Russia cannot be allowed to impose narrow limits on its neighbors’ choices.
Russia cannot be allowed to impose narrow limits on its neighbors’ choices.
W e didn’t poke the bear. That bear poked us.
It is obvious that Russia’s attempt to dictate to Ukraine what alliances it may join and what kind of foreign relations it may pursue is a limit on Ukrainian sovereignty. But it is also a limit on American sovereignty, British sovereignty, German sovereignty, French sovereignty, and the sovereignty of every other NATO country. An alliance is a two-way relationship, and if Moscow has the power to foreclose it on one end, it has the power to foreclose it on the other end. We must not cede such power to Moscow.
This is not new territory. Far from it.
The proposition that Moscow should enjoy veto power over the foreign relations and defense policies of European nations that the Russians regard as being within their proper sphere of influence is not a recent development. It did not begin with Ukraine. It did not begin with NATO expansion — it precedes the existence of the modern form of NATO by many years. The blame-America element here at home, which remains contemptibly solicitous of Vladimir Putin, would do well to consider that history.
We need not trace it back centuries, though, of course, we could. We find an instructive — and familiar — example in the immediate post-World War II era, when Joseph Stalin’s regime was busy overthrowing democratically elected governments in the region (Czechoslovakia, 1948) and building up a military presence in occupied territory with the goal of developing a strike force that could overrun the whole of the Europe should Moscow feel inspired to conquer the continent. Against that background, Stalin in 1952 demanded that Western troops exit Germany, that Western governments forbid Germany from entering into a European defense alliance, and that Western governments further guarantee German neutrality in exchange for withdrawing Russian troops from the eastern part of the country. The parallel to Ukraine is not perfect, but the substance of Russian demands was quite similar.
The Western powers had their own ideas: that Germany should hold free and binding elections, and be allowed to choose its own allies and set its own course. Moscow disagreed, and a few years later the heirs of the czars felt compelled to build a wall through Berlin to ensure that their subjects remained imprisoned in their socialist paradise. Leaders in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France rejected Stalin’s proposal as an insincere propaganda measure, believing that he had no intention of allowing the normalization of political and national life in Germany or of abandoning his beachhead there. Post-Cold War research in the Soviet archives suggests that they were right to do so.
The Russians were not content to rule only Russia then, and they aren’t now.
It is important to remember that containing Russian imperialism was only part of NATO’s original mission. The other critical aspect of NATO’s mission — supporting European integration — is less talked about today, in part because the European Union now takes the lead in that project and in part because the possibility of Germany’s backsliding into militaristic nationalism now seems remote. Just as Germany once faced a choice of looking West or looking East, Ukraine had a similar choice — and it chose, decisively, to face West. It was not only Kyiv’s NATO aspirations that irritated Moscow but also its desire (probably more significant in the long run) to join the European Union.
In the Cold War, Russia occupied about one-third of Germany and built a vicious police state there to try to secure its interests through brutality and terror. It now means to do much the same thing in Ukraine. Having seen — finally — enough to convince them to move, Sweden and Finland are now ready to join NATO and to secure for themselves the mutual protection that might have spared Ukraine, and Georgia before it.
Moscow warns that such a move will be met with “retaliation.”
NATO should move to admit Finland and Sweden as quickly as is practical. For one thing, they belong in NATO; for another, expanding NATO now would hand Putin a critical defeat, making his Ukraine misadventure an even bigger fiasco for Moscow that it already has been. The Western powers should realize that they have the advantage in this matter and that they should press that advantage, which is a once-in-a-generation opportunity. We should be thinking far beyond a Russian exit from Ukraine or even the fall of Vladimir Putin, whose kleptocratic junta is not the beginning or the end of our Russia problem.
Generation after generation, Russia keeps presenting its neighbors — and the world — with the same question: Are sovereign nations sovereign, or are they conditionally sovereign, able to make their own choices only within certain narrow bounds imposed by the Kremlin? It is generally understood that if Moscow had its way, then there would be no NATO. But it also is the case that if Moscow had its way, there would be no European Union, no independent Czech Republic, no unified Germany, no Baltic states with real national sovereignty, etc. — and Vladimir Putin would be granted his wish to transform “Ukraine” from a political term to a merely geographic one.
The West should not allow itself to be bullied by Russian talk of “retaliation.” Russia is a poor, weak country with an economy the size of Florida’s and a military that would not last six weeks in the field against NATO forces. Moscow can threaten to shut off the gas and probably will at some point, but Europe will have an easier time replacing Russian fuel than Russia will have replacing European revenue. The only thing Putin really has in his pocket is nuclear weapons — which is why relieving Russia of that arsenal should be a top foreign-policy priority for Western governments.
This is the time to act with confidence. Putin has dealt himself a losing hand — we should do everything we can to see that it costs him more than he can afford to lose.
So expand NATO. Don’t let up on the sanctions — even after Russian troops leave Ukraine. Resume the process of bringing Ukraine into NATO and the European Union as soon as is practically possible. Help the Europeans begin their transition away from Russian fuel before Russia begins it for them. And start taking the sovereignty of Russia’s neighbors seriously — even if that means reminding Vladimir Putin that the front line can be in Moscow as easily as it can be in Mariupol.