Ron DeSantis Is Right About Ukraine
By: Mario Loyola (The Atlantic)
A concise explanation of why Ukraine has become a quagmire. There's no way to stop the war now. For Ukraine, Russia, and the United States winning the war will also be a loss. There's no way for anyone to win without losing.
DeSantis may be correct that the war in Ukraine is not in the national interest of the United States. But Biden has placed the United States in a 'no win' situation that can't be untangled now. The United States needs to determine what it is willing to lose to get out of the quagmire. And the war in Ukraine will continue until the United States makes that choice.
Biden has given China a 'no lose' position in the conflict. China recognizes the opportunity and has entered the conflict as a peacemaker. China can cherry pick wins without any risk to itself.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
"While the U.S. has many vital national interests," Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote recently, "becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them."
The comments inspired a wave of disapproval from conservatives and Republicans, including The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and the Washington Post columnist George Will, who quipped, "If that is his settled view after the dust settles and he elaborates on this, then he's not fit to be president, period."
As an inveterate critic of Woodrow Wilson, Will should know better. DeSantis was merely taking a realist foreign-policy stance at a time when elites in both parties have gotten into a dangerously Wilsonian frame of mind. With support for Ukraine aid falling among Republicans, DeSantis's comments were also more in tune with where GOP voters are, and are likely to be in the months ahead.
The legal case against Russia is open-and-shut. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian government recognized the borders of the new Ukraine, and further guaranteed its sovereignty in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine is a sovereign state, entitled to political independence and territorial integrity. Russia's war of aggression is clearly a violation of international law.
But the matter is more complicated than that. One of the most far-reaching consequences of Wilsonian idealism has been to turn all international conflicts into primarily legal disputes in which the key question is who is right and who is wrong. The trouble with that approach is that the strategic and historical dimensions of those conflicts tend to disappear from the policy calculus, with baleful consequences.
How Ukraine Became Independent
The hard truth is this: Ukraine's 1991 borders were partly a subterfuge of Soviet propaganda and did not fully make sense for an independent country alongside Russia. Containing large swaths of historical Russia, millions of ethnic Russians, and a crucial Russian naval base at Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula (which was transferred to Ukraine only in 1954 and is home to few ethnic Ukrainians even now), those borders actually guaranteed Russian hegemony in the short term. They're why pro-Russia presidential candidates won almost every election in Ukraine from 1991 until the "Euromaidan" revolution of 2014. Indeed, Ukrainian-nationalist parties have ruled for the past decade partly because the electorate no longer includes residents of the Donbas or Crimea, the heavily Russian areas that either broke away or were seized by Russia after the pro-Russian government was deposed in 2014.
Hence, from Russia's point of view, the commitments of 1991 and 1994 were mostly a formality, because Moscow expected Ukraine to remain firmly in its orbit. But those guarantees only kicked an explosive can down the road, because if a strong Ukrainian-nationalist movement should ever arise, as it has now, oriented toward Europe and bent on independence from Russia, the 1991 borders would create a fatal conflict between Ukraine's nationhood and that of the Russians, many of whom view Ukraine—especially east of the Dnipro River—as an inseparable part of Russia.
Russia may be waging a war of aggression as a matter of law, but as a matter of history and strategy it is moving to forestall a grave deterioration in its strategic position, with stakes that are almost as existential for it as they are for Ukraine. And as former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said recently, "Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends."
When the U.S. agreed to recognize Ukraine in 1991, it should have realized that Ukraine's borders could prove enormously destabilizing, like the nuclear forces and Black Sea fleet that Ukraine had also accidentally inherited and which the U.S. wisely insisted be transferred to Russia in 1993-94.
The U.S. should have treated the 1991 borders as provisional and encouraged Russia and Ukraine to agree on a peaceful adjustment. With Europe flourishing on one side and Russia a moribund kleptocracy on the other, Ukrainians' desire for independence from Russia was almost certainly inevitable. As Ukrainian nationalism gathered strength, Russia could perhaps have been persuaded to agree to a territorial adjustment.
Governor DeSantis was right on another score: The proximate cause of the war was definitely a territorial dispute, but of a very special kind. After the Euromaidan revolution, Russia felt it had no choice but to annex Crimea, because it couldn't risk losing Sevastopol. But it still did not annex the eastern Donbas, which it was also occupying, insisting instead on its reintegration into Ukraine under the terms of the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015, which it saw as vitally necessary to restoring its control over the whole of Ukraine. For the same reason, Ukraine's nationalists soured on the Minsk Agreements: With those territories in limbo, the nationalists had been able to achieve a degree of independence that would have been impossible otherwise.
America's Blank Check
As tensions mounted in 2020 and 2021, Germany and France grew anxious to persuade Ukraine to implement the Minsk Agreements, in which all the major issues were territorial. But, with their customary professions of high moral and legal principle, the Americans undercut those diplomatic efforts, encouraging the Ukrainians to dig in their heels and dare Russia to do something about it. It was an implicit blank check and had the same effect as when the kaiser wrote one a century ago, namely to entice the recipient to risk a catastrophic war with Russia.
It is crucial to understand the dangerous role that America is playing. The sheer scale of U.S. aid to Ukraine has become a decisive factor in the course of the war. Don't be deceived by President Joe Biden's claims that we are helping Ukraine without getting involved in the conflict ourselves. Even according to the Defense Department's own Law of War Manual, the U.S. is already a de facto belligerent in the Ukraine war.
The lack of strategy behind the deluge of American missiles and tanks flowing into Ukraine is frightening. The U.S. is giving Ukraine enough aid to prevent a Russian victory, but the stated aim of liberating all of Ukraine's territory, "as long as it takes," isn't remotely plausible and is contradicted by other aspects of U.S. policy. This is not the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, where the Soviets could afford to cut their losses. Even a return to the status quo ante of January 2022 would likely be unacceptable to the Russians. The Russians are almost certainly prepared to lose—and kill—millions of people before giving up the territory they have now. And because the U.S. has thus far insisted that the weapons donated to Ukraine not be used inside Russia, U.S. strategy is currently optimized for making the war last as long as possible without a decisive result.
What's more, even if Ukraine's war aims could be achieved, what would Ukraine do then? It could either reintegrate the Russian populations and risk once again becoming a Russian puppet, or disenfranchise them through repression or wholesale expulsion, which, besides violating international humanitarian law, would likely trigger another war. Hence, Ukraine's stated war aim—the complete liberation of its 1991 territory—might not even be desirable from Ukraine's point of view.
America's Vital Interests
The overriding priority of U.S. foreign policy in the century ahead will be to tame the rising power of China. DeSantis's observation that "the Biden administration's policies have driven Russia into a de facto alliance with China" is a crucial one. One might add that U.S. policy is accomplishing that quite against Moscow's will, because a brief glance at the map suffices to see that China's increasing control over its "near abroad" puts it on a collision course with Russia along a roughly 6,000-mile front, if you include buffer states. In the century ahead, Russia's only alternative to domination by China is very likely an alliance with the United States, and that is an alliance the U.S. cannot afford to forfeit. Allowing Russia to slip into China's orbit would bring Chinese power into the very heart of Europe.
To be sure, there is a "realist" case for supporting Ukraine in its stated war aims. The linchpin of that argument is an analogy to 1938: If Vladimir Putin isn't stopped now, then, like Hitler, he will only try to seize more territory. That argument is creditable but misses a key difference between the two situations. In the 1930s, Czechoslovakia was the central pillar of the Allies' entire defensive strategy. It had to be defended at any price—otherwise the correlation of forces would shift overwhelmingly in Germany's favor, and Hitler's conquest of Europe would become unstoppable. By contrast, even if Russia can overcome its surprising military weakness and defeat Ukraine, it will be no closer to realizing Putin's impossible dream of reincorporating the Baltic states, which, while small, are firmly under NATO's nuclear umbrella. Putin surely knows that every inch of NATO territory is hopelessly beyond his reach, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky must know that as well, his warnings to the contrary notwithstanding.
Ending the War
Before Woodrow Wilson left his dubious stamp on international relations, wars typically ended in peace treaties. Many of those treaties involved territorial settlements, reparations, and other inducements to stop fighting.
Scholars have noted the vertiginous decline in peace treaties in the era of the United Nations. Part of the reason is that modern international law penalizes compromise. For example, international criminal prosecutions have gravely complicated truth-and-reconciliation processes, whose amnesties are often not recognized outside the country where they were granted. Similarly, although Putin surely knew that he was committing a war crime by invading Ukraine, the International Criminal Court's recent issuance of an arrest warrant for him can only make the stakes of the war even more apocalyptic for the Kremlin.
Wilsonian professions of high moral and legal principle can be an obstacle to compromise, particularly when they become inflexible policy positions. But they also represent what is best in Americans' view of themselves and of the world—pacifism and benevolence tempered by the instinct to stick up for the underdog and stand up to the bully. Presidents like Ronald Reagan succeeded by finding the balance of idealism and realism, tapping into deep wellsprings of democratic sentiment to give compelling force to their realpolitik. The most important part of DeSantis's comments signaled a similar approach: "Without question, peace should be the objective."
Peace should be the overriding objective now, but it will require a willingness to compromise. As the great Cold War game theorist Thomas Schelling observed, parties to a conflict are always negotiating, even if tacitly. If we get beyond their maximalist positions to what each side really needs, a compromise may be possible.
The 1991 borders created a painful dilemma for Ukrainian nationalists. They could have political independence or they could have full territorial integrity, but not, in the real world, both. In the years since the rupture of 2014, Kyiv has tacitly chosen political independence over territory. Russia is facing the mirror image of that dilemma. Putin wants Ukraine to cede the territory Russia now occupies, and to pledge that it will stay out of NATO. Russia must know that it can't have both of those things while NATO is backing Ukraine. By "annexing" Crimea and now Donbas, it has tacitly chosen territory over political control.
That should help us see the outlines of a durable peace through the fog and din of war. The U.S. should encourage Ukraine to sell the Russians the territory they now occupy in exchange for a large sum that includes reparations. Many wars have been honorably settled that way. A more homogeneously Ukrainian state would be more politically stable and could join the European Union and perhaps even NATO one day.
Absent a negotiated settlement, the most likely (and fraught) end to the war in Ukraine is a unilateral Russian cease-fire, backed by a threat of massive escalation (read: nukes) if the fighting continues. In the long run, a war that ends without a formal peace settlement could mean decades of sanctions, turning Russia into a pariah state, and almost certainly forcing it to accept de facto Chinese suzerainty. The nonrecognition of forcible territorial changes has become a bedrock principle of U.S. foreign policy, but it is another example of how excessively rigid legalism can sometimes aggravate rather than cool international conflicts.
If Russia declares a cease-fire, the Biden administration will face the decision toward which its policy has been driving it all along: whether to break its promises to Ukraine or dramatically escalate U.S. involvement. The first would gravely damage American prestige and embolden China, while the second would almost certainly lead to a nuclear showdown. Both horns of that dilemma carry totally unacceptable risks, which is why the United States should never have gotten involved in this war to begin with.
A little realism can make idealism go a long way.
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Biden has to continue United States support for Ukraine or he will look like an idiot. And no other President can end the war in Ukraine without losing something. Peace has become nothing more than empty political rhetoric. At this point, achieving peace is going to require everyone accepting a loss.
Except China. The only winner from the war in Ukraine is going to be China.
Too late to avoid that one.
The problem is what will Biden give up? We already know how he stand on human lives. We saw that during his retreat from Afghanistan. It's safe to say we've already lost military equipment and money in this train wreck.
Bottom line is, there is no way the US will come out of this anywhere near the winning side of this.
Biden will give up money. Biden's blank check policy only prolongs the war and avoids having to make choices. Biden's approach only kicks the can.
All of his policies have all done that.
President Biden continues to support the Ukraine because it is the human/humane thing to do. We don't support murderous dictators like putin like so many here on NT do.
We don't support his effort to murder innocent Ukranians and his murdering invasion of a soverign country
Dick DeSantis is 'right' about everything.
He is dead wrong about Ukraine - he is a scumbag for supporting putin over the innocent Ukranians being murdered everyday by thug putin.
I didnt read the whole article, because it seems to me to be the sort of unnecessary convoluted thinking that has led to war throughout history, particularly the first world war which was all about pressing "nationalism".
Lets stipulate that Ukraine was once a part of Russia. It no longer is, just as America was once part of Britain, or France or Spain. Things change. Russia has borders now that the world recognizes , and so does Ukraine. Russia doesnt need Ukraine, they want Ukraine out of a false nationalism. Ukraine is not a threat to Russia. They just want Russia to leave them alone. Russia is sort of in the position of someone who keeps trashing his neighbors backyard because once upon a time the neighbors yard was part of his own yard. Things change.
But Ukraine sits there like a burr under Putins saddle and his obsession with restoring a Russian empire is killing perhaps hundreds of thousands of people. He will go to hell for it.
Ukrainian nationalists have achieved control of the Ukrainian government by disenfranchising eastern Ukraine and Crimea. The pro-European government was installed by a coup and not by open elections. And that unelected government began the war in Donbas to ensure that eastern Ukraine and Crimea would be disenfranchised.
Russia annexed Crimea and the Kiev government sent tanks into Donbas. The installed government was worried more about pro-Russian Ukrainians than about Russia. Russia's annexation of Crimea removed a political threat for Ukrainian nationalists. That's why the focus was on Donbas instead of on Crimea.
There is no way that Putin can rebuild the Russian empire. That's a talking point threat that can never materialize. That's nothing more than political fearmongering.
The pertinent question is whether or not Russia becomes a Chinese satellite. Does the United States gift Russia to China to win a territorial war of no consequence? How does fortress NATO use military threats to counter peaceful trade with China?
Do Russia and Ukraine have established and recognized borders? They do. Russias unwillingness to accept those borders permanently led to all this. If there are factions in Ukraine that dont accept living under Ukrainian sovereignty that is something for them and Ukraine to work out internally, not for Russia to invade over. Hitler invaded other countries as a pretext for war with the claim that Germans in those places were being mistreated. The world doesnt need to relive that insane scenario.
So, why were Ukrainians fighting Ukrainians inside those borders? Why did the installed government begin fighting Ukrainians in Donbas rather than fighting Russians in Crimea?
The fighting in Ukraine did not begin with a Russian invasion. The fighting in Ukraine began with a political coup. And that political coup resulted in Ukrainians fighting Ukrainians inside Ukrainian borders.
Eastern Ukraine wasn't some sort of underpopulated rural backwater. Eastern Ukraine held political power inside Ukraine. Eastern Ukraine supported a government that maintained ties with Russia. Ukrainian nationalists engaged in a political coup that disenfranchised Ukrainians inside the borders of Ukraine. For the TDS impaired, Ukrainian nationalists actually did what Trump is accused of trying to do.
Is Ukraine a Fascist state? Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Have they violated the rights of Russian and other ethnicities within their borders? Banning the Russian language (which is spoken and written by almost all of the country) on government forms and being taught in schools. Imprisoning political opponents and shutting down the opposition media. Arresting anyone that dares question the government. Shutting down the Russian Catholic Church. Not allowing Russian citizens to vote in elections.
Is it any wonder that Donbas and Crimea broke off. Both areas are mainly Russian. The Ukraine war in those regions was about ethnic purging. The fascist forces fighting there wanted to drive the Russians and other ethnicities out.
That is who the US is backing.
Either Ukraine accepts the map as it is now; or it continues to fight until there is no one left on their side. Sooner or later even the foreign zealots supporting Ukraine will get tired of dying achieving nothing and leave. If it somehow manages to win; then it will have to go full in on their purge of Russians and all other foreigners within their borders. That will look great on a EU/NATO resume.
Russia will not win either. It's military is already devastated; it's economy in shambles; and the only countries willing to help them are North Korea; Iran; and China. Putin will have to accept being #2 to Xi. Russia will never hold Ukraine. Sooner or later it will be forced to withdraw to sustainable areas with a majority Russian population. Leaving the west to bankrupt itself all over again, rebuilding their politician slush fund heaven.
Xi loves this. Russia and the US- his two biggest rivals will destroy each other; and leave China standing as the lone economic and military super power on the planet. At least until the US rebuilds it's military; and climbs out of a full blown recession caused by the blank check policy funding Ukraine.
I think that whatever anyone might think of Ukraine, the United States figures that at least they aren’t pointing nuclear missiles at us.
Nothing that you just said justifies Russia invading Ukraine.
Again? lol. The military budget is already creeping up on a trillion dollars a year.
The United States backed a political coup in Ukraine which began the war in Donbas. The United States supporting Ukrainian nationalists could only result in an internal war that would lead to ethnic cleansing. The United States meddling in Ukraine does provide justification for the Russian invasion.
DeSantis has backtracked a bit on his remarks.....because they would out step with most Americans. Like every politician, he will drift to the place the tide of public opinion takes him.
I think that calling it a “territorial dispute” is vastly underselling what Russia is doing. Russia was actually one of the first to recognize Ukraine as an independent, sovereign nation back in 1991. Russia has now gone back on their word in this regard. This conflict is an invasion and the defense against that invasion.
Having said all that, I do think we can have a legitimate discussion about how much the conflict is in America’s national interest. I think reasonable people can disagree on this. Our tendency to view it as an American interest goes all the way back to the Truman Doctrine, which shaped so much of American foreign policy during the Cold War. While there are arguments to be made in support of that doctrine, it did also give us Vietnam.
So if it is in our national interest, I think there can also be reasonable discussions about the nature and extent of America’s response to it. I think people can say we should spend less on Ukraine without being cast as some kind of Putin supporter, or enemy of Ukraine or democracy in general.
Russia recognized the national sovereignty of Ukraine in the Minsk agreements negotiated in 2014 and 2015. The Minsk agreements established a framework for Ukraine to retain control over its borders. Russia did set conditions for returning Crimea to Ukrainian control which included Ukraine not joining NATO.
The interim Ukrainian government established by a political coup did not send tanks to Crimea to retake territory annexed by Russia. The interim government sent tanks into Donbas to fight Ukrainians. The interim government declared eastern Ukrainians were terrorists to disenfranchise eastern Ukraine and allow Ukrainian nationalists to retain control over the government.
The United States backed a political coup that required disenfranchising eastern Ukraine. The United States supported Ukrainian nationalists fighting Ukrainians to retain political control over government. Had the Minsk agreements been implemented, the war in Donbas would have ended and pro-Russian Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine would have regained control over the government through elections. The United States chose to avoid any sort of democratic process in Ukraine because Ukraine would have maintained ties with Russia.
Normally I'm quite bored with the usual political fare on NT, but I'm quite fascinated by this issue, read it from top to bottom (a rare accomplishment when it's a long seed) and somehow it made me think of the term "The Hundred Years War". Oh, the cost, the cost - is it really worth it? Some will say it's the principle, and damn the cost. Was 20 years in Afghanistan worth the cost? And by "cost", I don't mean just money.