What would you say, ya do here?

So ever since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine (sorry, Ukraine) this has pretty much been me:

My friends are probably sick of my texts. I have so many thoughts floating around in my head if I do not write them down, I will blow up. Literally.

Full disclosure: I’m not an expert on Eastern Europe but I’m also not an idiot. I have a Master of Arts in Slavic and Eastern European Studies and when I was working on my master’s, my area of focus ended up becoming of all things, Ukrainian national identity. I even wrote a lengthy paper on said topic which I presented, to positive reception at the Midwest Conference on Slavic Studies.

So here’s the thing about what is happening in Ukraine. It is entirely possible (you may want to sit down), that Putin isn’t wrong in his claims about Nazis or Ukraine being Russian but that doesn’t mean his actions are okay.

Ukraine is a modern invention. With the exception of a brief period of time in the 1300’s when there was the city-state of Kievan Rus, Ukraine has been Russian.

First, Putin’s “Nazi” claim. In the Donbas region, Ukrainian paramilitaries have been fighting the Russian separatists for years. Some of these paramilitary groups, such as the Azoz Battalion, are Neo-Nazis. Even the far left Salon has to do logic gymnastics to explain why Putin is wrong but at the same time right, that there are far right Neo-Nazi militas in Ukraine. Putin’s declaration wasn’t new. Here is a letter from Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D) back in April of 2021 to Secretary of State requesting he label the Azoz Battallion a foreign terrorist organization. Please do not misunderstand me–I am not saying all of Ukraine is Nazi. Nor that Putin’s seemingly total war ( implemented by American General Sherman long before the Nazis) is justified. Simply that Putin is not entirely wrong in his claims of Nazi ideology’s violent presence in eastern Ukraine.

Next, the claim that Ukraine is Russian. Let me try to contextualize it for the Western reader.

Let’s pretend that in 2060, Texas secedes from the Union. They immediately begin drawing heavily upon their 10-year experience in 1836-1846 as the Republic of Texas to both build a separate identity and prove they should always have been independent. Now, losing Texas hurts the US. It is large. It has a significant population and economy. It is rich in natural resources. It pays more into the Federal government than it receives back. And, in terms of pride, it is an insult. So Americans are unhappy and rightfully claim that Texas has been American over the past 200 years and can’t really state they’ve been anything else. The Republic of Texas is a weak argument for stating they should always have been independent.

Now, let’s imagine that Austin and the area around it quickly revolt and declare they are still part of America. They don’t want to be Texans, they want to be Americans and ask for support from the USA. What do you suppose the USA would do?

But things are about to get more complicated. Because in its bid to establish itself, Texas has been seeking international recognition and is about to enter into a military alliance with the People’s Republic of China which will let the PRC build a base in Texas and promises military support if Texas gets attacked. The PRC also tells the USA to mind its own business and ignore the Austin separatist.

The USA, nervous about the possibility of a very real security threat, upset over its national prestige being injured, and nervous about the economic losses from Texas moving further and further away politically issues a number of demands to Texas and China which both nations dismiss out of hand.

What does the USA do now? What should they do?

It’s easy to judge Russia but sometimes, before you judge someone, you should try to put yourself in their shoes to better understand why they feel the way they feel.

Again, I’m not saying Russia was right to attack Ukraine or anything that has happened since. But I understand why Russia felt the way they did prior to the invasion.

Now that that is off my chest let’s move on to the Western response to Russia’s invasion. Here is what I want to know:

1. Do we have a coherent, long-term strategy?
2. What are our goals and expected outcomes?

In other words, what the hell are we doing?

Behold, US Foreign policy:

Here are my concerns with our current response:

1. It isn’t a guarantee these sanctions will end the war, cause Putin to retreat, recognize Ukrainian national integrity or (long term) destroy the Russian economy. It will, however, hurt the American economy and drive up prices which are already extremely high.
2. Weaponizing the foreign currency reserve (aka the dollar) may not be the best move. The dollar is only valuable because the US says it is (and other governments agree). Those agreements could change. As Bloomberg reports, “As such, it may make less and less sense for global reserve managers to hold dollars for safety, given that they could be taken away right when they’re most needed” Those authors and myself are not saying that this will happen. But in a time of high inflation and a fragile economy, this seems like an extremely risky move.  
3. Sanctions do not work. Iran is still Iran. North Korea is still North Korea. There is a global black market which allows them to still have an economy. Remember, it is well known that Iran has managed to evade sanctions and still sell their oil. I realize the response could be, yes but we’ve never seen sanctions like this before. And that is correct. What we are watching unfold is a global experiment where we do not know the outcome. Which again, begs the question, what are our goals and expected outcomes with these financial sanctions?
4. This isn’t what Ukraine is requesting. President Zelensky didn’t ask that we sanction Russian oligarchs. He asked that we stand in solidarity and fight Russia with him. When Russia had a convoy of military vehicles 40 miles long headed towards Kviv, which got bogged down and stalled for days in place, a couple of the B-52s circling outside of Ukraine’s airspace could have ended the war. That’s what Ukraine wanted. Instead, we removed Russia’s access to SWIFT. I can just imagine the comedian turned President of Ukraine quoting Office Space and saying, “What would you say you do here?” while talking to President Biden.
5. A vacuum will be filled. As surely as water always flows down, to the lowest place, so too will a vacuum in the geopolitical world get filled. Cutting Russia out of Western oil doesn’t mean other nations won’t trade with them. It just puts the West in an even more perilous position. There are already reports that 4 Chinese SEOs are in talks with Russian oil and mineral companies for acquisition. Wouldn’t it be cute if China bought Gazprom (one of the companies mentioned in the Bloomberg report) and started pumping oil/gas out to the US, which we then began buying? Russia is reportedly looking into the Yuan as a currency to trade with (which helps China’s attempt to internalize the Yuan to compete with the dollar) and Russian banks are encouraging companies/banks to switch to China’s UnionPay, the Chinese equivalent to Mastercard/Visa. Which begs the question: will the sanctions help China while not detering Russia from continuing their war?
6. Exclusion is not helpful and is reminiscent of Nazis. I don’t take the Nazi analogy lightly. It is used far too often today. But telling an artist their work is not valuable because of their ethnicity is….wrong. Telling a scientist they have nothing to contribute (or you don’t want to consider their contributions) to the global scientific community because of their ethnicity is…well, Nazism.
7. The bandwagon is about to fall over. Let’s be honest, the vast majority of companies which have decided to pull out of Russia are not doing so because they actually have discovered their morality. Much of what has happened is a political bandwagon. And it is getting so full it is about to tip. Western banks will lose over 120 billion in money loaned to Russia which they will most likely never get back. Because…global banks discovered there’s a difference between right and wrong? Do we really believe Shell, which has the third largest defense budget of any African nation and employes mercenaries throughout Africa, has figured out violence isn’t okay? Has McDonalds, which serves food which has been shown to cause serious illness if eaten regularly, suddenly decided it cares about human well being? For me, all of these companies acting like they care about these things in Russia look like this:

This brings me to the last thing I need to get off my chest: I’m sick of the fake righteousness over what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

It might seem like a lifetime ago, but do you remember the Beijing 2022 Olympics? Do you remember how Western leaders boycotted attending in protest to what China is doing to its Uyghur population? In an excellent piece in The Atlantic, Tom McTague points out the following (inconvenient truth): “Right now, the world’s second-most powerful state, China, is committing genocide against its own people and dismantling the freedoms of a city of several million, but the West continues to trade with it almost as if nothing is happening. Even as Western governments busily sanction Russian oligarchs, they continue to let Saudi oligarchs buy up their companies, sports teams, and homes, despite the fact that their leader, according to U.S. intelligence, approved the butchering of a journalist in one of his embassies.” 

It would be too easy to say our “moral” reaction to what Russia is doing in the Ukraine is hypocrisy. Hypocrisy implies an ideal you are pursuing but falling short of. It isn’t hypocrisy; it is insanity. China is committing genocide against the Uyghurs while we not only keep trading with them but purchasing goods produced by slave labor. Feel free to review Wikipedia’s article with 508 external citations on the topic.

Maybe it is the mandatory training in unconscious bias I’ve had to take, but I can’t help but wonder if the reason the West cares about Ukraine and not the Uyghurs is because the Ukraine is populated with white Christians and the Uyghurs are brown Muslims?

Or maybe…our foreign policy makes no sense.