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http://observerukraine.net/2014/08/28/peering-through-the-fog-of-war/
Two weeks ago I wrote in this blog that Putin will not back off, that
his strategy is to place an army in Eastern Ukraine rather than build an
insurgency, that he may well send thousands of Russian soldiers over the
border. This is happening as I write. 27 August 2014 will go down in
history as the day even the most inveterate apologists for the Kremlin’s
secret war in Eastern Ukraine can no longer deny this aggression.
And this invasion comes just the day after Putin devoted his entire
address to the Minsk meeting of European Union, Ukrainian and Eurasian
Economic Union leaders to the question of trade, refusing to speak
directly to an issue he insisted is an internal affair of Ukraine’s, the
resolution of which his government can “only facilitate”, but not
directly take part in. He has shown once again that one can never take
the language of diplomacy literally. Putin was saying “its all about
trade and economics” while in reality it is all about the boots on the
ground.
If on the one side we heard the apologists of the Kremlin insisting all
this is just a Ukrainian civil war without Russian state intervention,
from the other side we have had yet another kind of illusory and hopeful
thinking: that the Ukrainian government can win the war in the east
militarily, that with just a little more firepower the separatists can
be defeated. And Russia would have to accept that fact and back off. The
illusion in this line of thinking is twofold: first, that for Russia the
goals of the war are limited to the subordination of Ukraine; and
second, that the outcome of this war will be decided by the balance of
brute force on the front.
I see the current situation somewhat differently. Putin has chosen what
he sees as a favourable historical conjuncture both in Ukraine and
internationally to assert Russia’s claim to great power status. The
successful incorporation of Ukraine into Russia’s sphere economically,
diplomatically and militarily would give serious credibility to that
claim not only by demonstrating Russian capacity, but also the
incapacity in the camp of its Western rivals. For Putin the USA is in
long term decline; the European Union is a clearing house for its member
states, not a state capable of adopting and implementing a common
position on war on its eastern periphery; and Russia’s time has come as
a Eurasian hegemon to hold the balance of power in the centre of this
continent. In Ukraine the favourable opening was provided by a crisis of
the Ukrainian state elite created by the Maidan which drove out
Yanukovych but proved unable to democratise the state institutions and
drive out the remaining bulk of the oligarch-serving opposition parties.
The other illusion is that the war in the east will be won – or lost –by
military means alone. Here we must confront some uncomfortable facts.
First, Russia has overwhelming military capacity and has shown it will
match and surpass every escalation in the technology and numbers of arms
advanced by the Ukrainian army. Some have argued that Russia can go on
fighting indefinitely, but that it cannot win outright. This may indeed
be the case, but the factors working against the Russian war effort will
be political: more casualties, more public concern, more protest against
the war in Russian society. Political opposition in Russia to the war is
muted, but slowly emerging. In the long run, I believe that the only
force that can get the Russian military out of Ukraine will be a mass
anti-war movement in Russia. It is imperative that all defenders of
Ukraine’s right to national self determination lend their support and
solidarity to the Russian antiwar protesters who are trying to launch
that movement and who are being picked off and imprisoned by Putin’s regime.
The second uncomfortable fact is that the Western powers will not mount
sanctions against the Russian economy that are damaging enough to
cripple the Russian war effort. The European and American members of the
Western alliance are variously integrated with the Russian economy
through investment and trade. They cannot agree to a single set or level
of sanctions. There is a limit to the level of sanctions some countries
will agree to, beyond which their own big business interests will
tolerate. For the same reasons and by force of various historical
perceptions of Russia as neighbour, friend and enemy, the member states
of NATO together will not confront Russia militarily over Ukraine. They
may be all persuaded to strengthen NATO forward bases in Central Europe
for the defense of their own alliance members, but military aid to
Ukraine is another question altogether.
On this issue: War is not the answer, neither at its present level or an
increased level. I believe a NATO military land intervention in the war
would be a disaster for Ukraine because it would lead to the partition
of the country into two camps, each under martial law. NATO aid may rise
with the provision of more lethal equipment to the Ukrainian armed
forces, increased intelligence provision, joint strategic planning. But,
as many other wars where the NATO or Western “coalitions of the willing”
have got involved, their involvement has increased to the point of
troops entering on the ground and the emasculation of the national
government whose sovereignty they claimed to be defending. Can you think
of one war where Western involvement has had a beneficial impact on the
outcome?
The Kyiv government is calling for military support from NATO because it
cannot match Russian military power AND because it believes that the war
can be won militarily if it gets more and better hardware. I disagree
with the second part of this reasoning. The Ukrainian state is on the
verge of insolvency. A couple of weeks ago it revised the annual state
budget to impose a war levy on all wages and salaries and made a
half-hearted effort to increase taxes on the lease of publicly owned
natural resources by oil, gas, iron and steel producers and exporters.
Ukrainian big business has responded by accelerating the removal of its
capital assets abroad and increasing reliance on transfer pricing to low
tax havens in order to keep their profits from being taxed. Capital
flight has cancelled out whatever gains would have gone to the state
budget as a result of the parliament’s revision of tax levies. Business
profits from exports (60% of GDP) go up and the real income of workers
comes down as a result of devaluation of the hryvnia and inflation. So
much for the commitment of Ukraine’s capitalists to the war effort.
Corruption in high state office carries on as before. It goes on in the
highest echelons of the armed forces. The president blames treason in
the highest echelons for setbacks in the war. The children of the rich
are sent abroad while working class men and women go the front. Concerns
about the inadequate provision of soldiers on the front with protective
clothing and munitions continue to be voiced and often go unanswered. So
much for the government’s chances to forge a national solidarity of all
the classes behind the war effort.
There is a difference between fighting for Ukraine’s national self
determination and fighting for the present Ukrainian state. I am not
prepared to support any effort that will weaken the Ukrainian state
against Russia or the West. But I do believe that Ukraine’s national
self determination needs a more effective defense than the one being
mounted by the present state leadership. What kind of stake do Ukrainian
workers, the unemployed, students, farmers and pensioners hold in that
state if they see they are giving their livelihoods and their lives for
a return to the status quo ante, albeit without Russian overlordship?
The elections on 26 October offer one avenue for them to alter the
leadership of their state. However, the signs they will be given the
chance to make a real choice between truly alternative paths for their
country’s development are not auspicious: the parliament is not about to
change the electoral system to provide for fully proportional
representation, for open party lists and for lowering the threshold for
entry of new parties into parliament and government. And that old
electoral system, as I wrote two weeks ago, gave Ukraine in 2012 the
dirtiest, money driven, oligarch directed election campaign in its
history, a government of the rich and a cabal of parties that made
Yanuovych a near-dictator.
The Russian regime will not win the war. It will face years of Ukrainian
resistance and the ongoing loss of its own soldiers’ lives. It will
inflame national hatreds among peoples who for decades lived together
under Stalinist dictatorship and post-communist misery without tearing
each other’s throats out. Russia’s current leaders will be brought down
by its citizens, the first of whom are already before Russian courts or
in prison for opposing this war.
As for Ukraine this war will usher in a new Maidan unless there is a
radical, democratic renewal of its state leadership. And this time the
soldiers will be in the thick of it.
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