Look to the East in Ukraine to Discern U.S. Intentions

At this point, with Joe Biden being trundled off to Poland and the Baltics to calm the former Soviet satellites, I am sure Obama wishes Ukraine would just disappear, at least for a while.

This morning, following Putin's speech announcing that Crimea will be accepted as a member of the Russian Federation and a pervasive sense of mirthful derision that has greeted the stentorian proclamation of  Russian sanctions by the U.S. and Europe, it is clear that the Western defense of the putsch in Ukraine has arrived stillborn.

The best riff on the sanctions dud is quoted this morning in "Putin Declares Crimea Is a Part of Russia" by Steven Lee Myers and Peter Baker:

The American sanctions targeted prominent Russian officials, but not those likely to have many overseas assets; the European list generally went after lower-level targets. As a result, the actions were met with derision and even mockery in Moscow. 

“This is a big honor for me,” said Mr. Surkov, once called the “gray cardinal” of the Kremlin and known as the architect of Mr. Putin’s highly centralized political system. He told a Russian newspaper that he had no assets abroad: “In the U.S., I’m interested in Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work.”

Obama warns that more sanctions are to come; that the lucrative Russian arms industry is next. But to truly harm Russia, sanctions would have to come from Europe and they would have to target Gazprom and/or Rosneft. There is no indication Europe will go in that direction:

Asked whether the European Union had failed to match tough words with strong actions, Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, told journalists: “The U.S. is from Mars and Europe is from Venus. Get used to it.” 

He noted that “Europe is closer and will therefore pay a bigger cost for sanctions against Russia.” He also pointed to Europe’s collective decision-making process. 

“In the United States, one man takes a decision on the basis of an executive order,” Mr. Sikorski said, “whereas in Europe, for these measures to be legal, we need a consensus of 28 member states.”

If round one in Ukraine went to the Nuland neocons and the Right Sector street fighters, round two goes to Russia. Now, with the clock ticking, the momentum has decidedly shifted  in favor of Putin and against the putschists in Kiev. Shortly, the International Monetary Fund will come forward with a bailout deal. I would imagine this will represent a significant challenge for the putsch government. The fiction floated by Western governments and their servile press is that the putschists have a popular mandate from the people; the truth is, the putsch only represents a minority. Once the austerity features of the IMF loan package are published, the putsch government should begin to fray.

Appreciation of this is probably what is motivating Kerry to consider previously dismissed Russian proposals for a constitutional overhaul of Ukraine to allow for federalization. As laid out the last couple of days on the Moon of Alabama blog ("Ukraine: U.S. Takes Off-Ramp, Agrees To Russian Demands"),

There was another phone call today between Secretary of State Kerry and the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov. The call came after a strategy meeting on Ukraine in the White House. During the call Kerry agreed to Russian demands for a federalization of the Ukraine in which the federal states will have a strong autonomy against a central government in a finlandized Ukraine. Putin had offered this "off-ramp" from the escalation and Obama has taken it.

Going forward, the West needs Russia to help solve the crisis it created in Ukraine. But I am not confident that the United States has the ability to act cooperatively at this point. The logic of U.S. hegemony is "If you don't get what you want, just make the problem bigger." Populate the planet with a series of failed states. Granted, Obama and Kerry took the off ramp in the run up to war against Syria; let's hope that was not just a one-off.

Proof that Russia is going to bide its time is found in a refreshingly unbiased story by C.J. Chivers and Andrew Roth about protests in the pro-Russian Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, "In Eastern Ukraine, the Curtain Goes Up, and the Clash Begins." We should be able to interpret the intentions of the U.S. going forward by the response to pro-Russian protesters in the east. If there is a harsh crackdown by the putschist-aligned security forces, we know that it is the U.S. sticking to script, trying to the make problem bigger.