On appeasement today

“Our sanctions are not designed to cause any disruption to the current flow of energy from Russia to the world,” Daleep Singh, a deputy national security adviser, told reporters Thursday.

Since Russia produces one out of every 10 barrels of oil the world consumes and up to a third of Europe’s natural gas supplies, the petroleum card gives it strategic leverage well beyond its nuclear arsenal. That is the same card that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries once played.--New York Times, Feb. 27, 2022,

Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, Russia has been almost constantly at war. Several of the wars involved the reconquest and pacification of breakaway regions, but a few of them also involve(d) sovereign states, including Georgia and since 2014 Ukraine. The latter is notable because in 1994 it gave up an enormous stockpile of nuclear weapons in return for a commitment to its territorial integrity from Russia, the USA, and the UK (the Budapest Memorandum). In 2014, after the Russian occupation of Crimea, I wrote that is shows that "security guarantees by the USA/UK are ultimately worthless if the aggressor is another nuclear power."*

In addition, anyone who compares, say, the Iranian relatively frank response to its accidental shooting down of the civilian airliner PS752 to the Russian continued stonewalling and propaganda responses in the aftermath of the shooting down of MH17, can only conclude that the Russian regime is villainous. To this day, the Russian government fabricates lies, and has prevented a resolution of the case in an effort to cover up involvement of its key military personnel. The lack of generosity to innocent foreign victims should not surprise given the Russian government's treatment of its own citizens not the least the assassination of journalists and politicians, and the violent intimidation of critics of the regime.

The response of the liberal democracies to the Russian regime during the last thirty years has been one of appeasement fueled by a demand for Russian energy (here), and lubricated by legalized graft of European politicians (think Gerhard Schröder, Wolfgang Schüssel,Karin Kneissl, etc.)* and capital from Russian financial elites invested in property, football, and art. In addition, in the background is Russia's gigantic nuclear weapons' capacity which has generated understandable caution.

During the last few weeks, US intelligence was extraordinary accurate about Russia's invasion. Unusually, the Biden administration, including the President himself, have been quite forthright publicly about sharing their knowledge. But this forthrightness has not been matched by robust policy response. There have been only minor arms shipments to Ukraine without much urgency before the invasion. The current sanctions will not scare Putin; as long as, say, Gazprom and Gazprombank are left untouched they are mostly symbolism. Even banning Russia from Swift -- the great false symbol of true resolve this week -- while a great inconvenience, will not cripple its sources of income or war-making capacity. European energy consumers are pretty much funding Russia's war on Ukraine, and would continue to do so after removing Russia from Swift.

As I write this on the third day of the invasion, an energy blockade of Russia is not on the table. That politicians in liberal democracies fear high domestic energy prices is not news: it also prevents a rational response to the unfolding climate crisis, and has contributed to disastrous policy toward Iraq and Saudi Arabia. And because Pax Americana is so successful, the vast majority of Europe's politicians and public inside NATO do not truly fear Russian aggression, and so perceive little reason to either change energy consumption or to re-arm significantly. (The exceptions live in some of the former Warsaw Pact countries, and perhaps Finland.) Stepping back: it's notable that before the shooting starts, foreign affairs are invisible in European media and play almost no role in elections. This reflects, in part, the continued success of the EU of depoliticizing much intra European politics, and in part the effect of being de facto protectorates of the USA which has made political decision-making narrower and irresponsible. The latter is especially noticeable in the recurring temptation to pretend after 2014 that NATO membership was in the cards for Ukraine, despite the well known vetoes over it.**

Thus, it's fair to say that the inexperienced President Zelensky has played a bad diplomatic hand badly. Put simply: Ukraine tilted far to the Western alliance without receiving much military benefit from it. To what degree this was perceived as a genuine threat to Russia, I leave to others. But it is worth noting that US policy has prevented military integration between the Ukraine and China, and this has left Ukraine without real allies to deter Russia. Even so, it is difficult not to admire his integrity, heroism, and moving rhetoric of the last few days. Perhaps, Ukrainian nationalism will save him.

I used 'appeasement' not to suggest that Putin (for all his fascist tendencies) is Hitler. But rather that the liberal democracies are adrift, and that worse may well to come: China's unwillingness to condemn the invasion, and its refusal to join in with even minimal sanctions against Russia, is a sign that it is unwilling to defend the principle of sovereignty as such or defend the current system of international law. (Something similar, albeit less consequential, is the case of India.) If the world's great powers look away from each other's unprovoked aggression, they give themselves a free hand for their own actions, as we have already seen in Hong Kong (recall here; here), and may expect in Taiwan one day.**

One need not romanticize really existing liberal democracy, to believe that even when imperfect and malfunctioning it's preferable over the existing alternatives if one values the many varieties of freedom, and the hope that anyone can contribute to collective improvement. (That's compatible with a long list of evils, alas.) That so many authoritarian-leaning politicians within liberal democracies loudly cheer on Putin's invasion suggests that they instinctively recognize that it weakens the more cosmopolitan and democratic forces in their own countries. The bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan has projected weakness, and these politicians sense that the forces that brought Trump to power are not fully overcome yet. For authoritarians everywhere any defeat anywhere of the ideals of the open society is a domestic victory.

Liberal democracies are more secure when other countries are liberal democracies. This is not primarily because of the idea that liberal democracies don't attack each other (although if it were true, that's very helpful), or because they can mutually enrich each other. But rather because they need each other to keep each other reasonably honest, to learn from each other's experiments in living, and to secure each other in the faith that a people's self-government is enduring and that the lure of authoritarian strongmen, so tempting in insecure times, can be resisted. If Kiev falls it will not end our civilization, but if the drift continues it will be a nail in our coffin.

+ I also predicted a new age of Nuclear arms proliferation which has turned out to be less than I expected at the time.

*I am leaving aside Trump's entourage but for a useful summary see here.

**There is a deeper charade here. The US does not need NATO or any of its allies to provide real security guarantees. By occasionally promoting NATO membership it effectively passes the buck to others for policies it does not really wish to pursue.