PRACTICE PATIENCE IN UKRAINE
If we wait a little while, Putin’s gambit in Crimea might just blow up in his face
There are limits to American power. Unfortunately, that’s becoming increasingly visible to many of those over whom we’d most like to exert it. Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have recognized this. And that’s largely why he has quickly swallowed Crimea in one gulp. Putin has long believed in balancing risk and reward very carefully. It’s time we learned the same lesson. Patience could well turn out to be its own reward.
A central part of this calculus involves just how far our power to influence events extends these days and which tools to apply. In ascending order of potency, there are bureaucratic barriers such as withholding visas or freezing assets of Russian officials; outright embargoes on Russian exports, especially oil and gas; blocking Russia’s access to Western financial markets; and finally direct or indirect military confrontation on land, sea or air.
NEITHER QUICK NOR EASY
Each, of course, carries potential risks in terms of effectiveness and collateral damage. Each action has been tried in other locations with quite mixed results. The problem in the case of Crimea, as we face the immediate results of Russia’s annexation, is that there’s little time for any of these measures to work.
Freezing visas or assets is perhaps the most quickly and easily implemented, but it relies on the ability of such actions to influence their targets, many of whom have already taken precautions to limit their effectiveness. Reports circulated in bond markets Friday that $105 billion worth of U.S. government bonds, 10 times the weekly average, evaporated from the stash of the New York Federal Reserve, which holds such securities for foreign governments. Russians might be repositioning their overseas assets out of range of American authorities.
The next level up are sanctions that seem to have worked in Iran and, earlier, in South Africa. Even so, those took years to cause sufficient grassroots discomfort to in- fluence government policies. Moreover, Iran and South Africa are far less closely tied economically to Western Europe and the United States than Russia. In the oil and gas field, there are substantial joint ventures in exploration and production between ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and Russian partners. The French dairy group Danone had 11% of its worldwide sales in the Russian market last year, while Citibank has 3,000 employees, retail branches and 450 ATMs in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
EMBARGO BLOWBACK
None of these Western companies would especially enjoy having their operations dismantled under an extensive set of sanctions. Russia could also turn off the taps of the vast quantities of oil and gas it supplies to customers across Western Europe. So some West European countries are lukewarm in their support of sanctions against their immediate neighbor. Given the length of time sanctions took to move Iran, the odds are against such a system working quickly on an equally implacable foe in the Kremlin.
The ultimate measure is military action. The United States has the guided-missile destroyer Truxtun, on patrol in the Black Sea. But how prepared are Americans or fellow NATO members to commit themselves to an armed confrontation with a major nuclear power? Britain bowed out of an offshore cruise missile attack on Syria; only France among America’s West European allies considered such a move. A fact not lost on Putin.
SOLID ALLY?
So here we stand. Toe-to-toe, Crimea firmly in Putin’s grasp — just as he succeeded in snatching two slivers of Georgia eight years ago with few consequences. It’s time, perhaps, that we began to gauge risk vs. reward. Four years ago, Putin’s anointed Ukrainian leader, Viktor Yanukovych, beat his pro-West foe by 900,000 votes. Tuesday, Ukraine shed 2 million largely Russian sympathizers in Crimea.
The next national ballot could send the whole nation over to our side before long. All we really need is patience and wisdom.