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| Trump's Ukraine Gaffe Actually Makes Some Sense |
| 2016-08-02 |
| Donald Trump presents an oversized target for anyone who wants to attack him for poor knowledge of international politics. His most recent remarks on Russia and Ukraine, on ABC's "This Week," have again invited sharp criticism because they are so far removed from the U.S. government's official line. But they are not as ignorant as many think: Like much that Trump says, they represent a politically incorrect dissenting view that bears some analysis. Here's what Trump said about Putin: He's not going into Ukraine, OK? Just so you understand. He's not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down and you can put it down, you can take it anywhere you want. When George Stephanopoulos tried to correct him, saying Putin was already there, Trump conceded: "OK, well, he's there in a certain way." Trump also breezily stated that "the people of Crimea, from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were." One wonders how he knows that. Last February, the Ukrainian arm of the German market research firm GfK attempted what is, to my knowledge, the only independent post-annexation survey of Crimeans' attitude toward their sudden change of nationality. But the collected data was unreliable because the researchers conducted their survey over landlines; people would have been too wary of being overheard to speak their minds. The poll showed they were happy for Crimea to be part of Russia -- but it's not clear whether any other result would have been possible given Russian secret intelligence's special attention to the peninsula. There's no way to find out whether locals would vote differently in a fair referendum today than Russia said they voted in a disgracefully rigged one in March, 2014. But something Trump said immediately afterwards holds up better: And that's under the Obama's administration, with his strong ties to NATO. So with all of these strong ties to NATO, Ukraine is a mess. Crimea has been taken. Don't blame Donald Trump for that. Though many Americans don't realize it, that was a bull's eye. In February, the Ukrainian parliament published the transcript of a Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council meeting that took place on Feb. 28, 2014. The Kiev authorities knew Russia was preparing something in Crimea -- and they decided not to fight it. One reason was that the Ukrainian army had been weakened by years of thievery and consequent underfunding. Another was that Western powers advised Ukraine against fighting back. The U.S. stood by, and unofficially asked Ukraine to stand by, as Russia took Crimea. In reply, the U.S. targeted some officials from Putin's inner circle, broke off talks on visa liberalization and some military matters and banned certain technology exports to Russia -- a weak set of measures that was only expanded to include capital market restrictions for state-owned Russian companies after pro-Russian rebels shot down a passenger plane. Those restrictions -- the only component of the sanctions that is unpleasant to Putin and his regime -- would be lifted if Russia and Ukraine carry out a cease-fire agreement reached in Minsk last February, an agreement brokered by Germany and France, with no U.S. participation. U.S. officials cannot say publicly that they let Russia take Crimea unopposed to prevent a large-scale invasion of the rest of Ukrainian territory. It didn't quite work: Putin is in Ukraine "in a certain way." But an invasion like the one in Georgia in 2008 did not take place. Nor can Ukrainian officials say openly that the U.S. and Europe, despite continuing to pay lip service to Ukraine's territorial integrity, have de-facto acquiesced in Crimea's annexation. That would be disloyal toward the Western allies, who are propping up the current Kiev government with loans and technical assistance. Trump, on the other hand, has no qualms about saying openly what he thinks. His statements amount to no more than former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger -- not a political naïf -- has been saying ever since the invasion: Nobody in the West has offered a concrete program to restore Crimea. Nobody is willing to fight over eastern Ukraine. That's a fact of life. So one could say we don't have to accept it, and we do not treat Crimea as a Russian territory under international law -- just as we continued to treat the Baltic states as independent throughout Soviet rule. The difference between the official U.S. policy, which will probably continue under Hillary Clinton if she is elected, and the public statements of Trump (and Kissinger, with whom Trump has met during the election campaign) is mainly in the rhetoric -- and in the stated willingness, or lack thereof, to re-establish a working relationship with Moscow sooner rather than later. Trump's statements on Ukraine reflect a school of thought in the Republican mainstream, a realpolitik approach that many in Europe -- where patience is fraying with the anti-Russian sanctions -- would welcome. Clinton, who has a long-standing, respectful relationship with Kissinger, will probably be exposed to his views on Ukraine, too. She may eventually ignore them, but that doesn't justify all the raised eyebrows about Trump's Ukraine remarks. |
| Posted by:Pappy |
| #3 Everyone who needs an Enemy to use as a club on revolting peasants? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-08-02 14:17 |
| #2 Too bad Trump can't or won't actually make the detailed argument himself. You'd never hear it in the MSM if he did. Besides, who really cares if Putin took Crimea back into Russia where it's been for centuries? |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2016-08-02 13:06 |
| #1 Too bad Trump can't or won't actually make the detailed argument himself. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2016-08-02 09:10 |