crimea

The hasty referendum organized by the self-proclaimed government of Crimea, which had seized power two weeks earlier, had the expected result — an overwhelming vote by Crimea to make the Black Sea peninsula, home to two million people, part of the Russian Federation.

An interim Crimean government backed by Russian President Vladimir Putin orchestrated the consultation about the future of what had been, since 1954, a part of Ukraine.

Russian military presence in the autonomous Ukrainian territory ordained the vote would not be democratic. Two weeks prior to voting day, Russian military stationed in the Ukraine had left barracks and surrounded Ukrainian military bases.

The consultation was not run according to recognized international procedures. Only the pro-Russian option ran a campaign, and it was in the hands of the government.

Minority groups, including Tatars (12 per cent) and ethnic Ukrainians (24 per cent), boycotted the vote.

The referendum outcome was rejected by Ukraine, the EU, and the U.S. Only Russia moved to ratify it. Low-scale sanctions against Russia are being applied by the EU and the U.S. Small numbers of individual Russians and some pro-Russian Ukrainians will be targeted with travel restrictions and have assets held abroad frozen.

Given the importance of Russian energy to Europe and of the Russian market to European exporters, wider measures have not been invoked.

No European government wants to engage militarily with Russia. While it is loath to admit Russia holds sway over its neighbours, the U.S. recognizes the limits of American military power, and is not about to engage armed forces to thwart Russian territorial ambitions on its borders.

Diplomatic efforts have been under way to de-escalate tensions between Ukraine and Russia. Further military action by Putin against eastern Ukraine needs to be ruled out to dispel fears of wider war bringing in NATO. In return for pledging restraint, the Russian president expects to be allowed to swallow Crimea without paying an economic price.

The fear is that Russia will eschew diplomatic overtures and continue its territorial expansion into eastern Ukraine. The Crimean peninsula has no land links to Russia. Its sources of water, energy and trade are in the Ukraine.

Against the threat of Russian military force to secure the autonomy of Crimea, up to and including the further dismemberment of Ukraine, the EU and the U.S. main counter threat is to apply economic sanctions.

The Russian economy is deeply entwined with the West. When the Ukrainian crisis began, sales by Western interests of Russian bonds caused bond prices to fall, which automatically raises interest rates (bond prices have an inverse relationship to their interest rate or yield) and causes hardship. Foreign investment in Russian has grown in recent years, and fear of political tensions can reverse flows quickly, especially if investors panic and sell off assets suddenly.

External pressure on Russia creates internal pressure on Putin; this is the logic behind severe sanctions, which would have a dramatic impact on the EU and so would be difficult to introduce. And, for the moment, the Russian president basks in public approval at home.

The crisis in Crimea is a part of a larger story: the break-up of the Soviet Union, and the failure of the international community to come to terms with a post-Communist world.

For the “realists” who dominate intelligence agencies, defence and foreign ministries, the fall of the Berlin Wall was an opportunity to expand Western influence to the East, into the old Warsaw Pact countries.

With the former Soviet security arrangements ended, nobody thought it was an appropriate time to disband NATO. Rather, former Warsaw Pact countries were offered and accepted invitations to join NATO.

What Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics needed was supportive international financial and commercial arrangements, and generous development assistance. Instead, under cover of Western-sponsored “democratization” programs, the “liberalization imperative” was pushed as a guide to public policy. Privatization of state-owned industry created a new class of oligarchs. Wealth concentrated led to outflows of money and domestic stagnation. Today, six of the former Soviet Republics have a lower GDP per capita than under Soviet rule. 

For Russia, the annexation of Crimea (or as it prefers, its restitution) will not reverse EU and U.S. influence over former Soviet territory, including Russia itself. Russia is an attractive economic partner for Europe. What Russia has to offer: energy, natural gas principally, minerals, and markets: is what stagnating Europe requires.

In 1945, at Yalta in Crimea, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin signed an agreement that shaped the post-war world. It recognized power relationships at the end of the war would decide political allegiances.

The world community needs a new vision, one not based on imperial expansion, or the law of power. Concrete assistance in meeting basic human needs, needs to be joined to new institutional practices. Another set of policies must be designed that is friendly towards emerging economies, poor nations, post-Communist states and especially for Ukraine.

Duncan Cameron is the president of rabble.ca and writes a weekly column on politics and current affairs.

Photo: KoFahu/flickr