Human rights groups argue that this systematic resettlement is part of a broader effort to make Ukraine a part of Russia without territorial conquest. The Russification of Ukrainian children physically takes children out of their homes while mentally shaping their identity from Ukrainian to Russian. 

The kidnapping is a microcosm of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. While territory and sovereignty are at stake, so are identity and history. 

Glimpse from the Globe sat down with Douglas Becker, a professor of international relations at the University of Southern California and a historical memory scholar, to discuss the importance and complexity of historical memory in this war. 

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Q: What is Historical Memory, and how is it different from history?

A: History is telling a narrative of the past; memory is the filtering of that narrative for contemporary purposes. It’s the way in which people reading history will remember that history, whether they lived through it — a distinct personal memory — or it is filtered and negotiated by the historians or very much by political and social actors.  

Q: Would you say that, in this case, Russia and Ukraine have shared histories but differing historical memories? 

A: Well, they definitely have histories that intertwine, but you used the word share, and that’s complex. The notion of a shared history is decidedly Russian. The idea is that Russia and Ukraine are intertwined so much so that many Russians consider Ukraine to be “‘Little Russia.’” Ukrainians push back pretty directly on that notion of a shared history. They would rather agree on the idea of an intertwined history. Increasingly that narrative is taking on a colonial form. So Ukrainian history and identity are forms of resistance to the Russian narrative.

Q: So, are these conflictual views an example of a difference in historical memory?

A:  That’s part of it, but memory is a little more complex than that. Think of the Hollywood trope where the same event is viewed from multiple perspectives and perceptions of what’s happened. There are all of these elements of history, but memory might isolate one of these factors or arguments. 

Q: American news coverage tends to focus on tangible explanations for this war. Since memory is so intangible, how much of this war would you say is based on a difference in historical memory and identity? 

A: I actually think that there has been a lot of conversation about identity because there’s been terribly little emphasis from an IR perspective, from a traditional realist perspective, on resources. The question then is, how much of identity is tied to history and memory? Memory scholars like myself understand identity as not static but rather flexible, organic and developing. President Biden and the United States tend to focus on protecting Ukraine as a democracy from an authoritarian state. They’re not citing history and historical memory as much — Ukrainians will. A better way of putting this is Ukrainians telling Putin, “you’re trying to implant your memory in my head.” 

Q: Would it be fair to say then that the war is both a territorial attack and an attack on Ukraine’s memory and identity?

A: Yes, and you can’t unlink the two. What’s driving Russia at this point is a desire to annex Ukraine or ensure that the Ukrainian government is always compliant with the Russians to create, in essence, a puppet state. What becomes the means by which to ensure you win the war would have to be some memory discourse where Ukrainians will accept the Russian role because of the notion that we are all the same nation. 

Q: Earlier, you mentioned that memory discourse could be used for political gain. How does that affect how leaders approach policy? 

A: It must. One issue I constantly wrestle with is the leaders choosing these memories based on what they want to accomplish — memory is a tool to get a policy outcome that they want — and how much of it has to do with the leaders’ own memories and beliefs. How much are issues driven by memory, and how much is instrumental? What Putin is doing in Ukraine clearly has a degree of instrumentality. 

Q: So because this war is largely based on memory and identity, it becomes all that much harder to resolve? 

A: Absolutely. How do you compromise your identity? How do you compromise your memory? When a conflict is over memory as opposed to over territory or resources, it is so much harder to resolve. As conflicts become increasingly about identity, all negotiation techniques fail. Memory battles tend to be existential battles. How do you negotiate wars where if you lose, you lose your identity? It makes these wars more difficult to resolve, and I become all the more pessimistic about the possibility of a resolution.  

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As the Ukraine and Russia war drags on, the stakes expand beyond territory and become more and more existential. Historical memory discourse provides an explanation and analysis of how or if the conflict will be resolved. As time goes on, it becomes less and less likely either side will be willing to lose their identity and memory to negotiation. 

Since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict in 2014, an estimated 13,000 people have been killed, and millions more have been displaced. Five years ago, the Ukrainian government decided not to sign an association agreement with the EU in favor of closer economic ties with Russia. As a result of the popular protests that followed, the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was ousted, the 2004 constitution was restored, and the Russian annexation of Crimea soon followed. Although the Russia-Ukraine conflict has faded from many headlines, the war in Donbass between Pro-Russian forces and the Ukrainian nationalist opposition has continued, resulting in thousands of casualties. Even more worrying, the weak international response has allowed the Russian President Vladimir Putin to continue its aggressive tactics against Ukraine and the war to carry on with no end in sight.

Shared Origins: Kievan Rus

The Russia-Ukraine conflict stems from a complex shared history with roots tracing back to the 9th century with the first organized Eastern Slavic state of Kievan Rus. However, both sides have conflicting perspectives regarding the history of the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. In the Russian nationalist narrative, although the center of the Kievan Rus state ultimately transitioned to Moscow, there is an overarching unity among the “Rus people”, or the citizens of Russia and Ukraine. Putin himself has proclaimed numerous times that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” who are essentially part of “a single nation in many ways.”

On the other hand, Ukrainian historian Mikhail Hrushevsky argues that there are three branches which descend from Kievan Rus: the Russians, the Ukrainians, and the Belorussians. This perspective leaves greater room for political interpretation and has been widely accepted by Ukrainian historians.

Because both nations originated from the Kievan Rus state, centered in present-day Ukraine, the assertion of Ukrainian independence in 1991 was a great misfortune in the eyes of many Russians as they lost many historical sites to Ukraine including the Kyiv Perchersk Lavra, a monastery in Kyiv associated with the birth of Russian Orthodox Christianity.

From Stalin to Putin: Fear of Ukrainian National Movement

Because many Russians believe that Ukraine’s sovereignty should be limited, Russia has long seen the Ukrainian national movement as a threat. When the last Russian Tsar was removed in 1917 and the Bolsheviks took power, Ukrainian combatants fought back for several years in the Ukrainian War of Independence. Although Ukraine was ultimately forced to become a part of the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks were deeply stunned by this resolve to claim total independence and noted it as a cruel lesson to be learned from.

The Ukrainian people resisted Russian rule once again in 1932 when Stalin decided to collectivize agriculture. When Ukrainian farmers fought back against the policy, Stalin responded by sending armed troops to confiscate land and livestock. Although the food harvest was successful in 1932, the Soviet government withheld the harvest from the Ukrainians, and those who attempted to steal food were executed. As a result, an estimated three million to eight million Ukrainians died from starvation between 1932 and 1933 in the Holodomor genocide.

Although Putin’s rule differs greatly from Stalin’s, there are many notable parallels. Once again, the Russian government today is taking action to dismantle Ukrainian national movement. Similarly, Putin has also pursued a greater Russian “sphere of influence” and policies of Russification, or the promotion of Russian language and culture, to increase state control. Additional similarities include a disdain for Ukrainian independence, enforcement of attacks against “enemies of the government,” and a willingness to kill Ukrainians to serve his goal of legitimizing Russia as a major power.

The Future of Ukraine

Since 2014, war has continued on between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, particularly in the Donbass region. While many Western nations responded to Russia’s initial military intervention in Ukraine in 2014 with economic sanctions, there has been little international response to recent aggression in the Black and Azov Seas. The currently imposed economic sanctions have fallen short of changing Russia’s behavior, and greater intervention is needed.

A UN deployed peacekeeping mission in the Donbass region could provide a favorable situation for both parties. If peacekeeping forces maintained a ceasefire, this would save thousands of Ukrainian lives at stake and put to rest fears of further Russian aggression, which would be favorable to the international community as a whole. A peacekeeping operation would also create the foundation for the beginning of positive political and economic reform in Ukraine. Additionally, such an agreement would also help Russia save face domestically as the economic sanctions that have created financial struggles for many Russians would be lifted and its’ international reputation would be improved. Although both Ukraine and Russia have expressed interest in a peacekeeping mission in Eastern Ukraine, both have different visions for what such a mission should look like, with Russia preferring a smaller scale operation. As Russia has veto power in the UN Security Council, some concessions to Russia may need to occur in order for any form of a peacekeeping mission to be implemented. However, Ukraine and the West should stay open to discussing the positive aspects of Russia’s proposals as the alternative is the continuation of a devastating war. The priority for both nations should be negotiating an agreement in regards to the deployment of peacekeeping forces, as a neutral third party helping to facilitate negotiations could bring the deadlock in Donbass to an end.

The political future of Ukraine remains largely uncertain. Although no candidate holds an overwhelming advantage, elections will take place at the end of this month and the pace of domestic reform has slowed greatly in anticipation. While it is unclear who will next assume office and what approach they will take to address the current climate in Donbass, it is evident that de-escalation in the conflict with Russia needs to be prioritized above all else; only then can the region stabilize and begin to make positive progress.

Self-Sufficiency in the Modern World      

Today’s world does not easily lend itself to self-sufficiency. Take, for instance, the United States, a country that is agriculturally independent, but relies on Saudi Arabia for its oil. Liberalist theorists assert that economic interdependence is the road to peace, as countries mutually benefit, taking advantage of plentiful resources and exchanging them for goods they need. Upon hearing the word “self-sufficiency,” most would point fingers at either Cuba or North Korea – both of which are economically isolated with only some reliance on foreign imports. However, few would think of Russia as self-sufficient. From oil to wheat, and from timber to automobiles, Russia has mastered the art of producing enough goods to equip a population of 144 million people. Yet in response to sanctions and unfavorable political sentiments in the Western world, Russia is starting to master the art of self-sufficiency in other areas –particularly its pharmaceutical industry.

In the Soviet era, Russia mainly traded with other communist countries, but produced the bulk of their goods, including medicines, domestically. Only after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, did Russia begin to rely on Western medicines, as the West was far more advanced both economically and technologically. Investor and Vice President at Investo, Balaji Viswanathan stated that “except for medicines, none of the other [imports]are too critical to stall an economy. This is why the erstwhile USSR was able to sustain that long alienating the world markets (foreign trade contributed to less than 4% of Soviet’s GDP)”.

However, the one industry that has long relied on foreign imports is now rapidly being propped up by the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade. On March 11, 2011 then-Prime Minister Vladimir Putin announced the Pharma-2020 plan, “a radical strategy to develop the country’s pharmaceutical industry and diversify the country’s economy through the creation of new jobs and reduction of Russia’s dependency on imports”. It is not a coincidence that the imposition of sanctions by Western countries on Russia has corresponded with the country’s sudden transition to domestic goods.

The Origins of the Sanction War

The consequential sanctions were first imposed with the deadly Ukraine crisis, which first escalated as a result of former President Victor Yanukovich’s decision to take a $15 billion loan from Russia to “move his country toward a planned ‘Eurasion Union’, with Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia” instead of having Ukraine join the European Union. Ignoring President Putin’s claims that his country had not mobilized troops to fight against pro-Ukrainian forces in east Ukraine, the Russian military had secured a strong and deadly presence in the Donbass region. While Ukraine was dealing with a weak government and internal turmoil, Russian forces seized the Crimean peninsula, boosting pro-Russian fervor among citizens and asserting their might over Ukraine.

Shortly after this slew of events, Western leaders imposed sanctions in two series. The first targeted members of Putin’s inner circle like President of Rosneft, Igor Sechin, and first deputy chief of the Kremlin staff, Vyacheslav Volodin, as well as senior officials and military leaders. The second series of sanctions, also known as “sectoral sanctions”, hit Russia the hardest, because they prevented financial institutions from lending any money to Russia. Journalist Frances Coppola of Forbes magazine stated that “by imposing sanctions on entities within the financial services and energy sectors, [the]Treasury has increased the cost of economic isolation for key Russian firms that value their access to medium- and long-term U.S. sources of financing”.

In response to these sanctions, Russia imposed import bans of their own in August 2014. Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev stated that all “beef, pork, fish, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia and Norway” would be banned. As a result of this “economic isolation,” Russia scrambled to prop up its domestic production in hopes of becoming self-sufficient. The latest industry to be hit by severe import cuts was the pharmaceutical industry, with 80 percent of Russia’s medication being imported from foreign countries. As a result, Prime Minister Medvedev stated that “domestic produce must account for 90 percent of Russian drugstore stocks by 2018”.

Although the Russian government wants to maintain its assertiveness before the West in light of damaging sanctions, such assertion is ultimately hurting its own citizens more severely than Western economies. With regards to bans on imported drugs, those that will be most affected will be Russians with “orphan diseases” or rare illnesses. These patients rely on highly effective medicines that can only be found outside of Russia’s borders and that “can never be certified in Russia because the procedure requires extensive human testing here — which is impossible because there are simply not enough patients”.

Pharma 2020: A Comprehensive Overview

Since its announcement in 2011, the Pharma 2020 plan has not garnered much media attention. Nonetheless, it is one of Putin’s most ambitious plans. While Pharma 2020 will render Russia almost entirely self-sufficient in the pharmaceutical industry, it will also make Russia technologically competitive with the West.

What exactly does this program entail? It essentially consists of three phases, each targeting a specific aspect of the domestic pharmaceutical industry: improved health care for the Russian people, “improved training of doctors”, and improved “international competitiveness of the domestic pharmaceutical industry” by “encouraging the development and production of innovative medications”. The budget for this plan is 188 billion rubles, “80 percent of which is to be invested toward research and the development of new products”. Many large pharmaceutical companies have already begun building facilities around Russia, while others have partnered with Russian companies in joint ventures.

On paper, Pharma 2020 appears to be a much-needed boost to the Russian economy and pace of innovation. However, before Putin coaxes foreign investors and companies back, there must be a dramatic shift in the political climate with the West. Once tensions are eased, Russia may begin making preparations to become an export-oriented hub of innovation.

A Muscovite’s Perspective

One of the people that has experienced the effect of these sanctions first-hand is my grandmother, and lifelong Moscow resident, Raisa Shumilina. In a brief, 30-minute sit-down interview, she shared her thoughts on the import bans, the situation in Crimea, and how these changes have affected her.

As a handicapped pensioner, her medicines are all paid for by the government. She noticed the changes in produce and medicines in 2014, the year that the sanctions were imposed. Ever since then, she has received “50% imported and 50% domestically produced medicines,” compared to the 100 percent foreign-made medicines she used to receive. When questioned about her feelings towards domestically produced medicines, she stated, “I don’t trust their quality. . .maybe I’m wrong, but at this very moment, I’m skeptical.” She admitted that the new medicines had no noticeable effects on her health, but felt it was safer to rely on foreign medicines. If she has the option to, she pays out of pocket just to be able to own or have imported medicines.

Revitalizing a Struggling Economy

Despite the economic uncertainty and political turmoil that Russia has experienced over the last few years, President Vladimir Putin’s approval rating has sky-rocketed to an impressive 89 percent. Igor Yurgens, the chief economist at the Institute of Contemporary Development said, “The consensus of 80 percent of Russians is that we have to reply, that we will fight.” It is not a surprise that so many Russians support their current leader and his United Russia party.  With the annexation of Crimea and now with the sudden boost in domestic production of goods, nationalistic fervor is more widespread than ever before, and the “we-will-tough-it-out” sentiments that much of the Russian public has expressed are not without reason. If the Russian government continues to invest in local industries and promote the domestic production of commodities, the Russian economy will eventually stabilize. As inflation rates return to healthy levels, unemployment rates decrease, and living standards improve, hopefully the Russian people will finally be able to enjoy the financial and social stability that they have longed for.

Nevertheless, Russia still has a lot more catching up to do to match the West’s pace of innovation and economic growth. An ambitious, but unrealistic goal, Putin’s Pharma 2020 plan should be postponed to a later date, as it will take many years before Russia fully restore relations with the West and begins to enjoy an adequately stable economy. Although the economy is at a much more stable place than it was in the winter of 2014, it still has a long way to go. With the ruble’s unhealthy dependence on oil prices and the lack of foreign investment, the country will not be able to financially support and promote domestic industries. The abundance of oil means Russia will not abandon the resource so easily, but the lack of foreign investments is a problem that Russian policymakers can solve. Controversial policy moves like the annexation of Crimea and the backing of the Assad regime make Russia a powder keg of instability. To revive the flow of capital, Putin needs to address his critics’ concerns and cooperate with the West, the source of many potential funds. If Putin continues to destabilize his country’s economy with an aggressive foreign policy, Pharma 2020 will never receive enough money to become a reality.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

In 1953, the Jackson Committee, a committee appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower to “evaluate the government’s information and related policies and activities”, delivered a report recommending that the United States publicly demonstrate and emphasize “the gap between communist ideology and (actual) Soviet practice.” Half a century later, in 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently put that same strategy to work in an uninvited quid pro quo.

And he almost had it all figured it out. Putin was masterfully undermining the fabled American democracy, using both fake news and leaks to illustrate the US government’s’ hypocrisy and — to borrow a phrase from the Jackson committee, the disconnect between democratic ideology and (actual) democratic practice.

The Kremlin used fake news to spread rumors about fixed elections (aided by one of the Presidential nominees himself) that ended up dominating domestic and international media. The right-wing (primarily alt-right) media, and even some among the far left, started fueling a narrative that Hillary Clinton would be elected because of corrupt democratic institutions, thus rendering her an illegitimate President. Nearly half  of US voters would be, albeit unwittingly, acting as Putin’s mouthpiece, decrying the fraudulent nature of American democracy and the hypocrisy of its elite.

This is what I believe the Russian government’s ultimate goal was — and not, as now almost all analysts suggest, to help Donald Trump secure the presidency. Not to say that observers are necessarily incorrect in their assessment that Russia tried to weaken Clinton, and wanted to derail her campaign. Rather, it is to argue that Putin ordered this under the belief that Clinton would still win the Presidency (which all accounts suggest they believed, like the rest of us, until the very end).

Such an election would have been more useful for the Kremlin than a Donald Trump victory on several distinct fronts.

First, it would have left Clinton a battered President, making it harder for her to garner public, and even administration-wide, support for many of her initiatives (including on issues of direct interest to the Kremlin, like increased military involvement in Syria, strengthening of Russian sanctions, and refusing to legitimize Russia’s Crimean annexation).

Second, it would have led to a significantly more predictable American presidency. Putin triumphs because of his unpredictability, and his challenging of international norms. Now, the only country in the world decidedly more powerful than Putin’s has a leader even more unpredictable, and perhaps even more unconcerned with international normative values. Putin can no longer count on US restraint where US restraint is expected; instead, he will learn that the US government will behave with the same impulsiveness and volatility he himself thrives on. This will be especially damaging once the relationship between Putin and Trump cools down, which it inevitably will; two petty demagogues with competing interests will collide soon enough. In fact, they may already have. On February 2nd, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, delivered scathing remarks regarding Russian military actions in Ukraine, saying that the “crisis will continue” until “Russia and the separatists it supports respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Those who followed the elections — or have ever had the displeasure of venturing on our President’s twitter account — will notice a rather striking difference between Haley’s rhetoric now and Trump’s tone on Russia during the campaign (i.e. “the people of Crimea, from what I’ve heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were”). What will actually happen is anyone’s guess. But that Trump will remain unpredictable and impulsive is a certainty.

Third, Putin surely can no longer claim that the US is a corrupt, crony-democracy, his usual retort to Russian dissidents who hail America as a model. Donald Trump getting elected despite his almost unanimous, unequivocal rejection by Washington’s elites belies Putin’s vision of American democracy as an oligarchy. Putin must now, formally or not, admit that America is as true a democracy as there is (for better or for worse).

Finally, Putin can no longer act as the valiant soldier leading the fight against Western hypocrisy and imperialism, meaning he can no longer justify any costly foreign escapade by framing it as a rebuke to Washington. Once the US stops caring about the Syrian disaster — which seems to be the direction the Trump administration will head in — Russians will soon ask themselves why they themselves should care. More importantly, they will ask why it was worth the considerable material and human cost when the current American President sees no national interests or objectives in the region. Indeed, Putin no longer can claim to be the valiant soldier leading that fight because the US just elected the valiant soldier decrying American hypocrisy. Consider Trump’s already infamous interview with Bill O’Reilly. When pressed on the immorality of allying himself with Putin, a “killer”, in O’Reilly’s words, Trump responded with: “There are a lot of killers. You think our country’s so innocent?” This has been a de facto Russian position for decades — that there is no difference between the US and its own functioning dictatorship. Now, shockingly if not unsurprisingly, it seems to be the official position of the White House as well. As Trump sheds light on US hypocrisy and embraces US isolationism, Putin invariably loses his proxy war logic.  

The Russian economy is doing poorly enough (and in fact may actually do worse now that the US plans to more aggressively pursue their own liquified natural gas {LNG} industry, a key Russian export) that Putin has needed a boogeyman at every stop to point to a convenient excuse and continue consolidating public support. What or who will Putin now fight against?

Putin understood the clear advantages of a weakened Clinton presidency, but he achieved far more — a derailed Clinton presidency. Now, he must face the consequences of his own election interference and catastrophic success. Had Clinton won, Putin could have continued operating as he had learned to do, with a debilitated adversary. Sure, this would have resulted in sustained sanctions and prolonged economic consequences for the average Russian. But it also would have meant a continued steadfast grip on power for Putin and his cronies. Putin now inherits a more unpredictable leader than himself in the most powerful country in the world, and has lost Russia’s boogeyman that allowed him to act without checks-and-balances for the better part of a decade. As US elites who witnessed the end of the Cold War can testify, it becomes a lot harder to make civilians ignore domestic issues once the existential foreign threat — true or feigned — finally dissipates.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

There’s a particular kind of foreign policy scholar who takes after the Kissinger brand of world systems and Great Man theory. In conversation, they will use their hands (having since high school taken to wearing large watches, the sleeves of a pastel button-down rolled up) to paint their global vision in broad brushstrokes. Everything is historical analogy and moral orders. He coins new names for the civilizational trends he “discovers” and the doctrines he “invents”.

With Henry Kissinger, architect of America’s Cold War policy under Ford and Nixon, turned 93 this year, you have to wonder if any of that philosophizing is useful any more. Literature on Kissinger’s thought often cites his 377-page senior thesis at Harvard, “The Meaning of History: Reflections on Spengler, Toynbee, and Kant,” a text so long it inspired Harvard to institute a max on thesis length. In it he pushes a philosophy of history not as a mere collection of facts and patterns, but an account of man’s internal experiences within the world of facts, a story of culture-specific souls (the Russian psyche, the West’s will to power) in conflict; a history that can “grasp of the totality of life, instead of just its appearances.”

The philosopher Oswald Spengler’s writing is a good example of this wide poetic lens. His Decline of the West treats civilizations like organisms, with a natural lifespan and a set of foundational ideas and ethics (a geist) moving it forward until the culture inevitably turns on its principles and extinguishes(1). “Each Culture has its own new possibilities of self-expression which arise, ripen, decay,” Spengler writes, “each limited in duration and self-contained, just as each species of plant has its peculiar blossom.” Kissinger echoes Spengler when he talks about the need to respect a country’s “national idea” or purpose, the relativism of a people’s ethics. In his latest book, World Order, Kissinger offers a Spengler-spangled product, exploring large concepts like European Order, American Foreign Policy, or the Arabic World in terms of their cultural roots and “underlying spirit”(2).

He also feels deeply Spengler’s sense of decay. Even the great statesmen Kissinger often praises—Bismarck, Metternich—who warped and rescued the international order with German unification and the Congress of Vienna respectively, can only postpone the decline of their countries (from Kissinger’s undergraduate thesis: “Life is suffering…Birth involves death…No civilization has yet been permanent, no longing completely fulfilled.”). The same goes for the United States. No “making great again” will bring back the Cold War superpower capable of pushing American values onto countries with no precedent or means to adopt them. In the post-Iraq century, the US has to work multilaterally, and curb its war-happy idealism with the “unsentimental analysis of underlying factors.”

This picture of countries as unfulfilled ideas, the need for unsentimental analysis and respect for historical memory all inform Kissinger’s opinion of the crisis in Ukraine, where even this month Russian and NATO forces have gathered in bulk on their respective borders. In a 2014 interview with Spiegel, Kissinger argued that the West underestimated how important Ukraine was to the Russian idea when the EU began negotiating a new economic relationship with Kiev. Yes, “the West could not accept the annexation; some countermeasures were necessary. But…Nobody is willing to fight over eastern Ukraine. That’s a fact of life.” By invading a sovereign country, Putin disrespected the world order, and the realist Kissinger wants to punish him. At the same time, the West’s attempts to absorb Ukraine was an attack on the Russian conception of itself, and Kissinger the philosopher wants to understand and move on.

In 1997 right wing intellectual Alexander Dugin published The Foundation of Geopolitics, a bible for the modern Russian hardliner. In it, Dugin outlines what he considers the Russian purpose: to resist the “Atlanticism” of the US and NATO, bent on containing Russia within rings of independent states. To ally with partners like Iran against the common enemy of western liberalism, preserve Russia’s value system and create a Eurasian empire by annexing Georgia and Ukraine…as well as Finland, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. This is an extreme, but the diluted version is close to Kissinger’s conception of Russia’s historical experience, aggressively territorial after the shock of Soviet collapse. In contrast, the US strives for a rule-based international order. Disobey a rule, receive sanctions. But as Kissinger writes in The National Interest, “To a country across which foreign armies have marched for centuries from both East and West, security will always need to have a geopolitical, as well as a legal, foundation…Russia’s perception of world order will [always]contain an inevitable strategic component.”

To respect Russia’s geopolitical paranoia, post-Soviet states like Ukraine seeking to distance themselves from Russia can’t just suddenly join the West, but must be organized to serve “as a bridge between Russia and the West, rather than as an outpost of either side.”

Understandable if the West wants Russia to be really comfortable with their eroded sphere of influence, but does Ukraine have a say? What if Ukraine doesn’t want to be a bridge? In probably one of the most Kissingerian exchanges of his career, Kissinger makes it clear to Spiegel what he thinks of the will of the Euromaidan revolution:

Kissinger: We have to remember that Russia is an important part of the international system, and therefore useful in solving all sorts of other crises… it is important that Ukraine remain an independent state…But I don’t think it’s a law of nature that every state must have the right to be an ally in the framework of NATO…

SPIEGEL: But we cannot tell the Ukrainians that they are not free to decide their own future.

Kissinger: Why not?

And that’s a disadvantage of the broad historian scholar. You’re flying too high to see the details, you lose touch. Historical memory is vague, and national ideals are often marketing more than policy. Governments are made of people, and their vision isn’t cohesive. Your thinking gets stuffy, and you have articles written about you like, “Does Henry Kissinger have a Conscience?”

What does “a bridge between East and West” even mean for Ukraine in practice? About half the country is in favor of integration with the EU, but as Poroshenko’s government loses its appeal, Euroskeptics from the east are gaining ground. The pro-Russian Opposition bloc already has a higher approval rating than either of the parties in the ruling coalition. The number of Ukrainians who dislike both the EU and Russia rose from 14 to 23 percent in the last year.

On August 10^th, Ukrainian saboteurs were discovered planning to attack tourist centers in Crimea, which has only fed Russia’s argument that Ukraine is the one barring peace by failing to uphold the Minsk II Agreement and ceasefire. “Ukraine has been independent for only 23 years… its leaders have not learned the art of compromise, even less of historical perspective” wrote Kissinger in The Washington Post. But how do you convince a fragile state finding its freedom to give up swaths of its own territory for the sake of a historical Russian idea it doesn’t care about? How do you enforce a ceasefire with disorganized separatists in the Donbas who answer to no one? How do you sustain an international legal order while also humoring a country that deals in paranoia and anachronisms like Empire-building and buffer zones? Kissinger’s World Order doesn’t offer specifics.

It’s not that a Kissingerian personality is irrelevant in the post-Cold War era. We should still have big thoughts about how a culture’s history informs their worldview, about state decay, the relativism of ethics in foreign policy, the balance of practicality and idealism when working with states like Russia against chaos in Syria or for détente with Iran.

But the world has changed; Russians hacked the Democratic National Convention. Non-state actors matter in ways they didn’t used to, disrupting the logic of “national narratives.” Kissinger even notes, “Until quite recently, global international threats were identified with the accumulation of power by a dominating state. Today threats more frequently arise from the disintegration of state power and the growing number of ungoverned territories.” Younger scholars should be at least a little skeptical of their Cold War predecessors, and not try to emulate their vague philosophies of world order. Ukraine isn’t fated to be a Russian satellite state, there’s no “Russian idea” to empathize with. No historical analogy will help us deal with today’s facts on the ground, natural gas, corruption, cyber, separatism. In the age of physical and digital tribalism, Brexit, ISIS and drones, is a term like “world order” even useful for anything more than a good book title?

1. Spengler, Oswald, “The Decline of the West,” Oxford University Press,
2. Kissinger, Henry, “World Order,” Penguin Press,

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

Ever since the Ukraine crisis and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, US and NATO relations with Russia have been frozen, including the NATO-Russia Council (NRC), arguably the most valuable tool of NATO-Russian cooperation. Its function is essential to build trust and confidence through shared institutions. In March 2014, sanctions were imposed on Russian officials and NATO Foreign Ministers suspended the NRC, stalling “all practical civilian and military cooperation between NATO and Russia.” As the US and Russia have a number of shared interests, the revival and enhancement of cooperation would benefit both countries tremendously. The US should take two steps to build a constructive and sustainable foreign policy towards Russia: resuming diplomatic relations in the NRC and cooperating in the field of information systems.

Even before the Ukraine crisis, lack of trust and suspicions between Moscow and Washington were a main reason for recurring crises and tensions in the region. Before the crisis, the NRC allowed open communication and cooperation on common interests such as counterterrorism, building trust and increasing efficacy in endeavors of common concern. The current suspension of the NRC undermines this consultation and cooperation between Russia and NATO. Fighting the imminent international threat of ISIS and solving the ongoing conflict in Eastern Ukraine could be more effective if the NRC’s diplomatic and military tools were reinstated.

As a second pillar, next to the (resumed) NRC, further expansion of NATO-Russian cooperation is in America’s national interest. Distinguished military fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center’s Nonproliferation Program, Vladimir Dvorkin, proposed that the US should seek rapprochement with Russia and pursue “computer-assisted joint missile defense exercise[s].” This increases the effectiveness of both countries’ intermediate-range ballistic missiles interception and embeds Russia into a greater Atlantic-European community—crucial for long-term stability. A Western-oriented Russia that shares operational systems with the NATO leader is less likely to carry out belligerent acts in the future. Also, Russian withdrawal from arms control treaties would become more unlikely, strengthening the international law regime and security in the region. However, a joint data center with shared administrative responsibilities does bear the risk of having information on US technology leaked to Russian-friendly terrorist organization or countries such as North Korea or Iran.

Another hurdle to overcome for a constructive relationship is the power structure of future NATO-Russian or US-Russian cooperation. Previous attempts to engage in data sharing failed due to mistrust on Russia’s side about the US domination of NATO-Russian relations and negotiations. Barack Obama initiated a “reset” of US-NATO relations to let both parties rethink their strategies. Although the US administration now further takes into account Russian concerns, the latter still does not perceive itself as an equal partner. Therefore, the US should further “rethink” its position in NRC negotiations and be more accommodative of Russian interests.

A number of issues on the security agenda of NATO, the US and Russia must be tackled in the near future, and are most effectively addressed through established diplomatic channels; moving beyond the current freeze is vital. Fundamental questions to be solved include arms reduction treaties and the ongoing Syrian civil war.

In June, Vladimir Putin announced the addition of 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs with 3,400 miles range) to Russia’s nuclear arsenal by the end of 2015. Both Russia and the US are bound by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, INF, and the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, New START. According to some US sources, Russia’s use of its R-500 cruise missile exceeds the 300 miles range granted by the INF Treaty, constituting a breach of the agreement. Contrary to these sources, Russia claims that the R-500 is equivalent to US land-based SM-3 antiballistic missile. This “current nuclear hysteria” and fears of confrontation between the US, NATO and Russia appear to be ungrounded, partly because Russia would suffer significantly more if a new arms race were to happen.

More recently, incumbent US Defense Secretary Ash Carter distanced himself from Russia’s operation, claiming that Russia will pay for its airstrikes in Syria as resentment is growing in the rebel-supporter Saudi Arabia. Recent terrorist attacks by ISIS in Syria, the Sinai and Beirut, however, worsened the situation and currently pressure the US and Russia to overcome disagreements on alliances in the war and take immediate action.

Irrespective of whether targeting immediate threats such as ISIS or developing a long-term policy for the Atlantic-European region, US foreign policy towards Russia through NATO should be aimed at softening the fronts between the two camps to ensure and possibly enhance national security. At the same time, the US should reassure NATO members to improve confidence in the defense alliance, especially after NATO only provided limited military assistance in the Ukraine crisis. The dismissal of the INF Treaty or New START, however unlikely, could provoke a renewed arms race and increase instability. Therefore, norms of the international law regime on strategic and non-strategic nuclear arms reduction should be protected and strengthened.

Focusing on the benefits of cooperating with Russia and of a NATO-Russian rapprochement through the NRC allows greater Europe to go beyond the “post-Crimean” security discourse of frozen diplomacy and cooperation. For a political solution to the Ukraine Crisis, the NRC should operate as a facilitator of negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and NATO members. US openness to Russia’s concerns is instrumental for Russian commitment not to carry out irredentist interventions in the future and to give more consideration to international law. Embedding Russia in Europe’s security architecture as an equal partner through cooperation in information systems is a viable path towards stability and a post-Crimean chapter in European security.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

On the surface, it would appear that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has begun the long-overdue process of eliminating corrupt, power-hoarding oligarchs from national prominence, despite his own status as one of the richest men in the country. In March of this year, Poroshenko removed Igor Kolomoisky, the former governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region and an oligarch with a personal fortune of $3 billion, from power. This came shortly after a volunteer battalion under the control of Kolomoisky captured offices of a state oil firm, followed by an embarrassing standoff between national troops and Kolomoisky’s men. National authorities then charged one of his banking assets, PrivatBank, with fraudulently diverting upwards of $1.8 billion out of the country in August.

With Kolomoisky under scrutiny, President Poroshenko has now shifted his focus to the richest man in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov. Akhmetov is hemorrhaging profits from his steel and energy empires as a result of ongoing violence and instability in Eastern Ukraine. He is also having difficulty repaying debts issued in foreign currencies with Ukraine’s devalued hryvnia. In that context, the government’s actions to annul the privatization of parts of Akhmetov’s firm DTEK – which produces the majority of the non-nuclear power in Ukraine – is a clear attack on a weakened target.

Attacking Kolomoisky and Akhmetov gives President Poroshenko the air of a morally superior leader willing to act against corruption and oligarchy in Ukraine. The following, however, are two arguments asserting that Poroshenko chose his targets so as to politically utilize ethnic and religious distrust and position himself as the protector of true Ukrainians. Neither is confirmed, but the chains of evidence exist.

To provide context, nationalism and ethnic distrust have been on the rise in Ukraine. The Western oriented Poroshenko government successfully adopted economic policies prescribed by the EU and the IMF; but with economic reform comes devalued currency, increased prices of necessary goods and increased inequality and hardships for the people. From those difficulties, far right, ultranationalist movements have emerged that support a more independent Ukraine free from either Russia or the West. This is the societal trend that Poroshenko is playing to in Ukraine.

The first suggestion that the attacks are politically motivated is relatively simple: both oligarchs under scrutiny have Eastern Ukrainian power centers. Kolomoisky’s political seat of power was in the Eastern city of Dnipropetrovsk, along with most of his business interests. Akhmetov’s factories are mostly in Eastern Ukraine as well, and he was a great supporter and beneficiary of deposed President Victor Yanukovych’s Eastern-leaning regime. Therefore, it is plausible that Poroshenko is attempting to gain favor in the more Western-leaning areas of Ukraine by invoking existing tensions through the prosecution of prominent Eastern businessmen. Simultaneously, he could be playing to the ultranationalist movements by attacking people with perceived Russian connections.

The second argument may seem more circumstantial, but when taken with the first could prove poignant. Both Kolomoisky and Akhmetov are not purely ethnically Ukrainian: Kolomoisky is Jewish  (outspokenly so) and Akhmetov is a Tatar (Muslim). Most ethnic Ukrainians, however, are Eastern Orthodox. Their last names also indicate that they are not ethnically Ukrainian – neither end in “enko” as most ethnically Ukrainian names do. Both the religious differences and the variance in name structure suggest a cultural and religious divide between the two oligarchs and ethnic Ukrainians, which Poroshenko may be exploiting.

The previous assertions would perhaps hold little meaning if not for the fact that Poroshenko is losing his power base. 97% of Ukrainians are dissatisfied with the rate of change under his administration and questions remain about his commitment to combatting oligarchy, despite the examples of Kolomoisky and Akhmetov. In fact, they are the first oligarchs against which Poroshenko has acted. As a result, his popularity numbers are down and he is losing the people’s trust.

Now, Poroshenko and his government are under pressure due to a looming election. Former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, whom Poroshenko beat in the most recent presidential election, is gaining ground in the polls and challenging Poroshenko from the Euro-centric side of the political spectrum. She, too, is using nationalist rhetoric and symbolism—including a famous picture of her holding wheat, a commodity Ukraine is known for producing, with her hair in a traditional braid. Because Poroshenko has failed to convince the public that EU-prescribed economic reforms are attacking the oligarchs or improving the lives of the citizenry, nationalist rhetoric is growing across the political spectrum. In order to regain support, Poroshenko must appear to be protecting Ukrainians from those who would take advantage of them. It makes sense, then, that he would target people who are already disliked for their social status and distrusted for their identity.

The combination of his low approval rating and a general rise of nationalist fervor makes it politically practical for Poroshenko to attack two of the East’s major oligarchs, both of whom are ethnic “outsiders” in Ukraine. But political expediency is not without its potential complications. Ethnic conflict has already impacted Ukraine, with the ethnically Russian majority wanting to disassociate with Kiev. If Poroshenko continues to only prosecute oligarchs that are Eastern-oriented, there may be increased distrust between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Russians. Ukraine has had a massive spike in black market weapons sales and a minority that has violently sought increased autonomy just over a year ago – add tension along the same ethnic divisions and conflict could soon follow.

Further escalation in Ukraine might be catastrophic. Any emerging ethnic strife could see the Kremlin use the guise of protection for Russian minorities to exert further influence—perhaps even take tangible military action, which would put the US, the EU and NATO in a tricky situation. If Poroshenko continues to foster ethnic distrust, and if nationalism wins out in Western Ukraine, further conflict escalation will not be far behind. In an attempt to curry political favor, Poroshenko could be leading his country into further struggle and misery.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

John Oliver, burning tires and flowers. Why do these three seemingly disparate entities belong in the same list? They each indicate just how dangerous Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is and could become.

Correa’s eight-year reign, now in its third term, has brought significant benefits to the people of Ecuador, including an impressive drop in the poverty rate from 37% in 2007 to 22% in 2014 and stability to a nation that in the prior decade saw seven presidents removed from office before completing their terms. But an alarming combination of hypersensitivity to criticism, obsession with power at any cost and a faltering economy could push Correa to civil war with his people—or worse, trap them in an oppressive, smothering dictatorship.

The President’s hypersensitivity manifests itself in Ecuador’s poor record on freedoms of expression and the press. Freedom House has labeled Ecuador “Not Free” in its Freedom of the Press category for 2015, citing strict censorship laws passed by the Correa regime, specifically a 2013 law, The Organic Law on Communications, that allows more government regulation of the media by dictating the types of information that can and cannot be presented and expanding governmental monitoring capabilities.

Moreover, Human Rights Watch has noted several cases that used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a US law that requires websites to remove content on the grounds of copyright infringement without ever going through the judiciary. President Correa, according to Human Rights Watch, has used this precedent to compel global social media sites to remove content that is critical of his administration. The cases were all brought by a Spanish firm representing media entities linked to the regime, including the public TV station, the political party and even a government ministry.

But, then again, grotesque media censorship is not all that surprising coming from a man who angrily tweeted John Oliver for condemning his underwhelming record with regard to freedom of the press.

Troublingly, Correa’s penchant for stifling free and fair journalism by any means necessary – including calling one female journalist a “fatty” in order to discredit her – is not his worst leadership quality. In addition to his distaste for media criticism, he often responds to protests against his policies with state-sanctioned cruelty.

During August 2015, a national strike was called to protest controversial inheritance tax policies, the expansion of oil drilling and mining, changes to labor laws and pensions, repression of the freedoms of speech and the press, and constitutional amendments (discussed later). In response to the demonstrations, reports state that the Ecuadorian police used tear gas and clubs on protestors, arrested and searched citizens arbitrarily, declared a warrantless “State of Exception,” and even targeted female protestors’ “intimate regions” during attacks—all while Correa publically praised the police.

Police violence and excessive use of power are not new to the Correa regime. In 2010, after a demonstration during which members of the air force and police department blockaded major thoroughfares with burning tires to protest cuts in benefits, the President responded by publically declaring that “no pardon or forgiveness” would be given to those involved. Correa even stated that he would attack members of the opposition political party, who he accused of attempting to stage a coup.

His sensitivity and violent streak depict a man with a need to hoard power, an image only enhanced when examining the aforementioned constitutional reforms. If adopted, Correa’s proposed amendments to the Ecuadorian constitution would eliminate term limits for public officials. These amendments would, in theory, allow him legislative freedom to rule for life should he continue to win elections, and are being advertised by the ruling party despite a 14-point drop in the President’s approval rating, an overall disapproval rating of 55% and 50% of Ecuadorians saying they no longer trust him.

The most immediate threat to Correa’s coveted power might not come from the people of Ecuador, but rather its economy. As oil prices have fallen and the dollar – Ecuador’s currency since 2000 – has strengthened, Ecuador’s economic activity has stalled; public coffers are beginning to dry up and Correa has lost a valuable leverage over his people. As a commodity exporting country – its two major exports being oil and bananas – volatile commodity markets affect Ecuador disproportionally.

Concurrently, the sanctions placed on Russia in response to President Putin’s aggression against Ukraine have also gravely affected Ecuadorian cut flower exports. The flower industry in Ecuador employed over 100,000 people and generated $873 million in business in 2013, with Russia as one of its principal buyers. As such, imposed sanctions have hurt the Ecuadorian flower industry. Ecuadorian industry is losing competitiveness across the board and it is unable to devalue its currency in order to spur export competitiveness.

Correa also poses an economic threat to foreign markets. He came to power in 2008 by defying the international monetary community and defaulting on his country’s debt. His economic legacy is volatile at best, and, with access to total power, he could initiate a crackdown on foreign investment in the form of creeping expropriation—investment that totaled over $725 million in 2013 and reached an eight-year high with over a billion dollars invested in 2008. The US State Department has labeled Ecuador fairly open to FDI in the past, indicating any attempt by Correa to close off foreign economic involvement could affect the significant international presence in the national economy. Moreover, because Ecuador has adopted the dollar, the American Federal Reserve Bank has control of Ecuador’s currency; the American government should have vested interest in the stability of democracy and free trade there.

The Twitter war with John Oliver proves that Rafael Correa will do anything in his power to discredit and silence his critics. How he handled the burning tire protest and others since then prove that he will publically call for and subsequently condone the use of force in response to demonstrations against his policies, stifling dissent. Most importantly, the issues with commodity exports demonstrate the fragility of Ecuador’s economy, the performance of which was Correa’s one legitimate claim to the popularity and adulation he so clearly covets. His disapproval and distrust numbers keep climbing while simultaneously he and his party are increasing attempts to codify in Constitutional law his indefinite right to the Presidency. If he continues losing popularity, the situation will worsen.

For the sake of the people of Ecuador and foreign investment in the country, vigilance is necessary, lest Correa forcefully construct an oppressive, leftist state. He may be “one of Latin America’s most popular leaders” today, but Rafael Correa is a ticking time bomb set to go off in the near future with clear potential for disaster.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors or governors.

There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide distribution. That’s one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: how do we arm the other eleven?
                                                                                                                             —Nicolas Cage, Lord of War (2005)

While Lord of War might not be the best movie, it does make a point: there are far too many small arms in the world, they are far too easy to buy, move and sell on the world market, and arms dealers will go to great lengths to sell them to anyone who will buy. The movement of small arms (rifles, hand guns and shotguns that can be used by a single person), many of which were manufactured decades ago, facilitates global, low-scale, brutal conflict. All too often, arms that one nation supplies to “allies” in another state are later used in conflict against the original donor state. Nations that would attempt to exert their material power through arms transfers should be mindful and only give arms in the most dire of circumstances.

Small arms enter the global system when large, rich, industrial nations produce and distribute them as a tool of statecraft. Starting in the 1950s, the USSR had the technology to produce the best small arms line in the world, the Avtomat Kalashnikova-47 (Automatic by Kalashnikov, 1947 model) and its family (including the AKM, AK-74, and RPK machine gun). They produced and distributed these weapons to allied Warsaw Pact states, or transmitted the designs and helped set up manufactories to encourage cooperation with the USSR.[1] This exercise in material power was effective because the USSR had large quantities of an excellent product and the receiving nation often feared for its safety.

Of course, the USSR was not the only nation to trade arms for influence: the US armed Great Britain during WWII through the Lend-Lease program; the Chinese armed the North Vietnamese with Type 56 rifles (the Chinese version of the AK-47) before the Vietnam War; the US armed the South Vietnamese with M16 rifles during the Vietnam War; and so on. Recently, the US armed the Iraqi and Afghan armies to help them fight against extremists and insurgents, and debated arming the Ukrainians to fight against Crimean separatists, who themselves were armed by the Russians. The same qualities that made Cold War arms transfers effective – a good product, a needy recipient and some challenge in which the two can cooperate – make arms transfers effective tools of statecraft today.

However, the arms stay around long after the conflicts for which they were originally produced and distributed end. By necessity, small arms need to work year after year: there would be no point in designing a weapon that could not be maintained and used repeatedly, so arms manufactured during the Cold War (such as the AK-47 family) remain on the battlefield today.[2] In fact, these guns sometimes turn up in the hands of enemies of the states that originally produced them: the Vietnamese army used their Chinese Type 56s to fight against China in the 1970s,[3] American arms for the mujahideen fighting against the USSR in the 1980’s became the weapons of the Taliban in the Afghan War, and, most recently, ISIS has seized caches of weapons that the US sent to the Iraqi Army, including thousands of American Humvees they repurpose as vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDS). The arms do not stop after the conflicts end; they persist in private hands, waiting to be deployed in the future.

Small arms are economically valuable, which makes them effective currency in state-to-state relations and commodities for private owners after the conflicts end. Their longevity means that the arms slowly depreciate in value, and can be used, reused and transferred for decades. After the Cold War ended, stockpiles in cash-strapped former Soviet states made their way to eager state armies, warlords and rebel commanders in Africa and Latin America.[4] The same profit motives that encourage states to transfer arms and encourage private owners to stockpile weapons also motivate corrupt state officials to illegally sell guns earmarked for government use to warlords and rebels. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ugandan army bases in the southern part of the country reported using massive numbers of bullets and weapons in training programs,[5] yet had little improvement to show for their supposed efforts. Simultaneously, the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel group, located just to the south and led by Paul Kagame, who had fought alongside Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, suddenly and mysteriously became well armed and ready to fight against the French-armed Rwandan government.[6]

Once small arms enter circulation, it is almost impossible to get them out of the market. Gun buyback programs, sponsored by wealthy nations, often simply attract damaged weapons while the best guns are stockpiled for later. This economic problem persists by design. Since gun buyback programs place a price on a model of a weapon, say fifty dollars for an AK-47, then only guns worth less than that price on the open market will be sold to buyback programs; any AK-47 worth more on the market or in the hands of some future warlord or rebel will be stockpiled instead.[7] Wealthy nations cannot offer significantly more than market value for the weapons, out of fear that private owners will sell their existing stockpiles, use the money to import similar arms, and keep a profit to boot.

So how can concerned states keep small arms from becoming a threat? There are two solutions to the problem: prevention and bullet control.

As is often the case, the best solution is prevention. States should not use transferring arms as a method of gaining influence over other states. Too often, these guns end up in the hands of people who use them against the producer in later conflicts. These guns also end up on the world market, where dissidents looking to disrupt global order acquire and use them. When arms transfers are absolutely necessary, as they might have been when the US was rebuilding the Iraqi and Afghan armies, the stockpiles should be monitored and protected so that they do not fall into the hands of other groups, as the American-manufactured Humvees fell into the hands of ISIS. Finally, if arms transfers are necessary, it would be better for states to buy functioning arms currently on the global market to give to allies rather than producing new weapons to meet the demands. While this is morally hazardous because states do not want to pay off the types of people who have large supplies of these weapons, at least this does not introduce newer, long-lasting and improved weapons into the global market. Any gun will be a menace in the world for decades, so it is better to produce fewer new ones where possible.

The second method is bullet control. While gun control certainly does not work – the arms are too valuable and too durable – new bullets are necessary every time a weapon is fired and they cannot be repaired as easily as the gun itself, if at all. When the USSR was manufacturing AK-47s for every communist peasant in the world, they were also manufacturing billions of bullets to go into those weapons. While the weapons may have persisted over the years, the bullets have been fired in conflicts, and improperly stored ammunition has corroded. New bullets must be continuously produced to keep the old guns firing. If the world can tightly control or stop the distribution of new ammunition, the guns will become useless. International arms producers already agree to UN arms embargos designed to protect at-risk populations. Arms export nations could similarly closely monitor all bullet sales, just as they monitor sales of guns to adhere to international embargos. Without bullets, an AK-47 is hardly more dangerous than a large club.

Global small arms are a significant threat. As Lord of War illustrates, the promise of profit encourages the transport and sale of weapons to new conflict makers. However, with concerted efforts to keep new arms and ammunition off the global market and to track and protect what arms remain in circulation, concerned states can reduce the threat that these weapons pose. One firearm for every twelve people is enough; there is no need to arm the other eleven.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors. 

[1] Chivers, C. J. The Gun. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. 
[2] Chivers, The Gun.
[3] Ross, Russell. Military Force Development in Vietnam. Washington, District of Columbia: Library of Congress, 1984.
[4] Kilcullen, David. The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
[5] Prunier, Gerard. Rwanda Crisis, 1954-94: History of a Genocide. C. Hurst, 1995.
[6] Des Forges, Allison. Leave None to Tell the Story. New York, NY: Human Rights Watch, 1999
[7] Chivers, The Gun.

“The entire issue is legally absurd,” snorted the Estonian foreign minister earlier this summer, when Russia announced intentions to review the legality of granting independence to the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania back in 1991. In view of the more general thumb biting that has characterized Baltic-Russian relations in the last years, this latest move by Russia can seem almost tiresomely ignorant—uninspired, even.  It flies in the face of an independence hard won, which involved both Baltic blood and the heroic efforts of Russia’s own Boris Yeltsin to bring peace after Gorbachev’s crackdown on protestors. But the ethos Russia’s legal symbolism evokes – an uncomfortable blend of reckless chiding and deeply-grounded animosity – is telling of the precipitous state of Baltic-Russian relations, and the stressful liability it poses for the rest of the EU.

The post-Crimea relationship between the former Soviet Baltic region and the Russian Federation is a drama of sociology and resources. In a sentence, large Russian minorities – as much as 25% of the population in Estonia and Lithuania – render the Baltics insecure and drive them to anxiety in the face of Putin’s military drills, while continued dependence on Russian energy pins the Baltics to their former Soviet occupiers.

But the picture is more complex in focus, and while the Baltics seem the undeniable victims, the reality is that the region hasn’t made enough of an effort to patch up their vulnerabilities to Russia. Take Estonia. Furthest north in both geography and anti-Russian sentiment, Estonia has done little to integrate the mass of Russian immigrants still left stranded with “undetermined citizenship” over twenty years after the independence movement. Even after the government publically acknowledged the 500,000 newly-made foreigners as a social problem, integration plans have been unaccommodating, focusing almost entirely on teaching the Estonian language – notoriously difficult for Indo-Europeans given its unfamiliar Finno-Urgic origins – instead of the broader socioeconomic inequalities. Industrial counties like Ida-Virumaa in the northeast, almost completely composed of Russian speaking workers, regularly suffer unemployment rates twice as high as Estonian-dominated regions. Along with higher rates of death and depression, Estonian Russians have also been plagued by a dramatic increase in HIV infections and heroin addiction spreading along the Russian border, with young Russian males being the most vulnerable group.

These gaps in the standard of living translate into political animosity. Estonia’s political landscape is split between populist right parties unsympathetic to the Russian minority, and pro-Russian leftist parties, often with links to Moscow. The largest party on the pro-Russian side – the Central Party, winning second-most votes in elections last February – is led by Tallinn mayor Edgar Savisaar, who is reported to have close ties with Putin. Though the majority of Estonian Russians have no interest in rejoining with Russia, they often still vote for pro-Putin groups because of their concern for immigrant conditions and welfare. And because Estonia doesn’t offer any Russian language television, Estonian Russians regularly turn to the channels of Moscow’s propaganda machine for their news and programming, which inevitably feeds sympathy for Putin’s aggression. Thus many Estonian Russians become radicalized, not from deep-seated resentment of Estonia, but from a lack of alternatives. In response, populist right parties like Estonia’s Reform Party up their nationalist, pro-NATO rhetoric to exploit Estonian fears. One of the Reform Party’s campaign clips in the last election featured NATO fighter jets in the background.

The same pattern can be seen in Latvia, where the National Alliance of All for Latvia, a xenophobic, nationalistic party, doubled its popularity in 2010 and was able to join a three-party government coalition. Independent political-risk and Russia expert Agnia Grigas describes the trend in defensive terms:

The correlation between the sizable numbers of Russian speakers in Estonia and Latvia and the prevalence of rightist ideology in the political system is notable. Arguably, the sense of vulnerability felt by ethnic Estonians and Latvians who claim, at times, to feel like a minority in their own country encourages more conservative and nationalist ideological leanings.1

For the EU, the stark and aggressive political climate in the Baltic encourages unconstructive provocations and bear-prodding. In late February, NATO showed off 140 pieces of heavy artillery in the Estonian town of Narva, 300 meters from the Russian border. In May, NATO carried out ten days of military drills near the Russian border in Estonia. The parade involved NATO tanks and 13,000 Estonian troops.

Praise the Baltics for their brash resolve, but remember that all their gesturing happens under the specter of a near absolute dependence on Russia for natural gas. All three countries have made efforts to wean off this pipeline vulnerability. On the frontlines is Lithuania, having heeded the EU’s calls for energy diversity by constructing a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Klaipeda that will import gas from non-Russian sources. Estonia has announced that it too will build an LNG terminal, and Latvia has plans to construct pipelines connecting the Baltic region to its large gas storage facilities, which can hold enough natural gas to protect against a temporary Russian cutoff or price hike.

But these efforts are meager in comparison to Russia’s reach. Where once the Baltic-Russian energy relationship was symbiotic, Moscow has gradually weaned itself off Baltic reliance through pipelines like Nord Stream that bypass the region. Russia’s Gazprom has been able to acquire 47% of the major Estonian gas provider Eetsi Gaas, either directly or through partner firms. In Latvia, Russian business interests pervade, and governmental corruption has allowed energy companies to lobby for favorable policies towards Russian gas, including privatization of the national gas company. Though Estonia is markedly less corrupt, the above mentioned mayor of Tallinn, Savisaar, was at the center of a 2011 scandal when it was discovered he had received €1.5 million from the head of Russian Railways to fund his party’s campaign. The Baltic business and political sphere is full of individuals of a similar background, former members of the Soviet nomenklatura, communist administrators that often still enjoy close relations with Moscow. Media is involved too. The Lithuanian National Security and Defense Committee revealed in 2007 that Russian gas distributor Dujotekana had paid major Lithuanian newspapers ʻLietuvos rytasʼ and ʻRespublikaʼ to keep quiet on links between the company and the Lithuanian Internal Security Department.2

Though the new LNG terminals are promising, the price of gas is much higher than the comparably cheap Gazprom product, leading Lithuania to consider new taxes to support its LNG facility. Meanwhile, Russian naval forces are chasing and stopping Lithuanian ships trying to lay the NordBalt electricity cables meant to integrate the Baltic electricity market and leave the Russian grid. And the EU isn’t helping. Further diversification of energy sources has been hindered by EU environmental measures limiting the production of shale gas – involved in 90% of Estonia’s energy production – and the development of nuclear power, once a major component of Lithuania’s energy basket. In the end, dependence on Russian gas is alive, well and deeply entrenched.

In April, the European Commission concluded an antitrust case against Gazprom, strongly lobbied for by Baltic States accusing Russia of unfair gas pricing. Gazprom was found guilty, and faces up to $10 billion in fines. Regardless of whether or not the case is legitimate, it’s certainly combative. And just like the renewed NATO drills on the border, it’s a stone in a glass house. As it stands, when Putin decries the treatment of ethnic Russians in Estonia and Latvia, he has socioeconomic statistics on his side. Estonia and Latvia’s non-citizen, unemployed Russian minorities are a form of untreated internal bleeding that continues to divide and radicalize the politics. Refusing to ease inequalities and the path to citizenship feeds the nationalist line of Putin’s reasoning. By failing to deal with internal, Russian-backed corruption and shying from the search for alternative fuel sources, both the Baltics and the EU at large leave a glaring hole in their defenses against Russia. It’s easy to play victim and insist on NATO tank patrols, but true security in the Baltics will only come from an appreciation for and confrontation of the depth at which Russian influence pervades the socioeconomic and political scene—the chess of the thing.

The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect those of the Glimpse from the Globe staff, editors, or governors.

Notes:

1. Grigas, Agnia, Post-Soviet Politics: Explaining the Policies of the Baltic States Towards Russia 1994-2011 (Great Britain: Ashgate Publishing Group), 17.
2. Grigas, Agnia, Post-Soviet Politics: Explaining the Policies of the Baltic States Towards Russia 1994-2011 (Great Britain: Ashgate Publishing Group), 90.