Heedless West Heads for Trade War with Russia

The United States and the European Union continue to act as if they have nothing to lose by baiting and threatening Russia in the Ukraine. This was brought home to me by a quote from an unnamed State Department official in an article this morning by Michael Gordon, "Kerry Arrives in London for Crisis Talks on Crimea." Referring to this Sunday's vote in Crimea to secede from Ukraine,

“If this referendum goes forward, there will be costs,” the State Department official said. “If there is further military escalation there will be more costs. If there is not serious diplomacy there will be more costs.” 

Mr. Kerry also plans to ask Mr. Lavrov about Russia’s snap military exercise, the State Department official said. 

“We are very concerned,” the State Department official said. “This is the second time inside of a month that Russia has chosen to mass large amounts of force on short notice without much transparency around the eastern borders of Ukraine. It certainly creates an environment of intimidation.” 

“That will be one question that will be asked,” the official said. “What is meant by this?”

"What is meant by this?" Really? How pathetic. The U.S. continues to act as if it is engaged in just another drone strike on Pashtun tribesmen, or destruction of an African aspirin factory, apparently heedless of Russia's ability to apply costs of its own to Western conduct. What amazes me is the success the Obama administration in having Germany toe its line. Merkel has sounded particularly strident over the last couple of days. This is from a good story by Steven Lee Myers and Alison Smale, "Russian Troops Mass at Border With Ukraine":

The ouster of the government of Viktor F. Yanukovych in February and Russia’s subsequent intervention in Crimea have deeply divided Russia and the West, and in Berlin, Ms. Merkel underscored the potential risks, declaring that “the territorial integrity of Ukraine cannot be called into question.”

As Russia’s largest trading partner in Europe, Germany is certain to have significant influence on the debate over how to respond to Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Some politicians and observers in other European countries and in the United States have suggested that Germany’s close trading and other ties with Russia had made it hesitant to adopt sanctions against Russia. 

Ms. Merkel’s speech, however, suggested that President Vladimir V. Putin might have miscalculated the anger that the occupation and annexation of Crimea would cause — or that he might be impervious to it. 

Mr. Putin, who has remained in Sochi to attend the Paralympics there, has so far showed no sign of bending to international criticism. In a meeting on Wednesday with the directors of national Paralympic teams, he implicitly reiterated the Kremlin’s argument that the ouster of Mr. Yanukovych was an armed coup instigated by outside forces. “I would like to assure you that Russia was not the initiator of the circumstances we are now facing,” Mr. Putin said. 

In her remarks, Ms. Merkel rejected any comparison between the situation in Crimea today and that in Kosovo in the late 1990s, when NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days to halt the attacks on Kosovo Albanians by Serbian forces. 

Ms. Merkel was clear that Germany would go along with the other 27 states of the European Union, and the United States, if Russia did not open meaningful diplomatic talks and the West moved to freeze Russian accounts and impose travel bans or restrictions on leading Russian figures. 

“To make it unmistakably clear,” she said, “nobody wants it to come to that.”

The West is boxing itself into a corner. Its public is not behind this conflict despite a full-tilt propaganda campaign. The public is exhausted with constant warfare. Why spend billions to stir up trouble in Ukraine when Detroit is bankrupt? Russia, on the other hand, is operating with what appears to be overwhelming public support.

Yet despite a lack of popular approval, the West is pursuing a maximal position: the absolute territorial integrity of Ukraine (in spite of the precedent it created in cracking apart Yugoslavia) backed up by threats of economic warfare.

Clearly, as Russian forces mobilize along Ukraine's eastern border and street riots turn deadly in Donetsk, the West is going to have to put up or shut up. Putin has put up and will continue to do so. A red line has been crossed for Russia; Putin will not retreat. Elites running the show in Western capitals think that economic warfare will bring Putin to heel. I think they will find themselves the ones besieged by their own supporters in the business world. Hopefully, when the Western alliance starts to fray, the United States does not ramp up military support for Ukraine.