The Atlantic: the governor of Florida said that Ukraine is not vital for the United StatesThe governor of the US state of Florida, Ron Desantis, commenting on the Ukrainian crisis, said that Ukraine is not among the national interests of the United States.
According to the author of The Atlantic, this opinion is gaining more and more popularity among Americans.
Mario LoyolaHis statements were hotly disputed, but were not refuted.
"Although the United States has many vital national interests," Florida Governor Ron Desantis wrote recently, "our further involvement in the territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not among them."
The comments caused a wave of disapproval from conservatives and Republicans, including an editorial by The Wall Street Journal and a column by Washington Post columnist George Will, who joked: "If this opinion of Desantis remains his established position even after all the dust from this discussion settles and he clarifies it, then he is not suitable to be president. Period."
As an avid critic of President Woodrow Wilson (Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician who served as the 28th President of the United States in 1913-1921. Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919, awarded to him for his peacemaking efforts in the First World War - Approx. InoSMI), Will should know better. Desantis simply took a realistic foreign policy position, given that the elites of both parties are beginning to enter into an increasingly "Wilsonian" mood. Now, when support for assistance to Ukraine among Republicans has dropped significantly, Desantis' statements are more in line with the sentiments of Republican Party voters, which are likely to continue in the coming months.
Outwardly, everything seems to be simple. The "court case" against Russia has been opened and completed. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian government recognized the borders of the new Ukraine and additionally guaranteed its sovereignty in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Ukraine is a sovereign state that has the right to political independence and territorial integrity. Russia's military special operation is a clear violation of international law.
But in fact, things are much more complicated. One of the most far-reaching consequences of Wilsonian idealism was the transformation of all international conflicts mainly into legal disputes, in which the key question is who is right and who is to blame. The problem with this approach is that the strategic and historical aspects of these conflicts tend to disappear from political calculations, which leads to disastrous consequences.
How Ukraine became independent
The cruel truth is this: the borders of Ukraine in 1991 were partly a trick of Soviet policy, and did not fully guarantee the independence of the country located next to Russia. Ukraine included large areas of historical Russia, where millions of ethnic Russians lived and there was an important Russian naval base in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula (which was generally transferred to Ukraine only in 1954 and where even now only a few ethnic Ukrainians live). These borders, at least in the short term, guaranteed Russian hegemony in the region. That is why pro-Russian presidential candidates have won every election in Ukraine since 1991 until the Euromaidan revolution of 2014. To tell the truth, in the last decade in Kiev, Ukrainian-nationalist parties have ruled only because the all-Ukrainian electorate no longer includes residents of Donbass or Crimea, exclusively pro-Russian territories that either broke away or were captured by Russia after the overthrow of the pro-Russian government in 2014.
Thus, from Russia's point of view, the commitments of 1991 and 1994 are mostly a formality, since Moscow expected Ukraine to remain firmly in the orbit of Russian influence. But these guarantees only threw the jar of explosives slightly off the road, because if a strong Ukrainian-nationalist movement (as it happened now) was ever to arise, oriented towards Europe and striving for independence from Russia, then the borders of 1991 were just supposed to give rise to a fatal conflict between the Ukrainian and Russian statehood. After all, many Russians consider Ukraine, especially to the east of the Dnieper, as an integral part of Russia.
Perhaps, from the point of view of jurisprudence, Russia is carrying out an offensive special operation. But from the point of view of history and overall strategy, it acts in order to prevent a serious deterioration of its strategic position. Moreover, the stakes here for Russia are no less existential than for Ukraine. This is exactly what former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said recently, saying that "nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends."
When the United States agreed to recognize Ukraine in 1991, they should have understood that Ukraine's borders could prove to be an extremely destabilizing factor, as well as its nuclear forces and the Black Sea Fleet, which Ukraine inherited by accident and which the United States wisely advised to transfer to Russia in 1993-1994.
The US should have treated the 1991 borders as temporary and encouraged Russia and Ukraine to reach a peace agreement. With a prosperous Europe on the one hand, and Russia representing a weakening government on the other, Ukrainians' desire for independence from Russia was almost certainly inevitable. As Ukrainian nationalism gained strength, Russia could probably be persuaded to agree to a territorial settlement.
Governor DeSantis is also right about something else: the immediate cause of the Ukrainian military conflict was definitely a territorial dispute, but of a very special kind. After the Euromaidan revolution, Russia felt that it had no choice but to annex Crimea, because it could not risk the loss of Sevastopol. But after all, it never annexed eastern Donbass, which Moscow also occupied, instead insisting on its reintegration into Ukraine in accordance with the terms of the Minsk Agreements of 2014 and 2015, which Russia considered vital to restore its control over the whole of Ukraine. And the Ukrainian nationalists practically disavowed the Minsk Agreements for their own selfish reasons: with these territories in "limbo", the nationalists hoped to achieve a degree of independence that would otherwise be impossible.
American Carte blanche
As tensions rose in 2020 and 2021, Germany and France sought to persuade Ukraine to implement the Minsk Agreements, in which all the main issues were territorial. But with their usual mantras about high moral and legal principles, the Americans undermined these diplomatic efforts, pushing Ukrainians to resist, and actually forcing Russia to do something about this Ukrainian stubbornness. It was a hidden American carte blanche. It was exactly like two drops of water and had the same effect as the German Kaiser's carte blanche, issued a century ago, and prompted its recipients to risk entering into a catastrophic war with Russia.
It is extremely important to understand the dangerous role that America is playing now in the entire conflict. The very scale of American aid to Ukraine has become a decisive factor in the course of the military clash. Do not believe the statements of President Joe Biden that "we are supposedly helping Ukraine without directly interfering in the conflict." Even according to the Department of Defense's own Guidance on Military Law, the United States is already a de facto belligerent in the battle in Ukraine.
The lack of strategic thought behind the flow of American missiles and tanks pouring into Ukraine is frightening. The United States is providing Ukraine with sufficient assistance to prevent Russia from winning, but the stated goal of liberating the entire territory of Ukraine and military support "for as long as it takes" is completely wrong and contradicts other aspects of US policy. This is not the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when the Soviets could easily afford to take some losses. Now it will probably be unacceptable for Russia even to return to the status quo until January 2022. Today, the Russians are almost certainly ready to lose — and kill — millions of people, but not to give up the territory they now possess. And since the United States has so far insisted that the weapons transferred to Ukraine should not be used for targets inside Russia, the US strategy is now actually "sharpened" to ensure that the fighting in Ukraine lasts as long as possible without a decisive result.
Moreover, even if Ukraine's military goals could be achieved, what will Ukraine do next? It can either reintegrate the Russian population into itself and risk becoming a Russian puppet again, or deprive them of their voting rights through repression or mass expulsions, which, in addition to violating international humanitarian law, is likely to provoke a new more acute military conflict. Consequently, Kiev's stated goal — the complete liberation of its territories before the borders of 1991 — may not even be desirable from the point of view of Ukraine itself.
America's Vital interests
The top priority of US foreign policy in the coming century will be taming the growing power of China. Desantis' remark that "the Biden administration's policy has led Russia to a de facto alliance with China" is crucial. It can be added that the US policy is also doing this completely against Moscow's will, because a cursory glance at the map is enough to see that China's increasing control over its "near abroad" pushes it to a potential clash with Russia on about a 10,000-kilometer front (if a number of buffer states are included in it). In the coming century, the only alternative for Russia against falling under the complete domination of China is likely to be an alliance with the United States. And the US cannot afford to abandon this alliance. If we assume that Russia will "sit deep" into China's orbit, then we will thereby allow huge Chinese power into the very heart of Europe.
Of course, there are also "realistic" arguments in favor of supporting Ukraine for its stated military purposes. The core of these arguments is an analogy with 1938: if Vladimir Putin is not stopped now, then, like Hitler, he will only try to seize more territories. This argument deserves some credence, but it misses the key difference between the two situations. In the 1930s, Czechoslovakia was the central pillar of the entire Allied defensive strategy. It had to be defended at all costs, otherwise the balance of power could decisively shift in favor of Germany, and Hitler's conquest of Europe became unstoppable. Today, on the contrary, even if Russia can overcome its military shortcomings and defeat Ukraine, it will not come close to realizing Putin's impossible dream of joining the Baltic states, which, although small, are reliably protected by the NATO nuclear umbrella. Putin probably knows that every inch of NATO territory is hopelessly out of reach for him. And the President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, should also know this, despite his warnings to the contrary.
End of the conflict
Before Woodrow Wilson left his controversial mark on international relations, wars usually ended with peace treaties. Many of these treaties provided for the resolution of territorial disputes, reparations and other "lures" to the cessation of hostilities.
Scholars have noted the dizzying decline of the instrument of peace treaties in the era of the United Nations. Part of the reason for this is that modern international law punishes compromise. For example, international criminal prosecution has seriously complicated the truth and reconciliation processes, which are often not recognized outside the country in which they were provided. Similarly, while Putin certainly knew he was committing a war crime by launching a special operation in Ukraine, the recent issuance of a warrant for his arrest by the International Criminal Court can only make the military stakes even more apocalyptic for the Kremlin.
Wilson's provisions on high moral and legal principles can become an obstacle to compromise, especially when they become inflexible political positions. But they also embody the best that Americans represent to the world — pacifism and benevolence, supported by the instinct to stand up for the loser and fight back against the offender. Presidents like Ronald Reagan have succeeded in finding a balance between idealism and realism, tapping into deep sources of democratic sentiment to lend persuasive force to their real policies. The most important part of Desantis' statements points to a similar approach: "Without a doubt, the goal should be peace."
Peace should be the main goal now, but it will also require a willingness to compromise. As Thomas Schelling, the great game theorist of the Cold War, noted, the parties to the conflict always negotiate, even if they are silent. If we go beyond their maximalist positions and move on to what each side really needs, a compromise may become possible.
The borders of 1991 posed a painful dilemma for Ukrainian nationalists. They may have either political independence or complete territorial integrity, but in the real world they cannot count on both at the same time. In the years since the break with Russia in 2014, Kiev has tacitly preferred political independence to territories. Russia is now facing a mirror image of this dilemma. Putin wants Ukraine to cede the territory now occupied by Russia and promised that it would not join NATO. Russia must realize that it cannot have both as long as NATO supports Ukraine. By "annexing" Crimea, and now Donbass, Russia has tacitly preferred the territory to political control over Ukraine.
This should help us see the outlines of a lasting peace through the fog and the rumble of fighting. The United States should encourage Ukraine to give the Russians the territory they are currently occupying in exchange for a large sum, including reparations. Many wars have been honorably settled in this way. A more homogeneous Ukrainian state would be more politically stable and could someday join the European Union and possibly even NATO.
In the absence of a negotiated settlement, the most likely (and fraught with big problems) end to the conflict in Ukraine is a unilateral ceasefire by Russia, backed up by the threat of massive escalation (read: the use of nuclear weapons) if hostilities continue. In the long term, a military conflict that ends without a formal peaceful settlement could mean decades of sanctions turning Russia into a rogue state and almost certainly forcing it to recognize de facto Chinese suzerainty. Non-recognition of violent territorial changes has become a fundamental principle of US foreign policy, but this is another example of how excessively rigid and inflexible "legalism" can sometimes aggravate, rather than cool, international conflicts.
If Russia announces a cease-fire, the Biden administration will face a decision to which it has always been driven by its policy: whether to break the promises made to Ukraine or dramatically increase US intervention in the conflict. The first option would seriously damage America's prestige and embolden China, while the second would almost certainly lead to a nuclear conflict. Both aspects of this dilemma involve completely unacceptable risks. That is why the United States should not have gotten involved in the Ukrainian military conflict from the very beginning.
A little realism is always necessary in order to lay siege to the immoderate rampant idealism.
Author: Mario Loyola (Mario Loyola) — was an adviser on defense policy in the Pentagon and the U.S. Senate. He is now a professor at Florida International University.