There is a fundamental difference in NATO's admitting Georgia and Ukraine from the admission of other former Soviet bloc nations. NATO is a military alliance. Bringing in Hungary or the Czech Republic meant little from that point of view; there is no real, immediate threat for NATO to protect them from. Admitting Ukraine and Georgia would mean entering into a formal alliance with countries that face serious regional threats. It would mean making a commitment to defending those countries and therefore, in some way, to assuring their stability. It is hard to defend an unstable country.
Every other expansion of NATO has been notional. By that we mean that it amounted to a political signal, far more than a serious political commitment. That is not the case with these two countries. In fact, that is the point the Russians are working very hard to make. The Russian statement today was a message. Russia regards Ukrainian and Georgian membership in NATO as a major, unwelcome geopolitical shift. As such, Moscow will resist this process -- and failing that, will consider these two countries a threat to Russia.
Geographically, the defense of either of these countries against a major regional power -- which Russia certainly is -- is a significant burden. Neither country can defend itself. Moreover, each country has other regional antagonists that NATO would be committed against -- such as, in Georgia's case, Armenia. That is quite a tangle to get into.
What is attracting Washington is the opportunity to guarantee, by surrounding it with NATO members, that Russia will not re-emerge as a superpower. The Russians see this move as that, plus a threat to the long-term territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. The Russians do not believe that they can simply accept this as a fait accompli, as they accepted other NATO expansions. Therefore, this will trigger Russian responses in the region and more broadly.
The most important thing to watch here is relations between Russia and China. China has been very careful not to get entangled with anti-American alliances. It has important economic issues to deal with. However, given recent U.S. statements on how it views China, access to Russian military technology becomes more important to Beijing. And Russia knows it does not, by itself, have the weight to counter the United States. Therefore, the logic here, over the coming months, is closer ties between Moscow and Beijing. When this happened last, in 1948, Washington found itself in an uncomfortable position. Therefore, it has to calculate how quickly it can move and consolidate its position via NATO before the Russians can act.
And then there is also the question of the European members of NATO -- particularly France and Germany -- whose acceptance of NATO expansion up to this point has been a signal to Washington of a willingness to cooperate. On the other hand, NATO is going to a complicated and dangerous place. Paris and Berlin may not have the appetite for Washington's game.
·
All but one of Russia's major infrastructure links to Europe pass through
Ukraine.
·
Three-quarters of Russia's natural gas exports pass through Soviet-era
pipelines that cross Ukraine.
·
In most years, Russia has imported food from Ukraine.
·
Eastern Ukraine is geographically part of the Russian industrial heartland.
·
The Dnieper River, the key transport route in Russia's Belarusian ally,
flows south through Ukraine -- not east Russia.
·
With a population of just under 50 million, Ukraine is the only captive
market in the Russian orbit worth reintegrating with.
·
The Black Sea fleet -- Russia's only true warm-water fleet -- remains at
Sevastopol on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula because it is the only deep-water
port on the entire former Soviet Black Sea coast.
·
A glance at a population density map indicates just how close Russia's
population centers are to the Ukrainian border, and how a hostile Ukraine
would pinch off easy Russian access to the volatile North Caucasus, a region
already rife with separatist tendencies.
·
Moscow and Volgograd -- Russia's two defiant icons of World War II -- are
both less than 300 miles from the Ukrainian border.
· Once Ukraine adopts a less friendly relationship with Russia, the Russian deployment to Transdniestria -- a tiny separatist republic in Moldova kept alive only by Russian largesse -- will fade away. Next on the list will be the remaining Russian forces at Georgian bases at Akhalkalaki and Batumi. Georgia already has enacted an informal boycott on visa paperwork for incoming soldiers, and the United States has begun linking the Russian presence in Georgia and Transdniestria to broader Russian security concerns.
Once these outposts fall, Russia's only true international "allies" will be the relatively nonstrategic Belarus and Armenia, which the European Union and United States can be counted upon to hammer relentlessly.
To say Russia is at a turning point is a gross understatement. Without Ukraine, Russia is doomed to a painful slide into geopolitical obsolescence and ultimately, perhaps even nonexistence.
Russia has three roads before it.
· Russia accepts the loss of Ukraine, soldiers on and hopes for the best.
Should Putin accept the loss of Ukraine quietly and do nothing, he invites more encroachments -- primarily Western -- into Russia's dwindling sphere of influence and ultimately into Russia itself, assigning the country to a painful slide into strategic obsolescence. Never forget that Russia is a state formed by an expansionary military policy. The Karelian Isthmus of Russia's northwest once was Finnish territory, while the southern tier of the Russian Far East was once Chinese. Deep within the Russian "motherland" are the homelands of vibrant minorities such as the Tatars and the Bashkirs, who theoretically could survive on their own. Of course the North Caucasus is a region ripe for shattering; Chechens are not the only Muslims in the region with separatist desires.
Geopolitically, playing dead is an unviable proposition; domestically it could spell the end of the president. Putin rode to power on the nationalism of the Chechen war. His efforts to implement a Reaganesque ideal of Russian pride created a political movement that he has managed to harness, but never quite control. If Russian nationalists feel that his Westernization efforts have signed bit after bit of the empire away with nothing in return, he could be overwhelmed by the creature he created. But Putin is a creature of logic and planning.
Though it might be highly questionable whether Putin could survive as Russia's leader if this path is chosen, the president's ironclad control of the state and society at this point would make his removal in favor of another path a complicated and perhaps protracted affair. With its economy, infrastructure, military and influence waning by the day, time is one thing Russia has precious little of.
· Russia reassesses its geopolitical levers and pushes back against the West.
Russia might have fallen a long way from its Soviet highs, but it still has a large number of hefty tools it can use to influence global events.
If Putin is to make the West rethink its strategy of rolling back Russian influence and options -- not to mention safeguard his own skin -- he will have to act in a way to remind the West that Moscow still has fight left in it and is far from out of options. And he will have to do it forcefully, obviously and quickly.
Russia could use its influence with Afghanistan's Northern Alliance to make the United States' Afghan experience positively Russian. Sales of long-range cruise missiles in India or Sovremenny destroyers complete with Sunburn missiles to China would threaten U.S. control of the oceans. Weapons sales to Latin America would undermine U.S. influence in its own backyard. The occasional quiet message to North Korea could menace all U.S. policy in the Koreas. And of course, there is still the Red Army. It might be a shadow of its former self, but so are its potential European opponents.
All of these actions have side effects. The U.S. presence in Afghanistan limits Islamist activities in Russia proper. India is no longer a Cold War client; it is an independent power with its own ambitions which might soon involve a partnership with the United States. Excessive weapons sales to China could end with those weapons being used in support of an invasion of the Russian Far East. Large-scale weapons sales to Latin America require Latin American cash to underwrite them. Russian meddling in North Korea would damage relations with China, Japan and South Korea as well as the West. And a Russian military threat against Europe, if it could be mustered, would still face the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
Such actions would also have consequences. The West might often -- and vigorously -- disagree within itself, but there has not been a Western war in nearly three generations. The West still tends to see Russia as the dangerous "other," and by design or coincidence, Western policy toward the former Soviet Union focuses on rolling back Russian influence, with Ukraine serving as only the most recent example. Russian efforts to push back -- even in what is perceived as self-defense -- would only provoke a concerted, if not unified, response along Russia's entire economic, political and geographic periphery.
Russia still might have options, but it did lose the Cold War and has fallen in stature massively. In the years since the Cold War, Western options -- and strength -- have only expanded. Even if Russian efforts were so successful that they deflected all foreign attention from it, Russia would still be doomed. Russia has degraded too far; simply buying time is not enough.
· Russia regenerates from within.
Unlike the United States, which has embraced change as part of daily life, Russia is an earthquake society. It does not evolve. Pressures -- social, political, economic -- build up within the country until it suffers a massive, cataclysmic breakdown and then revival. It is not pleasant; often as a result of Russia's spasms, millions of people die, and not always are they all Russian.