When one gets an invite to take a paid trip to Paris for a
few days, one tends to say yes, if the one is me.
The German Marshall Fund is hosting an event
on Transatlantic Security this week, and after just the first dinner of the
conference, I have reached the conclusion that this trip is worth my time, the
jet fuel and even the carbon stuff.
Why?
Well, the event is off the record so I cannot
get into details, but the evening’s dinner centered on the crisis in the
Ukraine and between Russia and NATO/EU/the rest of the planet.
And the conversation tonight among people far
smarter and better connected (most do work or have worked for various
governments and international organizations) led me to thinking about two basic
dynamics: the short term vs the long term and the intrinsic value of Ukraine
vs. larger principles.
Someone suggested that Putin has won the battle but is
likely to lose the war, if one thinks about Crimea versus the larger effort to
return to Great Power/influence status.
This and other comments got me thinking: that democracies and alliances
tend to be less agile than authoritarian leaders (Russia’s democratic status is
a wee bit suspect and electoral politics does not really seem to be motivating
Putin), so they get out-maneuvered at the start of a crisis. However, democracies tend to win the wars
they fight (I will post links once I return to home at the end of the weekend),
and alliances have often been on the winning side of things for much of the past
two hundred years—from Napoleon’s defeat to both World Wars to the Gulf War of
1991.
Why? Well, democracies might just be more selective about
the wars they fight since politicians hate to lose elections.
A different logic is that democracies can
extract more resources and fighting power from their societies because
legitimacy and representation work better than coercion.
Yet a different logic might be that advanced
democracies have “better” civil-military relations—coups can be mighty
distracting.
Alliances do well in
wartime because more is more—combining the power of multiple countries may not
be so efficient (see the
new book), but even quarreling allies may accumulate
more combat power than countries largely operating on their own.
So we can be very frustrated with how things have played out
thus far, but we might just have good reason to believe that Putin’s momentum
will eventually ebb. Indeed, once we
take into account the other dynamics, it becomes not just a hope but pretty
logical that Putin’s Russia may face some serious constraints.
The second dynamic is when we think about the worth of a
place and the status of a conflict.
Remember, the US got committed to Bosnia not because Bill Clinton cared
about Bosnia but because he made a commitment to two NATO countries, France and
Britain, that he would deploy 25,000 US troops to extract them if needed. Once that became a real likelihood, Clinton
chose to use those troops to enforce a peace instead. The Kosovo air campaign was almost entirely
about maintaining NATO’s credibility and not about the plight of Kosovars. NATO members bled in Afghanistan not so much
because they cared about Afghans but because they were keeping their commitment
to their NATO partner that had been attacked.
We find repeatedly that countries spend vast amounts of money, risk the
lives of their soldiers and even some political careers because the alliance
itself is valued. That is what should
assure the Baltics and Poland now. For
Ukraine, not so much.
But there is a larger principle that Ukraine and its friends
need to play up more: the death of Helsinki.
In 1975, the Helsinki agreement between the US, the Soviet Union and
Europe recognized the existing boundaries, essentially finally producing a
settlement for World War II. The key
ingredient was that force could not be used to change boundaries. Of course, force has continued to be used to
change boundaries—those secessionist movements that use violence fit in this
category. However, since Helsinki, no
country in Europe has used force to change boundaries and gotten away with it
except irredentist Armenia and, well, Russia over Georgia, Abkhazia and now
Crimea. Still, the recent events are
more blatant, and some people in the room tonight suggested that Helsinki might
be dead.
It seems to me that this is a card Ukraine and others can
play. Most countries in the world are
opposed to the use of force to change boundaries since they see themselves as
being on the losing end of such transactions.
This is something that three of the BRICs can agree upon—India, China,
and Brazil (China sees Taiwan and various islands as already theirs), as well
as much of the rest of the world.
Pinning this on Putin helps to isolate him just a bit more. Of course, there are differences among
countries how best to penalize Russia (and for how long). But tying Putin’s efforts to Helsinki is more
likely to attract support from countries that have no real history,
relationship or interests in Ukraine.
And this is where democracies, alliances and priniciples
might fit together. Democracies often
have different interests, including due to varying dependence on Russian exports,
but they share values. NATO is not just
an military alliance but one of coalition of the like-minded. So, perhaps one way ahead to win the longer,
larger war is to focus on the principles that bind us.
That’s what I got from one evening. I expect tomorrow’s full sessions to be even more
stimulating.
