Readers understand it can be difficult to write about current events when they change quickly. This month’s topic is particularly fast-moving. The words you read today were written two weeks ago.
A decade ago, the Republican nominee for president, Mitt Romney, uttered what was at the time considered a gaffe. In a reflection of his party’s Cold War ideology he claimed, “Russia is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe,” and, “They fight every cause for the world’s worst actors.” We Democrats pounced with scoffs and the easy responses highlighting then-headline foes, al Qaeda and China.
The 2019 first trump impeachment was partly based on the deposed ex-president abusing his power by withholding defensive aid for Ukraine against Russia in exchange for nonexistent dirt on candidate Biden’s son. Romney was the only Republican senator to vote for impeachment. The man had consistency and courage of conviction.
Last month, 31 repuglican senators (this time including Romney) voted against a bill that provided $13.6 billion in Ukraine assistance. The bill passed in spite of their opposition and was signed into law by president Biden. A week later, more than two dozen of them reversed course to score political points and pushed Biden for even more Ukraine aid. What?
At this moment, there are no more abhorrent scenes than those we see nightly from Russia’s attack on Ukraine. For chilling context, the driving distance from Kyiv, Ukraine, to the Belarus border is 95 miles; about the same as from Santa Barbara to San Luis Obispo or to downtown Los Angeles. Modern artillery like that being used against Ukrainian cities has a range of about 15 miles; so, a similar distance from La Conchita or Naples to Santa Barbara. Clearly, the Russian bombing is knowingly indiscriminate and inaccurate.
Al Qaeda may return and China’s bold malevolence may rise when its pandemic woes recede, but Russia and its president Vladimir Putin are, as Romney presaged, “our number one geopolitical foe.” The delicacy of current negotiations is worsened by at least three factors.
First, Putin controls the world’s largest supply of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. There is frequent mention of World War Three – a military war, possibly nuclear – in explaining the cautious nature of American diplomacy. That prospect cannot be ignored or minimized.
Second, Russia is rich in natural resources essential to many other countries. Russian oil and natural gas are a major source of heat and power to much of the European Union (8% of US oil comes from Russia, too). America is relatively insulated against Putin’s energy leverage, but must be mindful of the direct effect on European allies. Americans may complain about gasoline prices, but Europeans risk home heating and electricity in winter.
Third, Putin cultivates his wicked “madman” image of being unpredictable, temperamental, and dismissive of civilized diplomatic conventions. Deposed ex-president trump toyed with that persona, too. Against Putin’s “Vlad the Impaler” we have no defense. There is, however, a fourth major consideration that may not have been fully exploited until now.
The US is opposing Russia not in nukes-to-nukes warfare (or threat of it). That would be symmetrical warfare where each side controls more than enough military power to overwhelm the other, not to mention obliterate most of humankind.
Historically, extreme disputes between or within nation-states were contested in scaled-up versions of individual fisticuffs, i.e., military wars with lethal weapons. We may be witnessing a change in future strategies; where barbaric rogue nations are not defeated by sheer military might but by crippling economic sanctions. This is a battlefield on which the US and other countries are clearly more powerful than Russia.
Russia’s annual Gross Domestic Product (a measure of total economic output) is about $1.5 trillion. That’s less than 3 American states (California $3.4T, Texas $2T, and NY $1.9T) and 9 other countries outside the US (China, Japan, Germany, India, UK, France, Italy, Canada, and South Korea). Russia is a medium-sized economy, dependent on foreign trade for many goods and services essential to its people.
Economic sanctions are a war of attrition where the speed of results depends on the breadth of the sanctions or the focus on essential sectors. They are more effective in countries where affected citizens can influence their heads of state. This seems unlikely now in Russia, hence the coordinated sanctions against Putin’s cronies, the wealthy Russian oligarchs. Readers in April will know better the success of economic sanctions as a strategy against the foe Mitt Romney saw clearly a decade ago.