"Joe Biden is not going to be around for the end of Never. Countries keep trying to extract long-term promises from a president who will not necessarily outlast the items currently in the White House fridge."
One of the problems that we have is that we have an international relations system that dates back to before the French Revolution[1] - permanent ambassadors, treaties, etc. We have added a few kluges onto it - first, we got instant communication between principals with telegraphy (and then telephony) and then we got face-to-face summit meetings. We also added the big international conferences, first occasionally (Vienna in 1815 or Berlin in 1878) and then permanently (League of Nations then the United Nations).
But the core system is designed for states that have a single ruler for life and a predictable succession (i.e. absolute monarchies). It assumes that when the President makes a commitment, the United States of America makes a commitment, and therefore each President is bound by the promises of his predecessors.
Since - for domestic political reasons - it's essentially impossible for the United States to ratify treaties any more, the rest of the world, rather than being honest and recognising that the USA is incapable of making any permanent commitment to anything, instead pretends that an agreement with the USA is a permanent commitment.
Back in the nineteenth century, Britain was the only democracy among the major European powers (until France became a democracy in the 1870s) and diplomats regularly complained that Britain was unreliable because there would occasionally be an election and the policy would change. The USA didn't meddle in European power politics in this period (it wasn't really powerful enough until the Civil War, and was deeply isolationist until TR), but once it did get involved, it quickly acquired the same reputation, especially after the refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. It took the Cold War consensus (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan had very minor differences in policy as seen from, say, Germany) for the US to be seen as a reliable partner. That attitude is not doing well any more.
Lots of other democracies have much more consistent foreign policies - this is often because their strategic constraints give them very limited options (if you're Belgium, then what could you really change about your foreign policy) but also their political leadership still comes from a single unified elite that all develops the same attitudes to foreign policy, even as they vary more domestically (look at all the graduates of ENA in France, or Oxford in England, or how small the differences are between the SPD and CDU in Germany). There are politicians from outside that elite (Corbyn in Britain, Le Pen in France, Grillo in Italy), but they - unlike Trump - have not won.
Not ratifying Versailles is part of the grand American tradition of turning our backs on the world. For every Wilson there is a Cabot Lodge.
We didn't like the idea of fighting around the world for other peoples empires. In fact it's why many of us moved here. You could say not dying for Kaiser or Czar or the English Generally was the original American Dream. And after 1918, realizing we lost 100,000 soldiers so Britain and France could divvy up the Middle East and pay back Wall Street...was it worth it? Why did my ancestors leave Ireland again?
Since 1945 the natural impulse to turn away has been thwarted and America has been in a sometimes hot forever-war since. Even after the Cold War ended there was no respite. It never ends. And we're losing our minds doing it.
[1] It evolved to replace the medieval system that was based on vassalage and the commonality of the (Roman Catholic) Church over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was pretty much finalised by the time of the Peace of Utrecht in 1715. The traditional histories tend to regard the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) as the key point in the evolution, but more recently that is being challenged by a new generation, who see it more as an evolution from the Italian Renaissance right through to Utrecht.
Like you, I'm not an expert, and I'm not even a comedian on substack ... but let me offer a different perspective, also synthesized from multiple sources.
Putin is a tyrant, a bully, an authoritarian and a dictator. He is also a Russian patriot with a keen sense of history. He looks back at "Mother Russia's history through the last 500 yrs and sees nothin' but invasions - Mongols, Swedes (Charles XII - read Robert Massie's biography of Peter the Great to get a sense of this man), Poles, Napoleon, Hitler - each of whom have invaded Russia and posed an existential threat to it at various points in its history.
Fending off the last of this bunch cost Russia 20 MILLION lives in WW2. For those who don't have calculators, that's 50x (!) the number of humans we lost in that war. You don't have to normalize for population OR duration of the conflict to see that that's a MASSIVE sacrifice that Russians had to make, and one they would have had to make even if a monster like Stalin was not in charge.
The way Russia has historically adapted to these threats is by creating massive buffer zones between them and their enemies. Until Hitler, the satellite republics (Ukraine, the 'stans, etc.) provided that buffer. When that was (almost) not enough to hold back Hitler, they then created the whole Soviet bloc to protect the Mother Ship.
Fast forward to 1991, and the whole buffer is gone "poof", but at least some parts of them were "friendly" ('stans, Belarus) and "neutral" (Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, etc.). A Russian with a sense of history that is not as short as most Americans' - most of whom (e.g. Dana Perino, W's WH Press Secy.) don't even know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was - might well have been alarmed at this outcome.
"But, but ..." we say with bewilderment, "... that is all HISTORY, tovarich. We're not Napoleon or Hitler. No way we're going to take apart Russia like those guys did. This is the 21st century, for Ivan's sake. We don't operate like that. We're the good guys!"
Putin rolls his eyes and goes, "Really? So, tell me, were you not the fellas that dismembered my Serbian friends' country; invaded and despoiled Iraq (and the whole frikkin' region) on false pretenses; gratuitously fomented chaos in countries that did you no harm (Syria, Egypt) giving space to ISIS; buggered up Libya when it posed no threat to you; did a deal with Iran and then broke it on the flimsiest of pretexts and then bullied everyone else in the world who dared defy you by threatening to cut them off from the dollar ... NEED I GO ON? And I'm supposed to trust in YOUR goodwill? Give me a break so I can laugh my ass off."
****
I don't know if Putin really thinks this way. But I suspect that it's a part of their calculus, and why it won't be that easy to cajole/bully/threaten our way out of this.
I am in the camp of those who think that NATO succeeded wildly during the Cold War ... and should have snuffed itself out of existence in 1991 after the Soviet Union broke up. And that Ukraine, et al, should never have been our problem. But now that we've made it our problem, we can't just walk away either.
In terms of realpolitik, you’re definitely onto it. It ain’t just Russia, either; every state is subjected to the same pressure. Russia is merely on the far end of the bell curve in terms of what natural defense it can rely on. Britain has her oceans, the Swiss have their mountains, etc. Russia is exposed on all fronts; accordingly, for centuries it was very much “keep advancing and extending suzerainty” or “else”.
China has a similar justified paranoia, except they have an ocean to back up against. Even today they’re stressing about how to retake an island that can threaten the Han heartland, and were willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of soldiers to carve out a buffer zone in North Korea rather than endure foreign troops on their natural border.
The whole Western obsession with "democratization" is probably a little scary in the Russian Federation. Considering the fact that there has never been a large, multi-ethnic country that has "democratized" in the last 30 years without having a partition, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or ISIS emergence it's not altogether unjustified. "Democratization for Russia" (a federation with Mongol, Turkic, Finnic, and other languages spoken as majority languages in enclaves) probably translates closest to " Really Big Yugoslavia." Yay!
(For those wondering South Africa is the best example of democratization of a multi-ethnic country since the Wall fell, however they were pre-partitioned along ethnic lines when that happened.)
Not even Dokken wants to get back together! I saw Don back in 19’ and his voice was totally shot, so much so that the rest of the band-including George Lynch-is getting together to record a new album without him. If Putin had a favorite Dokken song, it would have to be “The Hunter”!!
You know what's funny? To write that joke I had to find an '80s hair mental band that's broken up and it was actually really tough -- they all broke up and then got back together (presumably when enough of them ran out of money).
Yes, Putin could fall if his political support collapses. With that in mind, how can he possibly meet the following demand:
Russia must disband an army that is inside the borders of the Russian Federation.
Not only is that a ridiculous request, if Putin does that he's done. Nevermind the idea that he's going to surrender the Port City of Catherine the Great over sanctions when the Russians gave up more for Crimea than the USA has given up, well, almost ever (seriously, it'd be insulting if not so naive. Putin literally laughed at the notion). He HAS to keep the army right where it is as a matter of Russia's sovereignty now.
Imagine him facing the Russian public when the flags of some of our NATO allies (nee Axis Powers) fly over Sevastopol Bay once again! He'd be done! Adios! Sayonara! Bye Bye!
Anyways, so much focus on Putin outwards. His greatest accomplishment is that the Russian Federation has survived at all -- May very well not have happened without him!
And boy, Grozny looks a helluva lot better than Kabul, Tripoli, Baghdad...
Edit just saying all the neo-con talking points have been made. Now maybe, just maybe, we should learn the history/culture/ethnic makeup/religion/language BEFORE we do something stupid. Not like, ya know, every other time we've bombed someone and then left smouldering ruins behind...This ain't Libya we're talking about here.
Going into Russia is literally the dumbest idea in history. Bar none.
I think the big difference is that Crimea (and to a lesser extent Donbas) is overwhelmingly ethnically Russian and many people welcomed the annexation, but that would not be true of all of Ukraine. My understanding is that the farther west you go, the less Ukrainians feel positively towards Russia.
"Joe Biden is not going to be around for the end of Never. Countries keep trying to extract long-term promises from a president who will not necessarily outlast the items currently in the White House fridge."
One of the problems that we have is that we have an international relations system that dates back to before the French Revolution[1] - permanent ambassadors, treaties, etc. We have added a few kluges onto it - first, we got instant communication between principals with telegraphy (and then telephony) and then we got face-to-face summit meetings. We also added the big international conferences, first occasionally (Vienna in 1815 or Berlin in 1878) and then permanently (League of Nations then the United Nations).
But the core system is designed for states that have a single ruler for life and a predictable succession (i.e. absolute monarchies). It assumes that when the President makes a commitment, the United States of America makes a commitment, and therefore each President is bound by the promises of his predecessors.
Since - for domestic political reasons - it's essentially impossible for the United States to ratify treaties any more, the rest of the world, rather than being honest and recognising that the USA is incapable of making any permanent commitment to anything, instead pretends that an agreement with the USA is a permanent commitment.
Back in the nineteenth century, Britain was the only democracy among the major European powers (until France became a democracy in the 1870s) and diplomats regularly complained that Britain was unreliable because there would occasionally be an election and the policy would change. The USA didn't meddle in European power politics in this period (it wasn't really powerful enough until the Civil War, and was deeply isolationist until TR), but once it did get involved, it quickly acquired the same reputation, especially after the refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. It took the Cold War consensus (Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan had very minor differences in policy as seen from, say, Germany) for the US to be seen as a reliable partner. That attitude is not doing well any more.
Lots of other democracies have much more consistent foreign policies - this is often because their strategic constraints give them very limited options (if you're Belgium, then what could you really change about your foreign policy) but also their political leadership still comes from a single unified elite that all develops the same attitudes to foreign policy, even as they vary more domestically (look at all the graduates of ENA in France, or Oxford in England, or how small the differences are between the SPD and CDU in Germany). There are politicians from outside that elite (Corbyn in Britain, Le Pen in France, Grillo in Italy), but they - unlike Trump - have not won.
I wonder if anyone’s considered a “no takebacks” clause when making treaties with the US
Super interesting comment. Not an aspect of the international system I'd noticed before and really well explained. Thanks!
Not ratifying Versailles is part of the grand American tradition of turning our backs on the world. For every Wilson there is a Cabot Lodge.
We didn't like the idea of fighting around the world for other peoples empires. In fact it's why many of us moved here. You could say not dying for Kaiser or Czar or the English Generally was the original American Dream. And after 1918, realizing we lost 100,000 soldiers so Britain and France could divvy up the Middle East and pay back Wall Street...was it worth it? Why did my ancestors leave Ireland again?
Since 1945 the natural impulse to turn away has been thwarted and America has been in a sometimes hot forever-war since. Even after the Cold War ended there was no respite. It never ends. And we're losing our minds doing it.
I should add that footnote:
[1] It evolved to replace the medieval system that was based on vassalage and the commonality of the (Roman Catholic) Church over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was pretty much finalised by the time of the Peace of Utrecht in 1715. The traditional histories tend to regard the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) as the key point in the evolution, but more recently that is being challenged by a new generation, who see it more as an evolution from the Italian Renaissance right through to Utrecht.
Like you, I'm not an expert, and I'm not even a comedian on substack ... but let me offer a different perspective, also synthesized from multiple sources.
Putin is a tyrant, a bully, an authoritarian and a dictator. He is also a Russian patriot with a keen sense of history. He looks back at "Mother Russia's history through the last 500 yrs and sees nothin' but invasions - Mongols, Swedes (Charles XII - read Robert Massie's biography of Peter the Great to get a sense of this man), Poles, Napoleon, Hitler - each of whom have invaded Russia and posed an existential threat to it at various points in its history.
Fending off the last of this bunch cost Russia 20 MILLION lives in WW2. For those who don't have calculators, that's 50x (!) the number of humans we lost in that war. You don't have to normalize for population OR duration of the conflict to see that that's a MASSIVE sacrifice that Russians had to make, and one they would have had to make even if a monster like Stalin was not in charge.
The way Russia has historically adapted to these threats is by creating massive buffer zones between them and their enemies. Until Hitler, the satellite republics (Ukraine, the 'stans, etc.) provided that buffer. When that was (almost) not enough to hold back Hitler, they then created the whole Soviet bloc to protect the Mother Ship.
Fast forward to 1991, and the whole buffer is gone "poof", but at least some parts of them were "friendly" ('stans, Belarus) and "neutral" (Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, etc.). A Russian with a sense of history that is not as short as most Americans' - most of whom (e.g. Dana Perino, W's WH Press Secy.) don't even know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was - might well have been alarmed at this outcome.
"But, but ..." we say with bewilderment, "... that is all HISTORY, tovarich. We're not Napoleon or Hitler. No way we're going to take apart Russia like those guys did. This is the 21st century, for Ivan's sake. We don't operate like that. We're the good guys!"
Putin rolls his eyes and goes, "Really? So, tell me, were you not the fellas that dismembered my Serbian friends' country; invaded and despoiled Iraq (and the whole frikkin' region) on false pretenses; gratuitously fomented chaos in countries that did you no harm (Syria, Egypt) giving space to ISIS; buggered up Libya when it posed no threat to you; did a deal with Iran and then broke it on the flimsiest of pretexts and then bullied everyone else in the world who dared defy you by threatening to cut them off from the dollar ... NEED I GO ON? And I'm supposed to trust in YOUR goodwill? Give me a break so I can laugh my ass off."
****
I don't know if Putin really thinks this way. But I suspect that it's a part of their calculus, and why it won't be that easy to cajole/bully/threaten our way out of this.
I am in the camp of those who think that NATO succeeded wildly during the Cold War ... and should have snuffed itself out of existence in 1991 after the Soviet Union broke up. And that Ukraine, et al, should never have been our problem. But now that we've made it our problem, we can't just walk away either.
In terms of realpolitik, you’re definitely onto it. It ain’t just Russia, either; every state is subjected to the same pressure. Russia is merely on the far end of the bell curve in terms of what natural defense it can rely on. Britain has her oceans, the Swiss have their mountains, etc. Russia is exposed on all fronts; accordingly, for centuries it was very much “keep advancing and extending suzerainty” or “else”.
China has a similar justified paranoia, except they have an ocean to back up against. Even today they’re stressing about how to retake an island that can threaten the Han heartland, and were willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of soldiers to carve out a buffer zone in North Korea rather than endure foreign troops on their natural border.
Something else to add on:
The whole Western obsession with "democratization" is probably a little scary in the Russian Federation. Considering the fact that there has never been a large, multi-ethnic country that has "democratized" in the last 30 years without having a partition, genocide, ethnic cleansing, or ISIS emergence it's not altogether unjustified. "Democratization for Russia" (a federation with Mongol, Turkic, Finnic, and other languages spoken as majority languages in enclaves) probably translates closest to " Really Big Yugoslavia." Yay!
(For those wondering South Africa is the best example of democratization of a multi-ethnic country since the Wall fell, however they were pre-partitioned along ethnic lines when that happened.)
Russia already has( or traditionally had) an invasion early warning system-it’s called Poland!
Not even Dokken wants to get back together! I saw Don back in 19’ and his voice was totally shot, so much so that the rest of the band-including George Lynch-is getting together to record a new album without him. If Putin had a favorite Dokken song, it would have to be “The Hunter”!!
You know what's funny? To write that joke I had to find an '80s hair mental band that's broken up and it was actually really tough -- they all broke up and then got back together (presumably when enough of them ran out of money).
Yes, Putin could fall if his political support collapses. With that in mind, how can he possibly meet the following demand:
Russia must disband an army that is inside the borders of the Russian Federation.
Not only is that a ridiculous request, if Putin does that he's done. Nevermind the idea that he's going to surrender the Port City of Catherine the Great over sanctions when the Russians gave up more for Crimea than the USA has given up, well, almost ever (seriously, it'd be insulting if not so naive. Putin literally laughed at the notion). He HAS to keep the army right where it is as a matter of Russia's sovereignty now.
Imagine him facing the Russian public when the flags of some of our NATO allies (nee Axis Powers) fly over Sevastopol Bay once again! He'd be done! Adios! Sayonara! Bye Bye!
Anyways, so much focus on Putin outwards. His greatest accomplishment is that the Russian Federation has survived at all -- May very well not have happened without him!
And boy, Grozny looks a helluva lot better than Kabul, Tripoli, Baghdad...
Edit just saying all the neo-con talking points have been made. Now maybe, just maybe, we should learn the history/culture/ethnic makeup/religion/language BEFORE we do something stupid. Not like, ya know, every other time we've bombed someone and then left smouldering ruins behind...This ain't Libya we're talking about here.
Going into Russia is literally the dumbest idea in history. Bar none.
You say an invasion would be unpopular, while the non-invasion of Crimea was popular.
But why not just do that again: invade, but say it's a non-invasion?
I think the big difference is that Crimea (and to a lesser extent Donbas) is overwhelmingly ethnically Russian and many people welcomed the annexation, but that would not be true of all of Ukraine. My understanding is that the farther west you go, the less Ukrainians feel positively towards Russia.