Ukraine is not a Country

During my time working in Ukraine, a Ukrainian businessman commented to me, “Ukraine is not a country. It’s just a place on earth where people live.” As events in Ukraine are unfolding, it may be that that he was prescient. This week’s referendum in Crimea, in which over 90 percent of voters, with over 80 percent turning out, endorsed affiliation with the Russian Federation and which was immediately accepted by Russia, shows how fragile a united Ukraine remains. The default U.S. responses to events such as this, bellicose statements by President Obama, (We will never recognize the Crimean result.), deploying military forces to the Black Sea and along Russian and Ukrainian borders, announcing sanctions, however modest, immediately surfaced out of Washington. In this case U.S. policy makers might consider a different path. Dare I propose the dreaded “A” word, appeasement.
The biggest problem that resulted from Neville Chamberlain’s failed attempt to appease Adolf Hitler during the run up to World War II was that it gave appeasement a bad name. Scholars, given 20-20 hindsight, have proposed that the problem in this case wasn’t appeasement itself, but that policy makers, at the time, got it backwards. They should have confronted Germany and appeased Japan, perhaps avoiding World War II. That said, appeasement, despite its bad name, remains a valid, if often ignored, tool in the diplomatic toolbox. Supporters of aggressive military action and coercive diplomacy frequently attack supporters of diplomatic compromises as appeasers, seeing the term as a pejorative. They neglect to point out that war and coercive diplomacy, such as economic sanctions, have a poor track record of resolving international disputes and have resulted in millions of deaths and enormous economic suffering.
The first step towards finding a peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis is to recognize that Russia has a vital national interest in the status of Ukraine. The U.S. and its western allies, on the other hand, have no vital national interests at stake. Western efforts to bring NATO forces right on Russia’s doorstep is a complete non-starter for Vladimir Putin. Just as the U.S. tried everything possible, sanctions, embargo, military invasion, terrorist attacks, regime change, in an, albeit unsuccessful, attempt to dislodge a Soviet Union supported Communist government in Cuba, Russia will do everything possible to prevent their adversaries from entrenching themselves in Ukraine.
Although some eastern, Russian majority Ukrainian regions, namely Donetsk and Kharkov, have indicated a desire to conduct a referendum on more autonomy within Ukraine, Putin has said that he does not wish to annex more territory beyond Crimea. His hand may be forced, however, if the anti-Russian violence that has occurred in the eastern regions increases. Agreement with Russia on the status of Ukraine will require that any new Ukrainian government take aggressive steps to protect the rights and safety of Ukraine’s Russian citizens, wherever they reside. This may be difficult to accomplish in practice, as the interim government is dominated by the anti- Russian, anti-Semitic, neo-fascist Svoboda and Right Sector parties who hold eight ministerial positions, including National Security Chief, Deputy National Security Chief and Defense Minister. Another risk of escalating violence is that the Ukrainian government, feeling that they will be backed by the U.S. and its allies, relying on the assurances of Joe Biden and John McCain, will escalate the conflict.
If further violence against Russians can be avoided, Putin may agree to limit his territorial aspirations to Crimea. Beyond this, an agreement will need to be reached on the “Finlandization” (to use a Cold War term) of Ukraine. Under this scenario, Ukraine would maintain good relations with east and west, Russia and the E.U., and would align with neither. This role of an east-west bridge is a traditional role for Ukraine. When my wife was working in a hospital in Odessa, Ukraine, she saw both eastern and western medical practices being used. Ukrainians were proud of this role. It can happen again.