Tag: Edward Luttwak

The Ukraine War

Ukrainian President Zelensky says his country will file an expedited application to join NATO immediately. “’De facto, we have already proven interoperability with the Alliance’s standards, they are real for Ukraine — real on the battlefield and in all aspects of our interaction,’ Zelensky said. ‘Today, Ukraine is applying to make it de jure.”  “Zelensky says Ukraine filing expedited application to join NATO”  This reverses Zelensky’s statements he made in March of his willingness to stay out of NATO.

NATO members should just say no.  Hell no! After successfully serving to protect the West from the USSR, post-Soviet NATO has become a liability. After breaking our promise not to expand NATO further east in exchange for Russia’s agreement to the reunification of Germany, NATO has done nothing but cause problems.

In December 2021, Russia released an eight-point draft treaty to prevent its invasion of Ukraine. At the top of its list was no NATO membership for Ukraine. Soon after Russia’s invasion, President Zelensky offered to give up seeking NATO membership and agreed to much of what Russia demanded. The status of the largely Russian Donetsk and Lugansk was the largest sticking point. For reasons I totally fail to understand, the United States and its NATO allies refused to remove Ukraine’s NATO membership from the table while stating that membership was not a near term prospect. “Ukraine-Russia-NATO”

In March, following Russia’s stalled Feb 23 attack on Kyiv, representatives of Russia and Ukraine met at Belovezhskaya Pushcha, on the border of Poland and Belarus, for initial ceasefire talks.

Putin made six key demands:

  1. No NATO membership and a neutral position.
  2. Russian should be the second official language of Ukraine, with laws prohibiting it abolished.
  3. Recognize Crimea as Russian territory.
  4. Recognize the independence of Donetsk and Lugansk.
  5. Demilitarization of Ukraine and abandonment of weapons that could be a threat to the Kremlin.
  6. Banning of ultra-nationalist parties and organizations in Ukraine.

Of these, only #4 would be difficult for Ukraine to accept, but no agreement was reached, and the fighting continued with more and more Western support.  “Ukraine’s and Russia’s war”  The U.S. and NATO can bring Ukraine to the peace table anytime they want (by threatening to end their military and financial support).  No compromise agreement was reached in December, February, March or beyond. And NATO keeps expanding. Why? Why is the U.S. and NATO not pushing to make a peace agreement happen? If Russia still thinks it can come out ahead, China, India and others should convince it otherwise.

In a recent column in the Washington Post former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen, former U.S. senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and former U.S. energy secretary Ernest J. Moniz, all of whom serve on the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s board of directors urged China to step forward:

“The most sensible policy choice for China is to wield its unique position of influence to encourage more “rational” decision-making by Putin. In particular, President Xi must make clear to Putin that nuclear use is a line he must not cross and that nuclear saber-rattling itself threatens the global nuclear order….  The United States and China can — and must — now work together with Europe and other nations to help end this war on the “just terms” called for by Biden in his speech to the United Nations.” “Xi Putin Ukraine nuclear arms”  

Every few months, I have urged us to stop this destructive war now. As winter approaches Europe with mounting energy shortages, I say it again. Stop it now.   “End the war in Ukraine”

End the war in Ukraine

With regard to Russia’s war in Ukraine, are you in the “peace camp” or the “Justice camp”? Do you want a peace agreement to end the war or do you want to punish Russia for the terrible things it has done no matter how long it takes?  “The Economist on Ukraine” It is rarely wise to take strategic decisions when enraged by someone’s behavior. It is currently hard not to want to flatten Russia for its illegal and brutal war with Ukraine (the Justice camp) but it would not be in our or the world’s interest to do so (Peace camp).  “The Russian war in Ukraine”

Everyone will suffer from continuing the war even without escalation. The world will suffer serious food shortages, oil and gas shortages, disruption and reorganization of the global trading system, and Ukraine and its economy will be in ruins.  And no one should forget that Russia is a nuclear power, in fact it has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

Ukraine President Zelensky said that he is willing to keep Ukraine neutral and out of NATO (but in the EU). He also demanded that Russia withdraw to the territories it occupied on February 23, 2022, which included the Crimea and parts of the largely Russian speaking Donbas. In a face-to-face interview with the managing editor of the Economist magazine on March 27 and as quoted in my blog above, Zelensky stated that: “Victory is being able to save as many lives as possible…because without this nothing would make sense. Our land is important, yes, but ultimately, it’s just territory.”

But on April 17, “President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN that Ukraine is not willing to give up territory in the eastern part of the country to end the war with Russia.”   “Zelensky Russia war tapper interview-cnn-tv”  

Speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum last week, Henry Kissinger stated that “it’s time to think about a diplomatic settlement to end the war, and that settlement will have to include territorial concessions to Russia. ‘Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante,’ referring to the pre-war lines in which Russia controlled the Crimean Peninsula and approximately a third of territory in the Donbas. ‘Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.’” “Does Henry Kissinger have a point?”

It is politically very difficult for either Ukraine or Russia to give up territory they hold or aspire to.  Edward Luttwak, a strategist and author of “The Logic of War and Peace” among many other books, has proposed a solution to this political dilemma, which like all political compromises should be acceptable to both sides without being fully satisfactory to either.  He proposes to settle the territorial issues via an internationally supervised plebiscite for determining the fate of each Oblast:

“That leaves the disposition of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, substantial territories that Zelensky does not have the authority to give up, and without which Putin cannot leave the table where he has gambled and lost so much. While Putin cannot be given the two regions he demanded before starting the war, he can be provided with something that he can portray as a victory: plebiscites in both regions where properly certified residents, including returning refugees, would be allowed to vote on whether their oblast should remain Ukrainian or join Russia.

“Upon acceptance of the plebiscites in principle, a cease-fire would come into immediate effect, with Russia’s respect of their terms guaranteed by the ease of reimposing sanctions just lifted.”  “How the Ukraine war must end”  Allowing the residents of each region to determine their own affiliation can hardly be objectionable to the rest of us.

The Justice Camp and the military industry that cheers it on should yield to the Peace Camp in the interest of all of us.  “Ukraine’s and Russia’s war”

Syria and the Red Line

On August 21, 2013, a chemical weapons attack killed 1,429 men, women and children on the outskirts of Damascus. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry attribute the horrifying attack to the Assad government. The Geneva Protocol of 1925, the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, and the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 forbid the use of chemical weapons. The use of force to punish violators of the ban may be authorized by the UN Security Council. The United States is not unilaterally authorized under international law to do so.

President Obama continues to surprise me. Despite over a 100,000 casualties in Syria’s two-year plus civil war, he has wisely resisted direct involvement in a conflict that the U.S. has no obvious self-interest in. We have no real control over the unfolding events and outcome of the struggle underway there. Unfortunately, there is no plausible outcome that serves our interest in peace and democracy in the region much less in having a friendly regime. There is no obvious successor to Assad’s regime, though radical Islamism (al Qaeda) forces seem to currently dominate the anti-government forces. Edward Luttwak argues in a NY Times op-ed that a stalemate is the least bad of bad options. “In-Syria America Loses if Either Side Wins”

Obama then foolishly drew a red line against the Assad regime’s use of chemical weapons. It now seems very likely that Assad has crossed it in a big way. If the U.S. does not act decisively it will lose credibility and its red lines will become meaningless. If it acts, as Obama has suggested, in a limited, “surgical” manner that does not tip the balance of Syria’s civil war, will it have “taught” Assad a lesson that will detour him from using chemical weapons in the future? More likely it will affirm U.S. powerlessness in the area. And what about the inevitable collateral damage even if our rockets hit their intended targets and Syria’s unpredictable countermeasures? In a statement released September 1, the International Crisis Group stated that: “To precisely gauge in advance the impact of a U.S. military attack, regardless of its scope and of efforts to carefully calibrate it, by definition is a fool’s errand…. Consequences almost certainly will be unpredictable.” “Syria Statement”

In a letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated that: “As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome. Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.” More recently he added that: “Simply the application of force rarely produces and, in fact, maybe never produce the outcome we seek.” According to Daniel Byman of Brookings Institute “A limited bombing campaign against Syria’s chemical weapons infrastructure is likely to produce the worst of all worlds: raising expectations and further involving the United States in the Syrian civil war without significantly altering the balance of forces on the ground.” “Syria Crisis-Military Action”

Syria’s use of chemical weapons without consequences could render their prohibition toothless. However, not only is the US not legally authorized to police world agreements, it can’t afford to go into another war and still remain economically and militarily strong. Given Russian and Chinese opposition, the UN Security Council will not authorize the use of force. A U.S. attack on Syria would violate international law every bit as much as Syria’s apparent use of chemical weapons has. That does not mean that nothing can be done within the framework of the law in reaction to the use of chemical weapons. If we continue to disregard international law, why would we expect others to abide by it? Globalization, which has dramatically reduced poverty around the world, would suffer. We would be left to police the world by military force (and how has that been working for us?) until we burned ourselves out.

In his rose garden address to the nation Saturday the President said that: “I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets….  And I’m prepared to give that order.” His surprise, however, was his promise to seek Congress’s authorization, something he had not considered necessary for Libya. “But having made my decision as Commander-in-Chief based on what I am convinced is our national security interests,… I will seek authorization for the use of force from the American people’s representatives in Congress.” Regrettably he did not seem to seek this authorization as a legal requirement of the constitution but rather as a pragmatic way to build public support. What ever his reason the step is welcomed.

Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith reviewed the legal arguments over the President’s war powers in a recent New York Times article: “What Happened to the Rule of Law?”  The Obama administration has pushed Presidential authority further than any previous administration. A return to the rule of law, domestically and internationally, is America’s best chance of survival in a dramatically changing world.

Congress should say no to Obama’s request for an illegal and unpromising attack on Syria. But we can thank him for asking.