Ukraine
and US Security Interests
We hear a lot of talk today
about how helping Ukraine defend itself against Russia is a vital national
interest of the United States. Here I want to examine the history of
Ukrainian/Russian relations as they relate to that issue as well as today’s
circumstances that bear on the question.
The territory known today as
Ukraine lies south of Russia and north of the Black Sea. That territory was
gradually absorbed into the Russian Empire as the Ottoman Empire went into
decline. By the end of the eighteenth century all of it was part of Russia. It
had once been where Russian history and culture originated. However, after Kievan
Rus’ was conquered by the Tatars, the center of Russian political and religious
life shifted to the northeast, eventually coming to be centered in Moscow. Ukraine
fell under non-Slavic rule for a number of centuries. It was then ruled by the
Russians, who, in any event, did not see Ukrainians as a people or culture
separate from themselves. They said that Ukrainian was just a dialect of
Russian.
Ukraine remained under the rule
of the Russian tsars until 1917, when World War I brought about the collapse of
the Russian monarchy. In November, 1917 (Gregorian style) the Bolsheviks staged
a coup that, after a long and bloody civil war, brought them to power in most
of what had been the Russian Empire. Much of that civil war was fought in
Ukraine. In effect Russian rule over Ukraine was reestablished.
Throughout the history of
Ukraine no Americans thought that Ukraine being occupied and ruled by a foreign
power, whether Turkish or Russian, was a threat to US national security. The
USSR may have been a threat to US national security, but in the Soviet years
Ukraine was just part of the USSR; and although it had its own seat in the UN,
it played no independent role in international relations.[1]
If anything about Ukraine was a threat to US security it was only that Ukraine
was part of the USSR.
Ukraine became an independent
nation for the first time in its history only in 1991 with the collapse of the
Soviet Union. Each of the fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics became an
independent nation at that time. Their borders were those drawn some time
earlier by bureaucrats in Moscow. The Crimean Peninsula was part of the Ukrainian
SSR and thus became part of the independent nation of Ukraine.[2]
The collapse of the USSR meant that Russia was no longer the major
international player that it had been as the dominant element of that now
bygone country. None of the other former SSRs other than the Russian one was
big or strong enough to play any significant international role either.
The newly independent Ukraine pledged
itself to becoming a democracy, but like so many countries transitioning from
totalitarian to democratic rule it had quite a problem with corruption. Especially
in the oil and gas industries, which were largely dependent on Russia for
supply of those commodities, operators who were not exactly ethical rose to
power. The government of President Viktor Yanukovich (2010 to 2014) was
horribly corrupt top to bottom.
The independent nation of Ukraine
had trouble with Russia from the very beginning. There were at least a couple
of reasons for this trouble. One was that the Crimean Peninsula was now not
under Russian control, yet the Crimean port of Sevastopol remained the home
port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The other was that the population of the
eastern parts of Ukraine, a region sometimes referred to as the Donbas, was and
is mixed Ukrainian and Russian. The Russians of that part of Ukraine wanted to
be reunited with Russia. The Ukrainians didn’t. Russian President Vladimir Putin
responded to these circumstances by invading and annexing Crimea and supplying
military assistance to Russian groups fighting the Ukrainians in the Donbas. There
is a tension within Ukraine between those (mostly but not exclusively Russians)
who want Ukraine to tie itself closely to Russia and those (mostly in the
western part of the country) who want Ukraine to become part of the European
Union. The present government of Ukraine has tied its fortunes firmly to US
support. As early as 1994 the US and other western nations extended security
guarantees to Ukraine, guarantees that remain in effect today.[3]
Under President Vladimir Putin
Russia has become quite aggressive in its efforts to reestablish if not exactly
the Russian Empire then at least a Russian sphere of influence and strong
economic ties in the lands that used to be part of the USSR including Ukraine. Putin
and many Russians resent the loss of Russia’s international power and prestige
that came with the collapse of the USSR. Putin has significant support from his
people for his efforts to reestablish those lost Russian assets.
The United States foreign policy
establishment however sees any reestablishment of Russia’s status as a major
international power as a threat to American national interests. Our government
does not want there to be a strong Russia asserting itself in the international
arena.[4]
Putin’s aggressive measures in Ukraine are among the most obvious examples of
Russia trying to regain its status as a major world power.
I can see only two ways in which
maintaining an independent and democratic Ukraine might be in America’s
national interest. One is the long American tradition, such as it has been, of
advocating liberal policies around the world. We say we stand for democracy and
freedom.[5]
Ukraine is attempting to be a country of democracy and freedom in a part of the
world where those things have been unknown until recently. If we really want to
take a stand for democracy and freedom, supporting an independent Ukraine
against an authoritarian Russia makes perfect sense.
Yet it seems to me that the
notion that defending Ukraine against Russia is in the US national interest
stems more from our relationship with Russia than from anything specifically
about Ukraine. Our foreign policy establishment is convinced that a re-strengthened
Russia is a bad thing. I personally am not convinced that it need be a bad
thing, but my country’s policy toward Russia is firmly based on that
supposition. Ukraine stands in the way of that Russian re-strengthening. Russia
will never reestablish anything like the power it had in that part of the world
when it controlled the USSR if it cannot reestablish its authority over
Ukraine. Ukraine was by far the second largest of the Soviet Socialist
Republics by population after Russia itself. It stands between Russia and much
of the Black Sea, one of Russia’s two open water channels for military and
commercial maritime traffic. Along with Byelorussia Ukraine was part of the
Slavic heart of the USSR, or at least that’s how many Russians view the matter.
Vladimir Putin’s drive for a reestablishment of Russian power will never come
to full fruition if he cannot establish Russian control over Ukraine.
That, it seems to me, is why our
foreign policy gurus insist that a free and independent Ukraine is vital to our
national security interests. It’s not that Ukraine is that important in its own
right. It’s neither big enough nor wealthy enough to be that important in its
own right. It’s that Ukraine is the frontline of any attempt to thwart Putin’s
dream of a reestablished, re-empowered Russia. If thwarting Putin’s dream of a
reestablished, re-empowered Russia is necessary to American security interests,
then assisting Ukraine in its struggle with Russia makes perfect sense. If it
isn’t, it doesn’t.
[1] The
Yalta Conference of 1945 between the leaders of the USSR, the US, and the
United Kingdom decided that the USSR, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,
and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic would each have a seat at the
new United Nations. This despite the fact that Ukraine and Byelorussia were
part of the USSR and played no independent role in world affairs.
[2] Crimea
had originally been part of the Russian Federated Soviet Socialist Republic,
the Russian element, and by far the dominant one, in the USSR. In 1954, for
reasons no one quite understands, Khrushchev transferred it to the Ukrainian
SSR. The Soviet Union was so centralized that this transfer may have changed
the maps of the country but otherwise had no significant effect. The Crimea
remained the home port of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet after it was moved from
the Russian to the Ukrainian republic. It was still the home port of that fleet
when Ukraine became independent in 1991.
[3]
Also to Byelorussia and Kazakhstan.
[4]
Actually, President Trump apparently would be perfectly happy with such a
reassertion of Russian power, but so far he hasn’t been able to change American
policy with regard to that issue.
[5] Whether
we actually do or not is a question I won’t go into here.
No comments:
Post a Comment