Note: The following is a guest post from Mlada Bukovansky, Professor of Government at Smith College.
The word freedom has to come into it, when speaking of the Ukraine crisis. It has become exceptionally difficult to use that term without wincing in the post-Bush era, but still I think it needs to be said. I was speaking to my mother about Ukraine and inevitably Czechoslovakia 1968 came up. I could hear in her voice the urgency and echoes of the passion that accompanied our fleeing Prague in August of that year. There would be no more freedom there. She said those who stayed behind were “doomed.” That included her own father, and many other family members besides. My initial reaction to her use of the term – doomed – was to dismiss it as hyperbolic, and that it may be, but I know what she means.
The power politics and legitimacy of the interests involved, the hypocritical orientation to international law by all sides, the lack of will by the U.S., the EU, and NATO to do anything painful in response to the annexation of the Crimea, as well as the assignation of blame for what triggered the violence in Ukraine has been well covered in many threads, from many angles. What is pressing me to write now, though, is the sense that not enough attention has gone to what will happen, and what has already happened, as in Georgia, to the people coming into Putin’s orbit. They are losing their freedom, and by that I mean something very specific. They are losing what can be called republican freedom (again, take your mind off Bush, please) – the freedom from arbitrary power. Because that is what Putin is exercising: arbitrary power with little restraint (I won’t say no restraint). He is of course not alone in this in our world, and there are arguably far worse villains operating with impunity, but he is operating so in Europe, and as tired and elitist a cliché as that may sound, this makes a difference. Because presumably European institutions, as so the American institutions which share their core ideals, are designed to restrain arbitrary power – that is arguably the central and most critical mechanism from which many of our other advantages and capacities emanate.
Back before the end of the Cold War blurred our vision there was an international mechanism that could, however imperfectly, be operationalized to restrain arbitrary power on a broader scale, outside the domestic arena, and that was the balance of power. Vilified though it was by Hamilton and the Federalists, not to mention Wilsonians and other idealists, it has periodically had idealizers of its own. Because the U.S. and its European allies have somehow assumed that “victory” in the Cold War meant that such balancing was no longer needed — partly because of some mistaken impression that the battle was over ideology and that “ours” had “won”, but partly also because of an aversion to the bloodshed we attribute to the history of that balance of power system – we changed our foreign policy orientation to one of putting out fires in marginal trouble spots and “integrating” or socializing rising powers to “our” liberal order. Perhaps thereby diluting it beyond recognition. But that narrative of socialization appears to have run its course, at least for now.
So I would like to put in a plug for freedom as a moral criterion with which to assess the current crisis. Because we do need to assess it through a moral and not just strategic or social scientific lens. Otherwise, why bother doing anything at all? However fraught that ideal of freedom may be, there are worse guiding principles. It need not be universally applicable, nor generalizable in some broad way, in order to be a powerful element in any judgment or decision about to view the expansion of Russian power into the lands that bridge east and west.
I asked my mother, what you would have us do; what do you think can be done? She did not have an answer, and neither do I. But I do know that we should be knocked out of our complacency about the spread and viability of our liberal order by what is happening in Ukraine.
Completely agree that this is a moral issue of freedom. Where I absolutely cannot agree with you is that Europe matters more than anywhere else. I cannot countenance the murderous annexation of East Timor by Indonesia any more than the annexation of Crimea. The fact that the West has yet to atone for its sins and still cares less about the “non-Western” world is one reason why the moral argument remains coloured by hypocrisy for many. By all means, freedom for Crimea and Russia, no less for Tibet.
Jake Rabas, I did not mean that Europe is more important, in some categorical way, than Tibet or East Timor. To use the universalizability criterion for a principle, though, can be paralyzing. There is a reason in my mind as to why we should care about a particular place at a particular time — it doesn’t mean we care about other places less. I do think we have a greater responsibility to act in some places rather than others. It is hard to say that, because in our world we are so influenced Kant and think our principles must be universalizable to be valid. I find that universalizability criterion paralyzing. I have been and continue to work on the hypocrisy issue in my scholarly work.
Mlada, I appreciate your thoughtful response. I don’t mean to suggest that you are guilty of Eurocentrism, but that we all really are. You are right that insisting on the universality criterion is paralyzing. In many ways this plays into Putin’s propaganda that always throws the “West’s” accusations back in our faces, as if the two were equivalent. However, the propaganda wouldn’t be so effective if it had no basis in reality at all. Europe has been treated as categorically different than anywhere else. It’s emotionally difficult for me to study SE Asia for example and observe the lack of accountability for the collateral damage of the Cold War. More than that, the lack of concern or awareness at all. This makes it tough to see the overwhelming concern for an as yet fairly bloodless land grab. This isn’t fair to Ukrainians and I know they should not bear the burden of these injustices. If this leads to a renewed concern for freedom in Europe that is a good outcome. However, I think it should also lead to a re-evaluation of our own past. In many ways Putin is showing us an image of our own past, when sacrificing human freedom and life on the altar of geopolitics was de rigeur.
Prof. Bukovansky. I apologize for my knee-jerk reaction to your post. Upon reflection I see the argument you were making. I read one part and it sort of hit a particular nerve of mine. A couple of things I’m trying to tease out. Why, in particular, is Crimea so important? One argument is the simple need not to allow an irredentist precedent to be set. But, I have a hard time seeing a land grab in many other parts of the world garnering as much attention. One argument could be that it is happening in Europe and Europe is important because of the particular institutions that curb arbitrary power. However, I’m not sure why Ukraine has a greater claim to being European based on institutional commitments. I don’t know a great deal of Ukrainian history, but it doesn’t strike me as having a long and storied democratic tradition. I think it has more to do with the nature of the threat. Russia has the capacity to be a greater threat to freedom in the world, being proximate to a large number of free countries. It also might have the capacity to support an authoritarian counter-hegemony against liberal democracy. This strikes me as the main reason why balancing is important. Also, it avoids the problem of Eurocentric bias (which I think is endemic in IR but that’s another story). Thank you for your thought provoking piece, it certainly got me thinking critically about the moral dimensions of this.
Jake, I really appreciate your thinking about this, and did not have a problem with your responses. In fact this whole discussion thread so far seems to me civil and interesting, with none of the nasty flaming that I tend to fear when venturing into the blogosphere.
Yes, nuance is often lost in the blogosphere. I am often wary of it as well. But this forum is generally good. I think when people use their real name it helps.
Despite the fact that the Crimean elections were plainly rigged, I’ve seen no one argue that annexation by Russia would not have actually won free and fair elections. Indeed, the Crimea is majority ethnic Russian, was the anchor of pro-Russian sentiment in the Ukraine, and had been a part of Russia from 1783 to 1991. I’m as disturbed as you are about Putin changing borders with the barrel of a gun, but to cast this as somehow about ‘freedom’ in the same sense as Prague 1968 is to deprive the word of any meaning beyond ‘US / Western European interests.’
It’s a strange argument that the means of an election are plainly rigged, but no matter because “Eric” has not seen an argument that the result would not have come through “free and fair” elections. Even when the ballot choice is “yes” and “yes.”
A poll some months before the election showed 41% of Crimean voters would choose to become associated with Russia. That was the highest percentage across Ukraine. Events in Kiev in February may have changed sentiments, but nobody has shown that either.
And please, could we do away with the implicit equivalence of “ethnic Russian” = “Russia supporter”? Those of us who have actually been in the states formerly of the Soviet Union and have actually talked to ethnic Russians (or Russian speakers; I didn’t ask for genealogies) have observed that they are like most people, with differing preferences.
I appreciated Dr. Bukanovsky’s emphasis on freedom. We need to consider that the vast majority of people in the states that Russia once ruled have no desire to return to that rule, and the reason is the suffocating lack of freedom.
I think most people agree with the idea that snatching Crimea, even if a large number of Crimeans are happy with the outcome, is not something we should just let happen and carry on as if nothing changed. Whether the EU or the US or the Maidan revolutionaries did everything right (obviously not) is sort of “water under the bridge” at the this point. The real question now is what to do about it. I can’t see how Crimea can go back to Ukraine anymore without violence. Perhaps in the longer term, if Ukraine prospers and Russia stagnates, many will want to go back. Now, I think the next move is damage control and shoring up the rest of Ukraine. This means not just supporting the interim government but also reconstituting a political party to represent the Eastern regions of Ukraine. This is means a serious, long-term investment. How to deal with Russia is another question. My fear is that if we go too far we risk making matters worse. Russian leaders may take even greater risks if they figure they have nothing left to lose. The key is to deter further aggression without being so punitive the who thing backfires. So far, I think the US and Europeans have done a pretty good job at balancing this.
I am inclined to agree with “Eric’s” comment that Crimea is odd case of arbitrary borders. Putin’s means are outrageous, but the break-up of the USSR (indeed of the Soviet bloc) has resulted in some very problematic national borders. No one should expect “perfect” national borders without ethnic minorities, but it is important to guarantee minority rights. This was part of the “settlement” in the Visigrad nations (Poland, Czech Rep., Slovakia, Hungary) that made possible their entry into the EU.
We have some nasty border issues in Moldova, Georgia, Kazakhstan, etc.There are minority (Russian) issues remaining in Latvia and Estonia despite some amelioration over the past decade. Then there is the issue of “failed economies/ failed states:” Moldova, Ukraine, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc.
Unfortunately Putin’s thuggish power play makes diplomatic and political progress very difficult.
Prof. Bukovansky: “Because the US and its European allies have…assumed that victory in the Cold War meant that balancing was no longer needed….”
A good argument can be made, in my opinion, that this gets it exactly backward. With the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union, with the end of bipolarity, the West had an opportunity to move away from the old routine. Instead, it did precisely the opposite: it expanded NATO eastward at a time when Russia, as that noted leftist [cough] Thomas Friedman has pointed out, was at its weakest and least threatening and when the potential for evolution of Russia in a democratic direction was still there. That decision to expand NATO eastward arguably helped set the stage, in combination w many other factors of course, for Putin’s rise and for what is happening now.
Yes, Putin is an unsavory thuggish person, but the notion that if only the West had balanced against Russia earlier this wouldn’t have happened is somewhat bizarre. Underneath all the nice talk about integrating newly independent states into the liberal order, NATO expansion *was* balancing vs Russia. Certainly Russia saw it that way. And it was balancing at a time when there was no really concrete threat to balance against, when the adversary in its longstanding form had ceased to exist, largely b.c of decisions taken by itself, i.e. by Gorbachev.
The notion that the problem is that the West gave up balancing w the end of the Cold War strikes me as a peculiar, inaccurate, and unwarranted reading of contemporary history.
LFC, interesting point but the weight of my argument is not on the failure to balance; I am making a moral point about freedom, not a causal point about failure to balance. My post is more about trying to recover a vocabulary that may be useful in looking for a way forward, and also in shedding assumptions about the universalizability of liberal order as it was conceived post-Cold War. The character of balancing, and how to conceptualize and do it, is an important discussion that I haven’t covered; others can do that better than I.
Thank you for the reply; I basically agree with your point re the need to shed “assumptions about the universalizability of liberal order as it was conceived post-Cold War.”