Sit Tight on Ukraine, but Aid New Jersey's Cities

It’s been a rapid-fire collection of events over the past week in (far) Eastern Europe. The bully/former president of Ukraine was removed from power by both demonstrators in Kiev’s central square and the Ukranian Parliament itself. Ukraine took rapid steps towards reorienting itself toward Europe and, more consequently, the United States.

But that wasn’t all. Ukraine’s former president was declared a fugitive from justice, wanted for crimes against his own people. He vanished for a few days, then turned up in southern Russia only to declare himself not deposed.

Then the situation turned really weird. The Russians invaded the Crimean peninsula, a Russian-majority, autonomous region in the far south of Ukraine. Though the Russians claim that they’ve done so to protect their already sizable military assets in the territory, it is obvious that they seek to pry the peninsula away from Ukraine. If not through outright annexation, then perhaps by the establishment of some kind of proxy republic along the lines of what’s occurred in Georgia.

Obama warned Russia not to do this. Our president wasn’t very specific about what the consequences of such action would be, of course, but he dared Putin to cross a line, which Putin promptly crossed. Though I doubt that the world will soon be enveloped in a thermonuclear war on behalf of Ukraine, it looks like we’re on the verge of some kind of classic, Cold War-like showdown. If some of the editors at the National Review had their way, we’d probably have troops on the ground in Kiev at this moment. So in the middle of this whirlwind of revolution, diplomacy and war, to those who are demanding American boots on the ground and the U.S. Navy to blockade Russian ports, I say this:

Calm yourselves.

We need to remember some facts about Ukraine that many Americans – most, in fact, are completely ignorant of. First, the country’s borders, particularly concerning Crimea, are a result of internal wrangling in the former Soviet Union. The Communist party originally transferred Crimea as a ‘gift’ from then-Soviet dominated Russia to the then Soviet-dominated Ukraine. Since both regional jurisdictions back then were irrelevant, the move was strictly and strangely symbolic. Now we’re coping with the legacy of this move. 

Secondly, Ukraine is a demographic mess. Its larger western portion is dominated by Ukrainians, who despise Mother Russia as the Poles, our allies, do. Any Ukrainian would tell you that they hold Soviet Russia rightfully responsible for the genocidal famine of their land in the 1930’s, and the subsequent Nazi invasion of the same land a decade later (due, mainly, to Stalin’s indifference and negligence toward the Ukrainians under his rule). Now to my American readers, I know that these historical facts seem rather trivial, but believe me, in Ukraine, they’re not. They’re everything.

Ukraine’s eastern portion, including Crimea, is ethnically dominated by Russians. This large population is a result of Stalin’s “Russificiation” policies of the former Soviet Union, which aimed at thinning out the native populations of the non-Russian portions of the Soviet Union. It was a failed policy, of course, but its legacy is still felt in every former Soviet republic, from Estonia to Latvia to

Ukraine is an ethnic and linguistic mix - and mess

Ukraine to Georgia.

Putin’s intentions thus far seem pretty limited, even in Ukraine. The Russian leader may talk tough, but even he knows the limitations of his armed forces and national budget. Occupying small portions of Ukraine dominated by Russians is one thing, but chancing a long and dangerous guerilla war with the majority of Ukrainians, while earning the enmity of all Europe is quite another. In short, I don’t think that Putin is interested in conquering and forcefully annexing all of Ukraine.

I could be proven wrong, of course, over the next few weeks or even days of events. Therefore right now I believe that though we ought to continue to denounce the Russians for their actions, which are illegal under international law, the U.S. and its Western allies need to sit tight. This is because we need to remember something important: we won the Cold War. Aside from Ukraine and tiny Moldova, which are ethnically troubled to be sure, all of Eastern Europe sits safely under NATO’s protective umbrella. American fighter jets and those of its allies fly daily over the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. American and allied troops sit at the ready not in Germany, Britain and France, but in Romania, Poland, Bulgaria and Turkey and, of course, the Baltic States.

Russia is a flailing, Third World military power. This is not the Soviet Union at its peak. Russia’s population is in steep decline. Its overdependence on funding its government though the selling of its natural resources has proven dangerous in this time of steadily falling gas and oil prices. Believe me, the American discovery and extraction of usable fossil fuels in places like North Dakota and Alaska pose far more of a danger to Putin’s Russia than many people realize.

Russia is also geographically overextended and domestically troubled. Putin’s own government, if certain trends in fuel prices and demographics continue, has a troubled future, if it has a future at all.

Again, I’m not stipulating that Putin loves democracy, or is some kind of moral leader and incapable of doing harm. He’s a bully and aspiring dictator. But he’s got limits. And we do too. For those Americans who are now calling for a fast, $15 billion grant to Ukraine, I ask this: have you seen Trenton lately? Visited Newark or Paterson? Perhaps a few billion should be thrown in their direction before we start writing checks to Kiev.  

Ukrainian Blood: More than Just Sacrifice; For Putin, It's the Writing on the Wall

The events of the past 48 hours in Ukraine mirror that of a movie ending. While it is important to remember that this is real life, and real people died horribly fighting a tyrant who was clearly contemptuous of human life, the rapidity of events and sudden reversal of fortunes must be noted. And more importantly, so should the effect that these events will have – probably this summer – on a certain, fraudulently elected Russian strongman and aspiring dictator.

Let’s have a short (biased) review that will undoubtedly do Ukraine’s recent

Putin: Witness Your Future

history an injustice. (Former?) Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych was elected under questionable circumstances. After this election he quickly had the leader of the opposition arrested and convicted of corruption amongst other charges, even as he built a complex of palaces around his nation, some of which have been discovered to have small zoos and wholesale replicas of Greek ruins. Then Yanukovych began the process of selling out his nation to Russian President Vladimir Putin by signing a series of political and economic agreements with the so-called “Russian Federation.” And it’s no secret that he did this though much of his nation favored a more independent and Western-leaning Ukraine, while Putin is clearly trying to reconstitute the Russian empire through a new regional pact.

When protesters showed up a few months ago and began to seize parts of the capital, Kiev, things really got out of control. Riot police were called out. At first, protesters clashed with police, resulting in some deaths and several injuries. Then through the anti-tyrannical magic of social media, thousands transformed into tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions. A week ago, apparently, whether acting on the “advice” of his good neighbor Putin or on his own volition, the Ukrainian president had had enough. He ordered the police to stop enforcing the law, and to start executing protesters from snipers’ nests positioned in the central core of his capital city. If the protesters weren’t going to understand orders, they would understand bullets. Stalin did it in Ukraine in the 1930’s. Mao did it in China in the 50’s and 60’s. The Chinese Communist Party leaders did it in Beijing in June of ’89. So he gave the order. Shoot, and shoot to kill.

But it didn’t work. This time, things were different. The problem is that this isn’t 1935, or 1966, or 1989. This is not a world where, aside from North Korea, a ruler can simply act out without consequence and start randomly killing his or her citizens in broad daylight. Not if such a leader wants to remain part of the larger global economic and political order. Not in the age of the Internet, of YouTube, of Facebook, Twitter, of global flows of capital and information. No, this is not the 20^th century at all. This is the Age of Connectedness. This is a time where, regardless of how strongly your supporters back you, your supporters still want to live and prosper in comfort in this information-soaked world. This is an age where, if you start killing people, everyone sees it, comments on it, blogs on it, posts it, from Kiev to Katmandu to Kansas City. This is an age, at least from the point of view of tyrants and would-be tyrants, of strict and instant responsibility.

And it is because of this rising tide of massive and instant communication and information that the (Former) President of Ukraine is driving aimlessly around his furious country, at this very moment, with less than a dozen armed supporters. Perhaps he hopes he can sneak into Russia. Perhaps he hopes that Putin will order some kind of invasion to reinstall him, but that’s unlikely. The Cold War is over, and Putin knows that if he acts to do that, the entire world will condemn him, or more terrifyingly, stop buying Russian natural gas. Putin’s Russia is no Soviet Union. It is a dictatorship set atop a fragile nation-state. It is a cumbersome political machine lubricated by ready cash, period. No cash, no supporters, no power.  

Yes, as revelers celebrate their victory in Kiev’s central square this evening, Putin and his inner circle must be feeling really scared. Perhaps scared is not the world: terrified. The mini-Putin in Kiev just played his last card and, though future events in Ukraine are hard to guess at, they probably will not include him except for making some room in a prison cell. Putin and Yanukovych may call this a coup, but any Russian and Ukrainian and American would tell you that when a democratically elected, multiparty national legislature unanimously votes to remove a murderous executive from office, it’s not a coup. It’s good democratic governance.

Last year Moscow saw some huge demonstrations against Putin’s rule. The Russian President knows now that, judging from recent events in Ukraine, the endgame from a similar event would be, well, similar. Additionally, Russians are acutely aware of their shrinking population and demographic crisis. To open fire on the nation’s best and brightest on, say, a July 2014 day would amount to genocidal charges from his own people, and would mean an end to Putin and his sham government.   

Putin, the blood of Ukranians is more than just a sacrifice for freedom. It’s the writing on your wall. Get out now. 

Sochi May Be A Triumph, But It Masks A Deep Decline

This past summer two of my very close friends arrived here from Russia. Both teachers in their mid-30’s, they’re married, highly educated and living in their own small home. Like an overwhelming majority of Russians, they live hundreds if not thousands of miles away from Moscow, in the central part of the nation. To get an idea of Russia’s vastness, though my friends live midway between Europe and the Pacific, their Asian home is as far away from Moscow as mine in Princeton is from San Francisco.

Russian troops march proudly at a Moscow parade in the summer of 2013.
In the event of a real war, there are few who could replace them.

On a warm July evening at an Upper East Side diner, we exchanged warm hugs, sat down and ordered our food. We got through the pleasantries and soon got talking about our favorite issue: Politics. Michael and Victoria (not their real names), people well versed in the complexities of political and economic theory, got right to the point. Michael spoke up first. “If you want to understand Russia, and really get to the heart of what is ailing it. I can tell you. The state and nation as a whole is not in decline. It is dying.”

Not exactly what I was expecting. Usually, Michael and Victoria, when addressing their homeland, will use more complicated language and analogies. But this time they were both particularly blunt.

“This winter the Sochi Olympics, in which the state has invested over $40 billion, may or may not be a huge success. It might be marred by terrorism. It might, for a moment, project a rediscovered sense of Russian confidence and even resurgence. But don’t believe it for a second. The entire state and nation, and I know they are clean different things, know they are living on borrowed time.”

Both Michael and Anna laid it all out for me. I felt like I had gone to the doctor for a simple physical, only to be called into the office for news that I was terminally ill. My Russian friends spoke of the sheer nepotism, the corruption, the civic decline and the emigration of the youth and educated. They said that people we not only voting with their feet, they were voting with their restraint and their contraceptives. “Regardless of what anyone is saying in or about Russia these days,” Victoria stated, “no one, not in the heart of European Russia, not in the snowy cities of Siberia or in Vladivostok on the rocky Pacific coast, are having children. It’s like that movie Children of Men where humanity sees its end in its lack of regeneration. Well, it’s not that we cannot reproduce; under the circumstances, we just do not want to.”

The couple was right, of course. Though different agencies worldwide argue over the exactness of their projections, there is no doubt that Russia’s population is in deep and steady decline. And it’s been a long decline, one that, according to most sources (from the U.N. to the U.S. Census Bureau) started in the early 1990’s.

How serious is this decline? According to the United Nations, Russia, by 2025 could have a population not exceeding 115-117 million people. This is a state that is, by any historical standard, gargantuan in size, covering an area that spans 11 time zones and more than twice the land cover of the continental United States.

Michael puts it in a more straightforward way. “Look at it this way. In 2025, which is not very long from now, Russia’s total population could be about the same or less than the combined, projected populations of three U.S. states: California, New York and Florida.”

My Russian friends claim that these trends are so unsettling that few Russians want to talk about it, though the numbers are undeniable. But more disturbing, according to Victoria, is that you can already see the trends at work. “Classes are shrinking. Children are still in the streets and playing in the fields on warm days, but there are considerably less of them. You visit friends and family and there are few siblings.”

I brought up the Russian President, Putin. Michael rolled his eyes, and acknowledged that Putin projects a physical presence of strength, and he rules with ruthless determination. But even Putin, a great admirer of Stalin, could never get away with repeating Stalin’s sins. “Stalin killed 30 to 50 million Russians; Putin would never do that. Do people die under his rule? Yes, it has happened. But in mass numbers? No, not Russians anyway. There are too few of us these days to endure massacres, and Putin knows this. He knows that if he ever gave the order, say during a Moscow demonstration, for the police or army to open automatic fire and kill 10,000, or even 1000, he’d be finished.”

It is this simple calculus, according to my friends, that explains why Putin and his allies still make careful use of Russia’s dilapidated court and prison system, instead of reestablishing a vast network of labor and death camps that defined Stalin’s reign of terror. “And again, everybody in Russia is aware of this. It’s not that Putin places tremendous value on human life; he’s no humanitarian. But he does not want to be seen, ever, taking part in some act of Russian demographic suicide.”

Russia is also a political mess. Interestingly enough, its political system on the national level is designed on the American template. It has an elected president with real term limitations, a supreme constitutional court with the powers of judicial review, and a bicameral legislature/parliament. Even the national legislature mimics the U.S. Congress, with a lower house representing people and districts, and an upper house representing states and regions. But that is on paper; in reality, it barely operates. Most policymaking is with Putin.

Michael put it this way. “Do you want to know how weak Russia is? Could you imagine if, say, out of your 50 states, there were entire regions, some approaching the size of Pennsylvania, that were completely out of the government’s control? And then imagine that the states of Oregon, Maine and Louisiana ruled themselves and had laws that were completely contrary to the U.S. Constitution, though they acknowledged some form of Washington’s supremacy. That is Russia today, and it is getting worse, not better.”

I asked about Russia’s vast mineral, gas and oil wealth and its acknowledged untapped deposits. Again, my friends recognized this, but reminded me that wealth is locked up amongst the oligarchs and their extended families and networks. The oligarchs, if you do not know, are the few dozen business billionaires Russia has produced since the Soviet fall in 1991. And even these riches may not sustain the fragmented, fragile Russian economy as fuel prices may deflate in the near future due to dramatically increased U.S. and Canadian output.

So what is the long-term prognosis, I asked them? Will Russia descend into Civil War, or break up peacefully into several independent states as the Soviet Union did?

“The end may come, it may, but it will not be along Soviet lines.” Victoria warned. Russia’s internal borders are not as neatly defined as the larger ones of the Soviet Union, and even with those borders, there were problems and ambiguities. Modern day Russia is such an ethnic checkerboard, there are very few regions where large, proud non-Russian minorities are not present. So if disintegration comes, most think that European Russia may go one way, but the southern mixed regions and Siberia may go another. It could get very violent.”

I looked at them as if they were speculating on the fantastic. They laughed along with me, but gave an interesting warning. “Remember when you were a kid, and the Soviet Union hung over your head like a heavy storm cloud? If anyone would have told you in high school, in the 1980’s, that the entire Soviet Empire would simply collapse in a period of weeks, you would have never believed them. But that’s exactly what happened.”

Michael and Victoria are proud to be Russian. They look back with admiration and pride on centuries of language, art, literature, architecture, scientific discovery, culture and resistance to conquerors like Napoleon and Hitler. Still, they’re dead-serious in their realism. “There will always be Russians,” Victoria said. “But a single Russian state? A few years ago, I would have said I don’t know if it will last. Now I think, it will only be a matter of time.”

I went away from our meeting glad that I had seen them, but filled with some dread. The world is a crazy place, to be sure, and the United States cannot and should not get itself involved in operations like preserving vast nation-states in decline. But then again, I thought, most declining nation-states do not have Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.