American foreign policy towards Russia in post-Soviet era with emphasis on Ukrainian conflict 2014.

Written in 2014 for my University paper, raw unedited.

Preface: This is my old paper from 2014. I’m posting it now because it’s a start, gotta publish something first. It’s been written 10 years ago and some assumptions might’ve changed but nonetheless I think it still has some weight after all these years. Some assumptions and rhetoric is still very much relevant.

Since the beginning of Euromaidan protests in Kiev, that started in November 2013, the situation in Ukraine has greatly escalated and shocked the world by fast unfolding events that many couldn't imagine as the present outcome.

The protests in Ukraine originally started because of a broken presidential promise of signing a deal with the European Union that would bring the country closer to integration with the EU. The situation then have escalated greatly and involves many parties now in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

It has affected countries like Russia, United States and many leading countries of the European Union. The Ukrainian crisis is still unfolding and reached new heights that should be alarming for all parties involved. Many things have happened since November of 2013, and a year later, here is the outcome of this unresolved ongoing conflict: protesters have ousted their democratically elected president, Southern Eastern regions of Ukraine went to the streets to protest against the new interim government, Russia has annexed Crimea, separatists in the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine have taken up arms and are being backed by the Russian state and are currently fighting Ukrainian National Guard.

The European Union and the United States among other nations have placed sanctions on the Russian Federation, and combined with plummeting oil prices, Russian currency is rapidly devaluating, imploding the country's economy to economic crisis of Russia's default in 1998. All parties involved place blame on everyone else but themselves, and seems like as a result, the world today faces tensions of Cold War era.

This paper will focus on Ukrainian crisis, how it spiraled out of control, policies that have been put in place, and their efficacy. The main thesis that will be argued is going to focus on the failed American foreign policy to create security assurance for all parties involved in the post-Soviet Union era: including Western Europe, Eastern Europe, ex-Soviet Republics and Russia. It will also focus on Ukrainian conflict, as a case study of failed American foreign policy towards Russia and complexity of the situation that wasn't taken into account by the policy makers that ultimately led to further escalation of the conflict that extended beyond Ukraine.

The situation in Ukraine is no doubt a very serious and complex issue that is hard to analyze without marginalizing arguments of opposition, let alone to pinpoint who is solely responsible for the escalation of the conflict.

The traditional liberal argument and portrayal of situation puts the blame solely on Russian Federation and their actions that were taken in Ukraine, primarily annexation of Crimea. In one of the articles, Timothy Snyder, who is a professor at Yale, specializing in Eastern European history, argues that the current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is nostalgic of the Soviet Union and has imperial aspiration to re-establish Russia as a superpower by reclaiming territory that was previously lost. He argues, among other liberal theory supporters, that annexation of Crimea was a first step and Putin, potentially, has in mind reclaiming of the Baltic states and Poland.

This is predominantly a western narrative of events, and as a result sanctions on Russia was a logical step to prevent further Russian aggression without resorting to militarily conflict. In other words, western politicians and liberal thinkers insist that diplomatic negotiation would be the wrong approach. To support their argument they draw parallels between current Russian actions in Ukraine and Nazi Germany of 1939, when European powers resorted to appeasement, that ultimately led to anschluss and further German aggression in Europe. 

As contrast a to this, Henry Kissinger stated in one of his interviews, “Crimea is a symptom, not a cause; It was not Hitler moving into Czechoslovakia.”

One of the key concepts in realist theory is that all states within the system are unitary, rational actors. It would be wrong to assume that Russia's actions are purely imperialistic in nature and a blind aggression. The western nations, including the new Ukrainian government, view the current situation through the liberal theory, and the Russian state is leaning towards realist theory, justifying their actions through this paradigm. It's important to understand position of all parties involved before drawing any premature conclusions. In turn, we can analyze efficacy, implications and soundness of this foreign policy, economic sanctions towards Russia, and why Kissinger ,rather than Snyder, is much closer to reality of the current affairs.

Before further analyzing events in Ukraine and the key events that have evolved to current crisis since Euromaidan, it's important to overview main historical and geopolitics events since the fall of the Soviet Union that gave precedence to the current situation, and the dispute between United States and Russia about the future of sovereign Ukrainian state.

After the unexpected collapse of the USSR, it presented the world with a new dilemma about the future of ex-Soviet Republics, Russia, and the newly created power vacuum in Europe. The United States, emerging as the only dominant global superpower, was left with a choice. Either to re-evaluate it's foreign policy towards newly democratic weakened Russia and forge new diplomatic ties, or to extend its sphere of influence further to Eastern Europe, taking advantage of its soft power and willing to cooperate with the US, ex-Warsaw Pact countries that were disillusioned with Soviet Union and communist ideology and looked towards the US and Western Europe for better future and economic integration.

Historically, Russia has been invaded multiple times and suffered huge losses of life, as a result Russian main concern was secured borders, considering that central Russia is not protected from invasion from the West by any natural barriers, like water or mountains. Idea of “geography determines destiny” is a prime example of Russian national security issue and their desire for buffer states. The idea of buffer states does not need to have a negative connotation, as in Soviet occupation of Baltics and Poland, for example. Any neutral state or a country that separates two states from each other is a buffer state.

After the fall of the Soviet Union new buffer states between NATO and Russia have emerged, consisting of ex-Warsaw Pact countries. In the early 90's, economically and militarily weakened Russia managed to negotiate with the United States about NATO non-expansion towards the East, this reassured Russia that they can start rebuilding their failed state and move towards democracy without feeling threatened as a sovereign state. Unfortunately for the Russians, there was no formal agreement or treaty signed, and NATO expanded towards Russian borders multiple times by incorporating almost all ex-Warsaw Pact countries, with a possible future of incorporation of Ukraine and Georgia.

Although there were no documents signed, former ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock and ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, among other statesmen, confirmed that such agreement was in fact on the table after the fall of the USSR. Such policy towards a new non-communist Russian state have reassured bitter Baltic states and Poland in their security, but it did not reassure Russians in theirs. In fact, it made the Russian government more skeptical about future mutually beneficial relations with the United States. Russian anxiety towards expanding NATO have prevailed until today and is the main driving force behind Russian geopolitics.

George Kennan, American diplomat and adviser, who devised American strategy of containment for dealing with Soviet Union in post-WWII, was strongly against expansion of NATO and argued that it would be a wrong approach for international relations with Russia in post-Cold War era.

In of the interviews for New York Times in 1998, Kennan stated that, “I think it is the beginning of a new cold war, I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this [Expansion of NATO] whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.” In this prophetic interview, Kennan highlighted one of the main issues when dealing with Russia, it's disregarding Russian history and their security concerns, he added: “It shows so little understanding of Russian history and Soviet history. Of course there is going to be a bad reaction from Russia, and then [the NATO expanders] will say that we always told you that is how the Russians are -- but this is just wrong.” At the end of the interview, he bitterly added: “This has been my life, and it pains me to see it so screwed up in the end.” It's hard to argue against George Kennan, a man who had deep understanding of USSR and Russian state.

His theory of containment, has not only proven in its efficacy and application, it exceeded expectations and culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union and prevention of the global socialism revolution. Kennan was not unique in his assessment of post-Soviet geopolitical climate, many political commentators, like Pat Buchanan and geopolitical theorists, like John Mearsheimer anticipated unfolding of current events and the American foreign policy blunder.

One of the world's leading economists, Jeffrey Sachs, who helped reshape Polish economy post-Soviet collapse, noticed that American view towards Poland was different than their perception of Russia. In other words, he said that the White House was eager to help the new Polish government and spend money on reforms and democratization, but they were negligent towards Russia nor did they want to push the same reforms, as a result, the outcome of Russian and Polish states were significantly different. Sachs writes: “It took me 20 years to gain a proper understanding of what had happened after 1991. Why had the US, which had behaved with such wisdom and foresight in Poland, acted with such cruel neglect in the case of Russia? Step by step, and memoir by memoir, the true story came to light. The West had helped Poland financially and diplomatically because Poland would become the Eastern ramparts of an expanding NATO. Poland was the West, and was therefore worthy of help. Russia, by contrast, was viewed by US leaders roughly the same way that Lloyd George and Clemenceau had viewed Germany at Versailles - as a defeated enemy worthy to be crushed, not helped.” Inadvertently or by conscious neglect, American foreign policy towards Russia has backfired and set precedence for the current events that is happening right now in Ukraine. Russian government have draw the redline for NATO expansion in Ukraine. Unfortunately for many Ukrainians, their country has become a battleground for Russo-American international relations. Current sanctions on Russia is further pushing away both countries from a diplomatic talks or any concrete resolution of the conflict in Donbass, region that is being held by the separatists and rejects newly formed Ukrainian government as legitimate. With Russian economy being affected by the sanctions and dropping oil prices, there are implications of Ukrainian conflict spreading globally and having negative and dangerous effect for all parties involved, including US, EU, Ukraine and Russia that will be further explored.

Naturally this raises a lot of questions. The most important one being, what right does Russian Federation have to take any action, let alone militarily, in a sovereign state of Ukraine? The logical answer is that the Russian state has no business in Ukraine and should be punished for annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in Eastern Ukraine.

George Soros, one of the most prominent and accomplished investors, shares Timothy Snyder's point of view. Soros implies that Putin is taking advantage of current Ukrainian crisis to gain more influence and establish dominant position in Europe that will undermine European Union. He writes: “The other deficiency of the current European attitude toward Ukraine is that it fails to recognize that the Russian attack on Ukraine is indirectly an attack on the European Union and its principles of governance.” Soros goes as far as to claim existential threat to Europe itself: “Europe is facing a challenge from Russia to its very existence.“ In the same article he argues that liberal notions should be protected and that counter measures should be taken to contain Russia. In short, he is implying that Putin is indulging in his imperial fantasies of Great Russia and by giving him an inch he will go a mile, citing Crimean example.

From the liberal point of view, these are warranted concerns because they view the beginning of the Ukrainian conflict happening with annexation of Crimea, which is false. The official Russian position, and position of many Eastern Ukrainians, including Crimeans, is that the turning point of the conflict was in February of 2014, when democratically elected president Viktor Yanukovich was illegally ousted. This has sparked massive pro-Russian unrest in the South East, meaning that those regions were against the overthrow of Yanukovich and anti-Euromaidan ideology.

Historian Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian studies at New York University and columnist for The Nation magazine, argued that the turning point of Ukrainian conflict goes back to November of 2013, stating that the European Union made a mistake by giving out an ultimatum to Ukrainian government to pick partnership either with European Union or with Russia's led Eurasian Union. As a result, Yanukovich was pressured by Moscow into accepting a much more lucrative deal with Russia for keeping ties, which included $15 billion in credit and 1/3 reduction on gas price.

In turn, Western part of Ukraine that predominantly shares European values, took protesting of this decision to Maidan Square in Kiev. The conflict has escalated over next few months and culminated in ousting of Yanukovich by armed radical nationalists, primarily neo-nationalist group called Right Sector. This has sparked controversy if this was a revolution that represented majority Ukrainian people who were unhappy with the current government or it was coup d'etat, as Russian official position have emphasized. In such a complex situation there is fine line between the two but it appears that there was a violation of Ukrainian constitution, Article 111. 

Radio Free Europe reported: “Article 111 stating the parliament has the right to initiate a procedure of impeachment "if he commits treason or other crime”; However, it is not clear that the hasty February 22 vote upholds constitutional guidelines, which call for a review of the case by Ukraine's Constitutional Court and a three-fourths majority vote by the Verkhovna Rada -- i.e., 338 lawmakers [actual vote was 328].“ Surprisingly, The United States and European Union legitimized the new interim government, despite the agreement that was signed on February 21 by European foreign ministers from Poland, Germany and France. It was stated that Yanukovich would preserve his status as legitimate president but on limited terms, a new constitution of 2004 will be adopted, there would be reforms, and new presidential elections and parliamentary will follow in December of 2014.

This has directly undermined Russia position in respect to Ukraine. New interim government took strong pro-EU position and tried to pass series of questionable legislatures that many thought as anti-Russian. Some of the proposed laws included ban on Russian TV and the use of language. This was viewed as betrayal by the majority of South Eastern citizens, who happened to be predominately Russian speaking because of ancestral ties to the Russian Empire. And angered Russian speaking Ukrainians in Crimea, who viewed ousting of Yanukovich and proposed anti-Russian legislatures as a threat. 

To put things in perspective regarding annexation of Crimea, it's important to understand historical relevance of Crimea and how it fits in current situation. Crimea has been under Russian sphere of influence, territory, since 18^th century and majority of Crimeans are ethnic Russian.

During Soviet years, Crimea was part of Russia until 1954, when Ukrainian born Nikita Khruschev, General Secretary of USSR, gave Crimea to Ukrainian SSR for more efficient administration. Whether such transfer of territory was legitimate is under dispute but one thing is certain, such a deal did not take into account the possibility of the collapse of the USSR.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Crimea became an Autonomous Republic but under Ukrainian sphere of influence despite many Crimeans being sympathetic towards reunification with Russia. The territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia concerning Crimea has been ongoing since the early 90's. In 1994, Crimea conducted a referendum for independence that was deemed illegal by the Kiev government. Ever since, Crimeans were denied any chance for self-determination or reunification with Russian Federation. Los Angeles Time wrote in May, 1994: “Jubilant Crimean deputies applauded and hugged each other after an overwhelming majority of 69 out of 73 present approved the bill restoring a 1992 constitution, which puts Crimea's relations with Ukraine on a foreign footing; Toward evening they went a step further by considering an appeal to Moscow and Kiev to allow Crimea to move toward rejoining Russia, the Interfax news agency reported.“ If we take into account above points, then it's clear that Crimean issue goes beyond widely accepted view that annexation of Crimea by Russia was a blind aggression towards domination of ex-Soviet Republics. Following Kiev's revolution or a coup, depending on individual interpretation, Russian Federation has resorted to realpolitik and played their wild card in Crimea. They cut off Crimea from mainland Ukraine and took under control all military bases to hold a referendum that would decided the fate of Crimea, either to rejoin Russia or stay with Ukraine under Crimean constitution of 1992.

It's worth underlining that as per agreement between Ukraine and Russia, Russia was allowed to station their troops in Sevastopol with up to 20,000 men. Whether this was an invasion of a sovereign state or a peacekeeping mission requested by Autonomous Republic of Crimea in the face of unconstitutional coup is under dispute. One of the independent American media, Vice News, sent in journalists to interview the locals and to document situation in Crimea from invasion to referendum that was not recognized by the United Nations as legitimate. In Vice's report, overwhelming majority voted for reunification with Russia and expressed their disdain Ukrainian interim government. During invasion no casualties or civil unrest was observed.

Eastern regions of Ukraine organized their own protests and expressed their disagreement with new interim government, more clashes followed between pro-Western Ukrainian and pro-Russian, one of the most brutal incident that propelled pro-Russian unrest was in the city of Odessa during early May. More than 50 people have died in ideological clash, as a result neo-nationalist group Right Sector is accused to be responsible for murder of pro-Russian protesters by setting them on fire with Molotov bottles. Ukraine has been a divided country for centuries and current Ukrainian crisis is a result of failed diplomatic negotiations and fair representation of all people. Donbass region of Ukraine have called for federalization and more autonomy from Kiev following ousting of Yanukovich. In previous presidential elections, majority of South Eastern regions voted for Yanukovich and it shouldn't be surprising that Ukraine started to split ideologically because of the outcome of Euromaidan. The National Interests magazine brings everything together by giving an overall perspective of the current situation: “Ukraine was more stable in the past, Migranyan said, because earlier presidents like Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma understood that their country was divided and fragile and, as a result, pursued cautious policies that maintained relations with both Russia and the West.”

Indeed, the failure of European Union and United States in understating this critical point and by backing interim government, inadvertently caused pro-Russian unrest and sparked Putin's reaction to seize the Crimea because interim government marginalized Russian speaking population. The motive for integration of Ukraine to European Union was noble but realistic application of policies in February have failed. Ukrainian conflict did not start with annexation of Crimea, it was deeply rooted in not understanding Ukrainian and Russian history as George Kennan highlighted. The turning point was in February with ousting of Yanukovich and negligence of creating a constructive dialogue between EU and Russia. If Western part of the country is looking towards EU but Eastern part is towards Russia, it would make sense to resolve this emerging issue right there and then, instead Western powers legitimized pro-Western government and neglected to take into account legitimate concerns of Eastern part of the country. What happened is that instead of a resolution, there is a tug of war between EU and Russia for Ukraine.

Right now the conflict is still ongoing and has escalated into armed insurgency in Donbass region because new Ukrainian government failed to initiate reforms that could bring the  country back together, federalization being one of the options.  This conflict has extended beyond Ukraine and involves direct confrontation between United States and Russia. Following Russian annexation of Crimea, United States and EU imposed sanctions on Russian Federation, first round of sanctions have suspended bi-lateral talks, which seems like a grave mistake. Efficacy of sanctions is unclear and it further pushes two countries away from each other, this is a continuation of failed foreign policy towards Russia.

John Mearsheimer, American professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago writes: “The crisis there shows that realpolitik remains relevant -- and states that ignore it do so at their own peril. U.S. and European leaders blundered in attempting to turn Ukraine into a Western stronghold on Russia’s border. Now that the consequences have been laid bare, it would be an even greater mistake to continue this misbegotten policy.”

Essentially, the main point and Russian resistance to stop supporting rebellion in Donbass, shows that coercion and sanctions is not a way out and Russian government won't cave in. Unfortunately for all parties involved, US Congress recently raised the stakes. They passed two bills, H.Res.758 and S.2828 that will extend aid to Ukraine, including militarily, up to $350 million, and extend sanctions towards Russia that target wide range of sectors. According to Stephen Cohen, this is one of the biggest confrontation with Russia since the Cuban Missile Crisis and it should be alarming for all parties included. These tensions puts US and Russia on the verge of the new Cold War as Kennan predicted and warned against. It is true that sanctions with collapsing oil prices have taken the toll and weakens Russia significantly, after all it is no where close to the might of Soviet Union. But this is far from a victory, these actions gave even more domestic support for Putin and his approval rating is over 80%. It's hard to understand why hostile Russia and further pressure from the United States is the correct foreign policy course. Facing economic hardships and non cooperation from the US and EU, Russia has turned to Asia, primarily China for future natural gas deals and economic cooperation.

China has been steady growing economically and militarily stronger and is projected to overtake United States as the number one economy in a couple of decades. It might seem like it's far away and not a threat but there is little doubt that China started to assert itself as the dominant power regionally and they are looking to expand their sphere of influence further into Pacific, as seen by Chinese projects of artificial islands. This puts pressure on United States allies, such as Japan, Philippines, Taiwan to name a few. With Russia being pushed away from diplomatic resolution with US, it's not wrong to assume that there is a strong possibility of a Sino-Russian bloc that can challenge American global dominance. Since the beginning of Ukrainian conflict and failed resolution of the crisis, Russia has signed two deals with China for natural gas export that is worth more than $400 billion. Historically, Russia and China had close relations that turned sour because of territorial dispute but Russia has been providing technology and arms to China consistently. Right now, United States and China have a very symbiotic relationship but for how long? China would want to eventually assert it's dominance in the region, possibly move away from US dependence and even reclaiming Taiwan.  Sino-Russian cooperation has been growing steadily, another example would be their mutual desire to challenge IMF as seen by new coalition of BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and should warrant appropriate response and concerns if United States want to keep it's global primacy, hostile Russia is not one of the optimal responses.

In short, both China and Russia is interested in a multi-polar world where they can assert themselves regionally and there is a strong possibility of a future counter balance of global power that will challenge NATO. 

Rising tensions over Ukraine have gone global and the proper course of action should be not coercion and continued pressure on Russia with sanctions but a constructive dialogue between the two nations that have real potential for de-escalating the situation. As many political scientists have observed and argued, the United States have taken a wrong approach towards Russia since the 90's by expanding NATO and not taking into account Russia's security concerns. Such foreign policy has promoted Russians to resort to realpolitik in the face of losing Ukraine to EU that will bring NATO to their borders. Current sanctions that serve as punishment have greatly escalated situation even further and as a result it crashed heavily dependent on Russia Ukrainian economy, it has affected European Union as well because of interconnectedness of economies. Current aid to Ukraine, that includes militarily to fight separatists will only divide Ukraine further and will cause more casualties. Sanctions will not bring back Crimea and Russia is not going to drop their support for separatists, thus sanctions are effective only in causing damage to Russian economy but they fail to accomplish practical goals, such as ending the conflict and having a decisive resolution in Donbass. There is no easy solution for the ongoing conflict but one thing is certain, there is no benefit to further escalation. Further negotiations should be held with self-proclaimed Donetsk Republic with a possible solution being federalization, autonomy or two-state solution. In the face of current events, M. Gorbachev ex-General Secretary of USSR who moved towards closer US-Russian relations stated: "I suggest the leaders of Russia and the United States think about holding a summit with a broad agenda, without preliminary conditions; One needn't be afraid of 'losing face', that someone will gain a propaganda victory: this should all belong to the past. One needs to think about the future; This is extremely dangerous, with tensions as high as they are now. We may not live through these days: someone could lose their nerve." And this is exactly what both countries need to do or we are going to see another Cold War with a possibility of it turning into hot conflict that will have no winners, only losers.