Vladimir Putin apparently fancies himself a chess master who likes to say playing chess with the United States is like playing against a pigeon: It struts around the board, knocks over the pieces. poops everywhere and then declares victory. So wrote Tom McTague at TheAtlantic.com on Jan. 27 after Putin had sent 100,000 Russian troops to the Ukrainian border in an apparent attempt to forcibly bring the prodigal nation back into the Russian sphere. But the Russian dictator may have underestimated Joe Biden.
Putin hoped to exploit divisions among NATO member nations and the United States, which Donald Trump had tried to break during his turn in the White House. Putin’s grand aspiration reportedly was to push America out of Europe and negotiate a deal that recognizes Russia’s role in the continent’s security order.
Putin thought Trump had alienated NATO allies enough to give him the opportunity to annex Ukraine. But in the past year President Biden and his team have repaired the breaches in the trans-Atlantic alliance and, as Putin continued to amass troops and weaponry on Ukraine’s border in February, Biden convinced the European Union to join the US in threatening crippling economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine.
As the number of Russian troops grew to 190,000 on three sides of Ukraine in late February, Putin insisted he had no plans to invade Ukraine but the Biden administration repeated intelligence assessments that invasion is imminent and predicted Russia would use their separatist allies in the Donbas Region of eastern Ukraine to stage “false flag” attacks on their own people to set up a pretext for a Russian “intervention” to protect the Russian nationals.
Following the script as Biden predicted, Russian officials claimed Ukraine mounted major attacks in the separatist enclaves, accusing Ukraine of genocide and shelling civilians. One of the structures hit by shells Feb. 17 in the Donbas region was a kindergarten, resulting in concussions to three adults but no injuries to children. Ukrainian officials denied reports of aggressive actions and accused Russian-backed separatists of being responsible for the shelling.
Biden has ruled out sending US troops to defend Ukraine, but he’s sent Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and other mobile anti-armor systems, grenade launchers, large quantities of artillery, mortars and small-arms ammunition to help Ukraine forces defend themselves.
On Feb. 21, in what appeared to be a highly choreographed turn of events, The “Donetsk People’s Republic” and the “Luhansk People’s Republic” in eastern Ukraine declared their independence and formally asked Russia for assistance. Putin authorized the Russian Defense Ministry to send forces into the self-declared separatist republics for “peacekeeping” purposes and set up bases there.
If the invasion goes forward, Russia will lose access to the world’s banking system, sales of sovereign bonds, technologies for critical industries and assets of oligarchs who are close to Putin. Russian oil and gas producers likely will lose Western Europe as a major market. Over the medium and long-term, Ivo Daalder, the former US ambassador to NATO, now president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, told the Washington Post, “it reinforces a European transition to [energy] supply that doesn’t rely on Russia.”
Nord Stream 2, the recently completed Russian gas pipeline to Germany, may never come online, as the European Union might not grant the required agreement for its use, Dalder told the Post.
To help make up for lost Russian oil supplies, Biden could lift sanctions on Iran, correcting the injustice done when Trump in 2018 canceled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement, which the US, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia reached with Iran in 2015, in which the US had agreed to lift sanctions in return for Iran halting its development of nuclear weapons. .
Meanwhile, the Ukraine military, with 260,000 active soldiers, might not be able to turn back the Russian army, but they could make the invasion bloody and Ukrainian troops who have been trained by US Army Green Berets and other NATO special forces may mount a guerrilla insurgency that could bog down the Russian military for years. If the Ukraine occupation starts to look like Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Russian populace as well as the oligarchs who support Putin might get restless with damage the international sanctions do to the Russian economy.
Republicans, searching or a way to undermine the president, complained that Biden hadn’t already imposed sanctions on Putin and Russia. However, putting severe sanctions on Russia prematurely would remove the leverage that kept Russia from moving across the border. Now that Russia has moved into the separatist regions, the western democracies might start with measured sanctions, saving the more severe measures until Russia moves further into Ukraine. Sanctions also are likely to cause Russia to retaliate by mounting cyberattacks against American and European infrastructure, as Russia already has started against Ukrainian banks.
Meanwhile, China is watching events in Russia with self interest. China’s President, Xi Jinping, wants control of Taiwan, and Russia’s attempt to annex Ukraine may provide a model for what China can get away with.
China’s foreign ministry has repeatedly blamed the United States for “spreading false information” and creating tensions, urging it to respect and address Russia’s demands for security guarantees, Yew Lun Tian of Reuters noted Feb. 19.
In a show of solidarity, Putin visited Beijing for the Feb. 4 opening ceremony of the Olympics, declaring with Xi a deepening “no limits” strategic partnership. Chinese state media said the two countries stood “shoulder to shoulder in upholding justice in the world.” And Putin held off his move on Ukraine until the Olympics concluded.
“Just as China does not expect Russia to help it militarily in the case of war over Taiwan, Russia does not expect China to help militarily over Ukraine, nor does it need such help,” Li Mingjiang, associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, told Reuters.
China could expand economic cooperation with Russia that would blunt the impact of sanctions promised by the West if there is an invasion, experts told Reuters.
After Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, several Chinese state banks provided loans for Russian state-owned banks that were sanctioned by the West. This time, Chinese companies would face consequences if they sought to evade any export controls imposed on Moscow in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Some may complain sanctions are economic imperialism on the part of the US, but it’s preferable to gunboat diplomacy. Why send in the Marines if the Treasury Department can do the job enforcing sanctions? Treasury should get a chance to show what it can do.
We think Biden is right to rule out sending US military to defend Ukraine, nor should US troops defend Taiwan. But Putin and Xi should know they are making a choice with their territorial ambitions: If they want Kyiv or Taipei, it will cost them trade with the United States and most of the rest of the world. Is it worth it? — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2022
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