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Europe, Global Analysis

The Diplomat and the DeLorean

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“The past isn’t dead.  It isn’t even past.”  – William Faulkner. 

The crisis in Ukraine highlights a shortcoming in materialist theories, and a derivative shortcoming in our foreign policy process: the rhetorical battle between Russia and Ukraine is presently jumping across eleven hundred years of history, invoking symbols and identities from at least five different eras simultaneously into the present.  Our policy-making ‘now’ is the last election, while the Russians and Ukrainians are all drawing on a millennium-long ‘now’ in their argument with each other.  We are missing most of what is being said with our myopic lens, and much of what ‘power’ means hinges on these identity questions. 

First, two ideas from academic literature help explain what’s happening. 

–      ‘Master Cleavage’ – Stathis Kalyvas describes how local leaders invoke larger narratives to address local issues during civil wars.  What is presently happening is a dynamic, inside-out version of that process.  There are any of a number of potential historical cleavages, depending on which pieces of the past are more present at any given time.  For instance, to energize Ukrainian nationalists, the Red-and-Black flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) speaks of fierce resistance to both Soviets and Fascists during the Second World War.  However, the UPA treated Poles brutally between Ukraine and Poland, so the Ukrainians would greatly prefer to decouple the UPA from their framing with Poland, and instead situate that relationship within the era of Soviet Occupation.  What era is present, and with whom, is a key aspect of the current struggle.  Whoever builds a better pastiche of history gets to choose the identity frame.

–      ‘Polychronic’ Cultures – The ability to navigate this space hinges on a culture’s mode of interacting with the past.  Hall, in his work on culture, describes two broad views of time – monochronic, where a culture experiences the flow of time as a linear progression of events, and polychronic, where a culture experiences multiple timeframes in parallel.  In a monochronic culture, the past is ‘how we got here,’ but it’s not ‘here.’   In a polychronic culture, the past is ‘here’ in different ways for different things.  The United States foreign policy process is explicitly monochronic.  While many of those who inhabit that process are polychronic, ideas from these frames rarely last long in institutions to whom they are foreign.  This is a problem when trying to understand polychronic identity struggles. 

Second, since history is a battlefield of this present crisis, here’s a quick and semi-humorous video crash course on Russian history.  There are at least five eras currently in play – these are horribly over-simplified, and I highly recommend reading a proper history on them.

First, the Kievan Rus’is the most fundamental identity dispute between Russia and Ukraine. The Rus’ was first identifiable state of the Eastern Slavs (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus,) the Kievan Rus’ was founded by Vikings in the 9th Century AD, and lasted until the 13th Century, when it was destroyed by the Mongols.  During this time, the Rus’ converted to Christianity and aligned themselves with Constantinople.  This was a golden age of sorts, at least in memory, and both Russia and Ukraine claim the mantle of the Kievan Rus’. Russia’s claim derives from being the strongest successor state to the Rus’, and from an influx of immigration following the Mongol conquest. In this version, Moscow leads the eventual resistance to the Mongols, and evolves as a Eurasian state.  In the course of this evolution, strength and autocracy become necessary defenses; the consolidation of power under the Czars and the concomitant management of rebels is the natural state of play.

Ukraine’s claim derives from geography – Kiev was the leading city of the Rus.’ In this, the Rus’ provided a source for deep Ukrainian national identity – in the 1990s, the Ukrainian state shifted toward the hrivna currency, the same name as that of the Rus’, and the Trident symbol was a royal seal of the leaders of the Rus’.  Soviet historiography declared the Kievan Rus as a feudal state, in order to fit a dialectical materialist model of history, while Ukrainian historians generally see the Rus’ as a proto-republic, proto-capitalist confederation. From this retelling, Moscow served as tax collectors to the Mongols, and the increasingly powerful city-state drifted toward autocracy.  Therefore, the corruption of Yanukovych hearkens to the Mongol yoke, and the natural orientation of the Rus’ is toward Europe.

A second frame is the 16th to 18th Century Cossacks, and their conflicts with both the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and the Russian Czars.  This was a tremendously tumultuous period for all parties involved, and too complicated to meaningful recount here.   In present memory, the Cossack culture of freedom and their Hetman leaders provide identity markers for Ukraine, and a basis for the rejection of autocracy.  Conversely, this was a ‘time of troubles’ for Moscow, and the Russians the Cossacks more as raiders and bandits.  What this period means for modern interpretations of Ukrainian identity vis-à-vis their neighbors depends greatly on the interpretation of this time – the Cossacks alternatively supported and fought almost all of their neighbors during this period.

The Second World War provides the third frame for this argument.  As described before, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army’s (UPA) red-and-black banner was a common sight in EuroMaidan – this is a direct challenge to the Russian leadership, who transpose onto the Soviet Union in this frame.  The Soviets were deeply invested in framing the UPA as Fascist collaborators; while it is difficult to capture the entirety of a guerilla movement, the UPA described themselves as at war with both Soviets and Nazis.  In the current struggle, Putin continues using the Soviet frame, with Russia Today describing the Ukrainians as neo-Nazis.  (This echoes a refrain from Yugoslavia – the preferred anti-Croatian slur referred to a WWII collaborationist government.)  The general Ukrainian framing takes the UPA at its word and sees it as a nationalist movement.  Interestingly, in present memory, the UPA’s symbols have become more inclusive than the UPA itself likely was.  The UPA’s hallmark phrase, ‘Slava Ukraini, Heroyam Slava,’ (Glory to Ukraine, Glory to her heroes,) is now being applied to the protestors killed in Kyiv’s Independence Square during the recent protests – East and West Ukrainian alike.

The Communist domination of Eastern Europe, in particular the Soviet interventions into Prague and Budapest, provides the most useful frame for the Ukrainian to reach out to their immediate Western neighbors.  Framing the Soviet invasion of the Crimea in these terms invokes these memories amongst the Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians.  For obvious reasons, the Russian government has little to gain from invoking this era, and their narratives steer clear of it.

Finally, the most recent memory frame is the chronological present and the contrast between the European Union and the Russian-led Eurasian Union.  This is the frame best understood by our policy process, but it is misleading to view the previous eras as prologue rather than present.  Note that the flags from these eras fly alongside each other – these symbols are all invoked in parallel.  To some extent, all nations use parallel symbols, but what is particularly fascinating here is that the Ukrainians are making multiple identity bids to different eras all at once. 

How does all of this matter?  First, in this case, materialist approaches actually turn on identity.  Russia obviously overmatches Ukraine in any sort of a tank-count.  But it is a quite different overmatch if the Russians pin the Ukranians in the 17th Century as the rebellious Zaporozhian Cossacks fighting the Tsar than if Kiev traps the Putin in the 10th Century by claiming the mantle of the Kyivskaya Rus’ against the Mongol thralls of Muscovy.  If this is the story of the Ukrainian language against the dominion of Greater Russia, then East Ukraine is properly on the Russian side of the struggle; in this story, the Ukrainians would be fighting on Russian turf until they reached Kyiv, and defections of Russophone units should be common.  Conversely, if this is about the idea that the greater Rus’ is by its nature both European and free, then command and control becomes far easier for Kyiv, and Russian supply lines in Donetsk or Khar’kov would find themselves under partisan attack.  The realist tank-count turns on the remarkably fluid identity contest.

Second, we cannot interpret many of the actions of either side without access to these texts and without the understanding that they run in parallel.  Most dramatically, the battle over the mantle of the Kievan Rus’ has profound implications over the significance of the outcome of this crisis.  If the Ukrainians can sustain the argument that descendants of the Rus’ aren’t inherently predisposed to autocracy, this immediately links to Belarus and even Russia itself.  If the Ukrainians can do so in a way that fully incorporates East Ukraine in the project, then Putin’s irredentist strategies turn back on him, and Russophone Ukrainians become a visible threat to the narrative he is advancing.

To this point, the hub of Ukrainian nationalism, Lviv, spontaneously chose to speak Russian for a day a few days ago in a show of solidarity with East Ukraine.  Donetsk, the easternmost major city in Ukraine, reciprocated by speaking Ukrainian for a day.   The now-famous Colonel Mamchur of the Ukrainian Air Force, who marched his unit back onto their base, similarly demurred from ethnic chauvinism:

“It makes no sense. I can’t even say whether I am Ukrainian or Russian – it’s not a choice any of us can really make. My wife’s Belarusian, her mother is Russian. We’ve all got relatives on both sides,” said Col Mamchur. “When all this started we got calls from friends in Moscow who were simply in shock.” “Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine are really one Slavic people,” said the Colonel. “The divisions are only formalities. Whoever gave the order for this operation set brother against brother. It’s a crazy situation.”

This is potentially far more important than naval bases and the Black Sea fleet.

Note that in the Euromaidan protests, the previous Belarusian flag flew alongside the Ukrainian flag and the EU flag, and the Ukrainians are using a Belarusian protest rock song from as an anthem.  (The lyrics are hardly ‘Winds of Change’ – the chorus goes, roughly, “Warriors of the Light.”  The band actually played for EuroMaidan last December.)  Moreover, the phrase ‘Slava Ukraina, Zhivye Belarus’ pops up fairly often in the comments section of viral videos from EuroMaidan supporters – “Glory to Ukraine, Long Live Belarus’.”  These phrases and symbols are attempting to harmonize these different eras, all in the present – a spray painted trizub symbol [photo] speaks to this idea.  At least in part, the identity challenge is intertwined with the strategic challenge; ‘who are we’ is as much a battleground as ‘what do we want.’ 

Our monochronic, rationalist, materialist foreign policy process deals well with answering the latter question.  We have a deep problem, especially when dealing with peoples adept at harmonizing polychronic time rather than sequencing monochronic moves, in dealing with the former question.  Recalling the painful market transitions of the 1990s, along with the technical economic issues, nations that synthesized liberal reforms into their national identity found the social capital to continue through difficult times.  Poland was ideologically committed to reform, and was able to persist in part because of this.  These reforms were generally presented as ‘Western,’ in contrast to a ‘traditional’ model in Russia.  Mining the past would have perhaps provided deeper national connections to these projects – it is always easier to rediscover your golden age (even if you have to update it a bit) than to accept someone else’s vision of who you should be.  Doing so requires skill and knowledge, but not a tremendous amount of cost.

Similarly, in the counter-terror world, we generally took al-Qaeda’s word for what the Caliphate looked like.  Bin Laden was no Salah ad-Din, and Zawahiri is laughably distant from an Averroes or an Avicenna.  The Caliphate was, in many ways, a customs union and an empire of trade; through this lens, Dubai is a more legitimate successor to the Caliphate than anything that al-Qaeda built in the mountains of Afghanistan.  We should have contested the past rather than agreeing to our adversary’s framing by presenting the future in its stead.  

While mastering the mechanics of polychronic time requires far more than a simple transpose, we cannot afford to be blind to the present memory of history nor deaf to the symbols through which that history is contested.  We certainly cannot afford to do so in this conflict, where history is so present in the present.  At least amongst the Rus’, the past is hardly past.

Dave Blair is an active duty officer in the United States Air Force and a PhD student at Georgetown University. The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Air Force, the DoD or the U.S. government.

Europe, Podcast, Strategic Outlook

Sea Control 25 – Crimean Crisis

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seacontrolemblemSea Control discusses the Crimean Crisis, with three CIMSEC writers: Dave Blair, Viribus Unitis, and Robert Rasmussen. We discuss Russia’s aims and tactics, the Maidan movement, Ukrainian governance and passive resistance, and what this crisis means for Russia and the EU/NATO.

DOWNLOAD: Sea Control 25 – Crimean Crisis

We are available on Itunes, Stitcher Stream Radio, etc… Remeber to subscribe, leave a comment and a 5-star rating.

 

Europe, Global Analysis

Fast Response Not Necessarily the Best in Crimea

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As matters continue to escalate between Ukraine and Russia in Crimea, many are quickly calling for action in response by the United States. They say it is our duty as a leader on the world stage, and claim that if the U.S. does not take action then it conveys to the world that we are inept and will not take action in response to aggression around the world. Of course, when people call for action they really mean military action. This is probably because utilizing the military is the most overt, visible, and rapid response. We are living in a very fast time. We used to think the 24-hour-news reporting cycle was fast, but then we discovered live-tweeting of world events. We find out about things quickly and along the same vein we want to see responses quickly. There can be no doubt in the media and public perception that if missiles start firing and troops begin landing then we are taking action. Though always defaulting to the military might convey action, it might not be the best course of action.

We too often confuse military strategy with grand national strategy and military power with national power. We oversimplify and forget the diplomatic, information, and economic aspects. When these are coupled with the military aspect we get the nice acronym DIME (diplomatic, information, military, and economic) that many of us are familiar with from doctrine. A military response would most certainly be the most rapid and overt, but those features alone do not make it the most appropriate. Military power is so much more than utilization of force. Possessing credible military capability can add validity to efforts of diplomacy, economics, and gathering of information. The military is an essential element of national power, but as the saying goes, if all I have is a hammer (or all I think about is a hammer), then all of my problems look like nails.

Unfortunately we tend to think of events in terms of a duel. Each side takes their predetermined shot and in the end whoever is left standing wins. In reality, international relations are more like a game of chess. You have many different moves at your disposal and every more you make (or do not make) will have implications for every following move. The question of what we lose or gain from action – as compared to inaction – must be asked. Inaction by a party does not imply maintaining a status quo. International relations are dynamic and continuously evolve regardless of whether the U.S. takes proactive military action or not.

If military action is not taken by the U.S. or NATO in Ukraine, what is to gain and what is to lose? If Russia expands its sphere of influence to encompass Crimea, it will secure control of Sevastopol and its coveted warm-water port for the Black Sea Fleet. This has been a strategic goal for Russia since the 17th century, but is it worth the cost? In the end it might be that Russia is winning the battle but losing the war. An invasion of Crimea could have long-lasting political ramifications that overshadow gaining lasting control of a warm-water port. Gaining Crimea could mean Russia losing its influence in Ukraine and Georgia. Seeing Russia’s aggressiveness and willingness to take military action to achieve its goals could be just the motivation Ukraine and Georgia need to grow closer to NATO and the European Union.

This port is so nice and warm
This port is so nice and warm

Though it appears Russia will expand its influence to encompass Crimea, it may not be a lasting influence. The major ethnicities in Crimea are 58% Russian, 25% Ukrainian, and 12% Crimean Tatars. Even before the invasion, the Ukrainians were not very fond of the Russians, so the sentiment from Crimea’s 2nd largest ethnic group will only worsen. Along the same lines, the Crimean Tatars have been very anti-Russian since the mid-20th century. Russia may gain its coveted warm water port, but it may come with a hornet’s nest throughout Crimea that it will have to deal with for years to come.

It looks like about 58% of the people like us here
It looks like about 58% of the people like us here

Even before committing forces in Ukraine, Russia had a lease for use of the naval base at Sevastopol, so Russia gaining control of Crimea is not a significant change in that respect. What is much more significant is it coming with the opportunity to expand the influence of NATO to former Soviet bloc nations and potentially having unrest in Crimea that Russia will have to dedicate resources to address for years to come. Military inaction in favor of expanded diplomatic, information, and economic actions in the region could be the best option.

LT Jason H. Chuma is a U.S. Navy submarine officer who has deployed to the U.S. 4th Fleet and U.S. 6th Fleet areas of responsibility. He is a graduate of the Citadel, holds a master’s degree from Old Dominion University, and has completed the Intermediate Command and Staff Course from the U.S. Naval War College. He can be followed on Twitter @Jason_Chuma.

The opinions and views expressed in this post are his alone and are presented in his personal capacity. They do not necessarily represent the views of U.S. Department of Defense or the U.S. Navy.

Europe, Global Analysis

NATO on the Edge: Obama’s Reply of Honorius?

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Sometime in the year A.D. 410, Honorius, the last Roman emperor to rule the Western Roman Empire before the sack of Rome by the Visigoths that year, received a request for military aid from Britain, then a Roman province.  The island was under attack by barbarians.  We do not know exactly what the letter to Honorius contained, but Honorius’ response, now referred to by historians as the Reply of Honorius, essentially told the Britons – theoretically Roman citizens who could count on the protection of the Empire – that they would have to make do on their own; Rome had troubles of its own and could not send help this time.

The Reply of Honorius is often considered to mark the end of Roman rule in Britain, as well as the end of Rome’s military dominance over any part of the empire.  Rome had all it could do to protect itself; imperial clients, whatever their legal claims to help from the central power, would have to fend for themselves.  Though the Roman Empire sputtered onward for another two generations after Rome was sacked in 410, this was the point where the central tenet of Roman rule – that Rome protected its own – was exposed as a fiction.  Nothing was the same after that.  Where Britain was concerned, the island was cut off from the Empire and never returned to it; it did, indeed, fend for itself.

There are a lot of bad comparisons made between America’s worldwide defense posture and the Roman Empire.  The two do, however, have one obvious thing in common:  in both cases a powerful state made promises to defend far-flung territories.  As with Rome, the U.S. is finding out how expensive such promises can be to keep.

As of this writing, Russian forces in Ukraine have seized the Crimea.  Ukraine is in the process of a general military mobilization, but Russian forces are already securing the strategic Perikop isthmus to the north of the Crimea, which controls access to the rest of the country; unless Ukrainian forces, with or without assistance, can similarly entrench along these lines, Russian forces will be able to break out of the Crimea and move toward strategic crossing points along the Dnieper river.  If that is the case, protecting Kiev will become very difficult, if not impossible.  It remains unclear how many Ukrainian units are even active at this point; units in the predominantly ethnically Russian east of the country have already defected or surrendered, including the Ukrainian navy’s flagship frigate.  There are an unknown but sizeable number of Russian forces on alert along the northeastern border of the country, leaving open the possibility of a general invasion.

President Obama has publicly stated that Russia would face “serious costs” were it to go forward with plans to invade Ukraine.  It is a matter of speculation what those costs may be, although it is becoming clear that there is little that the U.S. and its allies can do to stop the invasion without intervening directly.  As German Marshall Fund analyst Joerg Forbrig has remarked, there is very little evidence up to now that Putin’s government is motivated by an economic cost-benefit analysis, as opposed to nationalism and, perhaps, calculations of security.  Although the majority-ethnic Russian east of Ukraine may indeed make more sense as a Russian satellite than a fractious part of Ukraine, it is likely that Russia will seek to take Kiev, both to send a message (as was the case with its seizure of Gori in the 2008 invasion of Georgia) and because, as the ancient capital of one of the earliest Russian kingdoms, it has sentimental importance for Russian nationalists.  There is little reason to believe sanctions, or any similar actions, will stop Russia from seizing at least a part of Ukraine, or inflict any meaningful punishment on it for doing so.  Indeed, such sanctions will be hard to impose:  Europe is more dependent on trade with Russia (most notably natural gas shipments, many of which go through Ukraine) than the other way around.

From the point of view of several of the U.S.’ NATO allies, on the other hand, imposing “serious costs” on Russia, even if it could be done, means the game has already been lost:  the challenge is to prevent Russia from taking Ukraine, not punish it once it has done so.  This especially applies if Russia is not content to take the Crimea and the pro-Russian east, but decides to seize Kiev and control the entire country.  Ukraine borders on four NATO member states – Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania – and up to now has served as what might pass for a buffer zone between the Alliance and Russia; Russian ground forces in Ukraine in force – particularly western Ukraine – are therefore literally too close for comfort.  What applies to these states applies even more strongly to the three Baltic states – Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia – all of which are also NATO members, have minimal strategic depth or defensible terrain, and share a border with Russia – and are therefore quite concerned about U.S. resolve in the face of Russian aggression.

It might have been advisable in the past to debate or question the appropriateness of NATO expansion or consider the merits of negotiating an arrangement with Russia with regard to eastern Europe; now, however, the U.S. has given its word to defend practically all of eastern Europe from Russian military attack, Russia is now expansionist and hostile to U.S. interests, and the eastern European states are understandably curious whether the U.S. is serious about its commitments.  The legal argument that Ukraine is not a NATO member and that therefore the U.S. has no obligation to it is a hair they are unwilling to split.  What they see is an American patron that was caught flat-footed by a crisis, made empty threats, was unwilling when the time came to confront Russia, and was not substantively concerned about their well-being.  If the situation in Ukraine is not quickly brought under control, America’s nominal allies in eastern Europe may make the same difficult calculation that Finland made in the last century:  that no outside ally can be relied on, and that they would do better to make their peace with Russia.  The result would be a hollowed out NATO, perhaps even leading to a disintegration of the Alliance over the longer term.

Although eastern Ukraine, as a pro-Russian region at odds with the new government, may be too far gone to save, and although its detachment (de jure or de facto) from the rest of the country might in any case form part of a negotiated settlement, there is a rapidly closing opportunity to stave off the worst possible outcome of the crisis – Russian conquest of the country with no meaningful U.S. response.  To deter Russia from making further inroads into the country, the U.S., with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk’s consent, would need to deploy a rapid reaction force to western Ukraine, effectively signaling that it might become involved if Russia moved to take the western half of the country, and hopefully deterring Russia from moving on Kiev.  (It might still be possible to secure the neck of the Perekop Isthmus and block off the Russian forces’ main route out of the Crimea, but if reports are true, it may be too late.)  The next best option could be the placement of a similar force along the border of any of the neighboring NATO states, as a precaution and show of resolve, and to preserve some options if the situation got worse.  (CIMSEC’s Robert Rasmussen has eloquently summarized the available forces and possible order of battle.)  Unfortunately, the window for action is closing, if it hasn’t already:  it would take a while for forces from EUCOM to get to Ukraine, and time is becoming scarce; arranging logistics would likewise be difficult.  If there was a time for action, it was when Russian forces along the border went on alert for an “exercise” last week – precious time has been lost.  As goes the U.S., so will go other NATO states.  The NATO states that border Russia and Ukraine will be watching what happens.

It may well be the case that a negotiated solution to the conflict is both the best option and even the inevitable one.  Unless the U.S. moves directly to deter a general assault on Ukraine, however, there will be little to negotiate with.

But in fact the U.S. faces a much more difficult set of options than even all this would suggest.  Russia and the U.S. have been cooperating on Afghanistan; as has been noted, Russia is a major link in the tenuous supply line that supports U.S. operations there.  Confronting Russia over Ukraine could jeopardize not only operations in Afghanistan, but potentially the safety of U.S. forces there.  It might be possible to find alternate supply routes, but not at short notice.  The ugly reality is that the U.S. might have to choose between breaking its promises in Afghanistan – drawing down faster than it otherwise would – or failing to demonstrate sufficient resolve in eastern Europe.  At least in terms of preserving a global balance of power that keeps America safe and powerful, Europe is undoubtedly more important – but it will hurt either way, if the choice does ultimately have to be made.

Either way, the U.S. is in danger of issuing its own Reply of Honorius – those whom we have promised protection may have to rely on their own resources.  There may still be opportunities to make the best of this situation and even turn it around, but time is fleeting:  what happens this week may make all the difference in the world.

Martin Skold is currently pursuing his PhD at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, with a dissertation focused on analyzing long-term security competition between states.