The Three Things Mother Russia Needs

“Wow! You ask all of the easy questions, don’t you?”

So – how does one answer this? Let’s start with some background.

Legal Stuff.

There is a thing called Just War theory (bellum justum) which considers the reasons for undertaking a war and the appropriate conduct during a war. Although war is bad, it can be justified, and although a war can be justified, it may not necessarily be waged in a way that best protects the innocent.

National Security Stuff.

Russia views its security through a number of lenses, which are primarily geographic in nature but also have a touch of paranoia as well. Ever since Catherine the Great, Mother Russia has ‘needed’ three things to satisfy her national security dilemma. That is, if these needs were satisfied, Russia would not feel unduly threatened. These things are:

• An ice-free port: Consider the status of the access of Kaliningrad (a Russian exclave) to the Baltic; Vladivostok to the Sea of Japan; and Sevastopol to the Black Sea.

• Access to India and the Indian Ocean: This is an extension of the above as each of Russia’s ice-free ports can be blockaded by Denmark, Japan, or Turkey respectively. Did you ever consider WHY the Soviets invaded Afghanistan? An unfriendly government could be an obstacle to getting to the Indian Ocean (although AF is landlocked it is a gateway to PAK/IND/IRN).

• The need for buffer states. That is, states that if not within the orbit of Russia, would at least be outside western direct influence. This security ‘need’ was recognised at the Yalta conference where essentially the UK and US agreed that the USSR could have influence and control of certain western approaches to its territory, which largely went against the idealistic view of self-determination (also ignored during the Spanish-American War, the UK relationship with Eire prior to 1928 [I think)] and many others).

What are the buffer states? These are primarily the states that formed either part of the Soviet Union (or greater Russian Empire) or the members of the old Warsaw Pact. Each territory provided either an obstacle to invasion or access to the ocean.

Russia’s feeling of isolation and a paranoia that everyone is out to get them is not wholly unrealistic. They have been, at different times, invaded by Sweden, France and Germany (all through the plains that connect western Europe to Russia) and Britain via Crimea; have been ‘contained’ (the Soviets would have said surrounded) by NATO, SEATO and CENTO; and have been looked down upon as backward and as the ‘sick man of Europe’. And of course, ‘Slavic’ is the root of the word ‘slave’.

So, in Russia’s view, no one likes them and they are vulnerable to attack. If this were a criminal investigation Russia’s enemies would have the Means and the Motive and be awaiting the Opportunity.

History Stuff.

Beyond the basics of getting invaded every hundred or so years I will consider just the last 30 years or so. Ukraine, while largely distinct from Russia ethnically, sits in an interesting spot geographically. It is the pathway for the Slavic movement into the Balkans. To be honest, I’m not really all that sure about them being anything but culturally and linguistically distinct. Maybe something akin to New Zealand with Scottish heritage versus the inhabitants of the Highlands.

Notwithstanding, Ukraine is divided between the Ukrainian west (2/3) and the Russian East (1/3) – which is really quite interesting (for history geeks like me). Crimea, lying in the eastern 1/3 of Ukraine, used to be part of Russia. It was transferred across to the Ukraine Soviet Socialist Republic as an administrative action during the time of Khrushchev’s reign. He was a Ukranian and at that time, ‘knowing’ that the USSR would never break up, just moved some internal borders around. At that time it was not legally different to moving the Auckland boundary south of the Bombay’s. Of course, when 1991 came along Ukraine wanted to keep its extra land mass!

To recap, any claim to Ukrainian distinctness when viewed against the backdrop of history, paranoia and geopolitics is, to my mind, tenuous. Mind you, I do need to bring something else out to fully get the context here. Despite the connection between Ukraine and Russia, Ukraine had a history of racism, and anti-Russian sentiment at least in part because of the Ottoman and then the Hapsburg empires. Stalin did not help by arguably engineering a famine in the 1930s. During WWII over 100,000 Ukrainians served with the German Army – most notably in the SS. While dwarfed by the 4-5 million that served in Soviet forces, it was still a demonstration of the racial perspective of a proportion of Ukrainian society. (Fascism would return later in the form of the Azov Battalion.)

When the Cold War pretty much ended in 1989-90 there was a big discussion about whether to let Germany reunify. There was concern on both sides that a reunified Germany would once more become a military, political and economic ‘problem’. Russia’s initial position was a resounding “Nyet”. This is where big power politics comes in.

To the US, a reunified Germany would lessen the need for the US to be in Germany and it would mean that NATO’s landmass would increase eastwards. From Russia’s perspective, the reunification not only moved the enemy closer but also gave back its old (and emotionally important) capital city. As a method to sweeten the German reunification, a deal was struck that if Russia released the old Warsaw Pact countries (buffer states) from its border, NATO would not expand further East.

As soon as this deal was struck Clinton immediately embraced NATO enlargement. East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia all moved from the Eastern Orthodox (Russian / Soviet / Slavic / Warsaw Pact) orbit to the west. All this happened between 1990 and 2020 with the major moves occurring from 1999 to 2004.

Once you have reviewed where these countries are, have a look at Russia’s national security interests again: buffer states, ice-free ports, access to India.

Also, Poland has a NATO ballistic missile early warning site. NATO argued that it was aimed at Iranian and North Korean missiles, but if you were in Moscow what would you think? In fact, the presence of such a site would give the west an additional 10 minutes warning time of an ICBM launch and would alter the nuclear deterrence balance; making a Russian first strike more likely (because they would feel that they had no choice in certain circumstances).

Ukraine, Georgia and NATO .

In 2002 and 2004 respectively, NATO announced a plan to have Ukraine and Georgia join. Both countries – particularly Georgia – became very aggressive towards Russia. Russia decided that some lessons had to be taught and gave Georgia a spanking in 2008. There is no doubt that both Ukraine and Georgia were encouraged to be less than clever neighbours, and that encouragement came from the West: primarily the US and the UK. They were seeing the demise of the Russian bear and wanted to keep their foot on its throat.

Like the post-Cold War Crimea issue, there was also the question of what to do with the ex-Soviet nuclear weapons located in Ukraine. Both the US and UK (fearing proliferation) guaranteed Ukrainian security if they destroyed the weapons systems. Ukraine did, but clearly, the US and UK did not live up to their part of the bargain.

Do you think that Russia would have invaded if Ukraine had retained their nukes?

Opinion.

Since 1990, Russia has been consistently warning that it was concerned at the gradual encroachment of NATO forces eastwards. Eastwards towards a country that feels isolated, under-respected, and consistently lied to. It surrounded Ukraine to entice NATO to confirm the Ukraine would not be allowed to join. NATO, principally the US, refused to see the strategic folly that they were heading towards. At this point it is reasonable that Putin miscalculated. He was sure that either Ukraine or NATO would provide the guarantee that they needed, and the failure to achieve this put Putin in a corner domestically – and so he felt he had to invade. (“Nobody puts Baby in a corner ….”)

My view of his strategic objective is that he would cause just enough mayhem to encourage a guarantee that Ukraine would remain, at worst (and most likely) neutral, or else be a friend of Russia. Even the most optimistic would think that this was unobtainable, so Russia has gone for recognition of Crimea as sovereign Russia; independence of Eastern Ukraine to protect the Russian inhabitants from attacks from the likes of the Azov Battalion; and a guarantee that Ukraine would not join NATO.

And now we have the most useful weapons on the modern battlefield – information and propaganda.

For this reason, I have largely ignored western media and gained insights about Ukraine from India. Things to watch for in the next few days: the admission that the US was funding bio-weapon sites inside Ukraine. This will be taken advantage of by China, Russia and Iran as they counter US influence. WMD was after all the ‘reason’ for Iraq War II.

It is difficult for countries that do not face a permanent geographic disadvantage to understand the issues that confront countries with continental strategic perspectives. However, in geopolitics we must be careful to ensure that we try to achieve mutual security – which includes NOT crossing (unless we have to) central aspects of others’ security interests.

As you know, I’m no foreign policy dove; but in this instance, the West – and Clinton in particular – made a significant policy blunder that will continue to haunt us.

We need to find a way that provides security to Ukraine without causing a security dilemma for Russia.

The West failed in this, and the West has to bear some responsibility for what has happened. The Ukrainians too are sinners in almost pushing the Russians to make a move. There are no angels in this: every nation is seeing how they can leverage advantage, whether economically, domestically or diplomatically. For example, Poland’s offer to sell MIG-29 Fulcrums to Ukraine came with an under-reported desire for the US to provide western aircraft to fill the gaps.