RUSSIAS UKRAINE INVASION OPENS GLOBAL PANDORAS BOX Author: Peter Dickinson (Business Ukraine magazine) When is an invasion not an invasion? According to the Kremlin, an invasion is not an invasion if the invading troops do not wear identifying insignias and the military convoys do not fly the national flag of the invaders. This is the logic currently being employed by Moscow to mask its stealth invasion of Ukraine, and it is forcing the world to rethink our understanding of what constitutes warfare in the 21st century. A NEW WAY TO WAGE WAR Astute observers of military history are already calling the Russian invasion of Ukraine a revolutionary new kind of warfare. They see it as the dawn of an alarming new era which will be defined by a return to the increasingly fortified borders and mutual distrust of previous centuries. The Russian stealth war tactics we are witnessing in Ukraine could theoretically be replicated anywhere in the world wherever nations share imperfect borders, opening the way for a free-for-all that could result in the collapse of international diplomacy as we know it. Nor will the concept of collective security be able to survive the blow of Ukraine’s partition if Russia’s stealth invasion is allowed to stand. In 1994 Ukraine gave up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in return for security guarantees from Russia, America, Britain and France. These guarantees have failed to protect the country from Russian aggression – a lesson which has no doubt been noted by the likes of Japan, South Korea, the Baltic States and Saudi Arabia, all of whom base their national security on the apparently empty words of Western security guarantees. If the world wishes to avoid being thrust into a new age of militarism and annexations, it is crucial that the international community does not allow the Kremlin’s Ukrainian adventure to become a blueprint for future foreign policy success. KREMLIN REINVENTS ART OF INVASION The Kremlin’s stealth invasion of Ukraine has involved much more than the mere absence of traditional army identification insignia and offical declarations of war. It has been a sophisticated and innovative hybrid operation which will likely be studied in military academies for decades to come. Russia has mobilized sympathetic local residents in both Crimea and East Ukraine in order to create the veneer of a grassroots uprising. It has staged fig leaf referendums, while also launching a vast multimedia disinformation campaign. Meanwhile, Russian diplomats and politicians have maintained a united front of blanket denial. These tactics have proved remarkably effective against a Western world which had long since written off the possibility of a sovereign European nation invading and annexing parts of another. There remains considerable denial in both Brussels and Washington over the broader implications of the Kremlin’s invasion, with many continuing to favour a negotiated settlement - at Ukraine’s expense - which would echo the appeasement of the 1930s. However, the challenge to the existing world order goes far beyond the immediate threat to Ukraine’s territorial integrity. RUSSIAN VEIL OF PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY The key to countering Russia’s stealth warfare tactics lies in ripping down the veil of plausible deniability which the Kremlin position relies on. Ever since the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2014, most of Russia’s justifications have been demonstrably false, yet many in the West have hesitated to denounce the Kremlin’s actions in an unqualified and unequivocal manner. The seizure of Crimea was justified as an act of self-defence against marauding Ukrainian nationalists – a claim that subsequent UN investigations have confirmed as complete fantasy. Similar attempts to suggest that Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine were under threat from the Ukrainian nationalist bogey likewise have no basis in reality – as evidenced by the thousands of Russian-speaking Ukrainians who have volunteered to fight against the Russian invasion, compared to the comparative absence of locally recruited insurgent fighters – a shortfall in volunteers which Russian rebel commanders in Ukraine have repeatedly complained about. Russia’s repeated denials that it is arming insurgents also fail any reasonable credibility test – even before the MH17 atrocity is taken into account. Why has the international community failed to call Russia out definitively over the web of deceit underpinning its invasion of Ukraine? Part of the problem is the prevailing culture of moral relativism in most Western societies, which prevents journalists and politicians from making common sense judgments while encouraging them to seek out both sides of the argument, even when this quest for balance effectively means regurgitating warmongering propaganda. Common sense tells us that the Kremlin is lying, but the overriding desire to avoid taking sides prevents many in the West from openly saying so. Anti-Americanism is also an important factor. Many apologists have portrayed Russia’s invasion as a reasonable Kremlin response to the Iraq war, NATO expansion in Eastern Europe, and the many military interventions in Serbia, Afghanistan, Libya and beyond, while others regard Ukraine’s pro-EU revolution itself as a CIA plot. There is no escaping the fact that the dominant role of America in the post-Cold War world is resented by a significant portion of the global population, and in the context of the current Ukraine crisis this has led many otherwise sensible people to sympathize with a Russian regime which is otherwise at odds with everything they believe in. RUSSIAN INVASION SETS OMINOUS PRECEDENT The failure of the international community to respond decisively to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has thrust the world to the brink of a dangerous new era of uncertainties, opening the way for a return to the politics of militarism and an international relations environment governed by the laws of the jungle. Avoiding this dismal fate means confronting the Kremlin now, and accepting that this confrontation will not be painless or without significant costs. The alternative – a short-term compromise which leaves Ukraine at Russia’s mercy and throws Western values under the bus – will send out a signal that the rules of the game have changed for everyone. A terrible precedent will have been set which will undo the civilizational gains of the past century. It will only be a matter of time before we see similar stealth invasions taking place all over the world, as aggressive powers pursue their foreign policy ambitions without fear of serious international repercussions. They, too, will claim to be champions of downtrodden ethnic or linguistic kinsmen, and they will inevitably point to Putin’s Russia as their role model and inspiration.
Posted on: Sat, 26 Jul 2014 22:31:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015