Ukraine (closed; covers till August 2014)

[carl]

And that's the point. The morality of it is irrelevant. As you said, "results matter". And the result thus far has been continued Russian success, Ukrainian instability, and Western posturing. I don't think Moscow wants escalation any more than Washington does, insofar that escalation increases the chances of a decision point between credibility and costly intervention. The low-level agitation works in Moscow's favor and it'll be interesting to see how it shapes the elections - assuming they're going to be held. What we should be doing is attempting to mitigate any further losses rather than reversing Russia's gains.

You say "...we should be doing...". That is the key and effectively we are doing nothing right now. Mitigate, reversing, prevent, defending-we can figure that out but none of it can be done unless we get to doing.

[Fuchs]

I take the freedom to dump a text from my blog here, since it relates to the topic. The properly formatted version is here.

Putin's approach to aggressions is an interesting one. It appears he
has recognised the limitations of his freedom of action, found and began to
exploit loopholes.

An all-out conventional invasion, 1914-style, is apparently out of question to
him. Russia lacks the forces to pull this off on a grand scale, at least without
exposing itself too much.
His exploits appear to range up to army corps size instead (South Ossetia
2008) - with all other power being held in the back, as a political equivalent
to a "fleet in being". This restricts the freedom of action of other great
powers. Small powers can probably not pull off the same risky games for they
lack this component - even if they could easily muster forces equivalent to
the ones employed actively.

Traditional Cold War deterrence rested on the fear that a too bold move
might lead to World War III, and the demise of European civilisation. There
were no aggressive moves done in Europe proper after the Berlin blockade;
both blocs were content with keeping their own line*. Bold moves were
largely restricted to Asia, with proxies and at times small numbers of
opposing great power troops fighting against each other**.

There as a fear that some bold, yet incremental, moves could be dared in
Europe - and it was difficult to define when exactly such incremental
offenses should lead to mobilisation or war. A British satire (a "Yes, Prime
Minister!" episode, see 7:04 minutes and after) explained this better than
articles or books ever did. Also remember the metaphor of boiling frogs.


Putin appears to have thought of this incremental approach when he decided
to send paramilitary troops without national insignias into the Crimea.


He did apparently also take into account that the Ukraine is not allied with
any country.


Finally, the third ingredient; international law had been stretched somewhat
prior to the move.


Putin did stretch his freedom of action in face of International Law
proponents prior to the conflict with Georgia in 2008 by exposing
'peacekeeper' troops. Georgia proceeded to attack South Ossetia at some
point and this included firing on peacekeepers. At that point Putin had a
semi-plausible excuse for intervention. His intervention was not as blatant as
the intervention of Kuwait 1990, for example. Him withdrawing after fait
accompli avoided troubles as well.


The stretching of International Law for the invasion(s) of the Ukraine wasn't
done by Putin himself. This damage was done by Western great powers which
had a fit of arrogance and short-sightedly decided that rule of force suits
them better than rule of law. Rule of law was supposedly a concept to be
applied on other powers only.

Except that the "other powers" includes some great powers which evidently
can behave arrogantly as well.

2014-02 Hypocrisy in effect

It would help if the same Western great powers reaffirmed the importance of
international law in a non-hypocritical way. They could admit guilt, seek and
accept a ruling about compensations and - most importantly - refrain from
further violations.

This won't happen, of course.Only losing aggressors have to show regret in
this world.

Another approach to close the loopholes would be to expand the collective
defence systems; offer an alliance of some kind to the Ukraine. This is most
unlikely as well. It would lead to further conflict and might end up being
much too expensive. The Ukraine is not too big to fail, after all. Nothing in
there is really crucial to the West (for historical reasons), while much in there
is crucial to Russia.

Finally, one could tune up the reaction to incremental moves and effectively
turn incremental moves into too big moves thereby. This appears to be the
preferred approach among Western great power governments.

[kaur]

Fuchs, without describing Putin's motives (and ideologue) carrying out his actions, your post is not so good. Do you agree with this column?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...3.html#ref=rss

What paramilitary troops? There were conventional Russian troops in Crimea. Even Putin admitted this month later.

Putin appears to have thought of this incremental approach when he decided to send paramilitary troops without national insignias into the Crimea.

[OUTLAW 09]

I take the freedom to dump a text from my blog here, since it relates to the topic. The properly formatted version is here.

fuchs---would have rewritten the article focusing on the concept of Russia using a strategic UW strategy in the conducting of a political war against both the Ukraine and the West (the West as his Duma speech indicated is viewed as being a "liberal democracy" and "western capitalism" as pushed by the US/IMF). By the way both qualities found in the EU which is also a Putin concern.

Then I would focus on the current five legs of a Russian stool that is in fact the current Russia political society/animal 1) the security services, 2) the military, 3) the oligarchs, 4) Russian mob/gangs and 5) the Russian Orthodox Church and the seat of the stool being in fact a new Russian ideology --"ethnic nationalism". Especially focusing on the interplay between each of the groups and Putin's foreign policies.

This new ideology "ethnic nationalism" is being driven by the following spokesperson Alexandra Dugin who pushes what he calls the "New Euroasianism" and/or "Nationalbolshevism" that is tied into the Russian nationalist groups who are in turn tied into European wide Nationalist groups who in turn have extensive media outlets supporting them ie what one sees currently in use in Russia airing proUkrainian videos and radio interviews.

This new ideology if one reads the Duma speech--- Putin inherently wants to lead globally.

Putin's' use of a strategic UW strategy is in fact being carried out by all five elements just mentioned.

This strategy is just not a rehash of version 2 of the Cold War but something new and needs to be fully understood by all players in the West as they is currently not a single counter UW strategy seen anywhere out there.

It is a strategy that can be turned on and off at his will anywhere on the borders to Russia proper as well as the ME ie Syria and he can sustain it virtually forever unless a counter UW strategy is found in a hurry and we fully understand in the West the term "political warfare".

[Fuchs]

I was aiming at the core, not trying to write a comprehensive analysis of Europe's security situation or of Russia. And I don't think the reference to a poorly defined concept ("UW") helps in pointing out the novelty in there.
I was NOT satisfied with merely calling it "UW"; I wanted to show what I think is the core of the matter.

And that is core of the matter is that he has identified and is exploiting gaps in the European security architecture.

[AdamG]

WaPo's version of the OOB - interesting about the UA 25th Airborne Brigade.
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/pag...ne-border/996/

[OUTLAW 09]

You can write "UW" as often as you want, but buzzwords bring nothing to the table.

I am a European and there's at least one huge gap in the European security architecture which was meant to not allow war to slip into Europe.
This is a big deal to us.

Look at it from the long-term angle; the Ukraine crisis isn't only about itself, but it's like a computer which got disabled by malware. We ought to scramble to fix the vulnerability to protect other computers.
To save the disabled computer should be secondary to the community.


And sorry, but I don't see anything interesting in what you call Putin's "political warfare". I've seen too much of it in history books. It's normal.

The problem in the Ukraine is that he's staying below a certain threshold, and he does so because the threshold is high for a great power. This is essentially what GWB did to Iraq as well (getting away with an aggression without overt hostile intervention), except that his threshold was much higher due to the alliance situation, so his gang was much more brazen.


We need to lower the thresholds and make sure potential aggressors understand about the lowered level, so they don't mess up by misunderstanding them.

See fuchs---here is the difference between you the European and myself the American having lived say in Germany since say 1967 and understanding the European better than themselves.

What Europeans got in 1989 was the ability to disarm their militaries and to drive down their defense budgets to a level that was "comfortable" meaning militaries were now "cheap" compared to say 1985. Yes some participated in AFG, but again it was not a great investment and in the mean time they continued the disarmament---take Germany and the cutting of their armored brigades last year.

Then the European companies went on a spending and investing binge in Russia as it "appeared" to be the great next business market and they did in fact make great money in their investments and still do today so hey who wants to rock the boat and besides Europeans thought that if one invests a lot in another country then that country would not want to cause a war which seems to have not been true now.

So what is the European answer currently towards Putin---what is the lower threshold you are going to set---what not continue buying his gas.

Putin would really respect Europeans if in fact they placed sanctions on Russia that in fact hurt European businesses as well as that would show him Europeans are willing to sacrifice their money for an ideal---that ain't about to happen believe me,

What you think is a buzz word is exactly what is allowing Putin to stay under a specific level and do not think for a moment that what is being practiced by the "separatists" ie proRussian armed groups is nothing more or less that outright UW at the tactical level.

UW as a strategy gives a country the ability in political warfare to scale up and scale down their responses depending on what the Ukrainians do as well as what the Europeans do.

By the way the term political warfare fell out of use over 30 or so years ago and has not been discussed much since then.

But hey continue believing that buzz words do not count and continue believing that what you are seeing is not UW which seems to be the European way.

[Fuchs]

* "para-" or not is irrelevant. Neither was legal.
* The supposed "cadre" thing never really worked. Wherever there are supposed examples of success (such as in Indochina) the success rested on indigenous unrest which was merely channelled. It was obvious that some Russians living in the Ukraine would fall for USSR nostalgia. This didn't require extra input.
The "cadre" thing didn't work because otherwise no foreign troops would have been necessary. I remember how desperately some Russians were looking for people in the Eastern Ukraine finally stepping up against "fascism" etc. during the Majdan thing. Very little happened, and was probably FSB-driven. The insurrection thing isn't really indigenous either. Whatever support the FSB built up, Putin was clearly not as satisfied by it as were Westerners about the Majdan thing.

* Europe did not "disarm".
* European companies didn't really go into a spending spree in Russia. Direct and other investments were quite modest. More importantly, it wasn't done "then", after the peace dividend began. Foreign direct investments (from rest of world) in Russia only took off when the increased energy prices improved the Russian trade balance as well as after deregulation by 2006. It dropped sharply after 2008.
see chart page 15
They can hardly have made much money in these a few years.
* It's not about whether Putin "respects Europeans". It's about whether he sees freedom of action or not. The personalising view on foreign policy ('I looked into his soul' stuff) is mostly bollocks on a continent that's rigged so fast as is Europe.
* The United States trade almost entirely across two oceans; their ports are universal interfaces to world trade.
Europe has more meaningful land connections to no less than three continents.
It also has worked its way out of seemingly perpetual intra-European conflict by seeking more cooperation, and that era of conflict is still in (some's) living memory.
It's typical American to think that cutting off some miscreants is a fine punishment. But to Europeans this means to cut off something meaningful. Confrontation instead of cooperation also risks a return of a pattern of hot conflicts.

Few Europeans seem to be interested in getting caught in a real, European-style, war over the stupid borders of a multi-ethnic state with which their own country isn't allied.
Playing with fire may be fun outdoors, but it's rather frowned upon in one's home.

[kaur]

Fuchs, I was used to your good habit to call things with their right names and your attempts to go to the roots of problems. Now you have twice rejected my comments, that there were Russian toops in Crimea (even Putin admitted this), you still have word "paramilitary" in your blog, I just don't understand you.

About cadre. Crimea case is best case study, which shows worst case scenario. This took place in favourable circumstances. In less favourable circumstances this cadre acts just like spoiler among allies in EU and NATO. There are several scenarious between those I named. I just don't understand why some European countries underestimate Russians. Today we see that Russians can act very efficently. In January Barroso and van Rompuy told Putin "Mind your own business" and told him about Ukraine's independent choice. Today Europe is happy that OSCE observers are freed in Slavyansk by FSB guy. How can you say that Putin is happy or unhappy? Do you know what makes him happy? It would be really intersting to hear.

[OUTLAW 09]

* "para-" or not is irrelevant. Neither was legal.
* The supposed "cadre" thing never really worked. Wherever there are supposed examples of success (such as in Indochina) the success rested on indigenous unrest which was merely channelled. It was obvious that some Russians living in the Ukraine would fall for USSR nostalgia. This didn't require extra input.
The "cadre" thing didn't work because otherwise no foreign troops would have been necessary. I remember how desperately some Russians were looking for people in the Eastern Ukraine finally stepping up against "fascism" etc. during the Majdan thing. Very little happened, and was probably FSB-driven. The insurrection thing isn't really indigenous either. Whatever support the FSB built up, Putin was clearly not as satisfied by it as were Westerners about the Majdan thing.

* Europe did not "disarm".
* European companies didn't really go into a spending spree in Russia. Direct and other investments were quite modest. More importantly, it wasn't done "then", after the peace dividend began. Foreign direct investments (from rest of world) in Russia only took off when the increased energy prices improved the Russian trade balance as well as after deregulation by 2006. It dropped sharply after 2008.
see chart page 15
They can hardly have made much money in these a few years.
* It's not about whether Putin "respects Europeans". It's about whether he sees freedom of action or not. The personalising view on foreign policy ('I looked into his soul' stuff) is mostly bollocks on a continent that's rigged so fast as is Europe.
* The United States trade almost entirely across two oceans; their ports are universal interfaces to world trade.
Europe has more meaningful land connections to no less than three continents.
It also has worked its way out of seemingly perpetual intra-European conflict by seeking more cooperation, and that era of conflict is still in (some's) living memory.
It's typical American to think that cutting off some miscreants is a fine punishment. But to Europeans this means to cut off something meaningful. Confrontation instead of cooperation also risks a return of a pattern of hot conflicts.

Few Europeans seem to be interested in getting caught in a real, European-style, war over the stupid borders of a multi-ethnic state with which their own country isn't allied.
Playing with fire may be fun outdoors, but it's rather frowned upon in one's home.

fuchs---you really cannot mean this;

* Europe did not "disarm".

What were the troops levels of all the NATO militaries during 1989 with tanks/APC/aircraft counts versus those numbers in 2014.

What were the percentages of total budgets spent on each military in 1989 versus today 2014?

Come on fuchs---Europe did not disarm.

Few Europeans seem to be interested in getting caught in a real, European-style, war over the stupid borders of a multi-ethnic state with which their own country isn't allied.

With the large internal movements of ethnic populations now going on among the 28 members of the EU I thought it was all about multi ethnic cultures so the EU only cares about what---it's own multi ethnic cultures but not about others outside the EU---extremely egocentric if you ask me as it appears that then the EU is only interested in how much money they can make in these "other multi cultural countires" that are not part of the EU.

Come on fuchs you cannot believe your own sentence below;

They can hardly have made much money in these a few years.

Even at the height of the Cold War in the late 70s German companies were investing in and making money in Russia ---either directly or indirectly via the EU---remember once in 1973 the EU and that included Germany sold a massive amount of old Cold Storage stored butter (something like over 2000 tons) to the Soviet Union that made a ton of money for German farmers and the German government---and you really still believe there was not money to be made in the former Soviet Union and now Russia. Check the sheer amount of German investments made into Russia since 1994 and the profits taken out of that business and tell me they made little money. Heck Rheinmetal was sitting on a 200M Euro simulation center for the Russian Army that was giving them a 37% return on the sale as a profit--not bad at all and there was more in the simulation business pipeline for them after that sale.

come on fuchs---