Obama & Russia (Part 4: Ukraine)
A review of the post-Soviet history of Ukraine, followed by a narrative of Maidan and an analysis of how the US and Russia responded to those events
A word of caution here: the political and military situation in Ukraine has been steadily developing since the end of 2013. In history, no source is objective, but this is doubly true for an episode whose proximate events have yet to end, triply true when we consider who might benefit politically from the narrative bending in a certain direction. Whatever I have to say on the matter will not be the whole truth; it may be even less than half truth. All I can do is cite my sources, ask for better ones from those who disagree with me, and plead that we stop treating world affairs like a Marvel movie or Star War. That kind of Manichean outlook is sometimes appropriate, but in world affairs, where people fight and cooperate in a realm murked in grey, it is a perspective that makes only fools.
4.1 A Hobbled Independence
Any analysis of eastern Europe needs to orient itself within the context of the USSR’s demise and collapse. In their final decade in power, the Communists attempted economic reform, trying to retool an economic system that was too geared towards heavy industry and military production (leaving much consumer demand to be filled by an illicit or “shadow” economy). Soviet leaders attempted to introduce, among other things, limited marketization, some private property accumulation, and reduced censorship. This led, entirely without Soviet leaders intending it, to political upheaval rather than mere economic reform. The republics within the USSR voted to secede; client states pushed against their existing governments. Violence was sporadic but generally subdued and the Soviet system ultimately collapsed with an astonishing lack of bloodshed.1
The first post-Soviet years in Ukraine moved from optimism to despair as the economic and political institutions came to be dominated by many of the same “red directors” and members of the former nomenklatura, people who had the access and training to turn once-public property into private fiefdoms. These were the men who dominated Ukrainian politics in the first decade or so after independence. The liberalized economy did allow some new blood on the scene, notably among those actors from the shadow economy (hitherto criminals) who successfully legalized their pre-existing economic power.
Amid the rise of these domestic oligarchs came a surge in foreign investment, prompted by lax laws that favored foreign companies at the expense of the domestic population. Yet despite the foreign investment and the gains promised to the Ukrainian people by neoliberal ideologues and policymakers, the country’s economy collapsed in the decade after independence. In 1990 the Ukrainian GDP was $81.46 billion (1/3 that of Wisconsin); by 1999 GDP had fallen to 38.7% of its Soviet size.2 By that time, some of the foreign-friendly regulations had been repealed, which was one reason that foreign investment into Ukraine slowed considerably into the new millennium. This left economic power firmly in the hands of domestic oligarchs concentrated in the industrialized regions of the east (the Donbas).
While much of Ukraine is relatively homogenous by eastern European standards, a Russian-speaking minority is concentrated in the eastern sector. This was the region that under Soviet rule received the most economic development. And even after the USSR’s collapse, the Ukrainian east maintained very close economic ties to Russia. Most western analysts thus presumed that western Ukrainians, with few linguistic/ethnic and weak economic ties to Russia, favored cooperation with the West and were more “loyal” to the Ukrainian nation than their eastern counterparts, who were drawn closer to Russia’s orbit.3
Economic collapse brought with it a simultaneous evisceration of the existing institutions of Ukrainian infrastructure and welfare, driving many into lives of desperation and crime. Those sectors of the economy that remained relatively vibrant – like heavy industry concentrated in the east – were dependent not only on Russian commercial relations but Russian energy as well. Thus any disagreement with Putin carried with it the possibility of economic catastrophe for Ukraine’s already shrunken economy. Europe also relied heavily on Russian energy, prompting the EU to propose in 2008 the Southern Corridor Pipeline as a way to bypass Russian energy sources.
NATO’s expansion into the former Warsaw Pact countries has already been discussed, as has Putin’s 2008 response to the prospect of Georgia joining the alliance. But while Obama demurred on expanding NATO further when he took the presidency, western efforts to integrate Ukraine did not cease. In May 2009, the EU created the Eastern Partnership Program for six post-Soviet states, including Ukraine. Participants were offered duty-free access to EU markets and visa-free travel, the price of entry being the imposition of EU regulations upon the signatories. Association also carried the prospect of a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA).
Putin countered these overtures with the creation of a Customs Union and later the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), which he saw as a counterweight to Western economic encroachment in the short run and a long-run rival to other economic blocs like the US, EU, or China
Members of the Obama administration also worked to undermine Russian dominance of European energy needs, especially in eastern Europe. As Hillary Clinton relates:
Teams of US energy experts fanned out across Europe to help countries explore alternatives to Russian gas. When I visited Poland in July 2010, Foreign Minister Sikorski and I announced Polish-American cooperation on a global shale gas initiative to capitalize on new extraction technologies in a safe, environmentally sustainable manner.4
The boom in US fossil fuel production, which began under Bush II and flourished under Obama, had an impact on EU energy as well. Since the US no longer needed to import as much foreign material, gas once destined for the United States started finding its way to Europe. This forced Russian firms like Gazprom to compete to a greater degree than hitherto, weaking their power over the energy supply
We can see, then, that in addition to diplomatic disagreements in places like Syria and military disagreements over missile defense, the US and Russia were set for a new round of economic competition, as western powers sought to circumnavigate Russian fossil fuels. Since Russia’s economic recovery (and resurgent military might) depended on energy exports, this would certainly not sit well in the Kremlin.
4.2 Euromaidan
Ukraine’s post-Soviet political history had seen its share of turmoil, notably the 2004 Orange Revolution and the hotly contested presidential election of 2010. These tumults came with controversial constitutional reforms, divisive leadership, and the usual change-based rhetoric that somehow never materialized into concrete action. Yet the country had remained relatively free from the scourge of political violence. That changed in 2014.
The Regional Party dominated Ukrainian politics at this time, commanding patchy support in the west but overwhelming support in the east.
This party was led by then-President Victor Yanukovych, whose corrupt administration vacillated uneasily between the influence of both the US/EU and Russia.
When pushed, he tended to side with Russia, in part because he certainly benefited from Russian campaign financing (John Kerry called him “Putin’s ‘made’ guy”). But corruption in Ukrainian politics was widespread, and his opponents were not bereft of foreign influence or funding. Indeed, since 1991 billions of dollars from US organizations had sought to guide Ukrainian politics.5
As talks with the EU over the free trade agreement proceeded, President Yanukovych simultaneously considered the Eurasian Union trade agreement presented by Russia. Growing frustrated with his exclusion from EU–Ukraine talks, Putin decided to try and force Ukraine’s president to choose the EEU by threatening to ban Ukrainian imports and to raise prices on gas. The pressure from the oligarchs of the eastern Donbas region, who would have felt Putin’s price hikes most acutely, prompted Yanukovych to act, and he refused to sign the DCFTA in late November 2013.
Moderately sized demonstrations in support of DCFTA had been simmering for some time. As Yanukovych evinced opposition to the treaty, these grew into the so-called Euromaidan protests, which espoused a broadly western-focused outlook. The protests continued when Yanukovych refused to sign the treaty, but what really set the heart of protest ablaze was police violence. One night in November, as protests were winding down and the majority-student demonstrators decided to make one last protestant hurrah, the police came out in force, brutalizing and injuring several people. The public reaction was quick and fierce, with protestors flooding the streets of the capital, Kiev.
The fundamental impetus of the demonstrations had now changed. No longer were the protestors on the Maidan Square for closer ties to the EU but against the president and the omnipresent, long-seated lawlessness and corruption that his administration had perpetuated and exacerbated. Euromaidan had become simply Maidan.6
In December 2013, the police again tried to use force to clear the protestors in Kiev but were unsuccessful. In light of this continued violence, EU leaders proclaimed solidarity with the protesters. US undersecretary of state Nuland made a snap visit to the city, engaging with protestors and handing out cookies. This unwanted western attention precluded further government action against the protesters, at least for the time being.
As violence between protestors and police escalated in January 2014, Yanukovych signed a series of laws restricting the right to protest, and hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Kiev in response. Protests spread to the justice ministry building by the end of the month, prompting the parliament to repeal the anti-protest measures. Seeing the situation deteriorating before their eyes, members of Yanukovych’s government began resigning.
February saw unsuccessful attempts at thawing tensions and by the middle of the month street battles were injuring hundreds and killing dozens. Snipers were killing protestors in the streets. Parliament responded to the violence by restoring the 2004 Constitution, thus reducing the power of the presidency. It also granted amnesty to the protestors. Yanukovych soon fled the capital and an interim government was declared on February 24, which issued a warrant for the (former) president’s arrest. On February 28, Yanukovych gave a speech from Russia declaring himself the rightful Ukrainian president. This opened the door for Russian intervention into the “chaos” of Ukrainian politics.
The president’s swift exit from Ukraine has been variously characterized as a revolution, a western-backed coup, a fascist takeover, a man fleeing for his life. It’s certainly true that individual western politicians (like Biden) had personal economic ties in Ukraine. It’s also true that the US/EU wanted Yanukovych gone. And far-right elements were a vocal minority among the protestors and interim government (although when elections were held in late 2014 none of the far right parties gained the necessary minimum 5 per cent of votes required to sit in the parliament).7
With due consideration for the outside influences on the political fortunes of the country, we would do well to remember a few domestic facts: the corruption of his government was real, his abuse of power was real, and the ire of the Ukrainian people was real. Whatever direction the US or Russia tried to push events, Ukrainians themselves had opinions too, and at least a degree of agency. 8
Unfortunately, the protests themselves were not ideological but reactionary, pushing against Yanukovych rather than towards a common goal. This left room for many of the old elites to squirm their way out of facing responsibility for their role in things. Thus the political leaders changed to one degree or another, but the economic realities remained fundamentally neoliberal. And where the economy remains the same, so too the political institutions.
4.3 Russia Reacts
From the Russian standpoint, we should recall that events in Ukraine unfolded right as the Winter Olympics in Sochi were coming to a close. The most expensive Olympic event in history, Putin took on the project as a symbol not only of Russia’s renewed prestige but of his own role in that success story. The toppling of a leader friendly to Russia damaged the idea of Russia as a great power worthy of respect.9
Russia responded to the chaos in Kiev with military action. On February 27, Russian special forces entered Crimea, intent on shoring up Russian control of the peninsula and ensuring continued access to the Russian naval base at Sevastopol, the home of its Black Sea fleet and site of many a legendary Russian battle. This set in motion a series of political events that culminated in the annexation (or incorporation) of Crimea into the Russian Federation by the end of March.
Putin gave a contemporaneous speech laying out his version of events. He characterized what happened in Crimea as a democratic transition away from a Soviet-imposed historical anomaly (Ukrainian control of Crimea) and back towards what was natural and popularly demanded (incorporation of the peninsula into Russia). Pay close attention to Putin’s historical narrative, especially his view of how things went for Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Remember, for Putin Russia and the Soviet Union are two distinct things (despite what ignorant westerners sometimes seem to think).
Do keep in mind that this translation was made in real time and thus suffers from some awkwardness of phrasing.
To understand why this choice was made, we need to take a glimpse into the history of Crimea. We need to understand the value of Crimea to Russia and the importance of Russia to Crimea. Everything is related to Russian history…Crimea has always been an integral part of Russia in the hearts of minds of people. That faith has been preserved and passed on from generation to generation…
The Soviet Union had collapsed. The events unfolded in such a fast way that none of the nations realized the dramatic nature of the event. Many people in Ukraine and Russia and other former Soviet republics believed that the new commonwealth of independent states would become a new statehood because they were promised one single currency, a common economic space, one single armed forces. But that remained just on paper. We didn’t see a new big country emerging. And when Crimea ended up in a different state, Russia realized that it was not just robbed but robbed in broad daylight. And we have to admit that Russia itself contributed to that process by asking everyone to take as many sovereignty as possible…
Many activists and citizens raised that issue. Many said that Crimea is a Russian land, that Sevastopol is a Russian city. We all realized that, we felt that in our hearts. But we had to live with the realities. We had to build on that, to work with Ukraine, with our fraternal nation. These relations have always and will always be the most important ones - and I’m not exaggerating…
We need good relations with Ukraine; that was the most important thing and it shouldn’t be held hostage to some territorial issues. But we believed that Ukraine would serve as a good neighbor, that Russian speaking people would live in a democratic, civilized, friendly state, that legal rights would be assured according to the norms of international law. These were our hopes. But the situation unfolded in a completely different way. We’ve seen attempts to ban the Russian language and to assimilate the Russian population. And of course Russians, just like other minorities, suffered from the constant political crises that Ukraine’s been going through for twenty years. I realize why people in Ukraine wanted change…
I sympathize with those who were on Maidan with peaceful slogans. They spoke against misery and poverty…Those who were behind the latest events in Ukraine had other goals in mind. They wanted to stage a coup, another coup. They wanted to seize power regardless of anything. They’ve used terror, violence, and murders and pogroms. Who executed that? Neo-Nazis, nationalists, and anti-Semites…
We wanted to have a genuine dialogue with the West. We’re always up for cooperation on a variety of issues. We want to build confidence; we want to work on an equitable basis; we want to have honest relations. But we didn’t see any reciprocity. We were cheated. We were deceived. Some decisions were taken behind our back. And the same was with NATO’s expansion to the east. The same was with deployment of military infrastructure near our borders. We were given the same mantra; they said, ‘Well, it’s none of your business.’ But well, you could say that easily, of course. But we couldn’t swallow that. That was the same with the deployment of missile defense that’s still going on despite our fears. That was the same with the procrastination on the visa agreement and the now we’re threatened with sanctions. But we’re living in a world of limits that have been imposed upon us…
That is why we believe that the policy [in place since] the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries [is] still there. We’re always being cornered. And that’s simply because we have an independent position, that we are defending it, that we call a spade a spade, that we don’t - we are not hypocritical. But everything has its limits and in the case of Ukraine our western partners have crossed a line, a red line. They’ve been unprofessional. They’ve been irresponsible.10
Let’s repeat Putin’s argument in brief, since most commentators spend so little time doing so. Like any conservative, his narrative starts in an arbitrary and idyllic past, in this case with the idea that Crimea has always been integral to Russia (an entity that is left vague and undefined). The Bolsheviks, for their own political reasons, gave Ukraine control over Crimea. In the chaos of Soviet collapse, this injustice was allowed to continue. In this way and so many others, Russia was robbed. Despite universal feeling that Sevastopol and Crimea were Russian, the new federation tried to work with Ukraine as a brother nation. But Ukraine shirked its duty as a good, civilized neighbor when it failed to protect ethnic Russians inside its borders. Maidan protestors had admirable goals but were coopted by neo-Nazis, nationalists, antisemites who couped the Ukrainian government, thus threatening ethnics Russians even more. On the other hand, honest and equitable relations with the West were done in by cheating and by military expansionism. Russia can no longer swallow these centuries-old limitations that have always pushed Russia into a corner.
During this time, the price Russia charged Ukraine for natural gas skyrocketed some 80 percent, which threatened to cripple the economy of a country already undergoing political upheaval.
By April, Russia had amassed perhaps 40,000 troops in a state of high readiness just across Ukraine’s border, ostensibly ready to protect ethnic Russians living in Ukraine that might fall prey to violence amid the country’s chaotic political situation. Russia and its local allies and proxies soon began conducting attacks across several cities in eastern Ukraine. In Donetsk, Luhansk, and several other eastern cities, anti-government (or pro-Russia) militias seized government buildings and erected checkpoints. Observers noted some of the soldiers wearing Russian-issue equipment and lacking any identifying insignia, acting with military precision. This prompted suspicion among many that these were not legitimate Ukrainian actors, but Russian special forces or Russian-trained agents. The Ukrainian interim government demanded that the soldiers surrender, but when they refused, the government asked the UN to send in peacekeepers.
Combat escalated through April, with increasing involvement of Russian equipment and soldiers fighting against a disorganized Ukrainian military reliant upon volunteer battalions and local militias. Trying to placate the demands voiced by separatist groups, the central government agreed to hold referenda in the eastern cities so they could vote on whether those areas should be granted more autonomy. When held, these referenda were accused by many to be fraudulent. In any event, they did nothing to diffuse the situation.
At the end of May, a new Ukrainian president, the billionaire Poroshenko, took office in the wake of an unprecedented electoral landslide.
He urged peace in the east amid fierce and escalating battles between pro-government and separatist forces. His government also promised fundamental reform (echoes of Maidan). Much of this, however, ultimately took a back seat to the war effort.
On June 27, Poroshenko signed the association agreement with the EU. That summer, pro-government forces also achieved several victories. Separatists tried to salvage their weakening situation by deploying increasingly sophisticated weaponry, including surface-to-air missiles (SAM) and several Ukrainian planes were shot down, possibly by Russian forces inside Ukraine. On July 17, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down over Donetsk, probably by a Russian-issued SAM.11 This caused international outcry and threatened to escalate the war beyond the region.
In late August, after a summer of success, pro-government forces experienced severe setbacks, which the Ukrainian government blamed on the direct intervention of large numbers of Russian soldiers. NATO bolstered this claim, estimating more than 1,000 Russian soldiers had entered Ukraine. The equipment and troops Russia provided to their allies and surrogates in Ukraine did much to hamper the government’s war effort, but could not shift the initiative in favor of the separatists. By year’s end, the battlelines had stalemated, with only about 7% of Ukrainian territory remaining under separatist control.12
4.4 The Initial US Response
As the conflict unfolded on the nightly news, high-profile US politicians and intellectuals began beating the war drums, comparing Putin to Hitler and de-escalation (by implication) to Munich-level appeasement.
On March 3, president Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezisnki called Putin:
a partially comical imitation of Mussolini and a more menacing reminder of Hitler.
On March 5, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.):
If Putin is allowed to go into a sovereign nation on behalf of Russian-speaking people, this is the same thing that Hitler did prior to World War II.
That same day, Hillary Clinton said:
…it’s what Hitler did back in the 30s. ... Hitler kept saying [German citizens abroad were] not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous.
On March 20, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) asserted:
Claims that [Russia] needed to move into a neighboring country to protect an ethnic group tied to them is certainly similar to the argument that Hitler made in the 1930s.13
Amid these fiery historical analogues, the Obama administration acted. On March 4, secretary of state John Kerry visited Kiev, condemning Russia's attempt to redraw borders "at the barrel of a gun" (forgetting the US role in collapsing Libya into Civil War). He announced an initial $16.4 million to help Ukrainians “at a moment of difficult transition.” Additional details soon emerged: a $1 billion loan guarantee, technical assistance for Ukraine’s finance and election infrastructure, help in recovering assets said to be stolen by the Yanukovych administration, and economic sanctions against Russia.14
On March 17, these "scalpel" sanctions against Putin took effect, causing noteworthy disruption to the Russian economy. Some $70 billion in capital fled the Russian financial system in the first quarter of 2014, more than all the previous year. Growth estimates for 2014 were revised downward by two to three percentage points. Russia’s Central Bank had to use billions of dollars to defend Russia’s currency, depleting the country’s cash reserves.15
Other than aid and sanctions, Obama was not willing to thrust himself too deeply into the situation. Obama told NBC in March 2014:
We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine,” . “What we are going to do is mobilize all of our diplomatic resources to make sure that we’ve got a strong international correlation that sends a clear message.16
On the diplomatic front, the Obama team preferred to let the Germans, French, Ukrainians, and Russians take the lead. This, argued officials like Kerry (although one suspects he did not agree with this line of reasoning at the time), put responsibility on Europe to stay united on Ukraine, while hopefully deflating Putin’s fears that this was turning into a US-Russia proxy fight.
Mutual disagreement initially hampered negotiations, but by mid-April the US, Russia, Ukraine, and the EU signed the Geneva Accords. The signatories agreed to end the violence, disarm illegal groups, and provide amnesty for protesters.17
Also in April, vice president Biden visited Kiev, promising $50 million in aid. He also threatened heavier sanctions against Russia if they failed to uphold their end of the recently-signed accords. Fighting in the east of Ukraine, however, grew ever-more violent and Geneva broke down amid civil war.
Sanctions seemed to be having some effect, but how quickly would economics ripple their way onto the battlefield? Diplomacy foundered. That left the military option. Ever since the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, several major Obama administration officials had been advocating military aid to Ukraine. These advocates included secretary of state John Kerry, undersecretary Victoria Nuland, defense secretary Ash Carter, and general Philip Breedlove, the supreme allied commander for NATO. While Obama did agree to begin issuing more material aid to Ukraine, he did so slowly, ever-wary of escalating a conflict that involved the world’s other major nuclear power.18
US aid began with $33 million worth of bomb-disposal equipment, radios, and engineering equipment. Intelligence sharing also occurred at this time, although it did not include up-to-date targeting information. Amid bipartisan calls in Congress to do more by supplying weapons, ammunition, military vehicles, and training, the Obama team debated whether or not to send direct military aid, including more intelligence. This discussion continued through the summer of 2014.19
In September another round of diplomacy came to fruition with the Minsk agreement, a ceasefire that slowed but did not stop the violence. Russia, claiming not to be involved in the conflict, did not sign the agreement, denuding it of any decisive impact. The ceasefire was completely broken by early 2015 and violence resumed previous levels.
That same month, Obama gave a speech in one of the smallest members of NATO, Estonia. He lauded the Baltic states for not just winning their freedom but laboring to create vibrant and democratic countries that took both their freedom and their security seriously. He condemned Russia’s actions in Ukraine but kept his focus on what NATO could do to bolster its own security, and in so doing enhance the security of Europe more generally.
But the people of the Baltic nations always knew that freedom needs a foundation of security. So you reached out to join the NATO alliance. And we were proud to welcome you as new allies, so that those words in your constitution, your timeless independence will always be guaranteed by the strongest military alliance the world has ever known…
And yet, we as we gather here today, we know that this vision is threatened by Russia’s invasion against Ukraine. It is a brazen assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, a sovereign and independent European nation. It challenges that most basic principle of our international system - that borders cannot be redrawn at the barrel of a gun, that nations have the right to determine their own future. It undermines an international order where the rights of peoples and nations are upheld and cannot simply be taken away by brute force. This is what’s at stake in Ukraine. This is why we stand with the people of Ukraine today.
We reject any talk of spheres of influence today. And just as we never accepted the occupation and illegal annexation of the Baltic nations, we will not accept Russia’s occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea or any part of Ukraine. As free peoples, as an alliance we will stand firm and united to meet the test of this moment. And here’s how. First we will defend our NATO allies - and that means every ally…
Second, and in addition to the measures we’ve already taken, the United States is working to bolster the security of our NATO allies and further increase America’s military presence in Europe…Third, NATO forces need the ability to deploy even faster in times of crisis…Fourth, even as we keep our countries strong at home, we need to keep our alliance strong for the future. That means investing in the capabilities like intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, and missile defense. And here in Europe, nations need to do more to spur the growth and prosperity that sustains our alliance…Fifth, we must continue to stand united against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine…
And this brings me to the final area where our nations have to come together: in our steadfast support for those who reach for their freedom - and yes that includes the people of Ukraine. Few understand this better than the Baltic peoples; you know from bitter experience that we can never take our security and liberties for granted.20
Pointedly, this presidential pledge involved only other NATO members – an alliance Ukraine was still not party to. Emphasizing the importance of Article V, in the context of what could plausibly be characterized as a Russian invasion of Ukraine, clearly implied that the US would not intervene directly in the confrontation. The red line in this case extended only as far as NATO’s borders.
On February 12, 2015, the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany agreed on a 12-point peace plan (Minsk II) that proposed, among other things, the cessation of fighting, the withdrawal of heavy weapons, the release of prisoners, and the removal of foreign troops from Ukrainian territory. The tenuous peace held, and heavy weapons were pulled back by both sides in early September 2015. The conflict froze at a low level for the remainder of Obama’s presidency.
Amid this strategic stalemate, Obama and the US Congress steadily increased the aid going to Ukraine. By March 2015, the US had committed more than $120 million worth of equipment to Ukraine and had pledged an additional $75 million worth of equipment including UAVs, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices, medical supplies, and 200+ armored Humvees. This flow of material and munitions would escalate across three presidents, and by the end of 2021 some $2.5 billion in support had been provided.21
4.5 A More Belligerent Posture
Lack of US escalation in Ukraine did not mean, however, that the US was passive in the face of a resurgent Russia. Wanting to avoid an escalated military confrontation in Ukraine did not mean that Obama’s government wasn’t going to act at all. Indeed, from 2014 onwards the Obama administration adopted a much more muscular posture towards Russia.
This began in the fall of 2014, when NATO established the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, a unit designed to be able to deploy on forty-eight hours’ notice from multiple locations in Europe to any crisis on NATO territory. This sense of “high readiness” was evinced in US policy as well, first through the decisions of Obama’s final Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter (2015-2016) and second through Obama’s latter-day missile defense posture.
4.5.1 Ash Carter
In his memoirs, the defense secretary catalogues the threatening actions Russia committed in the present and near past. His rendition may not be wholly accurate, but his rendition gives voice to how a foreign policy liberal, committed to a world governed by US-led institutions rather than a balance of great powers, saw the Russian threat. As he put it:
In Europe, Russia is behaving in a manner reminiscent of nineteenth-century great-power rivalries, rather than one befitting a responsible member of the modern international community.22
(The meaning of an adjective like “responsible” in this context is, of course, up for debate.)
He cites a litany of Russian misdeeds: using political, economic, and military power to undermine the sovereignty of its neighbors (Georgia and Ukraine); intimidating other countries like Sweden, Finland, and the Baltic states; violating international agreements (e.g., UN Charter); using disinformation to undermine institutions like NATO and the European Union; interfering in US and EU election processes to further its own aims and objectives.
Within Russia itself, Carter also notes that Putin’s government had been “aggressively modernizing its warfighting doctrine and its military capabilities,” using these reinvigorated capabilities to undue the liberal order built up after 1991.23 With an eye to flexing on others, Russia carried out major military exercises on its borderlands, reintroduced large-scale no-notice, or “snap,” exercises that sowed fear and uncertainty among foreign onlookers, violated the airspace of neighboring countries, and intercepted US and NATO ships and aircraft operating in international waters and airspace.
Finally, Carter notes developments in the area of nuclear arms, where Russia had allocated funds to retool and modernize its arsenal of apocalypse. More alarming still, according to Carter, Russian leaders had begun asserting that they considered nuclear arms as legitimate options to deter or prevent the United States from coming to the aid of its European allies. They also reneged on their commitments to several treaties related to nuclear weapons.24
Some within the administration remained unconvinced that Russia constituted an “existential threat” (Carter’s words) to the United States. But by this point Obama had come around to seeing Russia as more of a threat than back in 2012. During that year’s presidential election, Obama had derided his opponent Mitt Romney for characterizing Russia as an S-Tier opponent. Now, Obama supported Carter’s initiatives within the Department of Defense to retool US policy in the face of Russian “aggressiveness.”
These changes included both immediate and longer-term projects. In the short term the US augmented their permanently stationed or continually deployed forces in Europe with additional Army brigade combat teams, tanks, artillery, armored personnel carriers, and tactical aircraft. In the long-term, policymakers initiated technology-focused endeavors designed to quicken any US response to Russian aggression, ranging from the deployment of new unmanned systems and enhanced ground-based air and missile defenses, to further research into new weapons platforms (long-range anti-ship weapons, a new long-range strike bomber, electromagnetic railguns, lasers), and even a push into the realm of cyberwarfare (keep this in mind when we discuss Russian hacking in the 2016 US election).
Rounding out these new deployments and technological advancements, Carter reinstituted the kind of Russia-focused military planning among NATO countries not seen since the Cold War era, with formal war planning and a new “playbook” that accounted for recent developments in Russian military doctrine (eg hybrid warfare and disinformation), as well as the realities of defending NATO’s expanded borders.25
Through it all, says Carter, “The president supported all the increases in spending and deployment I called for.”26
4.5.2 Missile Defense Revisited
The July 2016 NATO Summit at Warsaw witnessed the official declaration of an Initial Operational Capability of NATO’s Ballistic Missile Defense system. This meant that elements included in the first two phases of the EPAA (ship-based weapons and a deployment to Poland) were able to work together under NATO command and NATO control. Coupled with the renewed coordination among NATO members against Russia, the fact that NATO now controlled these anti-missile installations gave them an anti-Russia focus that had not been admitted to back in 2009. Remember that Obama had initially insisted that the missile defenses were to be used against rogue states like Iran or North Korea and were not targeted at Russia.
Obama thus solidified the missile defense posture pioneered under George W Bush, a full-throated departure from the Cold War view of missile defense as strictly a foreign policy liability. Back then, it was thought that investment in missile defense would prompt the ever-spiraling development of offensive countermeasures that could only push the world towards apocalypse. Missile defense was now firmly established among US policymakers as a legitimate deterrent to enemies and a reassurance to allies.27
From the Russian perspective, the strategic nuclear parity it had maintained with the West now seemed fundamentally in jeopardy. Concerned when W Bush abrogated the ABM Treaty in 2002, suspicious when Obama continued to support missile defense in 2009, shut out of a purportedly anti-Iran defense system, and now confronting a NATO with access to US anti-ballistic missile defenses, Russia reacted by pouring ever-greater sums of money into modernizing its nuclear arsenal. We saw earlier how defense secretary Carter characterized this nuclear modernization as a sign of Russian aggression, but clearly it’s a little more complicated than that. The Russians saw this as a defensive measure.
The tail end of Obama’s presidency, therefore, stood in stark contrast to its beginning. While New START had succeeded in drastically reducing the number of nuclear arms within both countries, the persistent and deepening tensions between Washington and Moscow, especially in the realm of US efforts at missile defense, had prompted Russia to react. The US, in turn, would cite Russian modernization efforts as cause for its own multi-billion-dollar countermeasures. A new nuclear arms race had begun.
Beginning in the mid-2000s, Russian leaders initiated several programs to modernize Russia’s land-based ICBM arsenal, with funding currently focused on the completion of the RS-28 Sarmat as the new mainstay delivery system of the Russian arsenal. For the navy, Russia is building five more Borey-Class SSBNs, joining the three already in service – and they may order more still. In 2018, after years of trial and error, the new missile system for these submarines, the Bulava, was accepted for service. For the air force, Russian developers are also working on a new long-range bomber, the PAK-DA, which they hope will be subsonic but stealth-capable.28
Under Obama’s tenure, the US invested much energy into nuclear modernization. It transformed its main hydrogen bomb (the B61) into a guided smart weapon, made its submarine-launched nuclear missiles five times more accurate, and gave its land-based long-range missiles so many added features that the Air Force in 2012 described them as “basically new.” To deliver these more lethal weapons, military contractors are currently building new heavy bombers, with Northrop Grumman contracted to build up to one hundred. The Navy is getting a dozen Columbia-Class submarines to replace its decades-old fleet of SSBNs. Expenditures for these projects were overwhelmingly approved by an apparently intractable Congress and continued at a hastened pace under the Trump administration, whose Department of Defense recommended a vast modernization and overhaul of the US nuclear arsenal. In 2020 Northrop Grumman received a contract to build a new ICBM, the GBSD. The potential costs for nuclear modernization, if implemented to the fullest extent recommended by advocates, could top $1.5 trillion.29
These developments should outrage any sane person, and not just because of the annoying number of acronyms or because we could be spending that money to feed, house, care for, and educate people instead of incinerating them. Historically, the United States has pursued a “strike-first” nuclear policy, meaning that, if provoked by some nebulous action, the US would use its nuclear weapons to defend its homeland, its allies, or its vital interests. Although planners generally hoped that the use of nuclear weapons could remain limited to a particular country, region, or continent, they admitted that this policy could trigger an all-out nuclear war. Even in this catastrophic scenario, many planners, thinkers, leaders, and generals still held out hope for victory, even if that meant the existence of one living American to zero living Russians.
This outlook did not end with the Cold War. Recall that in 2010 Obama reaffirmed NATO as a “nuclear alliance.” Packed within that nebulous phrase is the legacy of the nuclear first strike. Unsurprisingly, the election of Trump did not prompt any change in this existing policy. In the year of our lord 2017, the Department of Defense loudly reminded the world of this apocalyptic continuity when it reaffirmed that the United States would use nuclear weapons to defend its “vital interests,” as if nuclear war were something to be understood in the language of Clausewitz or Bismarck, in the realm of realpolitik. As already mentioned, Putin’s government (in a departure from Soviet doctrine) has shifted in this direction as well, using language similar to US leaders when discussing the use of nuclear arms.30
Humanity has enough on its plate trying to deal with climate change, a problem made obdurate by its scientific complexity, the fact that the human activity causing it is integral to the world’s most powerful economies, and the reality that those who control economic (and therefore much political) power in the developed world are not keen on relinquishing that power, on changing the system that has benefited them so much, even at the cost of environmental catastrophe. Do we really need another apocalypse, this one frustratingly simple to avoid, added to the mix? The politically correct may cancel me for this opinion, but I say No.
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Ibid.
Ibid.
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Romero, Abel, “Thanks Obama: Tracking the President’s Missile Defense Embrace,” https://tinyurl.com/yuadpz4z
NTI, “Russia Nuclear Overview,” https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/russia-nuclear/; as of 2022, Russia may have switched away from PAK-DA development in favor of modernizing the Tu-160, Litovkin, Nikolay, “Upgraded version of Russia’s most powerful strategic bomber takes to the skies,” https://tinyurl.com/2dv7ywud
Paltrow, Scot, “Special Report: In modernizing nuclear arsenal, U.S. stokes new arms race,” https://tinyurl.com/5n97erek; NTI. United States Overview. https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/united-states-overview/; Thompson, Loren, “Obama Backs Biggest Nuclear Arms Buildup Since Cold War,” https://tinyurl.com/mwjmkh4k; Northrop Grumman, “GBSD,” https://tinyurl.com/45x2e522
Kaplan, Fred. The Bomb: Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War (2020)