Is America still feared by enemies and trusted by friends? The Economist doesn’t seem to think so. This storied magazine recently bemoaned “The Decline of [American] Deterrence.” It highlights President Obama’s recent tour of Asia, during which he was repeatedly questioned about America’s commitment to its allies in the region.
But The Economist and other critics of this administration’s inaction over Ukraine seem unable to distinguish between our peripheral interests and vital interests. Dana Allin and Steve Simon at the International Institute for Strategic Studies define a vital interest as one that, if threatened, would directly endanger us “militarily or economically, or its neglect constituted the betrayal of a solemn moral or strategic commitment that we have undertaken.” Implied in this definition is the use of military force to protect said vital interest.
American vital interests in the region consist of our commitments to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which – notably – does not include Ukraine. Still, member countries, such as the Baltic States, Poland, and Turkey have been shaken by the ongoing turmoil in Ukraine by virtue of proximity and their own troubled histories with Russia and the Soviet Union. Like it or not, their threat perceptions impact the U.S.-underwritten international order, and thereby should be of no small concern to Washington. Consequently, America must respond clearly to Russian military and paramilitary provocations but not in the way The Economist suggests.
Direct military aid to Kiev, as many have suggested, is highly provocative to Moscow. Our diplomatic options are also limited given Russia’s permanent presence on the United Nations Security Council and Europe’s continued freeriding on the U.S. security dividend. Nonetheless, Washington still has a set of viable, indirect military and direct economic options for exerting real influence over a situation in which Russian President, Vladimir Putin, has seized the initiative.
A good start would be enacting a set of policies labeled “Perimeter Defense.” In basketball, perimeter defense is designed to limit an agile opponent’s freedom of movement and vision of the field while forcing weaker than intended actions. It would be wise to follow a similar strategy in the current crisis with Russia. Perimeter Defense would start with the indirect military option of augmenting our NATO allies with U.S. forces. This would involve the semi-permanent deployment of Special Forces and Parachute Infantry Regiments in Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia as was done just days ago in the Baltics and Poland. These light infantry deployments would be augmented by rotational training deployments of Heavy Brigade Combat Teams (BCTs) to Eastern Europe in the manner of REFORGER during the 1970s and 80s. The intent would be to enable their training in response to a pseudo-military incursion (e.g. unmarked green men coming across the border), create a stronger barricade opposed to Russian armed incursions and resurrect a Cold War “tripwire” strategy that is effective against Russian “salami-slicing” tactics.(for those readers unfamiliar with this concept, see the Berlin Brigade or U.S. Forces along the Korean De-Militarized Zone). In doing so, the U.S. would raise the risk of Putin’s current strategy and force him to explore alternatives that are more conducive to NATO’s strengths (e.g. peacekeeping and conflict prevention).
The second component of Perimeter Defense is exploiting economic vulnerabilities within Russia without directly harming our NATO allies’ reliance on commodities and trade with Moscow. Current commentary has suggested comprehensive sanctions designed to impact Russia’s extractive, natural resource industries. This proposed policy is dangerous, however, as pursuing the Russian gas and oil industry will handicap their biggest trading partners: our allies in Europe. A more nuanced approach would be to sanction their mining industries, as this would directly impact Putin’s economic constituency while minimizing blowback on NATO countries. We have also taken the initial step of ejecting Russia from the G8, although not permanently. This must be followed by expanding the limited sanctions on Russian state-owned banks proposed by U.S. Senator Bob Corker and approving the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). These economic policies would enable our military options described above by reducing Putin’s freedom of movement as these sanctions and the reality of TTIP hit home.
Lastly, a Perimeter Defense strategy should exploit political “wedge” opportunities between Putin and his base of support, the oligarchs. Undermining oligarch support of Putin is critical. The foundation of his popularity and resilience is the Russian “economic miracle” that has been enabled through the compliance of the oligarchs. Restricting their movement abroad, denying their access to capital and publicly shaming them and their families may provide enough leverage to create political daylight with Putin. The goal is narrow their “political” field of vision by shrinking the base of support at home for Russia’s extra-territorial operations.
Russia’s actions in Ukraine are unacceptable and in direct violation of international agreements that they are signatory to. However, it is important to correctly calibrate the U.S. response by understanding what our vital interests actually are, as well as what actions will have a demonstrable effect on curtailing further infringements by Moscow. The Perimeter Defense strategy proposed here is designed to introduce uncertainty into Putin’s decision calculus, raise the risks of his intended strategy and force him to proceed along a set of weaker policy options designed to heighten our strategic objectives in the region. This strategy reassures our allies that America stands by its friends, while allowing us to do so in a way that responsibly defends our vital interests.
Stephen Rodriguez (@steverod78) has nearly thirteen years of operational experience from Afghanistan to Colombia in strategic planning, corporate strategy, and business development. He serves on three corporate boards, is a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations and a New York Fellow at the National Review Institute. He also Chairman of the Foreign Policy Initiative’s Leadership Council, a member of the Leadership Council at IAVA and the Young Friends Committee of the New-York Historical Society
Jeremy Kotkin 
CBCalif 
Waugh 
SPDudley 
Ray Finch 
Jon Lust 
Karlaritz 
I like the shoring up the perimeter defense strategy with tangible assets, but I’m not so sure I ascribe to the continued and expanded economic sanctions and instruments of power. I think the military (in the way this author proposes, not the idiotic proxy-war stuff bandied about by many of our senators), ideological, and diplomatic instruments of national power are all warranted. But economic can have too much unforeseen blowback. Russia will get a vote and they won’t take further and more hard-hitting sanctions lying down. In other words, the economic instrument of power can’t be wielded in a vacuum. That’s offensive, not defensive like the rest of the tone of the article’s recommendations and I’d caution against it.
Anyone closely reviewing the data on the U.S. economy and job situation realizes the situation is NOT the impending rosy one portrayed by the statistically flawed (inaccurate) models portrayed by reported results from the various government agencies such as the BLS (in its U-3 “unemployment model). Our nation’s GDP is being sustained by what Robert Reich accurately calls the “Creative Capitalism” of the Wall Street stock traders who profitably exchange pieces of paper without providing any benefit to our economy. Wages are down and, the claim manufacturing is returning to this country is, as Steve Rattner noted, a myth. The true “jobless” rate in this country is well over 15% and the labor participation rate is at a 40 year low indicating that we have a declining consumer spending base – which propels our economy, etc.
Despite all the above continuing problems with this country’s economy, which bodes ill for our nation’s future, one politician, strategist, etc after another wants this country to spend enormous sums of its capital, not restoring our economy, but instead to deploy our military abroad to intervene in squabbles between other countries. Squabbles whose outcome will provide precisely zero economic / material benefit to this country – regardless of the results. Confronting Russia over its moves back into the Eastern European States on its border and confronting China in the South China and East China Seas over Islands it claims as its territory cannot and will not provide this nation any meaningful material benefit. In fact, what will be the obvious outcome will make us look weaker. This country is not going to war, or to nuclear war, over the fate of a country thousands of miles away, such as the Ukraine.
Attempting to rebirth the Cold War, in whatever fashion, is a misguided effort that will only bring negative results to this country. Who is going to fund that effort? Have any of its proponents delineated the economic costs and dollar benefits that this nation will accrue from such actions. Drawing geographical “Red Lines” around the globe that this country is not going to defend should they be crossed and involving this country in foreign entanglements contrary to the wishes of its citizens is not a practical strategic move.
Instead, realpolitik should be our nation’s guiding principle, and our strategic moves around the world should be those aimed at providing a positive a positive economic (material or financial) Return On Investment – for this nation. It is neither in this country’s interest nor its responsibility to insure the so-called freedom of other countries. We should limit our diplomatic or military interventions and / or actions of varying types to those situations where we have a true national strategic interest, such as securing the flow of oil from the Middle East needed to fuel Western Industries.
Lets spend our efforts and capital restoring our industrial economy and its output of goods inside this nation’s borders, thereby employing our population, and thereby generating the tax revenues we need to fund the government programs a socially advanced society warrants instead of entering into materially valueless foreign entanglements or disputes.
The world today is built upon the post WW II Breton Woods system and the painful lessons learned during the 19th & 20th centuries. If we truly engaged in the type of Realpolitik, which you are advocating and naked self-interest becomes the norm, that system and its associated benefits would inexorably be swept away. I agree self-interest should be the driving force behind foreign policy but it is clearly in our interest to maintain this system. The pretense of international law and international norms restrict a nation’s options when acting upon the international stage. Putin’s own actions (denying that Russian troops are in Ukraine) validate this point. Thus, we should continue to support the system which has brought the United States to power because to do otherwise would be to return to an era during which the prevailing wisdom stated that you keep what you kill and we all know how that turned out.
The first part of the article is good, and basically re-iterates Containment via a Forward Defense in the Eastern European states. If Russia continues to increase it’s military capability and become more belligerent, we will need to have forward troops on the Russian border in the way that we had them on the Inter-German border in the Cold War.
The second and third parts of the article are less substantive. Basically the way to get at modern Russia is to take away it’s market advantage in energy and rare minerals, and you can’t do that without yourself becoming an energy and mining powerhouse. The USA needs to get over its fear of the Energy industry, stop using “enviromentalism” as an excuse, and ramp up domestic energy production of all kinds. Do that and you not only lessen the stranglehold of the guys who finance Russia’s regime but you also drop the market price for the stuff they sell now. Ditto for rare minerals and all the other stuff Russia nearly has a corner.
If you just put troops on the Russian border without a serious way to counter-act Russia’s energy trade advantages you are implementing a losing strategy. With Russia’s current stature they can put a choke on Europe’s energy and then poof goes your alliance. There’s no other way to win then to start mining yourself, Greens be damned.
The key phrase of this Washington-beltway analysis: “U.S.-underwritten international order.” Guess what? Some countries, like Russia, don’t buy into this model. Perhaps a more realistic approach would be to acknowledge that the US is no longer the global policeman and try to work with the Kremlin in bringing stability to Ukraine.
Although an interesting argument is made here that this is not a vital interest to the US, it appears to be made in isolation of any other potentially similar areas. If upholding the defense and territorial integrity of a nation that voluntarily eliminates its nuclear weapons isn’t a vital interest to the US or larger ‘Western’ international community then it rather undercuts the ability to conduct effective negotiations at any point with any country currently attempting to develop nuclear weapons – such as Iran and North Korea. Although a potential breakup of Ukraine may not represent a direct threat to a vital US interest since they are not a member of NATO, it may contribute to the emergence of vital interest threats from non-Russian areas.
Before anyone states negotiations with any of those states will not work anyway so there is no harm, it may be worth remembering that little ever happens without some effort. I don’t think anyone ever thought Israel and Egypt would sign an agreement either, and although it was not perfect it was better than lots of the alternatives. Honest negotiations and compromise are better than obstinance and threats – see the ‘Melian Dialogue.’
“Russia’s actions in Ukraine are unacceptable and in direct violation of international agreements that they are signatory to.”
You are wrong by omitting the American and NATO obligation to that treaty. If you go back to the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 between Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In it, the latter three signatories extended security guarantees to Ukraine in return for its disarming of Soviet-inherited nuclear weapons – then the third largest arsenal in the world – and for joining the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That agreement specifically prohibits the USA and NATO from encroaching upon Ukraine in any way.
During the Maidan protests there were Roman Catholic clergy supporting the occupiers. They spoke perfect Mid-west American English because they were from St. Louis University. I know because I heard them on NPR making speeches. Oddly, that news segment deleted the very next day about a week before Yanukoich left town.
What separates West Ukraine from the rest of the country is not just the Ukrainian language versus the Russian language but religion. The western part is Roman Catholic and the eastern part is Russian Orthodox
This cultural conflict goes all the way back to 320 A.D. at the Council of Nicaea in what now southwestern Turkey. At this confluence of “Christian” delegates there occurred five murders or assassinations over Christology. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity on the side of those that renounced the doctrine of the Progression of the Trinity that was adhered to mainly in the west of Europe. And so the Christian religion split in two: east as Orthodox and west as Roman Catholics. So the divide is by language and religion in Ukraine even though the genetics are mostly the same.
Then there are the NASTY people in Kiev like Yulia Timoshenko who announced she will run for president on the May 25th election — has apparently been caught on tape urging the nuclear annihilation of the 8 million ethnic Russians who live in East Ukraine. It is a YouTube post.
She admits the call was real, but says her remarks have been altered. I listened to that call to her second in command suggesting that Chechen operatives be given enough nukes to slaughter 8 million East Ukrainians: talk about “Beauty and the Beast.” She also misappropriated 150 million Euros for the cleanup of toxic sites in Ukraine given by the European Union. She diverted that money to contracts for her businesses. Nothing was ever cleaned up.
In Ukraine, political power almost always translates into control of property. The business elite of southeastern Ukraine is not prepared to surrender to a Kyiv government it sees as an instrument of Timoshenko (an old-school oligarch in her own right), and is likely using all means at its disposal, including the separatist card, to make its point.
The May 25 presidential election is the next big test, pitting Timoshenko against Petro Poroshenko, a prominent businessman who has held many senior posts in previous Ukrainian governments. A Timoshenko victory would spell trouble for the region’s business elite. Thus, the separatist unrest, which has put the actual viability of the elections in jeopardy, may be a hedging tactic by local oligarchs.
Ukrainian political insiders believe that Timoshenko’s control over the interim government in Kyiv has set off enough alarm bells that many oligarchs are pooling their resources and backing Poroshenko. (There is some evidence that Poroshenko and Klitchko traveled to Vienna in late March to hammer out a deal with Dmitro Firtash, a prominent Ukrainian oligarch who was recently indicted by U.S. law enforcement and is fighting extradition on racketeering charges.) After all, various Ukrainian oligarchs helped bankroll the Maidan movement, the protests that ousted President Viktor Yanukovych in February, because they were angry with the Yanukovych “family” for squeezing them out of lucrative businesses. They certainly do not want to see Timoshenko install herself as the top dog and make their lives miserable.
The unseemliness of Ukrainian politics certainly makes for strange bedfellows. In this instance, it has put some Ukrainian oligarchs on the same side as Vladimir Putin and against Timoshenko, who paradoxically has long been rumored to be on good terms with the Russian president. That’s right; Yulia could be Putin’s ringer regardless of the outcome in East Ukrainian secession. Both the Kremlin and these oligarchs have an interest in undermining the current government in Kyiv. The Kremlin and the oligarchs may have their own distinct reasons for doing so, but both see the separatist card as a source of extra leverage.
Pulitzer-prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, whose blockbusters include breaking the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib prison story in Iraq, reported four weeks ago that Turkey was behind the sarin gas attack in Syria last year, an attack that almost drew the U.S. into a larger war.
Hersh believes that the confrontation with Russia remains extremely precarious.
If corroborated, his story about Turkey, a U.S. NATO ally, attempting to induce the U.S. to fight a war on its behalf in Syria, would force a similar question about events in Ukraine. By the same token, there are forces in Ukraine that would like to draw the U.S. in deeper. Are the Ukrainian nationalists, who would like their U.S. sponsors to be their military guarantors, above creating their own pretext for U.S. entry, their own false flag event?
If you listen to what Putin said in the last several days it actually sounds like he is going very slowly. Why slow in East Ukraine and fast in Crimea? Follow the money.
The Kremlin’s big mistake was to immediately upgrade pensions in Crimea to Russian retirement benefit scales. Those retirees were getting about the equivalent of 4,000 Euros a year. Now they are going to get Russian pension benefits that equate to about 9,000 Euros! That is why you see ethnic Russian grannies screaming “Russia, Russia” at those demonstrations before public buildings from Kharkov south to Mariopol and then West to Odessa. Wouldn’t you yell loudly to more than double your social security check overnight?
Granting the retirees in the Crimea that huge upgrade was a big mistake. They should have been told that they would get an additional raise of 20% now and 20% added each year for four more years. Can the Kremlin assume the retirement benefits burden of millions more seniors overnight? I don’t think so. And let’s also include all the salaries for government workers; and the costs for upkeep and maintenance of buildings, equipment and vehicles. Finally, what about the health care for all those people? That costs money too.
So why should Russian periphery strategies make waves now by meddling in the Ukraine? Why not just let the gnarliest local dog chew on the bones of Kiev; do business as usual; and avoid draining their treasury?
My great suspicion is not that Russia wants more buffer states to the West but that it is shoring up statements from the West that we will not attack if China invades Russia’s Far East. Russian paranoia should be justified:
Countries from the west that have invaded Russia over the centuries:
Lithuania, Germany, France, Ottoman Empire (Turkey)
Countries to the West that Russia invaded, Finland.
Former buffer states for the Soviet Union, a defunct hegemon since 1992: Baltic States, Poland, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania.
Now look to the East: Russia has one person to every 10 Chinamen and those Chinese are in an area 1/2 the size of Russia with no buffer.
http://www.russia-direct.org/content/russia-and-china-ultimate-frenemies
Russia has the world’s largest forest, the Taiga and discovery of the world’s largest proven natural gas fields;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gas_Reserves_-_Top_5_Countries.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_production
Then there are the precious metals like platinum and palladium for cutting down air pollution coming out of catalytic converters. That is going to be a priority for American and China’s vehicle fleet.
Over the last three centuries China has claimed Russia’s Far East. The last armed conflict over borders was in 1969.
I am suspicious that China WILL invade a weak and under populated East Russia. Look at their VERY aggressive moves on the Philippines, Vietnam and Brunei territorial waters since the 1990’s. Recent water cannon attacks by China naval ships to protect Chinese drilling rigs off the coast of the Philippines escalates a greater confrontation in the Western Pacific where we have abandoned naval presence.
http://www.janes.com/article/37579/chinese-vietnamese-coastguards-square-off-as-oil-rig-dispute-escalates
Check out their moves against Japan. They seized a Japanese cargo ship for a WW II “claim” at the beginning of this month.
Now China is blaming us for tensions they create in the territorial waters of Vietnam and the Philippines>
http://rokdrop.com/2014/05/10/china-blames-us-for-south-china-sea-tensions/
Russia should be bringing roses and chocolates to the leaders of every capital in Europe and ask to join NATO and the EU.
Therefore, the fracas in Ukraine is a “Tempest in a Teacup” compared to the systemic war cycle developing in the Far East.