The drama between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States has been playing out over the past several weeks.
Russia is massing troops on the border of Ukraine, and phone calls have been exchanged between President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Talks between our country are Russia are scheduled in Geneva this month. Putin forced the talks with his military buildup, as stated by writer Katrina vanden Heuvel in her story "What a Sensible Ukraine Policy Would Look Like." Naturally, Putin will make demands: that Ukraine not join NATO; that NATO not expand farther to the east; that the United States not deploy missiles on Russian borders; and that NATO reduce its forces in Eastern and Central Europe.
What does a sensible U.S. posture look like? How do we incorporate Biden's goal of a "foreign policy for the middle class"? The priorities of both Russia and the U.S. do have some commonalities - the Covid-19 pandemic and global warming. Of course, we should bring China and India in on those issues as well. On the home front, our country must deal with declining life expectancy, extreme inequality, racial tensions, and a democracy under siege. Solving these problems means less military adventurism abroad.
All this being considered, President Biden should take a hard look at Russia and Ukraine. Our country has no national security interests in Ukraine, as stated by vanden Heuvel. Ukraine's population is divided, with millions looking to the East, or Russia. The poverty rate is over 50 percent, and we're not going to spend the money to bolster the country internally. The veteran diplomat George Kennan correctly predicted in 1998 that Russia would "react quite adversely" if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization expanded to the East, which happened in the Bill Clinton administration. "I think it is a tragic mistake," he said. "This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way." The expansion of NATO has driven Russia and China together, as the two countries are allies in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
A better path for Biden would have been to ease tensions between the U.S. and Russia after extending the New START Treaty. Vanden Heuvel stated a strategy: "instead of ramping up military aid to Ukraine and allowing loose talk about Ukraine joining NATO, Biden could call for a joint guarantee of Ukraine's independence and neutrality. The United States and NATO would agree not to station troops or offensive weapons in former Soviet republics; the Russians would guarantee not to threaten them with military force. Both would pledge not to interfere with those countries' internal political affairs."
With NATO now including many former Soviet republics, it's hard to disengage as much as if the deadly mistakes made since the collapse of the Soviet Union had not occurred. However, a de-escalation of tensions with a neutral Ukraine with a settlement enforced perhaps by the United Nations. NATO now exists to manage the tensions created by its existence since the end of the Cold War. The most important thing to remember in the crises is our self-interest currently - cooling tensions with Russia.
Jason Sibert is the Lead Writer for the Peace Economy Project.
