Did the west really bring war to Ukraine?
Friday, Mises.org released Dr. David Gordon’s review of How the West Brought War to Ukraine. Given I have went over the casus bellum given for the War in Ukraine back in March, I thought this review was a good time to revisit since as David Gordon says in his review, that the entire thesis rests on one of the casus bellum I analyzed.
Dr. Gordon puts the book’s argument as Russia perceiving “a hostile Ukraine as an ‘existential’ threat.” Is this correct? This will have to be analyzed in accordance with both the supposed war justification as well as Ukraine’s attitude towards Russia prior to 2014 when Russia first invaded Crimea as well as the Donbass and Luhansk provinces of Ukraine.
Abelow writes:
The underlying cause of the war lies not in an unbridled expansionism of Mr. Putin, or in paranoid delusions of military planners in the Kremlin, but in a 30-year history of Western provocations, directed at Russia, that began during the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued to the start of the war. These provocations placed Russia in an untenable situation, for which war seemed, to Mr. Putin and his military staff, the only workable solution. (p. 7)
This is of course easily proven false as Russia has a plethora of historical examples of doing exactly this in other countries such as Georgia and Chechnya since 1990. We’ll leave out for the sake of argument everything in the Soviet Union even though it would be very easy to list all those crimes considering the artificial elite in the Soviet Union didn’t just evaporate. Russia has also attempted to destabilize a range of countries including Georgia[1], Mali[2], Poland[3], Moldova[4], Azerbaijan[5], Montenegro[6], The Balkans[7], Ukraine[8], and others I haven’t mentioned here for the purpose of installing puppet regimes, general destabilization, or annexation. To pretend like Russia isn’t doing the exact same thing the US has done in various parts of the world is baffling to say the least. Mr.Putin has even declared himself a Eurasianst.
Dr. Gordon states the following as the book’s central thesis for why the West is responsible for the war in Ukraine:
“Abelow documents his thesis to the hilt, placing great emphasis on the promise of the United States to refrain from the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders.”
As I went over in March, there was never a promise for NATO not to expand east. The promises made to Gorbachev had nothing to do with NATO expansion by Gorbachev’s own admission. What was promised to Russia was a lack of military buildup to the East, which was a promise kept by the West, according to Gorbachev in October 2014. This means that the promise was kept even after Putin had invaded parts of Ukraine. Not only was no promise broken, but if it did, it happened after and not before Putin decided to invade. You cannot make post hoc justifications for war and be taken seriously.
Dr. Gordon states further:
Supporters of current US policy have countered by pointing out that the United States made no written commitment to this effect, but this is a mere technicality, and the weight of the evidence supports the Russian view of the question.
While I am not a supporter of US foreign policy generally, even if this were a mere technicality can we not hold the United States and Russia then to the Budapest Memorandum and the security assurances that went along with it? Surely, if we are to take implied assurances as binding we can also take written ones? This was a sticking point at the time in the right wing factions of the Ukrainian parliament in order to agree to nuclear disarmament after all even if they changed the wording from guarantee to assurance. Especially considering even as far back as 1992 elements of the Russian elite were encouraging “independence” movements inside Ukraine, which we know now was a prelude to the current conflict and an opening for annexation.
Russia has changed its own public stance on whether or not NATO expansion is a threat to it. In December 2021, it said NATO expansion needed to be pulled back to the 1997 border but then has recently stated that NATO expansion to Sweden and Finland is not a threat at all. If the 1,200-mile border with Ukraine would threaten Russia, then surely the 800-mile border with Finland would as well. Finland even brings NATO closer to St. Petersburg, which is a major city in Russia. Is the only way out of the situation with Russia and Finland for Russia to invade Finland? Are we only to take Russia at it’s word when it aligns with a particular narrative? Surely, the truth is still a relevant factor even in the narrative driven arguments of today.
In other words, Abelow’s thesis is empirically false.
To return to the idea that a hostile Ukraine would be an existential threat to Russia, we have to explore the reasonableness of this happening prior to Russian military action in Ukraine. Ukraine faced sanctions from Russia after trying to set up a trade agreement with the EU. In response to this, Ukraine stopped the agreement talks to handle Russia’s complaints in December 2013. Russia obviously found an acceptable agreement, as Russia provided Ukraine billions in aid after the pause was ended.
Far from the hostile Ukraine Abelow says caused Russia to invade, Russia had a neutral Ukraine. Ukraine at the time of the Euromaidan protests wanted to have good economic ties with both the EU and Russia. It is likely this neutrality rather than being like Belarus that stirred Putin’s anger.
Finally, the idea that a hostile Ukraine would be an existential threat to Russia implies that adding Ukraine would make a huge difference in a conventional war between Russia and NATO. As I covered in my original article and has become far more apparent since I wrote it, NATO enjoys a heavy advantage in a conventional war scenario against Russia regardless of what happens in Ukraine. Russia is barely able to invade and conquer an Eastern European nation like Ukraine, much less stand up to NATO. Russia can only be conceived of as a legitimate threat to NATO through its nuclear program which has little to nothing to do with proximity in a world of ICBMs and nuclear submarines. It appears that the ‘hostile Ukraine’ Abelow fearmongers about was not only unlikely but wouldn’t really make a difference in the grand outcome of a conventional war between the two powers and places the clear aggression on the wrong party. A NATO with Ukraine might just make the war end sooner with fewer losses on both sides. It already is lopsided in favor of NATO.
Abelow’s thesis, as presented by Dr. Gordon is dead on arrival. It misrepresents facts very badly. It essentially outright lies to advance a narrative against America and Ukraine. I have not heard of Abelow before this article, but the accusations of him being pro-Russian could well be accurate based on this single point of evidence. It also appears he may be an anti-Christian zealot, from some cursory research. It is far more likely that he is in the camp of those like Caitlin Johnstone, who are leftists that simply hate America and will find any means to criticize her. I prefer a more objective analysis myself.
I would like to thank Dr. Gordon for bringing this piece to my attention, regardless of this disagreement I always enjoy Dr. Gordon’s work and studious nature and this article should not be construed as an attack on Dr. Gordon in any way.
Citations:
https://www.fpri.org/article/2021/03/russia-permanent-war-georgia/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-25/germany-warns-russian-destabilization-of-mali-set-to-intensify
https://www.gov.pl/web/special-services/destabilization-for-russia
https://jamestown.org/program/twenty-years-of-russian-peacekeeping-in-moldova/
https://jam-news.net/opinion-moscow-brussels-compete-for-leadership-in-armenian-azerbaijani-peace-talks/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-plot-kill-montenegro-prime-minister-milo-djukanovic-overthrow-government-stop-joining-nato-kremlin-a7588051.html
https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/russias-strategy-to-destabilize-the-balkans-is-working/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/16/ukraine-fighters-russia-top-rebel-leader#:~:text=%22There%20are%201%2C200%20individuals%20who,decisive%20moment%2C%22%20said%20Zakharchenko.
