[Aaus-list] [Ukrainians For Obama] Fw: from Mychajlo Wynyckyj - as always - realistic and frightening! (fwd)

[Max Pyziur]

Both items are relevant here: Wynyckyj's analysis, and Alex Motyl's point.

fyi,

MP
pyz at brama.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 11:32:54 -0400
From: ajmotyl at andromeda.rutgers.edu
Reply-To: Ukrainians for Obama-Biden <vote2012 at ukrainiansforobama.com>
To: Marta Fedoriw <martafedoriw at yahoo.com>,
     Ukrainians for Obama-Biden <vote2012 at ukrainiansforobama.com>
Subject: Re: [Ukrainians For Obama] Fw: from Mychajlo Wynyckyj - as always -
     realistic and frightening!

Again, the inevitable question: Is this just circulating on Ukrainian
listserves or has MW submitted this anywhere for publication? He should.


>
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> From: Marta Fedoriw <martafedoriw at yahoo.com>
> To: Fedoriw Marta <martafedoriw at yahoo.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 10:55 AM
> Subject: from Mychajlo Wynyckyj - as always - realistic and frightening!
>
>
>
> Thoughts from Kyiv on the Putin problem - 10 March 2014
> March 10, 2014 at 7:50pm
> The Russian invasion of Crimea has put the entire global security system
> at risk: states can no longer count on the validity of guarantees endorsed
> through international agreements (e.g. the Budapest Memorandum); the
> principle of inviolability of territorial borders is no longer valid; the
> notion of being able to expect diplomatic honesty (i.e. not necessarily
> telling the whole truth, but avoiding outright lies) from public
> pronouncement voiced by heads of state or government has been finally
> shelved. After several days of shock at the staggering outlandishness of
> Russiaâ??s President, western leaders are now actively seeking a way out
> of this massive dead end. No one wants war (particularly given Russiaâ??s
> nuclear arsenal), but in order to negotiate some semblance of a solution,
> one needs to understand the interests and motives of oneâ??s interlocutor.
> It would seem therefore, that trying to get inside Putinâ??s head has
> become a priority endeavor.
>  Hereâ??s my two cents worth on the issue:
>
> Less than two weeks after the start of Vladimir Putinâ??s armed intrusion
> into Crimea, a mere superficial accounting shows the unbelievable cost of
> the Russian leaderâ??s exploits: the Moscow stock market has lost over 70
> billion dollars in value (the total cost of the Sochi Olympics was 50
> billion dollars), the G-8 summit scheduled for June 2014 in Sochi has been
> cancelled, Russia has been threatened with economic and political
> sanctions that are likely to isolate it from the rest of the world, the
> Russian Central Bank has spent over 10 billion dollars in reserves in less
> than a week trying desperately to fend off collapse of the tumbling ruble.
> And in the face of all of this Putin continues to amass troops in the
> Crimean peninsula â?? many of whom now openly display Russian insignia
> while participating in aggression against Ukrainian military personnel
> well outside of Sevastopol (i.e. nowhere near the Russian military base
> claimed to be in need of
>  â??defenseâ??). This fact seems to have finally refuted the Russian
> Presidentâ??s outright lie (voiced during his press conference on March
> 4) according to which the soldiers bearing automatic weapons in Crimea
> are supposedly not the Russian army. According to Ukrainian intelligence
> estimates, the Kremlin has amassed over 30 thousand military personnel in
> Crimea, and given Russiaâ??s total control over the Kerch straits, and
> the round-the-clock movement of ferries in the area, this number seems
> believable.
>
> Why is Vladimir Putin doing this?
>
> Crimea is not an economically attractive region. On the contrary, the
> state budget of the Autonomous Republic has relied heavily on subsidies
> from Kyiv for the past two decades. The region is wholly dependent on
> Ukraine for water, electricity and gas, and although energy provision from
> Ukraine could be substituted with supplies from Russia relatively quickly
> through the Kerch straits (though at considerable cost), the question of
> fresh water supply is much more difficult. Without the 400 km long North
> Crimean Canal through which water is pumped from the Dnipro river at a
> rate of 380 cubic meters per second, Crimea will turn into a desert. If
> accepted into the Russian Federation after the March 16 â??referendumâ??
> (a plebiscite whose result will not be recognized by any country other
> than Russia), Crimea will require a massive infusion of money from Russia
> in order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe. Income from tourism is
> unlikely to be restored anytime
>  soon, so the status of net recipient of Russian state funds is likely to
> be a long term condition.
>
> Clearly Putinâ??s motive for annexing Crimea to the Russian Federation is
> not economic.
>
> Crimea is a key military outpost for Russia. Sevastopol is the traditional
> home base for Russiaâ??s Black Sea Fleet, and one of the few warm sea
> ports available to Russia. However, it is not the only port available to
> the Russian Navy in the area: an alternative (though poorly equipped) port
> exists in Novorosiysk near Sochi, and could easily be developed at much
> less economic and political cost to Russia than the current military
> operation in Crimea. Furthermore, the parliaments of Russia and Ukraine
> have ratified a long term lease agreement according to which up to 12
> thousand Russian troops and the full complement of ships from the Black
> Sea Fleet may station in the port of Sevastopol until 2042. The
> post-Yanukovych government of Ukraine voiced no plans to cancel or
> withdraw from this agreement: the stationing of the Russian Black Sea
> Fleet in Crimea was never under threat. So why did Putin decide to invade?
>
> The official story that the Kremlin has taken great pains to proliferate
> as justification for its intervention focusses on supposed threats to
> ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine. Putin sympathizers have
> directed attention to the fact that one of the first acts of the
> post-Yanukovych revolutionaries in Kyiv was to repeal the 2012 Law on
> Regional Languages (originally passed in defiance of significant protests
> and even hunger strikes in Kyiv), and although the Parliamentary vote to
> repeal the 2012 legislation may have been a political error, it is
> important to note that the acting President has refused to sign this bill
> into law. Therefore, the Yanukovych-era legal status quo remains in
> effect: namely, if over 10% of the population in a given region expresses
> such a wish, all government services must be provided in the requested
> minority language, in addition to Ukrainian. The fact that such linguistic
> liberalism is completely unfathomable in
>  the Russian Federation (where huge areas are inhabited by ethnic groups
> for whom Russian is not a native language) does not seem to change the
> Kremlinâ??s appraisal of the current Kyiv government as â??fascistâ?? and
> representing a clear and present danger to Ukraineâ??s Russian-speakers.
> Incidentally, few countries in the world have adopted the kind of liberal
> language policies currently in force in Ukraine.
>
> As US Secretary of State John Kerry has stated, there exists absolutely no
> evidence of threats to ethnic Russians or Russian-speakers in Ukraine, and
> indeed none has been presented to the international community by the
> Russian government. And even if such evidence did exist, according to
> accepted norms of international relations, such threats would not justify
> invasion. The last time such a justification was used for military action,
> it resulted first in an attempt to appease the aggressor in Munich, and
> then to a catastrophic World War.
>
> Recently much has been made of the obvious resemblance between the
> nationalisms of Putin and Hitler. Timothy Snyder and others have pointed
> out the patent similarity between Putinâ??s justification of the Russian
> invasion of Crimea, and the arguments used by Hitler in support of his
> annexation of Sudetenland. Apparently for both, the â??protection of
> compatriotsâ?? (i.e. not citizens, but rather those of a common ethnicity,
> or linguistic group) was sufficient reason for invasion â?? regardless of
> whether these â??compatriotsâ?? actually sought protection, and regardless
> of their actual numbers or proportion to the rest of the population in a
> particular region.
>
> My purpose here is not to expand on the very obvious similarity between
> the actions of Putin and Hitler. Instead, I think it is important to
> understand that Putinâ??s motivations (like Hitlerâ??s) are ideological
> â?? not exclusively economic or geostrategic. The ideology that guides the
> decisions of the Russian President is expansionist nationalism.
> Specifically, Putin and his immediate entourage seem to believe that
> Russia, as the embodiment of â??Eurasianâ?? values, has a civilizational
> role to play in the world â?? as a counterweight to the â??materialist
> decadence of US-sponsored globalismâ??.
>
> Ideologues such as Alexander Dugin are quite open about this program. For
> them (and such views seem to have gained currency in the Kremlin),
> expansion of Russian military control into Crimea is just the start:
> â??Yesterday, reunification of Crimea was a victory. Today this is
> definitively insufficientâ?¦ The fight for Ukraine is the fight for
> unification. Galicia and large parts of Kyiv do not want to be in Unity.
> We understand this, but we need to fight for everything, and in battle,
> create a new political and historical reality.â?? (Alexander Dugin: â??The
> horizons of our revolution (theses on March 7, 2014)â?? referenced on FB
> by Andreas Umland)
>
> During recent months, much has been made of apparently â??right-wing
> fascistâ?? elements in Ukraineâ??s revolutionary movement. Criticism has
> been aimed particularly at Svoboda - a political party that was first
> established as the â??Socialist Nationalist Party of Ukraineâ??, and more
> recently signed cooperation agreements with Jean-Marie LePensâ?? â??Front
> Nationalâ??. Svoboda reveres the memory of the WWII era Organization of
> Ukrainian Nationalists, and this fact (regardless of itâ??s actual
> rootedness in historical reality) has resulted in the denunciation of the
> party worldwide as apparently anti-Semitic and xenophobic.
>
> Faultfinders, ever-vigilant of apparent fascist tendencies in Ukraine,
> have extended their condemnation of the most radical elements of
> Ukraineâ??s revolutionary movement to also include Dmytro Yaroshâ??s Right
> Sector â?? a militant pro-Ukrainian group that has repeatedly condemned
> xenophobia and anti-Semitism, but has nevertheless adopted certain symbols
> that the world community associates with Nazism.
>
> No doubt the actual ideological programs of both Svoboda and Right Sector
> deserve careful analysis, and indeed it is likely that their choice of
> symbolism is suspect. I have no doubt that in coming months, in the
> context of post-revolutionary elections, both of these groups will be held
> up to very close scrutiny both in Ukraine and abroad. However, regardless
> of how objectionable the symbols and ideologies adopted by these parties
> may be, there is little doubt that their programs are inward looking -
> they seek to further a sense of patriotism within Ukraine; an ethnic
> conception of national community, but not one that is expansionist. None
> of the nationalist parties in Ukraine calls for the annexation of
> territory from any neighbor.
>
> This is a major contrast to the expansionist nationalism of Vladimir
> Putin. Although his version seems not to be exclusively ethnic, it is in
> fact even more dangerous because it proposes a â??manifest destinyâ?? of
> Russian â??reunificationâ??. In this respect, Russian nationalist
> ideologues (both in Russia and in Ukraine) are quite explicit about their
> intentions: an independent Ukraine, in their view, is a â??historical
> misunderstandingâ?? â?? an artificial conglomerate that has brought
> together a â??foreignâ?? western region with â??Little Russiaâ?? (the name
> historically given to eastern and southern Ukrainian regions that were
> annexed to the Russian empire during the 18th century) in a single
> nation-state. Because the east is primarily Orthodox and Russian-speaking,
> its population should (in their view) be desirous of a â??returnâ?? to
> their historical motherland. If they show no such desire, this is due to
> their having been brainwashed by
>  â??Ukrainian nationalistsâ?? who have advanced their notion of a
> multi-ethnic â??political nationâ?? through the media and educational
> systems of Ukraine.
>
> It is also important to realize that the Putin version of Eurasianism does
> not stop at the Dnipro river - the traditional dividing line between
> â??Little Russiaâ?? and the western and central regions of the country
> that had been ruled by Poland until the mid-17th century. Eurasianism is
> an anti-globalist ideology that rejects secularization, consumerism, and
> liberal democracy. Indeed Dugin calls for a â??revolutionâ?? that
> encompasses the spread of Eurasian values from Crimea to Lisbonâ?¦
>
> Lately, Putin has been very open in his condemnation of what he sees as
> the pillars of western modernity, and of the country that he sees as their
> embodiment: the United States. In the past the orientalist pronouncements
> of the Russian President have been dismissed as being aimed at a
> traditionalist domestic audience that craved a return to the
> â??glory-daysâ?? of the USSR, and therefore to a time when the US was a
> clear enemy. However, Putinâ??s anti-American rhetoric is not simply the
> reflex of a cold warrior. Although he shelters the deposed Ukrainian
> President, during last weekâ??s press conference, Putin publicly displayed
> disgust with Yanukovychâ??s outlandish and decadent lifestyle, implying
> that yielding to materialist temptation (i.e. association with western
> values) had been the cause of his political demise.
>
> A Putin that is driven by ideology represents a much graver threat to the
> western world than a Russian President motivated by economics and/or
> geopolitics. Ideologues are not subdued with economic sanctions, and they
> are not satisfied with being guaranteed a sphere of geopolitical
> influence. According to Putinâ??s expansionist ideology, the historic
> mission of Russia is to undermine and destroy the foundations of liberal
> democracy. In this respect, the Russian President seeks to achieve the
> same goals (although for different reasons) as do radical Islamists: to
> change the course of Eurasian civilizational development from a path of
> decent into decadence brought on by post-Enlightenment liberalism, to a
> more righteous course of traditionalist family (authoritarian, pan-Slavic,
> orthodox etc.) values. Expansion westward is therefore just a matter of
> time: it is the manifest destiny of the righteous Putin who presides over
> the â??third Romeâ?? to bring order
>  and orthodoxy (in the broadest sense of the term) to a world led astray
> by liberalism.
>
> If one accepts the above description of Putinâ??s motives for suddenly
> invading Crimea after Ukraineâ??s successful ouster of its corrupt
> President, finding a means for the international community to deal with
> the Russian President becomes very difficult indeed. Sanctions will be
> ignored. Political isolation will be discounted. Given the extreme
> improbability of a NATO deployment in Ukraine, the West is left with only
> a few (very distasteful) options for dealing with the Putin problem:
> 1)Â Â Â Â Â  Containment â?? i.e. using exactly the same methods as were
> used throughout the Cold War, including effectively bankrupting oneâ??s
> opponent through an arms race (an expensive option)
> 2)Â Â Â Â Â  Assassination â?? i.e. responding to Putinâ??s contravention
> of the global security order with an equivalent indiscretion: hunting down
> and murdering a head of state (as many argue should have been done with
> Hitler prior to the start of World War II)
> 3)Â Â Â Â Â  Destabilization â?? i.e. actively abetting domestic unrest in
> Moscow and St. Petersburg, so as to precipitate the domino effect of a
> Kyiv-style popular revolution in Russia; simultaneously encouraging the
> Peopleâ??s Republic of China to act upon its claims to Russian territory
> (using analogous arguments to those used by Putin to justify invading
> Crimea) in the Eurasian far east.
>
> Containment is expensive. Assassination is illegal. Destabilization takes
> time. None of these options are attractive.
>
> This week, western commentators (most notably former US Secretary of
> Defense Robert Gates) have started to admit that Crimea is â??lostâ?? â??
> i.e. that the West has no desire to fight for it, and Ukraine has
> insufficient capability to retake it. Sadly, I agree with them.
>
> However, at this point I see no reason to recant my previous prediction:
> immediately after the March 16 referendum in Crimea, Putin will continue
> expanding his Eurasian dominion to eastern and southern Ukraine. Indeed,
> the predicted destabilization of these regions with mass demonstrations
> (often attended by citizens of the Russian Federation bused in from
> regions across the border) has been ongoing and will continue this week.
> The next phase of Russiaâ??s invasion of Ukraine is likely to commence in
> the vicinity of March 18-20. It will be short and massive, and the extent
> of military advance will depend on the effectiveness of Ukraineâ??s
> resistance (which, unlike in Crimea, will not be restrained, nor
> peaceful). It is possible that air raids on Kyiv will be launched in order
> to destroy the â??heart of hellâ?? of Ukraineâ??s revolution (the name
> given to Maidan by Russian Orthodox clergy), and some command and control
> centers.
>
> At this point, unless the West begins to understand the true ideological
> motives of Putin, I am not optimistic about Ukraine maintaining the
> integrity of even its mainland territorial borders until the end of this
> month. On the other hand, by Easter this conflict will be over. Modern
> wars do not last long. Unless NATO gets directly involved in the defense
> of Ukraine (e.g. by instituting a â??no-flyâ?? zone), by the end of April,
> the map of Europe will have been redrawn and irreparable damage done to
> the international security system. Furthermore, Putin will not have been
> stopped â?? merely temporarily impeded from spreading Eurasianism beyond
> the Dnipro river. But his determination will grow, and eventually he will
> strike westward again. And each time, his expansion will cost livesâ?¦
>
> God help us!
>
> Mychailo Wynnyckyj PhD
> Kyiv-Mohyla Academy  _______________________________________________
> vote2012 mailing list
> vote2012 at ukrainiansforobama.com
> http://www.brama.com/mailman/listinfo/vote2012
>


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