Walt describes the dominant view as:
"Vladimir Putin is a relentless aggressor who is trying to recreate something akin to the old Soviet empire, and thus not confronting him over Ukraine will lead him to take aggressive actions elsewhere. The only thing to do, therefore, is increase the costs until Russia backs down and leaves Ukraine free to pursue its own foreign policy...."In addition to bolstering deterrence, in short, giving arms to Kiev is intended to coerce Moscow into doing what we want. Yet the evidence in this case suggests the spiral model is far more applicable. Russia is not an ambitious rising power like Nazi Germany or contemporary China; it is an aging, depopulating, and declining great power trying to cling to whatever international influence it still possesses and preserve a modest sphere of influence near its borders, so that stronger states -- and especially the United States -- cannot take advantage of its growing vulnerabilities.
"Putin & Co. are also genuinely worried about America's efforts to promote 'regime change' around the world -- including Ukraine -- a policy that could eventually threaten their own positions. It is lingering fear, rather than relentless ambition, that underpins Russia's response in Ukraine.
"Moreover, the Ukraine crisis did not begin with a bold Russian move or even a series of illegitimate Russian demands; it began when the United States and European Union tried to move Ukraine out of Russia's orbit and into the West's sphere of influence. That objective may be desirable in the abstract, but Moscow made it abundantly clear it would fight this process tooth and nail.
"U.S. leaders blithely ignored these warnings -- which clearly stemmed from Russian insecurity rather than territorial greed -- and not surprisingly they have been blindsided by Moscow's reaction. The failure of U.S. diplomats to anticipate Putin's heavy-handed response was an act of remarkable diplomatic incompetence, and one can only wonder why the individuals who helped produce this train wreck still have their jobs."
Safety in Numbers
But the reason that people like Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, who helped plot the overthrow of the Yanukovych government a year ago, is that they represent the neocon/liberal-interventionist dominance of Official Washington. That's also why key media advocates for the Iraq War, like the Washington Post's Fred Hiatt and the New York Times' Thomas L. Friedman, still have their jobs; they ran with the powerful herd and are proof that there really is safety in numbers.
Citing the "spiral model," Walt warns that the current popular idea of arming the Kiev forces...
"...will only make things worse. It certainly will not enable Ukraine to defeat the far stronger Russian army; it will simply intensify the conflict and add to the suffering of the Ukrainian people."Nor is arming Ukraine likely to convince Putin to cave in and give Washington what it wants. Ukraine is historically linked to Russia, they are right next door to each other, Russian intelligence has long-standing links inside Ukraine's own security institutions, and Russia is far stronger militarily. Even massive arms shipments from the United States won't tip the balance in Kiev's favor, and Moscow can always escalate if the fighting turns against the rebels, as it did last summer."
Walt also saw danger signs around Washington's take-it-or-leave-it style of negotiating, rather than trying to reach a solution that would work for both sides. He wrote:
"Instead of engaging in genuine bargaining, American officials tend to tell others what to do and then ramp up the pressure if they do not comply. Today, those who want to arm Ukraine are demanding that Russia cease all of its activities in Ukraine, withdraw from Crimea, and let Ukraine join the EU and/or NATO if it wants and if it meets the membership requirements. In other words, they expect Moscow to abandon its own interests in Ukraine, full stop."
Though the facts and logic rest with Walt's argument, he is confronting one of the most single-minded "group thinks" in modern U.S. history, even more unquestioning than the certainty of 2002-2003 that Iraq possessed WMDs and was about to share them with al-Qaeda.
A Second Voice
Similarly, Mearsheimer warns that the idea of shipping advanced weaponry to Ukraine...
"...would be a huge mistake for the United States, NATO and Ukraine itself. Sending weapons to Ukraine will not rescue its army and will instead lead to an escalation in the fighting. Such a step is especially dangerous because Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons and is seeking to defend a vital strategic interest. ..."Because the balance of power decisively favors Moscow, Washington would have to send large amounts of equipment for Ukraine's army to have a fighting chance. But the conflict will not end there. Russia would counter-escalate, taking away any temporary benefit Kiev might get from American arms. ...
"Proponents of arming Ukraine have a second line of argument. The key to success, they maintain, is not to defeat Russia militarily, but to raise the costs of fighting to the point where Mr. Putin will cave. The pain will supposedly compel Moscow to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and allow it to join the European Union and NATO and become an ally of the West.
"This coercive strategy is also unlikely to work, no matter how much punishment the West inflicts. What advocates of arming Ukraine fail to understand is that Russian leaders believe their country's core strategic interests are at stake in Ukraine; they are unlikely to give ground, even if it means absorbing huge costs.
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