After the 2014 coup and eight years of fighting between the Ukrainian military and Russian-backed separatists, history has once again exploded and returned to the stage in Ukraine. As Westerners with governments who act blatantly hostile and belligerent to Russia, we should ask: was Russia provoked, and if so, how?
It is important to question how and why this conflict started. There is a saying about Russia many are familiar with: “Don’t poke the bear.” Well, the US and NATO have been poking the bear for 30 odd years since the downfall of the USSR. The West has adopted an absurd, ahistorical stance towards Russia, continuing to expand NATO, all the while knowing this would enflame tensions and demand a response.
The first Russian response in Ukraine was in 2014, after the US-backed right-wing coup which kicked Viktor Yanukovych out of power. I covered it extensively here. Many in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea obviously are ethnic Russians, speak Russian, have family in Russia, and do business with Russia. While some of these same people still may favor a strong and independent Ukraine, clearly many are sympathetic to the formation of an independent Donetsk and Luhansk; and the vast majority in the Donbas has no interest in fighting their eastern neighbor. Many in Ukraine are rightly worried about schools no longer teaching the Russian language, about the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, and about the Right Sector and Svoboda parties infiltrating Ukrainian politics. The past eight years have seen thousands killed in the Donbas region. Compared to how the US or another mid-level world power would react, Russia had shown immense restraint.
Let’s not pretend like they weren’t legitimate concerns when looking from Russia’s national security perspective, which the US is well aware of. The US and NATO have been expanding its military and security apparatus eastward for thirty years, threatening Russia’s security, trade and economic relations, and its sphere of influence. By breaking its promise not to expand, NATO encroached right up to Russia’s borders in the Baltic nations. By invading Iraq and Afghanistan, orchestrating the 2014 coup in Ukraine, along with overthrowing governments and meddling in many other nations, the US blatantly and repeatedly broke international law and any semblance of world order. This undoubtedly led the entire world security architecture to disincentivize international cooperation and gave stronger nations the convenient excuse to take matters into their own hands.
The US and Western Europe continued to “poke the bear” even after Russia countered Western hegemony in Georgia in 2008 and by retaking Crimea in 2014. The US, knowing full well that Russia’s economic and geostrategic vulnerabilities could be exploited to enhance the power of NATO and the EU, has long had its eyes on Ukraine becoming integrated into the West. In short, while US pundits today claim Putin sees the conflict as a “zero-sum game”, it is blatant projection, as the US and NATO have been playing the same realpolitik chessboard to enhance their geopolitical control over Eastern Europe.
Even mainstream political scientists understand this: John Mearsheimer, otherwise a respected, establishment liberal professor, has repeatedly blamed the US and NATO as being primarily responsible for the war in Ukraine, taking heat from both sides of the warmongering Washington consensus.
One has to consider a hypothetical converse situation. If Russia or any other great power was financially and militarily supporting Canada to quell pro-US separatists in Alberta, and the Canadian government sided with the Russians, with thousands of innocent US and Canadian citizens killed in the process, would the US hesitate to invade and install a pro-US government? Not for a second. The US would consider this a threat to national security. This is the basis for the Monroe Doctrine, in which the US considers all of North, Central, and South America its own backyard; any other perceived threat will be ruthlessly invaded, destabilized, or destroyed, just as has occurred in Nicaragua, Chile, and Guatemala, just to name a few instances.
Even warmongering, imperial architects like George Keenan and Henry Kissinger understood that there was no way Russia would allow for Ukraine to be allied with the West. Even though both figures were ruthless, cynical war criminals, they at least understood that other great powers have interests which differ from ours and their economic and geostrategic imperatives which must be taken into account. That basic level of understanding of realpolitik and analysis of material conditions as well as competition between world powers does not seem to exist in US foreign policy anymore.
It should be obvious that we’ve entered the imperial overreach stage. The US meddled to try and cajole Ukraine into the EU and NATO, and got its shit wrecked. We fucked around and now we’re finding out.
Before 2014 Russia would probably have accepted a neutral Ukraine, but no longer. The past eight years have shown that Ukraine would rather kill its own people than negotiate. Ukraine used neo-Nazi forces for eight years and still is in the current conflict, allied to their official National Guard. Ukraine was assisted by the CIA in Eastern Ukraine to help kill separatists. British and US special forces are currently in Ukraine assisting its military. Before the war started, Ukraine was verging on becoming a failed state, Zelensky was widely despised, and the standard of living was falling precipitously for the average Ukrainian.
This does not justify Russia’s response. It does, however, reveal that great powers will react to continuing pressure and low-level war on their borders when it suits them. It is basic common sense; stronger authoritarian nations (the US being exhibit A) pursue their interests at the expense of weaker ones when they can get away with it, and also overreact or become irrational when threatened. If Russia and Putin has become increasingly paranoid and isolated, what were the conditions that led to this new state of affairs?
We have to return to the ahistorical framework US power projects. These were exemplified best in the 1990s in two works: Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat. Cresting the wave of the fall of the Soviet Union and unipolar US hegemony, these authors codified imperial hubris of late 20th century America, claiming that only liberal representative democracies guided only by capitalist economic structures would expand worldwide and a new era of peace, globalization and cooperation would begin; a “New World Order”, as it were. All this would be implicitly supported by a globe-spanning military colossus, an imperial pax Americana. Autocracies and other authoritarian regimes would not be able to maintain influence as the “free market” expanded to every corner of the planet; and democratic, capitalistic nations would not go to war with each other, this was referred to by Friedman as the “Golden Arches” theory of foreign policy: no two countries with a McDonald’s, and hence, a global capitalist political structure, would ever fight each other again.
Looking back today, it’s obvious how facile and myopic this view was. Great powers fight over more than ideology: natural resources, security assurances, and the material needs determine how nations compete and jostle for status and hegemony. In hindsight, and without the hegemonic distorting lens of pro-Western propaganda, it’s easy to see that Russia has felt threatened by Western Europe and the USA for generations.
Ultimately, the US will be content in the near future to “fight to the last Ukrainian.” The domestic US and Western European populations need a new distraction from an economy with skyrocketing inflation and a looming recession. A proxy war against Russia suits Western elites just fine, even though it is clear that Biden, Johnson, Macron, and Scholz have no idea how to proceed. Western nations have little leverage or ability to maneuver in this war; US diplomats especially have no interest in navigating the foreign policy repercussions precisely because they are so insulated from the consequences.
The establishment needs a scapegoat for the worsening economic situation in Europe and the USA, and the coming recession will be blamed on Russian destabilization of global markets. The mainstream media has conveniently ignored the eight previous years of civil war in Ukraine, a situation that would not be tolerated by any other global power. The narrative shift to Russia as the next boogeyman was very swift, precisely because Washington has no one else to blame for the disastrous collapse of the world economy led by a failing capitalist model. The West was desperate to find a scapegoat and now it has one. The faltering of international norms and relations due to exploitative and reactionary foreign policy decisions of the West likewise exposed cracks in the foundation of the system with no fix in sight. Only a diplomatic solution can bring an end to this war, and at present, US leadership can at best be described as being out to lunch. With no clear plan or desire to minimize the human suffering in Ukraine, the imperial order continues to stumble along due to its own hubris and overreach, blind to the lessons of history.
William Hawes is a writer specializing in politics and environmental issues. He is author of the ebook Planetary Vision: Essays on Freedom and Empire. His articles have appeared online at CounterPunch, Global Research, Countercurrents, Gods & Radicals, Dissident Voice, The Ecologist, and more. You can email him at wilhawes@gmail.com. Visit his website williamhawes.wordpress.com.
There are some fascinating similarities between the Crimean War of the 1850s and the Ukraine War of 2022. According to Norman Rich, author of “The Crimean War” its main purpose was the containment of an expanding Russia as European powers had become fearful of Russia’s extension of power under Tsarist rule. One of the questions Rich addressed was why peace efforts failed at the very time that European powers were opposed to another war.
As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, the major European powers decided that the “primary objective of their diplomacy must be the preservation of international peace and stability” Their collaboration became known as the “Concert of Europe” which supported peace efforts for the following four decades. But from October, 1853 to February, 1856 a war was fought by the British, French and Ottoman Turks against Russia. It was a blood drenched war that brought such luminaries as Florence Nightingale and Leo Tolstoy to the world’s attentions and made famous Tennyson’s poem: “The Charge of the Light Brigade”, adapted from Dublin born, William Howard Russell’s article about this disastrous charge that resulted in the death of 300 out of 600 men. Besides W.H. Russell another Irish war correspondent: J.C. Mc Coan, wrote articles about the “great confusion of purpose” and the “incompetent international butchery” that took place in the Crimea.
Sixty thousand British, French and Ottoman Turks died in the ensuing three-year conflict, while up to 500,000 Russians lost their lives, many due to cholera, typhus, dysentery and malaria. It was in this harsh medical climate that Florence Nightingale gained widespread attention for setting up a hospital while bringing a number of trained nurses, including a substantial contingent of “Sisters of Mercy” from Ireland. They were there to heal wounded soldiers by establishing strict rules for cleanliness at a time when germ theory had not been understood. Before the nurses arrived 16,000 British soldiers died and, after the establishment of the hospital, only 2000. Nightingale noted in her journals that there was an 80% reduction of mortality among wounded soldiers under the care of her nurses. Her efforts resulted in widespread recognition of the need for professionally trained nurses in caring for injured soldiers.
A young Russian officer, Leo Tolstoy, served in combat in Crimea and became embittered by the suffering and death of young men. Based on his experiences Tolstoy wrote: “Tales of Sebastopol” and later his famous book: “War and Peace” and still later numerous books and articles on ”Nonviolence” which inspired Mohandas Gandhi to found “Tolstoy Farm”, his first ashram in South Africa.
According to some historians, the cause of the 19th century Crimean War was that France and Britain had become fearful of Russia’s attempt to expand its influence into the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Russia’s vast territories stretched across the continent to Siberia and Alaska and coastal North America. The Russian Tsar, Nicholas II believed the Ottoman Empire was in imminent danger of collapse and expressed his intention to protect the Orthodox Churches and the Holy Places of Jerusalem which were under the Sultan’s rule. The Tsar’s diplomatic mission to Constantinople in 1852, led by Prince Menshikov, had been told “to demand a formal Turkish Guarantee of existing rights and privileges of the Orthodox Church. The British Ambassador to the Ottoman Court, Stratford Canning, was a “mediator and mentor to the Ottoman Court” and advised against any accommodation with the Tsar. He was convinced that the Russian demands would allow the Russians to gain control of the Ottoman Empire.
Reinforcing this view was Lord John Russell who stated that: “He [the Tsar] must be resisted in any way possible”. Other aristocrats such as the Duke of Argyll wrote that “the seating of the Russian Empire on the throne of Constantinople would give Russia an overbearing weight in Europe”. Lord Palmerston, who became Prime Minister had a desire to enhance British prestige”, and, as a result, became a major factor in the drama that ignited the conflict with Russia.
The Ottoman government agreed with Britain and France that there was a need to mount a campaign against Russia. Attempts at brokering a peace were blocked several times by British leaders, while the Habsburg Empire with its base in Austria, supported peace efforts. Prince Metternich, a proponent of peace, warned against a “European war provoked by Oriental causes” and expressed the “need to maintain treaties” since “we are called to the task of restoring peace”. Yet there was a problem with the vacillating nature of Tsar Nicholas 1 and his “sudden hatreds [and] exaggerated sense of honor and pride”, mixed with “severe bouts of depression”.
In England the issues came to a head in December 1852, after Napoleon III established a new imperial government in a coup d’etat against the Second Republic. He sent an ambassador to the Ottoman Empire with instructions to assert France’s right to protect Christian sites in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. The Ottoman Empire agreed to this condition. A Four Point Peace Agreement was put forward in 1854 to cease hostilities but they were repudiated by the Tsar unless guaranteed protection was given to the Holy Places and the Orthodox churches.
Although the Crimean war ended in the winter of 1856 peace efforts could have prevented this costly war. Instead, what took place resulted in the suffering and death of 560,000 young men on both sides of that war. Irish soldiers made up around 30–35 per cent of the British army in 1854, and it is estimated that over 30,000 Irish soldiers served in the Crimea, a number of them casualties of the war. Since each Irish regiment allowed a small number of wives to accompany their husbands to the Crimea, these women came to wash and cook, and following each battle, helped to care for the wounded.
The crippling of Russia’s power in the Near East was imperative to Britain and France. The British war party undermined peace proposals that could have ended the war much sooner due to their desire for more concessions from Russia, including the obliteration of Sebastopol and the reduction of Russia’s Black Sea fleet. Tsar Nicholas I died in March,1855, worn out and remorseful after his failed efforts to avoid war. Nicholas believed he had tried to “honestly” negotiate with Britain on the partition of the Ottoman Empire, and indicated his willingness to make concessions. But all efforts in this regard, failed. Nicholas’ son, Alexander II, was willing to sue for peace, but such “a peace had to be on honorable terms”. The earlier Vienna Peace Conference had failed in June, 1855 with the chief negotiator for Austria being Sir Karl Von Buol, who noted that the “uncompromising attitude of the western powers wanted to force a decision on the battlefield.”
Lord Palmerston’s “grandiose plans” were to dismember the Russian Empire so that it would not “dominate trade from the Baltic to the Mediterranean”. After the capture of Sebastopol in September, 1855 and the withdrawal of all Russian forces from the city, Tsar Alexander II defiantly declared that “Sebastopol is not Moscow and the Crimea is not Russia”. Yet Lord Palmerston stated that the Treaty we propose would be “…to confine the future of Russia within her present circumference” and insisted that “Russia has not been beaten enough to make peace possible at the present moment
A Four Point Proposal by Austria was put forward by their representative, Karl Von Buol, as an “ultimatum to Russia” although he noted that “the terms must be moderate enough to be acceptable”. Austria was convinced that it needed to “end the war regardless of the political cost”. The proposal demanded that the Black Sea be open to all commerce and the River Danube be removed from Russia’s control. The Four Points were agreed to by all sides and the war ended. The great cost of lives lost and deep seated resentments continued to simmer in Russia against the European powers, although there were some positive results. The horrific loss of young men, as well as a loss of prestige, compelled Russia to re-structure and upgrade their judicial system and military and, most importantly, Tsar Alexander gave freedom to the serfs.
Just as the concern for Holy Places in the Ottoman Empire was a motive for the Crimean War, so too are religious motives mixed with political motives in Ukraine and Russia. Patriarch Kirril, head of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow, has become upset at the Ukrainian Orthodox Church’s independence and wants to re-assert control of Ukraine’s Orthodox churches. Over half of the churches of the Ukraine are still affiliated with Moscow while less than half joined the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Of the 800 or so churches affiliated with Moscow, 400 Russian Orthodox priests appealed to the “Council of Primates of the Ancient Eastern Churches” claiming that Patriarch Kirril was preaching the “doctrine of the Russian World”. The Orthodox priests were upset at the Patriarch’s staunch support of Vladimir Putin during his harsh prosecution of the war in Ukraine.
In our present year, 2022, Vladimir Putin, has Tsarist aspirations and asserts Russia’s intention to re-create a region of influence so as to prevent the expansion of NATO. The Crimean Peninsula has been under the flag of Ukraine from 1954 to 2014 after which it was annexed by Russia. But despite this annexation Ukraine continues to refer to Crimea as the “Temporary occupation of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sebastopol by Russia”.
If the Ukraine War follows the same destructive path as the original Crimean War, the consequences of which resulted in a fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, and a Europe that became more divided, the most likely result will be a society with deep-seated resentments that may take decades to achieve some degree of reconciliation toward those who took part in the violent invasion of their country.
The Historian Tacitus, while discussing Agricola’s conquest of Celtic Britain, related an insightful aphorism: “we hate most those we harm the most” in reference to the Roman policy of compelling servitude upon the conquered. This too could be said of Vladimir Putin’s legacy: that hatred and vindictiveness has been growing in opposition to his plans for conquest, which have been thwarted by Ukrainian resistance and their profound need for independence. Putin’s attempts to reawaken the ghosts of Empire have become more strangely improbable at a time that Russia’s economy continues to shrink as a result of sanctions, an economy that is barely on a par with Canada’s. It is unlikely that in the future Russia will be able to support a military that is comparable to nations with economies ten to twenty times larger.
Hugh J. Curran has been teaching in “Peace and Reconciliation Studies” at the University of Maine for the past 20 years.
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