Dollars do not make people into zombies

The influence of the USA on the Maidan protests is grossly overestimated. Mass movements are not so easily bought—and the US has other priorities. BY ALICE BOTA, editor for the German weekly Die Zeit. Translated by Charles Kirchofer.

Originally published in German on 21 May 2015 at 07:26 AM CEST

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These days, whenever a people somewhere rises up and a government falls, large sections of the left quickly identify who is responsible: It was the Americans. They were never too good for coup attempts when they were in their own interest, after all. They were willing to use any means, whether in Panama, Chile, Nicaragua, Iran—the list is long. So why should it be any different for the Maidan protests in Ukraine in 2014? Only that this time, the people were stirred up.

Many then like to point to the book The Grand Chessboard by the former US presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. In it, he refers to Ukraine as the “geopolitical linchpin” that determines the tectonics shifts of all of Europe—as if this were already evidence of American power politics rather than just theory.

The role of the US in Eastern and Central Europe is so overrated and overcharged that a short historical review can help to ground the assessment. This is because, like Ukraine today, one country in particular is familiar with disappointments and disenchantment when it comes to America, namely Poland.

In 1973, the publicist Juliusz Mieroszewski published an article in the Polish exile magazine Kultura about American “Ostpolitik” (“eastern policy”). Mieroszewski belonged to the milieu of intellectuals and writers who had to flee from Poland and fought with words from Paris for an independent homeland. Mieroszewski remarked bitterly that, while the Americans spent $120 billion for their anti-communist Vietnam War, the uprising in Hungary, also directed against a repressive communist regime, didn’t even receive $120.

Just like many Ukrainians today, back then, many oppositional Poles were convinced that America was their natural ally and would support them in the struggle against communism. Their hope was understandable, but it was in vain.

For the US, Ukraine Policy is mostly about symbolism

While the “Polish cause” was the Alpha and Omega of all politics for the Poles, Mieroszewski wrote, it does not even exist for the Americans. In the end, the equation was simple for him: The Soviets were both rivals and partners of the United States, so the Americans would never seriously attempt to change the political cartography of Eastern Europe. This informed their policies, not the uprisings in Budapest, Prague, and Gdansk, which were regarded with much sympathy, but nothing more. “Overall, it must be said that the American Ostpolitik on the European stage is purely defensive” Mieroszewski wrote. “This defensive strategy is based on preserving the status quo, not amending it.”

The publicist wrote these sentences in the early seventies, but not much has changed since then. Undoubtedly, Ukraine remains important to America—but it will never be so important to Barack Obama that he would risk a definitive split with Russia. And just as Richard Nixon eventually went to Moscow in 1972 and assured its rulers of their claim to power, so the US Secretary of State John Kerry also traveled to Russia and said things that must have been quite sobering for Ukrainians.

The Americans are convinced that they need Russia for their policies in the Middle East. Their current Ukraine Policy is mainly a bit of symbolism. They would rather the EU did the rest.

Questionable image of human beings on the Left

Those who are convinced that the Maidan uprising in Kiev was a fake bought by America will be unconvinced by remembering Mieroszewski. Thanks to foundations and organizations like USAID or the National Endowment for Democracy, the Americans have spent millions in Ukraine for decades; they have financed civil society NGOs, trained election observers, and advanced anti-corruption campaigns.

The foundation Renaissance in Ukraine, funded by the billionaire George Soros, has paid for the lawyers of arrested Maidan activists, coordinated civil society meetings, and provided financial support for care for the wounded. But this support is not enough to explain why thousands rose up in the middle of Kiev against their rulers in winter 2014.

The fixation on America’s power, the projection of a superior force, not only reflects a worldview that is often upheld by a portion of the nostalgic left that mourns for the old division of the world into blocs. Above all, it reveals a lot about their image of the human beings: that people are easily bought. That beliefs do not matter, but are the result of perfidious manipulation. That a few million dollars are enough to turn people into zombies who go out onto the streets and put their lives at risk.

Sometimes the truth does not lie "somewhere in between"

Many readers are irritated, including with my reporting on Ukraine. Their suspicion is legitimate. But not every view of the war is equally true.

BY ALICE BOTA, editor for the German weekly Die Zeit. Translated by Charles Kirchofer. Re-posted with the author's permission. The original article appeared in German on March 13, 2015.

A reader named "B." writes in. Complains that the reporting on Ukraine is misleading and false. I’ve been on location over the past few months and have reported on the Maidan (yes, including the right-wing extremists), on Ukrainian volunteer battalions , the shooting down of flight MH-17 , the elections , the war, the victims of Donetsk. His criticism also applies to me, which is why I write back. “What is so misleading?” I ask. What mistakes did I make? After all, I think it is quite possible, even probable, that I made mistakes—everyone makes mistakes. The question is how serious they are and how I can correct them. An error becomes a lie only when it is made intentionally to conceal and deceive.

B. answered in a way that I already know from other angry readers who attempt to express their criticism more precisely: How can I justify saying that Russia is involved in the war in eastern Ukraine? There is no evidence! 

I usually write back in detail. There IS evidence, I write. There are Russian soldiers who return home in coffins from Ukraine and family members who are not allowed to talk about their suffering. There are Russian NGOs like the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers, who are trying to find out how many of their sons have already died in Ukraine. There are reports such as that of the Armament Research Services, which were able to identify Russian (and other) weapons in eastern Ukraine—never mind the fact that one really has to wonder when, within a few months, a bunch of local insurgents has a more professional army than Ukraine.¹  There are Russian intelligence officers such as Igor Girkin, who was involved in the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine and speaks openly about Russian tactics.

The list could go on and on. The only thing missing is an admission by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he is waging war in eastern Ukraine. And for many, it seems, nothing is true that Putin himself has not confirmed. 

But even the word of the Russian President does not always seem to be enough. It’s been months since Putin admitted to having sent his soldiers to Crimea. But only now, after he spoke about it again on Russian television, has this fact really seemed to arrive in Germany.

Just a year ago, the media, especially public broadcasters, were attacked when they said the obvious: that Russian troops were occupying Crimea. Everyone who was there could see it for him/herself and could even ask the soldiers about it. But to say or write that? Insinuations! Prejudices! Lies! 

The letter from Mr. B. represents a phenomenon, namely, the flight into relativism when it comes to Russian politics. At times, this relativization is fed by the fear that Germany could be drawn into this war; sometimes by distrust of the Americans, sometimes out of hatred for them; sometimes by a perceived historical debt to Russia (which is, paradoxically, rarely seen to be owed the Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Poles); at times by contempt for Europe; and that sometimes simply stems from being unable to cope.

Relativization is a principle of propaganda used by Russian television that has long since extended beyond Russian borders. Everything must appear feasible and even the obvious must seem to be just one variant of many. This is done by scattering many different, contradictory versions of stories (on the shooting of MH-17, it was said that the passengers were already dead, had been killed by the Americans, or that the rocket was intended for Putin) or by repeating false “facts” until they appear correct (for example, that American Blackwater mercenaries are fighting in Ukraine. So far, that is nonsense). Until nothing is true and everything seems possible, as the author Peter Pomerantsev called his book about modern Russia (Nothing is true and everything is possible, 2014).

Pomerantsev, who worked for many years as a TV producer in Russia, describes, among other things, how the Kremlin synthesizes Soviet-style control with western-style entertainment in order to numb society. “The news is the incense with which we praise Putin’s actions and make him president,” Pomarentsev cites Russian TV producers. Pomarentsev shows that TV news in Russia has nothing to do with reality—it is entertainment.

Russian state media make no mistakes, they simply lie. And they do not care when they are caught, as in the story of the child who was allegedly crucified by Ukrainian fascists.

When I respond to letters like that from Mr B., when I engage with his arguments, refute what is wrong, and say what seems to me to be correct, an interesting dialogue often develops. And mostly it becomes apparent that distrust and discomfort are the driving forces: What interests are the Americans pursuing in Ukraine? Isn’t Russia justified in feeling threatened? Haven’t the Europeans also made mistakes?

We can talk about all that and we need to write about it. But the truth, that great, so often abused word, does not always lie somewhere in between. You cannot track it down through relativizing. To broadcast everything to the world, even the worst nonsense, to give everyone a platform to speak without asking who speaks in what function and why--this is not plurality, but the illusion of it.

1. emphasis added

Russia, Georgia, Syria, Iran, and Ukraine: Cold War Redux?

I study deterrence, mostly in its non-nuclear, non-Cold War variety. (Deterrence is, to oversimplify, using threats to discourage an opponent from taking certain undesirable actions. Ex: "I'll cut off your oil supply if you attack my neighbor.") I am not an expert on Ukraine or Russia, but I will try to analyze the situation using my knowledge of deterrence, as I think this can tell us a lot about Russia's occupation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. For the most part, it still has little to do with nuclear weapons, but, this being Russia vs. the United States in many ways, they are always lurking in the background.

Some of Barack Obama's critics in America, like John McCain, claim that Russia invaded Crimea because Putin knew America would do nothing about it. The reason Putin knew this was because America "lead from behind" in Libya, hesitant to get involved or commit, and, more importantly, issued a "red line" warning over chemical weapons in Syria and then failed to carry through with the ultimatum, which could weaken America's ability to deter other aggressors, as I myself argued in this blog last September. Is this true? Would Putin have been deterred if Obama appeared tougher or if, say, George W. Bush were still in the White House? Hardly.

I say this not because I twice voted for Barack Obama, but because to say it is his fault is either disingenuous, meant only to hit him politically, or betrays a complete lack of understanding of how deterrence works. As The Economist points out, Russia invaded Georgia in 2008 while G.W. Bush was in the White House and has occupied 20% of the country ever since. Not only did the bellicose President Bush not deter Russia from invading, he also did little to punish it as a result. Russia is much more interested in Crimea and Ukraine than the United States is. What's more, and as can be seen on the map above, Russia has easy access to Crimea and the whole of Ukraine. It can easily launch an invasion or incursion, whereas the United States would require a massive logistical operation just to get troops, ships, and equipment to Ukraine. Considering Americans' war-weariness and financial constraints, such an operation was always unlikely, regardless of how committed the President seemed to other causes or how aggressive his rhetoric. Putin has still been careful, in some ways: He did not invade all of Ukraine and reinstall its ousted president, for example. He took control of an area of Ukraine with a majority Russian population that was long part of Russia and hosts its Black Sea Fleet. He rightly calculated that the US and Europe would be angry, but not so much that they felt forced to undertake real action. In sum: Russia could not have been deterred from this unless there had been US/NATO troops on the ground in Crimea and eastern Ukraine prior to the crisis--something that would never have happened because it would have angered Putin and brought on a crisis by itself and because the US and its allies have never cared enough to risk that. In other words: Russia has deterred NATO and Ukraine from expanding NATO to include Ukraine. And without having Ukraine in NATO, Russia could not have been deterred from taking over Crimea. This is not Obama's fault.

So deterrence has failed. Or has it? Deterrence never realistically applied to all of Ukraine, especially Crimea which, with its Russian population, "Autonomous Republic" status, and Russian bases, was always only tenuously controlled by Ukraine. Deterrence can now work to protect the rest of the country and this is where the US, NATO, and the EU must take a stand. There must be diplomatic consequences for the occupation of Crimea. There must be much more severe consequences for actions in the rest of Ukraine, including attempts to coerce it away from a deal with the EU again. This does not mean war. As I mentioned, Russian nukes are lurking in the background and Russia has a massive geopolitical advantage in Ukraine and an enormous and powerful army. The US should be careful never to threaten war, either, as this would then be a further empty promise it could not back up. An embargo on Russian oil and natural gas would be the biggest step for the most severe case: a Russian invasion of Ukraine (which Putin has darkly called a "last resort"). This would hurt Europe quite badly, particularly countries like Slovakia, who get almost all of their natural gas from Russia, but also Germany, which imports a great deal of it. If Russia invaded Ukraine, however, this would have to be done.

Barring that horror scenario, freezes on assets held abroad by Russian oligarchs in its parliament or close to Putin would be a first step. Visa bans on travel to the US, EU, and other allied countries would be another significant step. These could be used in response to threats on Ukraine or attempts to manipulate it. At the same time, the US and EU should provide Ukraine with economic and technical assistance and promote a functioning democracy there.

In the end, Russia will probably keep Crimea, as it has Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This should come at a price, but Putin surely expects this and is willing to pay it. Further damage and influence over Ukraine can and should be prevented, however. Deterrence can only work when you have the power to back up your threats. This means it's important to chose your threats wisely and not to overplay your hand. Threats of visa bans, asset freezes, and sanctions are credible, and the latter would be quite severe. War is not, and is this is a good thing. There is hope for Ukraine yet.

And what about the title? It is possible that this crisis could lead to steady hardening of positions, especially if it gets carried over into negotiations with Syria and Iran, the former of which Russia supports directly, the latter of which Russia supports more indirectly as a bargaining chip. This would be a much-diminished "iron curtain," however, and Russia is not looking to retreat into economic or political isolation behind it. If you've read this, however, then the "Cold War Redux" part of the title did its job ;-).