Independence Versus Union

Much of the time secession is the goal, sometimes it is just a pathway to union with a homeland.  Yesterday, Crimea could be either.  Today?  Looking more and more like irredentism.  Lots of separatist movements end up dividing over their end goals with the various Kashmiri groups being the best examples, but since Crimea's separatist movement seems more of a creature of Moscow than a genuine secessionist movement, that kind of debate of where to go is not happening.

To be clear, irredentism can be and often is inconsistent, so what Bill and I wrote for the Monkey Cage yesterday still stands.  I do not think that Russia is aiming to unify all or even many of the lost Russians and their territories in a Greater Russia.  Putin's own statements are contradictory, so his nationalist appeals are actually quite muddled.  Also, Crimea is one thing, but Eastern Ukraine?  That would not be a fait accompli and would most likely require war. 

Of course, geography here raises some questions--how can Russia support Crimea if it does not have any land between Russia and Crimea? Sure, Alaska is not exactly adjacent to the rest of the US, but Alaska has its own fresh water and can produce its own power.  Crimea?  Apparently not so much.  They could build a bridge to tie Russia proper to Crimea, but that will just help facilitate the flow of subsidies that will cost Russia a decent amount over the long run (irredentism is rarely profitable in the sense of making money--it tends to be costly, which does not necessarily deter it).

This also represents a shift for Russia from supporting quasi-independent frozen places--Transnistria, South Ossetia, Abkhazia--to actually annexing hunks of former Soviet territory.  So, there is much room for concern. 

But all of this seems like quite ad hoc.  There is no master plan for grand reunification since Putin would have been pretty happy a few weeks ago with his man in power in Ukraine, and Ukraine remaining independent but highly influenced by Russia.  With that no longer in play, then it seemed like Crimea could be used as leverage, but now it is spinning a bit beyond that.

Do we really know what is going on?  Probably not, as I don't think Putin does.  Still, there are plenty of insights over at Monkey Case, Duck of Minerva, and other places.  This is not the first time we have seem various aspects of this crisis, so our understanding of these past events can be helpful here.  Still, ours is a probabilistic science at best, and we tend to gloss over the role of individuals.  In this case, the perceptions, reactions, and predilections of an individual, Putin, matter a great deal.

Make Mine Marvel: Captain Sequel Edition

Looks pretty cool to me:


I think it will resist being dark for the sake of being dark... or not.

Flinging Poo: Posting at the Monkey Cage

Bill and I took our 2008 book and considered what it means for Crimea/Russia today at the Monkey Cage.

They have quite a bit of traffic over there as perhaps the most prominent blogging group for translating poli sci for the masses, attached as they are to the Washington Post.  Woot!

Future Canadian Wrong-ness

Folks are starting to ponder a new effort to bring Ukraine into NATO.  Oh joy.  In Canada, this makes a heap of sense because Ukrainian-Canadians are not an insignificant voting bloc.  And, yes, enlargement of NATO can be driven by domestic politics.

But I am not sure Canada would do more than just alienate itself a wee bit in NATO.  The Europeans have thus far not been so thrilled as they understand a bit better than the Canadians (or care more, since Canadian decision-makers are not dumb, just domestically oriented) that a Ukraine in NATO might pop the credibility bubble.  That is, the essence of NATO is the commitment to each other in case of attack.  Well, would France risk Paris for Kyiv?  Would Germany risk Munich for Sevastopol?

The US spent the entire Cold War trying to convince its allies as well as its adversaries that, yes, the US would endanger Chicago for Bonn.  Alliances, as Glenn Snyder instructed a while back and Patricia Weitsman (get well!) wrote more recently, the fundamental problem of alliances are two fold and related: one needs to assure allies that you will show up when needed, but that allies can drag you into wars you don't want to fight.  The allies must not engage in more reckless behavior with the guarantee in their pocket.  The US put hundreds of thousands of troops and families into Europe to serve as a credible tripwire to assure the Europeans.

Is anybody thinking of what it would take to credibly commit to Ukraine's defense if it became a member of NATO?  Just flying some jets over on a regular basis like the Baltics?  Probably would need more than that.

In short, I would not be surprised if domestic politics pushed the Harper government to push for Ukraine membership in NATO.  I would also not be surprised if Canada lost that battle, one that I would hope Canada loses.  Enlargement has reached its natural boundaries of credibility.  No Georgia, no Ukraine, no thanks.

and, yes, I hate agreeing with Kissinger.

Secretly Irredentist Songs

Everything is awesome!  But I do wonder if the song from the Lego movie is not just a secret appeal to irredentism:

"Everything is cool when we are part of a team!" 

 So, everything is better when folks are united, and what is more united than a mother country with its lost territory?

"Everything is better when we stick together!"

Better when we ethnic kin are unified?

"Side by side you and I are gonna win forever!"

Seems like an irredentist appeal to me.

"We're the same. I'm like you. You're like me"

Homogeneity for the win?

"Everything is awesome when we are living our dream!"    

Dreaming of what?  Greater Russia?  Greater Armenia?  I guess it depends on the dream, but I do wonder if the building blocks, the Legos, are really a metaphor for annexing like units together to make a bigger country inhabited by those who are like each other.

"Awesome to lose?"

For Milosevic, it was for a while....  For nationalists, losing a battle is not so bad because you can remember it for 600 years or so. 

So, yeah, we have to keep in mind that sometimes a movie and a song might have some subtext that legitimate the darker sides of nationalism.  Perhaps all the bricks in the Lego movie should be black and gray?

Experiments in Gif, Progress in Reality

I love this gif, but don't know if it will work right:

Double woot!  Heap of progress but still much to go. H/T to Mother Jones via Gawker.

When A Show Betrays

This is about How I Met Your Mother, spoilers ensue:

Clarifying Shooting First

I have discussed how this Ukraine situation is very much coup-ish as the big question is: who shoots first?

As this video illustrates, what I mean is who shoots at the other side first--shooting in the air does not count, although it is mighty scary:


Damn, those Ukrainians have some guts.

And my Russian is rusty, but I guess that one of the Russians accused the Ukranians of being American special forces....

Anyhow, wow!

The Electoral Politics of Boundary Changing

Keith Darden points out that if Crimea secedes from Ukraine, electoral outcomes in Ukraine would shift with fewer pro-Russia voters in the political system, and that would be bad for Russia.  This is not unique to this case.

In any successful secession or irredentist effort (the latter refers to annexing a "lost" territory inhabited by ethnic kin), the boundary moves, changing who votes in the rump state (Ukraine in this case) and who votes in the new state (Crimea if independent, Russia if this is irredentist and Crimea gets annexed).  In this case, new voters in Russia would be largely irrelevant, given the populations of Crimea compared to Russia.  But in Ukraine, the change is significant, given that the elections in Ukraine seem to have a blue/red, polarized, narrow outcomes kind of thing that might seem familiar to the US.  Indeed, if Texas left the union (please?), and the electoral votes of Texas went away, the Republicans would have a much, much harder time winning national elections.

This change in the balance of political power is what can make one secession so very relevant for the rest of the country (see Slovenia and Yugoslavia).  It also can be a deterrent to irredentism since the new voters may not vote the way the folks in power would want them--hence no Greater Albania project (a Greater Kosovo project is something else). 

My point here is that Darden's point is not just relevant for Russian interests today but is relevant for understanding secession and irredentism in general--you are not just changing a line, and not just changing who governs person x or group y, but also who wins and loses elections (or other ways to allot power) in the new and old states.  And folks anticipate that, shaping their preferences towards secession and irredentism. 

Of course, that is not the only set of interests in play or else Harper's Conservative government would want Quebec to secede since that would mean a heap of Liberal and NDP voters no longer counting....  Hmmm.

Ukraine Analogies

Lots of folks are speculating about what Ukraine/Crimea/Russia is like, including not Abkhazia.  Right now, the analogies that come to mind for me are: coups d'etat and poker.

Coup?  Yes, because in a coup, the anti-incumbents (for want of a better term), move first, trying to create facts on the ground that are hard to reverse.  If this fait accompli is successful, the incumbents are then put in a position where they are the ones with the pressure to use force.  The onus is on them.  Which is why Putin would be smart to stick to Crimea.  Other deployments in Ukraine might mean trying to push Ukrainians aside, which would then put the onus on using force back on Russians.

Using force is a big step, and you (Putin, Ukrainian leaders, whoever) do not really know if the order will be followed.  And if you order the use of force, and it is not carried out, then the thing collapses pretty quickly (yes, there are principal-agent problems here, damn it).  So, the preference again is to force the other palyer to face that tough decision.

Which leads us to poker.  In poker, aggression tends to win.  That is, betting big forces the other guy to have to face a difficult decision--am I bluffing? Are my cards good but not great?  In the past ten years or so of online poker, the lesson has been learned that hyper-aggression tends to work because it forces folks to have to make difficult decisions of risking their chip stack or waiting for a better spot ... and they wait for a better spot.

So, if we have to play the analogy game, and it is one that I both revile and embrace (I tend to teach via analogies), then let's think about the situation as it is now: two sides facing each other, waiting for the other to blink.  This is not the Cold War but rather Coup 101.

Homophobia Humor

The ever delightfully brutal Brian McFadden brings it once again, this time on a "homophobia handbook."

I love the last two frames in particular.

Let's Play the NATO Game

Lots of folks are hoping for NATO to do something to stop Putin in Crimea.  As always, I am reminded of Mike Lombardi (formerly of NFL.com and more recently formerly of Cleveland Browns) who reminds us not to confuse hope with a plan. 

Still, let's think about this for a second anyway.  Let's say that folks within NATO want something to be done, either fast-tracking Ukraine into NATO (I almost could not type that amidst my laughs--NATO, fast track!) or deploying NATO troops to the countries neighboring Ukraine or something else.

Step 1: 

Get consensus at NATO.  Oops.  To be clear, what we mean by consensus is not that every country has to agree or contribute (see ye olde NATO book on the latter), but that no country or group of countries feels strongly enough to "break silence" and object to a course of action.  Gaining consensus can be very hard to do, especially when countries have very conflicting interests.  Who might object to NATO acting? 

• France, because France often is not thrilled at NATO actions that might require folks to pay up.  France blocked sending NATO's AWACS planes to Afghanistan for a while in 2008-09 because of the cost that they might have to incur.
• Greece.  Just because. 
• Turkey.  If Greece doesn't object, Turkey might partly to do the opposite of Greece but mostly because NATO did not respond too energetically when Turkey was attacked.  Yes, remember back to when Syria engaged in some violence across the border in Turkey?  Remember that NATO did not do that much that quickly, and then finally agreed to deploy a few Patriot batteries?  Turkey might not be above being just a bit spiteful.
• Hungary.  Why?  Because Hungary is not immediately menaced by Russia's military actions in Ukraine but is quite vulnerable to Russia's threats to stop the flow of gas (remember, back when the Reagan administration was not thrilled about Europe becoming dependent on Soviet gas/oil?  Those folks were right about that).  Hungary is not alone in this at all, by the way, but has a bit more distance than some others so that it probably focuses more on the gas threat than the conventional military threat (unlike Poland and the Baltics).
• How about Italy, Portugal, and Spain with their budget problems?  They were hardly enthused about Libya.
• Germany?  Hmmmm.  
• US?  Obama does not want any new wars, but I could imagine supporting deployment of something nearby to demonstrate concern.  Still, US recognizes that Ukraine/Crimea soundly within Russian sphere of interests.  

 Anyhow, consensus would be mighty, mighty hard to get.  Consensus to do what?

Step 2:

• Deployment of forces into Ukraine.  Please.  Not even as a joke. Not going to happen.
• Fast tracking Ukraine into NATO?  This is almost as silly.  While I have scoffed (in print) about the conditions imposed upon those seeking to become members of NATO, one basic idea was not to import existing border disputes.  Sure, that was a pie crust promise, but this is an entirely different thing here.  How many countries have been admitted to NATO with Russian troops engaged in a serious effort to undermine the political system?  Last I checked, Moldova was still on the outside. 
• Also, keep in mind that NATO likes to have democracies with civilian control of the military--does Ukraine meet those and other relevant conditions?
• Deploying forces to Poland, Baltics.  Well, NATO regularly has air patrols based in Baltics to demonstrate commitment (very much like Iceland).   This would have to be careful--to not threaten Russia might but still reassure the nervous members.  It would not stop Putin at all, but would make the members a bit less worried, maybe.
• Sanctions.  NATO could coordinate sanctions against Russia, but how long would they last given that Russia is so important for Syria, Iran, and heaps of other issues.  It is one thing to cut off trade with a minor country, but cutting ties with Russia?  Not likely to last very long.  If only we could just not go to the Olympics? 

Step 3:

• Did any of this make a difference?  Not much.

Less Instant Ukraine Reactions

Yesterday, I suggested that there is little the US/NATO could do about the Russian intervention in Ukraine.  That still is very much true.  Obama's statement referred to costs--that this would cost Russia and it will.  But that is not a redline or a serious effort at deterrence--just a statement of reality.  Russia's relations with the US, EU, NATO and others will be "taxed" by this event--Russia will get less in the near future because of what it does here.

The questions this morning (other than "is that a tank or not") revolve around what can we call this event, what is the best analogy, and otherwise can we make sense of it.

At first blush, this looks like irredentism to me.  That is, Russia is acting to take back a hunk of territory it "lost", a hunk inhabited by ethnic kin.  Why?  Because I want to inflate sales of my book with Bill Ayres?  No.  Indeed, we tend to dismiss the prospects of Russian irredentism because Russia did not have a clear identity way back five years ago that suggested that politicians could score major points at home for annexing lost territories.  If Russia were to annex Crimea, it would very much fit the textbook definition of irredentism.  And irredentism, as of late, is frowned up by the international community, so Russia has engaged in disguised irredentism to minimize opposition from abroad--Abkhazia is an independent country, flying Russian planes?  Hmmm. 

So, many folks are predicting a new frozen conflict, where Crimea is de facto a part of Russia but de jure an unrecognized but independent state.  Good times.  Especially for organized crime, since criminals thrive in such ungoverned spaces. 

Those bending over backwards to see if Russia and the Crimean Russians have a legitimate stance on this will ponder: what of the Crimeans right to self-determination?  Others have seceded so why should the international community get in the way?  To be clear, this is not Kosovo.  The Crimea has not been repressed for years by the government in Kyiv.  And the new government did not make any serious threats to repress the people of Crimea.  There has been much written on the oughts of self-determination (not my specialty), but the Allen Buchanans and Margaret Moores of the world tend to focus on remediation--does secession address some serious grievance?  Why?  Because if people were able to secede readily whenever they were upset about losing an election, democracy would cease to function, as democracy requires an acceptance of losing much of the time.  Yes, the change in government in Kyiv was not conventional, so perhaps the Crimeans have some kind of gripe that could be resolved via a referendum, but since their security was never seriously at risk, there is no need for someone else to intervene to "protect" them.

It is quite clear that Russia is creating a fait accompli that will allow Crimea to have a referendum under gamed circumstances. Why? I am not a Putin-ologist or a Kremlinologist, so I can only guess wildly.  Some would speculate that this effort is seen as a necessary effort to keep control over naval bases on the Black Sea, but one could have imagined Russia making nice with the new government (using threats and coercion but not forced secession) to continue to have access.  Some might see this as spite--to cause the Ukrainians pain for defying Putin's will.  It could be that Putin is playing the nationalist card--appealing to the Russians of Russia by being the best defender of Russians in Ukraine, but there is no real political competition in Moscow that would force this move now. 

So, I really do not know what is in Putin's mind.  I have not had the chance to look into his eyes a la GW Bush.  It is probably more than one thing that is driving this crisis.  I will let the folks who are experts on Russia make those decisions.  All I can say is that irredentism is definitely on the table.  We may or may not label it such if Russia calls Crimea independent, but if Ukraine loses control over Crimea and Russia gains it, it will be far harder to disguise what has happened than in Abkhazia.

Which means we might have to put a second edition out of For Kin or For Country as we would need to revise the Russia chapter.

Instant Ukraine Reaction

Lots of news and speculation about Ukraine right now with Russian-looking troops appearing at two airports and other stuff going down.  It appears that Putin may be playing a similar strategy with Crimea as Russia did in Abkhazia and South Ossetia--provide troops and other muscle to a separatist effort that is pretty much designed in Moscow.  Lovely.

What can we do?  Not a whole lot.  When the US blustered a bit yesterday, I tweeted thusly:

Words are air RT @USNATO: "Today I affirmed America’s strong support for #Ukraine’s territorial integrity & sovereignty"--#SecDef Hagel
— Stephen Saideman (@smsaideman) February 27, 2014

NATO never made a commitment to defend Ukraine, which is a good thing since it would have been incredible... in the sense that it would not be believed.  I have long argued against NATO membership for either Georgia or Ukraine precisely because there would little that the US/NATO could do in a crisis such as this (plus the Georgians might just use the security implied by the alliance to provoke Russia).

So, we can and should give diplomacy a chance, especially with the Ukrainians seeking to make noise at the United Nations.  But with Russia as a permanent member of the Security Council, that is not going to go very far.

We simply do not have the assets or the interests to make much of a difference.  Yes, this will deeply impact relations with Russia.  Russia may find more balancing behavior by those near and far (Stephen Walt was right about "offensive intentions" no matter how hard that stuff is code).   The spirit of Sochi apparently didn't last that long, did it?

The big question now will be the usual one--who in Ukraine will be willing to use force: the Russians or Ukrainians?

The only thing for sure is that no one is being fooled by the "armed men" who may not have any flags on their uniforms and vehicles.