We
are rapidly losing perspective on the war in the Ukraine. Do we really
want to end the war and stop the suffering of the Ukrainian people, or
do we want to destroy Russia? Demonizing Russia, filling the airwaves
with exaggerated rhetoric about atrocities and calling for Putin and his
henchmen to face the gibbet would appear to leave us no morally
acceptable choice than the destruction of Russia. Every newspaper
headline and every breathless TV anchor describes every action by the
Russian Army a war crime or even genocide. The media and our politicians
have created an atmosphere that will make it impossible for Ukrainian
President Zelensky to negotiate peace; agreeing to anything less than
the unconditional surrender of the Russian federation and the arrest and
execution of Vladimir Putin will subject Zelensky to accusations of
treacherous surrender.
If diplomacy is to work, if we are to help
the Ukrainians successfully defend their country and salvage peace
before thousands more die, we need to get a grip. Sometimes it appears
that the Cold War rewired our DNA to regard the Russians as our
implacable eternal enemy, a dangerous microbe to be eradicated.
Otherwise, why did we ignore the advice of our last best foreign
policy-oriented President, George H. W. Bush, and his awe-inspiring
Secretary of State James Baker, to give the Russians breathing space,
avoid triumphalism and keep NATO from expanding into the old Soviet
space? All the succeeding US administrations became cheerleaders for
pushing NATO ever closer to Moscow, ignoring the commitments made by
our 41st President that if Russia agreed to the reunification of
Germany, NATO would not move “one inch” eastwards. Granted, consistency
has never characterized American foreign policy. Within a few years we
discarded the institutions put in place to tether Russia to Europe, such
as the Partnership for Peace, and soon made it absolutely clear that
Russia would remain forever outside. We ignored the lesson of the
European Union, conceived as an effort to tie Germany, the perennial
aggressor, into the fabric of the continent so tightly that it would no
longer threaten anyone. To add insult to injury, Margaret Thatcher
called Russia “Upper Volta with rockets,” a phrase Joe Biden unhappily
repeated a few decades later. Other American politicians called Russia
a ‘minor regional power” implying that country had no voice nor agency
in events affecting its security. But playground insults as foreign
policy? Seriously?
Make no mistake, Putin has dangerously
miscalculated and kicked off a war that will badly damage Russia. The
trick is to stop the war before it badly damages the rest of the world.
Destroying Russia economically will harm us as well – nor can we ignore
the fact that this is the closest we have been to nuclear war since Cuba
and 1961. Finally, we must prepare for the post-war, something that we
are not very good at doing. Zelensky has proven himself a real leader,
inspiring his people to fight the Russians to a standstill and create
an environment for negotiations. He has also shown that he understands
what it takes to end the war on terms acceptable to Ukraine’s
interests. He knows that those terms will almost certainly include some
concessions. Putin needs to survive as well, no matter what our
atavistic desire to see him dangling for a noose as a war criminal.
Zelensky’s job will be to reduce those concessions to the minimum. That
minimum will come out in the negotiations. Stirring up hatred and
outrage does not help.
Given Russia’s track record brutalizing
civilian populations in Chechnya and Syria, one can excuse pundits who
expected the same in Ukraine. In point of fact – and despite the
headlines – Russian forces have conducted the war in a relatively
restrained fashion. No country, including ours, has ever conducted a war
without innocent civilians dying in droves. Even precision guided
munitions are not scalpels, particularly when we do not know what we are
shooting at. Have we forgotten our “righteous strike” at Kabul Airport
last August? Ask the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Yemenis, and the
Lebanese, among others, what happens when the US or its allies apply
overwhelming firepower to civilian targets. Predictions by pundits and
politicians that Russia will replicate the destruction of Grozny,
Chechnya’s capital or initiate chemical warfare, inflames sentiments for
no good reason; doing so makes no sense and offers no real military
advantage. I suspect that racism motivates Russian restraint.
Slaughtering Ukrainians whom they believe to be their close cousins,
might destroy troop morale. Racism also explains why Europe and the US
have already welcomed two million Ukrainians (and more to come) fleeing
their country with open arms while trying to slam the door on far fewer
Syrians and Iraqis. Without doubt civilians have suffered deeply but
nothing that I have seen in the current fighting compares to what I and
many of my former colleagues have seen in previous wars. Comparing the
Russian Army to the Waffen SS may make good headlines but (1) makes
rational consideration of how to end the war impossible, and (2) is,
frankly, dead wrong.
The Ukrainians surprised the Russians, and
us, with their skill and determination. They have exploited Putin’s
initial mistakes and with adequate resupply and support will probably
fight the Russians to a standstill, the functional equivalent of a
Russian defeat. Zelensky will have an advantage and he has demonstrated
he knows how to use it. He has already conceded NATO membership, a
relatively minor concession compared to Ukraine’s other needs. He knows
Russian redlines far better than we do. He needs our support to fight
the war and he will absolutely need our support when he negotiates the
end of the war. We should not get in his way.