Albert Einstein is said to have defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Today, U.S. policy toward Ukraine has become the embodiment of Einstein's admonition.
In the past week, an outbreak of violent pro-Russian incidents in places like Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkov have rocked the fragile political environment of post-revolution Ukraine. They have also served as to showcase Russia's ongoing interference, and the Kremlin's escalating attempts to destroy Ukrainian statehood.
Since there isn't a strong enough pro-Russian political base in Ukraine upon whom he can count, Russian President Vladimir Putin is employing this time-tested Soviet tactic to create a pretext for the forcible annexation of Eastern Ukraine — or, at the very least, the dismantlement of Ukraine into a nebulous and unsustainable "federation." And the U.S. response to this renewed violence is once again to call for negotiations, this time with Ukraine, Russia and the European Union.
The results of such talks, like all those that have come before it, are predictable. Russia will demand a federated Ukraine. If we are lucky, the other parties will reject this proposal and the situation will remain as volatile as ever. If we are not, and if the West continues to demonstrate an unwillingness to defend its vital interests, then some compromise that undermines Ukraine's statehood, integrity, and sovereignty will inevitably emerge.
Indeed, negotiating with Russia over Ukraine has long since been shown to be an exercise in futility, for one simple reason. Russia has broken every treaty it made with Ukraine since 1991: the Tashkent treatyof 1992 (forming the Commonwealth of Independent States or CIS); the Budapest Memorandum of 1994; the Russo-Ukrainian agreements of 1997; and the Medvedev-Yanukovych agreements of 2010. All of them invoke the integrity and sovereignty of the parties. Why, then, should we place any faith in a new agreement?
The recent incitement to violence in Ukraine displays just how little the sanctions levied against Russia to date by Washington and Brussels have impressed Moscow. Sensing weakness and irresolution, Russia has escalated yet again. And more provocations are doubtless to come unless the Kremlin is deterred.
To break this vicious cycle, the NATO alliance, led by Washington, must seize the initiative. Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman has called for the insertion of NATO troops into Ukraine. This may not be feasible, at least in the near term, given the political dynamics that predominate in both Ukraine and Europe itself. But a beefed up NATO presence — and greater interaction between Kyiv and the Atlantic Alliance — would signal to Putin that further provocations will be met with allied (not just national) response. So would additional military and economic contacts between Ukraine and European states, which would communicate far better than diplomacy ever could that Russia's actions are illegitimate and that the Kremlin cannot presume that Ukraine is up for grabs.
It is clear that Moscow has long since discounted any Western attempts to negotiate the current conflict as signs of weakness and irresolution. Only once Putin realizes that the West is not weak, and that his own political future is at stake, will a different picture emerge. That is the ultimate task for the United States and its allies in Europe, and it needs to be driven by the idea that securing the peace requires having the resolve to defend it.
The alternative now being contemplated by the West, appeasement of the Kremlin and legitimization of its actions, will only serve as an invitation to further aggression on the part of Russia — in Ukraine and even beyond. We have been in such situations before, and that road has led inescapably to war. Is it not insane to believe that by replicating this experiment we will not bring about the same result?
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