia let go of its regional control in the 1990s not because of the arrival of democracy (never arrived, insufficient postage or whatever) or the end of ultranationalism, but rather because at the time their economy had ground to a halt and everyone with a decent education was leaving for the West. They had no ability to project power, so they signed deals like the one with Ukraine that guaranteed its sovereignty.

b) Putin-era Russia clearly has a way of gaining territory. They support a nominal independence movement within a country. One may remember Abkhazia and South Ossetia as being the reasons for the Russians invading Georgia in 2008. They’ve done a similar thing with Transnistria in Moldova, which doesn’t even share a land border with Russia.

However, let’s be clear here. if Russia decides to invade a NATO nation- which includes the Baltic states- there will be serious retaliation beyond strong words. This isn’t just an American thing- one of the most important NATO nations historically is Turkey, who a) are now in a very strange position since they control the only way out of the Black Sea for Russia’s Crimean naval bases, b) just saw a half million Tatars (who are Muslim and Turkic) fall under the control of a very racist, ultranationalist power, and c) has hated Russia since the creation of Russia a millennia ago. The Ukraine wasn’t in NATO, or the EU, was very far to the east, and was politically unstable with a very weak military- a large portion of which defected. That’s not going to happen again.

NATO is a military alliance and not a theoretical one- Kosovo, Libya, Afghanistan. If they’re willing to fight on the other side of Asia, they’ll fight in their own backyards when it’s one of their members. Article 5 has been used, so it’s not just words on paper.

Regarding Estonia, there are some things to point out here. Estonia’s history under post-World War II Soviet control involved sending a lot of Russian speakers into the country to dominate it culturally. However, as the Christian Science Monitor points out in the featur e on the issue, a lot of them speak Russian, but are not ethnically Russian. Jews, Ukranians, Finns. They cite a poll that shows the Russian population there are split right down the middle on whether Crimea was a good things, with most having no opinion at all. Clearly if Estonia circled the wagons it’s not “Estonians vs. Russian speakers” clearly divided.

Of course, what a ‘conflict’ means is important. The Cold War had much bigger situations- for instance, the forcible blockade of Berlin. One will hope that the lack of top-level cooperation that made Soviet control of places like Czechoslovakia and Hungary possible (they used to have friendly Communist governments, now they’re run by the majority non-Russian groups) means that Russia will be checked. On the other hand, it’s difficult to envision a near future where eastern Ukraine isn’t drawn into the Russian orbit. It’s not like Libya- the Ukrainian government is also disorganized like the rebels there, but Gaddafi and the Russian military are two vastly different classes. If Russia occupies, there would need to be a superior force on the ground.

Unfortunately, the idiocy that was (and is) Afghanistan has really killed the whole “boots on the ground” idea- this is good in some sense since it makes diplomacy and other means more relied upon. However, some countries are too big to threaten. Russia and China are the two big ones.

Now I’m a strict non-violent proponent so I don’t think using military force to drive the Russian military off is the ‘right’ course of action. Sealing the Bosporus to military vessels contingent on Russia withdrawal, mixed with a large-scale boycott and freezing the billions upon billions of dollars the oligarchs have stashed in European countries might help, as some off-the-cuff ideas. Certainly making a concrete plan where NATO troops would be deployed to places like Estonia known would dissuade Russia occupation- just a note that there is something beyond ‘strong reservations’. The Warsaw Pact countries joined EU and NATO because they feared continued Russian control. Even if places like France are ambivalent, any former country under the Iron Curtain with a pocket of Russians knows that they are the next potential domino.

The fires return in Ukraine

Fires in Kiev.
Credit: David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters

After a lull where dialogue between the Ukrainian government and opposition was conducted and some concessions were agreed upon, a government raid on Independence Square in Kiev kicked off the deadliest day in the months of protests.

It is increasingly apparent that the western part of the country is no longer in firm government control. Compared to a mostly quiet east, it shows for outsiders the divisions that exist, and how they come to a head in the capital.

As Kiev burns

Protesters in Kiev, 23 Jan — Protestors amid carnage in Kiev // Credit: BBC

The protests in the Ukraine are intensified and now have their first fatalities. Such conflict should not be a surprise- the Ukraine has struggled since its independence from the Soviet Union to determine whether it will align with Russia or with Europe.

These protests are wide-ranging in scope and the groups that participate. Far-right groups, anti-corruption, those advocating a better democracy. What is clear is that the Ukrainian government led by President Viktor Yanukovych has lost a great deal of its legitimacy.

Spectacular photos of fireworks weaponry from the Ukraine protests — Protestors feed their smokescreen with burning tires. // Credit: Ilya Varlamov

uk15 — Riot police form a shield formation while attempting to disperse protestors. // Credit: REUTERS/Maks Levin

Giving bad states good media coverage

Reading over Dennis Rodman’s latest visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, it is interesting to see just the latest iteration of a very old debate. Are such cultural trips and events a good way to help open up otherwise very closed societies, or do they give a dictatorial regime free publicity? Or is it both, and is that a good or bad thing?

With the 2008 Summer Olympics there was a great bit of debate- China was using it as a venue to show of their might, but at the same time they were able to stifle reporting and discussion about their terrible human rights record. I boycotted the games in solidarity with Reporters Without Borders, and agreed that giving so much adoring coverage to a regime that kills journalists when they don’t have nice things to say feels fundamentally wrong. The upcoming Sochi Olympics will have a similar debate- while Russia’s anti-gay laws have been attracting the most attention, the country has an atrocious record of independent journalists being assaulted, bombed, or killed (at least 56 since the end of the Soviet Union). The World Cup planned in Qatar has its own issues, which I documented recently.

But in order to break through barriers that isolate countries from the rest of the world, don’t you have to at the same time give them some publicity? If there was a blanket travel ban to North Korea, or Eritrea, or any other insular state, would things get better?

Granted, the mechanics of Rodman in the hermit kingdom and major sporting events is different. Private citizens taking a camera crew and some basketball players to a totalitarian state is a lot different from an international panel awarding a country the right to host an event. But they both have their ethnical quandaries, and it’s all rooted in what is a reward, what is an incentive, and what constitutes punishment.

Complicit in exploitation: labor standards in the Gulf and the West

If you remember back a decade ago, there was quite a lot of discussion about the idea that awarding the Olympics to Beijing was perhaps unwise. These huge global events- in particular the World Cup and the Summer Olympics- give a country ample opportunity to sell a particular version of their country. China got to show the sheer size and effort they put into the Games, while omitting anything about their treatment of journalists, religious minorities, and pro-democracy protesters.

This is an old argument, but the slate of hosts in the next decade- Russia for the 2014 Winter Olympics, then the 2018 World Cup, then Qatar for the 2022 World Cup- brings the debate to the forefront again. The anti-gay measures enacted by Russia have made Western liberal democracies furious, and the power they wield over journalists in the country during the Games is considerable- in 2008 quite a few topics were simply off the table by contract. Host countries are in many cases above criticism.

Qatar is only a couple years into its long path to 2022, but the whole process has been ignominious. The World Cup selection process has been bogged down by charges of corruption going back decades , and the tiny, incredibly wealthy petro-state getting the nod is, to put it lightly, deeply suspicious. The list of various complaints about Qatar is long and substantial. Now the focus is on the labor conditions in the Gulf state. A union official states:

“Young healthy men are being worked to death in Qatar. Scores are dying from heat exhaustion and dehydration after 12-hour shifts in blazing heat, often during the night in the squalid and cramped labour camps with no ventilation and appalling hygiene.”

Appalling guest worker conditions should not be new to informed individuals- they have been reported on for years now. It’s the dark side of the majesty- all these spectacular buildings in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar are created by hundreds of thousands of foreign workers who are mistreated and forbidden to leave the country without permission. Some may say the term ‘slavery’ is excessive, but it is certainly feudal.

The European Parliament has passed a resolution condemning the labor standards, and will be sending a delegation there shortly. The workers under the same system in neighboring countries should not be ignored. To varying degrees Europe, the United States and East Asia are complicit in these labor conditions. Just like our demand for cheap shirts was one reason for the horrible factory collapses in Bangladesh, companies in Western countries helped finance these huge construction projects. And FIFA, which has its nexus of power in Europe, decided to give Qatar the biggest tournament on Earth.

In the end, though, isn’t it just about what country can put on the best show? Labor conditions, human rights…it’s either irrelevant to the showcase, or far more important. Depends what you value, and when and where you value it.

Neat. Plausible. Wrong.

“Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.”

-H.L. Mencken

All parties accept that the situation in Syria is deeply complicated. On one side (which I guess would be the group against the pre-war status quo) there continue to be non-violent protestors against Assad. They are mixed in rebel-held areas with Sunni militias supported by Qatar and perhaps Saudi Arabia, and radical forces of mostly foreign extraction like al-Nusra that want a Sunni state at the expense of moderates and other religious groups.

This contrasts with an Assad regime supported by (and protecting) the relatively small Allawite Shite minority. They are given strong support from Hezbollah and thus considerable support from Iran. They also get large amounts of sophisticated weapons from Russia.

This is not even going into the Kurds and their involvement in Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey as a NATO nation dealing with a refugee issues, whether escalation could lead to strikes inside the borders of Israel. Many other countries in the region have been supporting one side or the other, or tried to be neutral (Lebanon) but failed or had to deal with the massive refugee crisis which will not end anytime soon.

So when U.S military intervention shows up, remember that any solution to a complex crisis that is neat, elegant, plausible also has another attribute- it’s totally wrong.

Arming a fractured world

In Monday’s debate, Romney said the following about Syria and American support of the anti-Assad insurgents:

We need to have a very effective leadership effort in Syria, making sure that the — the — the insurgents there are armed and that the insurgents that become armed are people who will be the responsible parties. (source)

Emphasis mine.

A few years ago, I bought a used book published in 1990 called The Fighting Never Stopped. It was an exhaustive chronicle of the dozens of violent and bloody conflicts that have happened since the end of World War II. A common trope among American academics is that the Cold War was the longest period of peace in modern times without a major struggle. The rise of nuclear-armed states, claimed to be rational, would herald the end of war due to deterrence.

Continue reading “Arming a fractured world”