Russia and the Return of Geopolitics in Korea

In his 2014 Foreign Affairs article "The Return of Geopolitics", Walter Russell Mead asserted that whereas the US has been concerned with ideas of "global governance" since the end of the Cold War, powers such as China, Iran and Russia remain focused on traditional questions of territory and power. 

The term "geopolitics" is frequently used in conjunction with Russia's foreign policy. It is, however, often limited to the context of Russian activities in the post-Soviet space. Indeed, much of Russia's current foreign policy is driven by a desire to re-assert influence in countries and regions that were formerly under Soviet control.

Despite not having been a part of the former Soviet empire, the Korean Peninsula offers a unique chance to glean the dichotomy between the US's supposed concentration of "global governance" and the Russian preoccupation with the issue of territory. Much of the international focus on the DPRK has been based on stemming North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs. The primary framework through which the international community has worked to achieve this is through international bodies such as the United Nations, buttressed by international agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Nevertheless, Russia's geopolitical interests have a long history in Korea. Those interests, it seems, are making a comeback. Russia, however, is forced to contend with a divided Korea that makes the pursuit of its geopolitical designs more difficult.

The establishment of a Korean state that is friendly toward Russia, but which is not particularly aligned with one state, has constituted a basic Russian policy toward Korea since the end of the 19th century. The historic roots of Russia's ambitions on the Korean Peninsula date from approximately 1860, during the reign of Aleksandr II. Russian designs for Korea entered a period of abeyance during the Japanese occupation of Korea. After the end of the Second World War, however, the USSR revived its Korea policy based on three fronts: advancing the Soviet Union's national security, increasing the scope of the communist camp, and keeping Russia in the realm of great power politics.

Following the "hot" phase of the Cold War, which included a rupture in Sino-Soviet relations, the balance between China, the United States and the USSR became more-or-less balanced. Nevertheless, the rapprochement between Japan and South Korea following the 1965 normalization agreement between Seoul and Tokyo led to another major shift in the USSR's geopolitical position in Northeast Asia. While the US's alliance system in Asia was based on a series of bilateral agreements between Washington and other individual states, rather than a collective security system such as NATO, Japan-South Korea normalization led to the formation of a Japan-South Korea-US network. In Asia, Russia was unable to form a network of alliances or collective security similar to the Warsaw Pact in Eastern Europe. As a result, in order to securitize its Far Eastern regions, in 1980 Russia embarked on a program of tripling its direct investment in the Russian Far East's military position, compared with defense spending in the Far East in 1978. Nevertheless, the USSR was unable to undertake such a program, as at this time the first cracks in the Soviet socio-economic system began to appear [1].

Upon assuming leadership of the USSR in 1985, Mikhail Gorbachev hoped to use North Korea as a sort of lightning rod to expand the Soviet Union's influence in East Asia more broadly. In addition to the narrower imperatives of East Asia, Gorbachev's policy of outreach to North Korea was also in part based on his attempts at shoring up cooperation with the broader global communist bloc, including those countries that had kept their distance from the USSR. During the final days of the Soviet era, however, a reform-minded Gorbachev viewed South Korea, having recently experienced a massive economic transformation in the so-called "Miracle on the Han", as a valuable partner for the USSR. In particular, Gorbachev viewed South Korea as a potential source of investment. Yet in the chaotic aftermath of the USSR's collapse, Russian leaders (especially conservative politicians) became increasingly disappointed with the fact that ROK-Russia ties didn't provide the material benefits as had previously been hoped. Boris Yeltsin, therefore, began to move Russia back to a more equidistant position between North and South Korea.  

Moscow's policy of maintaining balanced relations with both Koreas has continued under the Putin government. Russia's attempts at maintaining balanced relations with North and South Korea, however, could end up backfiring, as happened with the USSR's attempts at maintaining balanced relations with both Ethiopia and Somalia in the 1970's. With this in mind, Russia ultimately hopes for a reunified peninsula. Moscow, however, approaches unification with a mindset of cautious optimism.

According to a report published by the Russian committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP), two of Russia's main interests insofar as Korean crisis management is concerned, is for Korean unification to happen gradually, rather than suddenly, and for Korea not necessary to fall under the geopolitical auspices of Russia, but rather for Korea not to come under the geopolitical fold of one single country.

Ideally, unification would occur peaceably. Russia, however, remains wary of the possibility of a large-scaled armed confrontation. By extension, Russia also fears that the aftermath of armed conflict would produce a unified Korean Peninsula with US troops directly on its borders. This makes Russia's geopolitical situation in East Asia not unlike Russia's circumstances in Europe, where the positioning of large-scale military powers increases the possibility of confrontation. In contrast, perhaps the most critical difference between Russia's geopolitical interests toward the Korean Peninsula and other regions on the Russian periphery is that whereas in other areas Russia attempts to create a network of pro-Moscow states on its borders, but as far as Korea is concerned, the most pressing issue for Russia is not creating a buffer state, but rather creating investment opportunities for its Far Eastern regions.

As Russia continues its so-called "turn to the East," the Korean Peninsula will likely hold an increasingly important position in Russia's geopolitical designs. At present, Russia is limited in its ability to exercise geopolitical influence over Korea. The peninsula remains divided, with the northern and Southern halves generally aligned with China and the US, respectively. Should the overall situation in Korea change in any notable way, however, Russia, based on its long-standing interests, will be desirous to take advantage of any major shifts in North and/or South Korea's political circumstances. By striving for closer ties with both North and South Korea, Russia seeks to be primed to, at the very least, not be left out in the cold in any ensuing geopolitical scramble for influence in a reunified Korea.   

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[1] А. Б Волынчук "Россия в Северо-Восточной Азии: вектор геополитических интересов"

New CWCP Blog Series: Dispatches from the Far East

For nearly two years, I have enjoyed the amazing privilege to live and work in South Korea. I took this opportunity somewhat on chance, and it may seem counterintuitive that a Russia specialist such as myself would move to an area outside of his/her expertise. Yet the privilege to experience this region from square one with a fresh set of eyes and insatiable curiosity has been a magnificent experience.

At the request of CWCP's president Brad Nelson, I will be publishing a series of blog posts about my adventures in East Asia as related to regional history and security. It is best to think of these as a combination of memoir, political commentary and travelogue. The purpose of these coming blog posts are not to provide rigorous academic or policy analyses (although hopefully readers can glean some interesting lessons/viewpoints from them). Yet in a digital age such as ours, it is easy to view our world exclusively though such resources as Wikipedia or the New York Times.

There is nothing inherently wrong with these valuable resources. As I have learned, however, there are simply too many complexities that cannot be captured or understood by reading words on a screen.

We hope that you enjoy these on-the-ground reports!

A Local and Global Perspective on the Kalamazoo Shootings

In yet another occurrence of what has become an all-too-common event in the United States, the city of Kalamazoo, Michigan has experienced a tragic mass shooting spree. We here at CWCP of course mostly cover macro-scale international issues, although we also delve into issues related to domestic security in the US. It is particularly fitting for CWCP to cover the events in Kalamazoo, however, as it is my own hometown.

At this point, authorities to not have a clear motivation for the killing, nor is there any apparent connection between the seemingly disparate victims who were killed over a five-hour period. Yet Kalamazoo County's senior prosecutor, Jeffrey Getting believes that the targets were very deliberately chosen and not the victims of random gunfire or stray bullets. The attacks also do not, as far as authorities can tell, seem to be an act of terrorism. Kalamazoo County Sheriff Rick Fuller has speculated that the gunman's motives came down to personal issues.

If there is any one thing we can be fortunate of, is that the arrest of the suspect, who was reportedly transporting a weapon, went down without a fight. The arrest occurred near the downtown business district, which is always busy on a Saturday night going into the wee hours of Sunday morning. Had the suspect, Jason Dalton, resorted to armed resistance, there could possibly have been more victims.  

As a Kalamazoo native, the shooting presents a special analytical quandary. Kalamazoo is, on the one hand, a very pleasant place as is an excellent area to raise a family. Yet there is also an undercurrent of crime rampant in the city that is usually limited to certain neighborhoods or sections of the city, but  which occasionally spills over (I myself was the victim of an assault and unarmed robbery in 2008 right in the central business district during daylight hours). Gun violence is not infrequent, but again is usually relatively limited to robberies, home invasion and even murder in rare instances. Drug trafficking is also a major issue, as Kalamazoo is a transit hub exactly halfway between Chicago and Detroit on highway I-94.

Again, however, while I may paint a relatively bleak or even condemnatory portrait of Kalamazoo, these realities are usually confined to the more under privileged parts of the city.

The shooting effectively shows the limits of different policing philosophies. Across the United States, police departments have become increasingly "militarized". As I learned through close direct contact with the Kalamazoo law enforcement community while working for a non-profit, Kalamazoo officers are all equipped with an automatic assault rifle, and there are of course armored vehicles at the Department of Public Safety and the Sheriff's Department's disposal. This could hardly be considered "militarization" as local law enforcement, to my knowledge, are not arming like the Navy SEALs. Nevertheless, Kalamazoo policing agencies are well equipped to handle all manner of dangerous situation that may require more than a glock.

Yet while Kalamazoo's law enforcement community stands ready to handle incredibly dangerous situations, and has a high level of interoperability with state and federal agencies, the Kalamazoo police also have a vigorous and highly successful community policing program, where community liaison officers are out in public making regular contact with the wider citizenry. Furthermore, on the judicial end of things, Kalamazoo has been a national innovator in its drug court program, which focused on the rehabilitation of drug users, and has seen a high rate of recovery with a low level of recidivism.

Nevertheless, as the recent shooting spree shows, neither of the two ends of the spectrum- a more hardened police preparedness level nor a philosophy of community outreach- can prevent even major tragedies such as this. It is not unlike terrorism in the sense that, even with high alert level, horrible things can still happen. Even if the crime does not technically fit under the auspices of the federal definition of "terrorism", if the shooting manages to increase a lingering sense of fear and unease in the community, the shooter's actions will of course have produced some of the same intended effects of terrorist acts.  

Needless to say, the shooting spree has made national news in the US, and has even gotten the attention of President Obama, who has often highlighted incidents such as this in his bid to increase gun control. It seems unlikely that this particular incident will have much of an effect on the nation-wide gun rights debate. Other incidents do not seem to have changed public opinion among those who oppose President Obama's plans, who have charged the president with attempting to overstep constitutional law. Nevertheless, I cannot help but see that perhaps the more imminent issue is not so much the notion of gun rights enshrined in the Second Amendment, but rather the extent to which the federal government versus the individual states have the right to govern gun laws. 

Furthermore, while of course this is primarily a local issue, it could also have some potential international implications. Western Michigan University, a large public research university, attracts students and academics from all over the world. Furthermore, Kalamazoo has a robust and active public diplomacy scene, welcoming professional delegations invited to the US by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. While our international guests have generally had a very positive experience in the city, citing it's small-city feel as being true of the "real America", there is of course a grave possibility that this horrific crime may snuff out international interest in the city.

As details emerge about the crime itself and the suspect, we will have a much better understanding as to the potential reverberations and the implications of this incident. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims.

Authors note: The original version of this post stated that the suspect was found with "weapons" (plural). Different news reports, however, are reporting police locating either a single weapon or multiple arms. Due to this uncertainty, we have edited the post to say "a weapon" in case the reports of multiple firearms is inaccurate.

The Paris Terror Attacks: An American Perspective

Large-scale terrorism in Europe is, of course, nothing new. Recall the train bombing in Spain in 2004, and the 7/7 terror bombings in London. Now, however, if Daesh (the Arabic name for Islamic State that the group does not want outsiders to use, hence why I use it) is truly to blame for the attacks, as it so claims, it represents a shift in its global strategy.

France's President François Hollande has vowed to fight the terrorists continually and "without mercy." Indeed, France has time and again shown itself to be an active partner in the global fight against terror and has upped its involvement in the Middle East and North Africa. In recent years France has been a large contributor to international security missions, such as Operation Serval (it's military mission in Mali). In terms of the international operations against Daesh, it began its airstrikes in Iraq in 2014, and recently began its airstrike campaign in Syria, while later moving an aircraft carrier off the Syrian coast.

One must not underestimate the psychological effect the attacks already have had, and will continue to have, on the French people. The country already suffered one bloody attack in January, and this time the attackers did not strike major tourist venues like the Eiffel Tower or Versailles, but rather entertainment venues, places where people come precisely to relax.

As someone who utterly lacks experience or a respectable knowledge of terrorism, I couldn't, in all good consciousness, try to offer an analysis of the attacks themselves. Nevertheless, I feel I can offer a few thoughts on the US reaction to the attacks.

One telling aspect of the reaction to this tragedy is the outpouring of support for the French people from across the US. For some strange reason, which I've never been able to figure out, I've long had a fascination with the France-US relationship and the way our two populations view each other. A certain amount of Francophobia certainly pervades in American popular thinking, although it is, for the most part, completely harmless. Yet, from what I've noticed among my own friends, there has been a more pronounced outpouring of support for France and its people than I'd expected. People who otherwise never discuss international issues have been changing Facebook profile pictures and posting statuses of support for France.

According to one expert (Jean Benoît Nadeau in Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, if I'm not mistaken), one of the biggest misunderstandings in the France-US relationship is that Americans tend to see the French as intransigent for not always following the US in lockstep, and for being more vocal in its public criticism of the US. The French, on the other hand, see no reason why two countries can be friends and still have their public "lovers spats" every now and again.

Indeed, France's operations against Daesh, while part of the US-led coalition, have also been highly independent in nature. France is, and often has been, willing to act on its own even during the era of trans-national alliances. Recall that Charles DeGaulle was willing to pull France from NATO's operational structure when he felt the Atlantic Alliance did not serve the interests of La Republique. Some may see France's tendency to go its own way as some sort of Gallic unwillingness to be a part of a team. Yet for me, France's willingness to work with its allies while maintaining a certain degree of independence means that France is self-confident, unique, and is in fact a team player in its own special way.

Now the question remains as to how much the recent attacks will affect France's operations against Daesh. Recall that after the train bombings in Spain in 2004, the Spanish public voted the conservative government of José Maria Aznar out of office in favor of the left-wing PSOE. Aznar had been an ardent supporter of Gorge W. Bush's mission to Iraq, and the bombings, claimed by al-Qaeda, were deliberately timed ahead of the Spanish elections so as to influence public opinion and ultimately induce them to vote for a government that would pull Spanish troops from Iraq. And that's exactly what happened. 

For now, it seems that France has determined not to allow the attacks to dissuade her or let her become a prisoner of fear. Nevertheless, as with the US after 9/11, France will likely change to a degree. To say that France "will never the same again" may be an exaggeration, for it isn't as if Europe hasn't known mass terror before. Yet from all this we can glean two things: when push comes to shove, France and the US are solid allies, our disagreements and rivalries notwithstanding; and now the time has come where France must show her resolve and determination not only to Daesh but to the rest of the world, lest those who perished did so in vain.

The Charleston Shooting and the Deep Roots of America's Racial Violence

Authorities have announced the arrest of Dylann Roof, who is suspected of the shooting at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina. He was arrested during a traffic stop in North Carolina after law enforcement authorities received a tip from a local business. Roof was reportedly cooperative with the police during his arrest, and has been extradited to South Carolina.

US President Barack Obama addressed the tragedy, stating that he and First Lady Michelle Obama knew members of the parish personally. The president also touched upon the issue of gun ownership in the United States, saying: "At some point, we as a country have to reckon with the fact that this type of massacre does not happen in other advanced countries".

Of course, the notion that outsiders or external forces can influence American white supremacists groups and individuals is not unheard of. Many such groups in the US openly display the Nazi swastika and other symbols of white supremacist movements. It is interesting, however, that Roof's display of white supremacy symbols from outside the US did not entail Nazi paraphernalia. Rather he openly displayed on his jacket the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and the flag of Rhodesia (a British colony which broke away from the UK in 1965 under white rule until the end of a civil war in 1980, when it was renamed Zimbabwe under its current ruler, Robert Mugabe).

The shootings come at a time of high racial tensions in the United States, with several incidents of police killings of young African Americans surfacing in the media, and attacks on police in retaliation as well.

The incidence of the shooting in Charleston is based in part on reported racial tensions in the city, specifically regarding the lack of political empowerment of the large African American community (few reportedly hold positions of civic responsibility, especially in proportion to their numbers in the city). Nevertheless, there is also a deep historic symbolism with regard to the shooting transpiring in Charleston. As a port city, Charleston was a major hub of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. After the US Revolutionary War, Charleston actually had a relatively high (18%) population of so called "free people of color". Later, Charleston would become a major center of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's, although it was not in the spotlight as much as places like Birmingham, Alabama.

The symbolism we can glean from what happened in Charleston is that the issue of race relations and racial violence is not a new phenomenon and not something we can easily address. This is perhaps obvious to an American reader, but many outsiders unfamiliar with the historic intricacies of US race relations are often unaware (as I have discovered when several of my non-American friends have said "Why don't you guys just fix the problem?!). A city which has had such a central role in the issue of race in America should hopefully help remind us that this is a problem with deep rots, and it is at the roots that we can find a resolution.

Our hearts go out to the victims of the Emanuel AME Church shootings, and to their loved ones.

A Friend in Need: Franco-American Relations in Light of Charlie Hebdo

 One thing about international relations that we have learned since 9/11: a mutual terrorist threat is not a strong enough foundation for two countries to establish a brad strategic partnership. In my blog post following the Boston bombing, I highlighted the fact that mistrust between Russia and the US hindered cooperation on a very real threat. The France-US relationship, while generally good, has not always been smooth. Perhaps my fears are misplaced, but I wonder if the US may not cooperate as much as we should with France because of fractures in our relations. I write this today to make an appeal against this possibility.

The France-US relationship is unique among America's bilateral relations. It is not nearly as smooth as the Canada-US or UK-US relationship, nor is it as antagonistic as the current state of Russia-US ties. But neither is it complicated in the same way that the so-called Pakistan-US alliance is (I personally consider Pakistan to be an outright enemy, but that is neither here nor there). The France-US relationship is peerless in the level and nature of it complication. Some authors, such as John J. Miller and Mark Molesky have gone as far as to call France "our oldest enemy", and I have also written on this blog about French intelligence operations against the US.

The most recent wave of Francophobia in the US came around the time of the invasion of Iraq. Of course there were general expressions of it such as the famous "freedom fries", and it even took on political undertones in the bitter presidential election of 2004 (I distinctly remember driving home from school one afternoon and seeing a bumper sticker that said "John Kerry for president of France", implying that Kerry was weak, as the French supposedly were). It seems that we quickly forgot how, shortly after 9/11, the prominent French newspaper Le Monde published a headline stating "Nous sommes tous Américains (We are all Americans)".

I'd like to take a moment and make an appeal, one that is partly based on the emotion of anguish I feel at the loss of life and shaken sense of security in France, on the security imperative of combating terrorism, and also on the basis of history. As an American, while pondering the deeper meaning of the attacks yesterday, I was struck by the fact that France played a major role in helping the United States to secure our own right to free speech. During the American Revolutionary War, French commanders such as La Fayette and Rochambeau played critical roles in securing the US victory, culminating in the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. With this, the US was able to enact its First Amendment guaranteeing free speech. For better or worse, this means that we have to suffer the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Don Imus, but we are also able to openly criticize our government and not have to worry about repercussions.

Later, Alexis de Toqueville traveled the nascent American nation and wrote his famous Democracy in America in which he extolled America's dedication to liberty. The work had a major impact on the political development of modern France. So in some way, we managed to return the favor, but not by a longshot.

The France-US relationship has deep roots, and what's more important, it is grounded in the preservation of liberty, the very fabric of our civilization. The US may not always see eye-to-eye with France, and we may often feel that the French are intransigent or difficult. Many on online discussion threads have even implied the French "had it coming" with its policy of allowing so many Muslims into the country. All that aside, I implore my fellow Americans to look back at the common bonds of history and the values we hold with France, and to support and assist our friends the French. This may be on a governmental level, or it may be on more of a people-to-people level. This is a moment when we must put aside our differences, and recognize that, at the end of the day, France really is our friend.
 

If I may take a leaf from Le Monde's book, I'd like to say "Nous sommes tous français."

Lessons from the North Korean Cyber Attack

In his 2010 book Cyber War, former US counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke described some very scary potential results from a foreign cyber attack on US infrastructure. Cyber attacks have happened both on their own (such as alleged Chinese attacks on the Pentagon) as well as to complement a larger conventional war (such as Russian cyber attacks against Georgia during the war in August, 2008).  The recent cyber attack against Sony has been likened to stifling free speech. President Obama criticized Sony’s decision to cancel the movie, stating  "We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship in the United States."

North Korea threatened to launch attacks against the US if The Interview were released, because of the supposed dishonor to the North Korean leader it would be. As a resident of South Korea, I was of course initially slightly worried- even though I had a pretty good idea that would not happen, I’m still enough of a greenhorn in this country to at least think for a second about it. Of course, North Korea was rather upset at the release of Team America in 2004 (a movie which I found to be quite hilarious as an immature, pubescent high schooler). It seems, however, they’ve managed to do that without firing a shot or a missile.

The US Department of Defense issued a report stating that while North Korea likely had some sort of cyber warfare capabilities, the impoverished nation was unlikely to have enough capabilities for a powerful, large-scale attack. Conversely, it would stand to reason that as company like Sony would have the latest and most state-of-the-art cyber security capabilities. People’s general conception of cyber war has centered on the notion of national militaries using cyber capabilities to attack each other. Other incidents such as the Target Corporation data breach were seen more as criminal acts rather than acts of war. Newt Gingrich has been quick to assert that the US “just lost its first cyber war” in a famous tweet. I’m not sure this was “our first cyber war”, but it is a very telling incident.

I have no way of knowing if it really and truly was North Korea that carried out the attack, and not some techie sitting in a remote cabin in the mountains of Washington state (yes, I know someone like that). But I have to assume that US authorities are correct in assigning blame to North Korea. In which case, there are several valuable lessons to be learned from this whole fiasco. It’s interesting that something which was carried out by a state actor (North Korea) against a private corporation (Sony) is now being primarily handled by the US Justice Department (the FBI in particular). In fact, this type of attack in which law enforcement is the primary responder is usually a case of corporate espionage.

Thus, there are several fundamental points we can gather from this attack on Sony Pictures. The first is that we cannot afford to be complacent about the capabilities of a small, cash-strapped country to attack a much more powerful one. This is especially true because a cyber attack is a much more cost-effective solution to attacking a country than investing in conventional weapons. Also, it goes to show that in this day and age, there are no longer clear distinctions between the public and the private in national security. While much worse things could happen than the cyber attack against Sony, it’s clear that anything, and any one, can become a target, and that countries will have to be prepared to meet a variety of threats from a large number of sources to ensure their own security.  

Japan, South Korea and A Shifting Maritime Security Paradigm

The Japanese government’s recent decision to modify its self-defense laws dating back to immediately after the Second World War has sent shockwaves throughout East Asia.  Some Japanese and American officials are glad to see Japan taking greater responsibility for their national defense, yet Japan’s military revival has sent nerves wrangling in other parts of the region. The revisions in the Japanese constitution’s Article 9 are likely to cause a stir in East Asia’s delicate maritime security paradigm in particular.

As an island nation, Japan depends a great deal on her navy for security. Japan is currently locked into maritime disputes with three regional military powers: China, Russia, and South Korea. Thus, a large part of Japan’s re-building of its military will likely focus on its naval capabilities, as well as strategic missile forces (which of course can be deployed in naval operations). The Japanese Ministry of Defense has requested an increase in its national defense budget for this year, a marked shift from the downward trend in Japanese defense spending. According to figures from the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Japan already had the 7^th largest defense budget in the world before the Ministry’s funds request.

Some experts believe, however, that recent modifications to Japan’s laws and other actions taken by the government aren’t as threatening as they seem. Garren Mulloy, an expert on the Japanese military, believes that the idea that Japan is re-militarizing is overblown, and that while the Japanese navy is one of the best in the world, it would not likely be able to sustain combat with a country such as China for more than a few weeks.

Much of the international focus on Japan’s military budget increase and the related changes in Japanese law has been on mounting tensions with China. Nevertheless, while many countries in the Asia-Pacific region have bitter memories of Japanese militarism from the Second World War, perhaps among the most apprehensive about the re-emergence of Japan’s military complex is South Korea. Indeed, historic memory dies hard in this part of the world. The Korean nation has billed itself as a “shrimp among whales,” referring to its vulnerability against its historically more powerful neighbors. Even 200 years after Japan’s invasion of Korea during the Imjin Wars in the late 16^th century, the Korean government has taken strategic decisions--based in part on public fears--regarding the perceived threat from Japan, even when no threat seems imminent.

The majority of South Korea’s military is concentrated on its conventional infantry forces, which are primarily prepared to engage in armed combat against a North Korean invasion. Nevertheless, South Korea of late has been putting more resources toward the development of a blue water navy, an initiative that began in 1995, at the behest of Admiral An Pyong-tae. While South Korea’s navy has had a global reach, such as participating in anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia, it will likely continue to have an eye on Japan’s military, in particular its navy, as it seeks to increase its own naval power. This comes in no small part due to South Korea’s maritime disputes with Japan.

The United States, a staunch ally of both Japan and South Korea, has welcomed a greater Japanese role in its own defense and security. At the same time, the US is faced with a delicate balancing act. The US military presence in both Japan and South Korea serve the purpose of defending against North Korea as well as containing an expansionist China. Japan and South Korea often begrudgingly accept their status as strange bedfellows, brought together by the United States due to their mutual fears of North Korea and, to a lesser extent, China. While a greater amount of burden-sharing on Japan’s part may serve US interests as well as Japanese pride, there is a risk that the fragile security balance in Northeast Asia could become disrupted, and that the stable peace that currently exists between Japan and South Korea could spiral into an unstable peace, or even worse.

Japan remains the home of the US Seventh Fleet, and the US must first and foremost defend its own interests in the region. It’s possible that America may get caught between two rising naval powers, both wed to the United States, and both suspicious of each other. The US has been actively engaging in naval diplomacy in Northeast Asia, sending clear messages to both China and North Korea. Earlier this year, Japan, South Korea and the US participated in a two-day trilateral naval exercise. The exercise was the first involving both Japan and South Korea since the revisions in Japan’s self-defense laws. But nothing is written in stone, and a stable security seascape is not something to take for granted.

Thus, at the moment, it seems that Japan and the Republic of Korea will be on a relatively cooperative footing with regard to maritime security in Northeast Asia. Nevertheless, as Japan’s naval power increases, states vested with security interests in the region must be wary of possibly increased tensions between Japan and South Korea. Indeed, as Professor Robert Kelly states, much of South Korea’s diplomacy with Japan aims to isolate the country. Even if armed naval confrontation between Japan and South Korea does not appear to be likely, the increase of Japanese naval power risks exacerbating tensions in the region’s delicate security balance.

The End of Europe’s Splendid Isolation

A personal favorite piece of early American wisdom, one that I first learned as a boy of ten and have never forgotten, is Thomas Jefferson’s injunction of “Peace and commerce with all nations- entangling alliances with none.” Of course, the world has never known a simple order of “peace and commerce,” nor have nations ever, in all of history, managed to avoid “entangling alliances”. To expect any country, big or small, to be able to conduct its foreign policy without partnerships of some sort is quite unrealistic. Unless you’re Switzerland, which has a very unique geography and history, sooner or later any country is bound to get caught in the snares of international politics whether they want to or not.

In my last post, I discussed how many scholars and practitioners of foreign policy and international relations have become burdened with the task of making sense of the “new” world we live in. It has become somewhat vogue to draw parallels with the state of affairs in 2014 with those of 1914. Of course there are indeed many similarities, and anyone familiar with my writing knows that I am a major advocate of using history as a guiding light for modern issues. But I accept the use of history as a compass only up to a point.

Nevertheless, if there is one lesson we can definitively draw from, it’s that no matter how hard a nation or polity tries to prevent itself from being ensnared in the tangles of international politics, sooner or later (again, unless you’re Switzerland), you are bound to get caught up in the throes of international politics. America’s founders had a vision for a quiet and peaceful United States, and aside from some foreign adventures the US managed to pursue a relatively isolationist policy on the global stage. That definitively came to an end with the outbreak of the First World War. Now it seems that the new Europe of the post Cold-War era, which seemed to be enjoying an unprecedented level of peace, prosperity and stability, is once again being dragged out of its blissful aloofness from the troubles of the chaotic global order.

Pope Francis recently warned of the beginning of a “piecemeal” World War III, which he believes has already begun, given all of the localized conflicts that have spread around the world. While I appreciate the pontiff’s calling out the horrendous situation developing across the world, the parallels between 2014 and 1914 are far from a perfect facsimile. Some scholars have pointed out the relatively isolated and (numerically-speaking, in terms of costs and casualties) low-calorie conflicts that have emerged across the world, which were the impetus for the Pope’s statement. Nevertheless, the international political landscape as a whole bears marked contrasts, along with some similarities, to the way it looked a century ago.

In brief, the First World War was essentially started because the rivalries between several great powers became entangled in a set of geopolitical alliances. All it took was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on a street in Sarajevo, and soon colonial troops as far-flung as the Namib Desert in Southern Africa and some of the lesser islands in the Pacific were fighting each other in the name of distant European imperial metropolitans. True, the assassination was one isolated event that took place in some “silly place called the Balkans” (as one leading German public figure of the time predicted where a war in Europe would start). But it seems unlikely now that a true “world war” will emerge due to one incident or even one conflict.

The Second World War--again, in an incredibly simplistic overview given the scope of this blog post--was started in many ways due to unresolved issues from the first war. Again, that’s a great over-simplification, but for our purposes it will have to do. One thing that distinguished the first and second wars from each other was that in the first, empires had already been more-or-less established. The second war involved a greater amount of imperial expansionism--Germany’s Lebensraum and Japan’s thirst for more land and resources to satisfy national glory and an increasing industrial base.

Today, Twitter memes of Putin and the streets of Aleppo have replaced the Punch magazine caricatures from Edwardian England featuring “Kaiser Bill” (which are quite funny, by the way). The US and Russia have also continued to jockey for power, particularly in East Asia to assert their own strategic positions and, in the case of the US, to contain China. Yet the political and social landscape of today is vastly different from that of yesteryear. The throngs of young men responding to the Lord Kitchener posters, lying about their age and desperate to get into the “good fight” are nowhere to be seen, and instead we in the West have developed little appetite for any more war. Nowhere is this more apparent than our retreat from the Middle East, followed by a much less conspicuous return in the form of airstrikes against IS, and in NATO’s highly-cautious treatment of the situation in Eastern Europe.

Nevertheless, one thing that we can certainly draw a parallel between is the Britain of the early 20^th century and the Europe of the early 21^st. Britain’s foreign policy through much of the 19^th century was described by the phrase “splendid isolation,” meaning that, aside from the Indian Mutiny or the odd war with the Boers or Zulus in Southern Africa, Britain was able to escape from the majority of bloody conflicts that has beleaguered the other great European powers throughout much of the century.

Toward the end of the 19^th century, however, Britain found she could no longer remain free from the snares of continental security and balance-of-power politics. Indeed, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm even stated his desire to end Britain’s “free ride on the coattails” of other European powers. Today we see a similar situation unfolding, in which Europe is no longer able to depend exclusively on the United States for its security.  In Of Paradise and Power, Brookings Institution scholar Robert Kagan likens modern Europe to a retirement home, which essentially farms out its security to the United States.

Of course, some European powers have begun “pulling their weight” by intervening in the crises in Libya and the Sahel regions. But now the combination of preparing NATO to defend against further Russian aggression on the continent along with more coalition-style intervention by European powers against the Islamic State shows that there is a greater universality to the nature of Europe’s security complex.

While I don’t think we are “reliving 1914” or on the cusp of “World War Three” as many have postulated, I do think we can agree that the era of Europe’s relatively comfortable position and freedom from security threats is over. Perhaps we will see the rise of a Europe once again that is more willing to take up arms. While many had hoped that after such a blood-soaked history on the European continent, Europe would finally come to enjoy a measure of peace. But it seems Europe will have no such privileged position. True peace in international relations, it seems, can only be temporary.

The Class of 9/11

In the spring of 2005, when I was a graduating high school senior, TIME Magazine ran a cover feature titled “The Class of 9/11,” which displayed cadets from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The phrase was originally coined by National Public Radio to refer to the graduating high school class of 2005, and how we had to deal with aspects of being teenagers during those years.

The TIME article detailed how the graduating class at West Point, which were commissioned as Second Lieutenants in the United States Army, entered as freshmen candidates just before the nature of America's war-fighting and the security issues changed dramatically. In the course of their studies, the cadets learned a whole new set of strategy, tactics and other war-fighting methods. In fact, however, so would their would-be commanders and the policymakers governing the U.S. military. The West Point graduating class members were told that they were "a special group forged by historic events."

In many ways, however, all of us foreign policy professionals who have developed our careers in the post-9/11 era can be considered a sort of “class of 9/11.” Not so much because of the direct effects of that single, horrible event on our academic, policy and practical execution of international relations and foreign policy, but because that day marked the beginning of a new era in which, over the course of the next decade-and-a-half, we all would have to learn, or really re-learn, how to contend with a multi-faceted and new world order.

Indeed, that horrific event did mobilize an entire generation of professionals: young men and women in uniform, ambitious youth aspiring to become intelligence analysts and other Middle East and security experts, etc. Over a decade later, many people continue to be attracted to the world of international security and foreign policy out of sheer interest as well as a desire to serve their country. Yet for all noble intentions, we must be wary of two potential pitfalls: the tendency to become too narrowly focused on one issue or region, and not being able to adapt our analytical frameworks to the changing realities of the times.

Thirteen years after the events of what I often refer to as “Bloody Tuesday” in my own mind, we face a Middle East that is worse-off and more unstable and insecure, thanks in no small part to the Islamic State, as well as a renewed Russian threat to European security, and festering geopolitical tensions in the northern and southern parts of East Asia. This is to say nothing of the narco-insurgency occurring on the U.S.’s southern border, and the horrible ravaging of the Ebola virus in West Africa, among other things.

Some scholars, such as my biggest intellectual hero Robert D. Kaplan,the prominent geopolitical analyst, have asserted that old historic tensions, which were suspended during the Cold War, are now re-emerging. Still others have even attempted to draw parallels between the year 2014 and 1914. Indeed, while the common wisdom is that “the world is getting smaller,” “the world is flat” or even “we are all getting closer together,” the reality is that what has changed is not the level of integration among nations, but rather the speed with which we are able to move and exchange ideas, goods and capital. The volume of international trade is not that much bigger now, relative to the size of national economies, than it was 100 years ago.

Thus, in some ways we are not in uncharted territory, but rather must regain our footing after the academic, policy and other facets of foreign policy have grown used to a Cold War order. The biggest task we face as academics and practitioners in this new era is to define exactly what we mean by “post-Cold War” and “post-9/11.” With so many issues flaring up in a plethora of regions around the world, we must take care not to hyper-focus on one part of the world, and not allow ourselves to be beholden to antiquated ways of thinking about our world.

After over twenty years without a clear purpose, NATO is re-calibrating itself in the face of Russian aggression and expansion. The Middle East is now not only ravaged by ruthless dictators, but also by a chaotic and violent vacuum of power and institutional authority. With the specter of “mutually-assured destruction” between two nuclear superpowers gone, we have forgotten that nuclear weapons are still a major instrument in many regional geopolitical conflicts (such as India and Pakistan).

Perhaps then, the biggest issue facing all of us involved in various aspects of international relations and foreign policy is that we still are a “class of 9/11” in that, rather than graduating seniors, we are still the awkward, insecure and unknowing freshmen trying to figure out our way. Maybe we, just as we were in our teenage years, too cool to listen to those who have gone before us.  But, if you ask me, we ignore the lessons of the past at our peril. At the same time, of course, we must remember that this is not a perfect repeat of history, and that we must adapt and innovate based on new realities. Perhaps the “class of 9/11,” which must contend with the issues while still remaining very much “in school”, can combine the best of our past guidance with our own flexibility and creativity in analyzing and executing foreign policy.

MH17: Bringing the Fight to Your Doorstep

We here at CWCP have tended to cover things generally from two angles- my colleagues (with some exceptions) have tended to focus their analyses on events in Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, while I myself have tended to produce pieces pertaining to Russia and the former Soviet Union. Now, most unfortunately and for all the wrong reasons, we see the two areas of the world united in one analysis, namely the shooting down of MH17.

 

The US State Department has established that the weapon used to down the Malaysian airliner was an R-1 rocket, known to the Russians as SA-11 (a weapon made by the Soviets, based on the V-2 rocket), and that it was used by separatist rebels who knew what they were doing (at least as far as handing and operating the weapon). We now know for sure it was fired by the pro-Russian Ukrainian rebels in Eastern Ukraine.

 

Petr Poroshenko has stated that while the rebels in Ukraine were known previously as “terrorists” in Ukraine, they will now be known as terrorists to the world. Indeed, after reports of separatists looting the bodies, a Ukrainian government official warned the relatives of the victims that looters have made off with credit cards, and asked that the relatives of the deceased cancel the credit cards lest they become assets of “terrorists.” Personally, my initial reaction to the Ukrainian government’s use of the term “counter-terrorism” to describe military operations against separatists this past spring was a little heavy-handed. I personally believed that the term “counter-terrorism” was deliberately used to get the backing of the West, particularly the US, which has been focusing on counter-terrorism in its own right for over a decade.

 

The consensus seems to be that this was not a deliberate act of terrorism, but rather was a horrible accident, perhaps not dissimilar to the crash in 2010 of a plane in Smolensk, Russia, which was carrying many of Poland’s top brass. It was a messy, highly contentious affair not only because of what happened, but the aftermath of trying to conduct an independent and unbiased investigation. One thing that distinguishes the shooting-down of the Malaysia Airlines flight, however, is that now the pro-Russian rebels have possibly not only lost any support they may have had from analysts and the public at large, they may also end up losing some of their support from Russia, as well.

 

Anna Dyner of the Polish Institute of International Affairs asserts that the attack on the airliner does not seem to be deliberate, but that Russia is nevertheless at least partially to blame for the incident. Even if the attack on the civilian airliner was not deliberate, a position which British Prime Minister David Cameron seems to be taking, the armed groups in Ukraine’s east have sent a very clear message: we are not without the capabilities to do major destruction to innocent civilian targets. Whoever was operating the launch system was trained in how to use it, even though, as US Intelligence officials have announced, the people operating it were nevertheless poorly trained.

 

Some figures, such as The Nation’s Bob Dreyfus, places blame for the tragedy squarely on the shoulders of Vladimir Putin. Russian papers and media outlets, of course, are painting a much different version of the events. Indeed, many in the area of the crash are supporting the version of events coming from Moscow. Unfortunately, no incident like this will be devoid of opportunism, propaganda and a chance for the conflicting sides to undermine each other.

 

One thing that is certain is that the tragedy involving Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 indicates how incidents which occur in seeming distant corners of the globe have not only broad international implications (that, frankly, has never been anything new) but that they now entail a broad scope of international involvement. Earlier this year, when over 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped by the insurgent group Boko Haram in Nigeria, a host of countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, sent military and intelligence officials to help relocate the victims of Boko Haram’s kidnapping. Now we are seeing, once again, the involvement of investigators from several other countries in this current incident. To be sure, there were Americans, Britons and Canadians on board, too, but it almost now goes without saying that most of the victims abroad MH 17 were Dutch nationals.

 

The involvement of so many in the ensuing investigation of the crash, I believe, demonstrates an underlying tension which characterizes international relations in general. As I have pointed out in previous blog posts, there are two main schools of thought in this field: liberalism (the idea that countries can cooperate) and realism (the notion that all countries only seek their own interests). What seems to be occurring is that, while there is definitely a lot of genuine goodwill and benevolence on the part of those participating in the investigation, this incident unfortunately also provides both sides of the conflict and their major backers with a chance to engage in a propagandistic battle of wills. All the while, it is the families and friends of the victims who, to put it colloquially, get the shaft.

 

There has been no shortage of coverage of the situation in Ukraine since March on a variety of media outlets and in particular social media. So the downing of MH 17 will not necessarily create more attention for Ukraine, as there really has not been a lack thereof. Nor will this likely be the much-touted “game changer” for Russia and the pro-Russian separatists some have speculated on. But what this does mean is that involvement in the Ukraine crisis for countries and groups outside of Eastern Europe will comprise more than just diplomatic action. This incident now has financial and security implications. There is talk of increased sanctions against Russia, not to mention the potential financial blowback against Malaysia Airlines, which has now encountered a second major tragedy this summer alone.

 

Thus, with the downing of MH17, much of the world went from being mere spectators to being more directly involved and affected by the crisis in Ukraine.

 

Our thoughts are with all of those who lost loved ones on July 17 as a result of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17.

Japan’s Article 9 and the Shifting East Asian Landscape

This year the international community has seen a major shift in Japanese political activity related to the sphere of defense and security. It seems the tide is slowly turning against Japan’s traditional pacifist stance, a position it has held since the end of the Second World War. Japan’s new measures seem to be indicative of a greater assertiveness and desire to be more autonomous in its security affairs. It also may be the beginning of a new challenge to Northeast Asian security.

At the beginning of the month, Japan modified its famous Article 9 of the national constitution. “Article 9” has become a by-word for Japan’s pacifism and de-militarization. This provision has been a source of both pride and consternation for the Japanese: many have taken pride in the country’s non-aggressiveness and its promotion of peace (especially in light of the massive atrocities of the Second World War), while others have seen it as a weakness and sacrifice of sovereignty. The latter viewpoint is held especially by nationalist Japanese.

Article 9 of the Japanese constitution had long been erroneously portrayed as a law which stated that Japan could not have any armed forces, but that the Japanese maintained armed capabilities anyway and that the United States simply turned a blind eye and begrudgingly tolerated this state of affairs. Article 9, however, decreed that Japan would not use aggression to ensure the interests of the state. The armed forces, as it were, constituted a self defense force, essentially an extension of the national police service. Their origin comes from when US troops in Japan were deployed to fight in the Korean War (1950-1953), which left Japan defenseless.

Craig Martin of the Washburn University School of Law asserts that the revision of Article 9 is a violation of Japan’s rule of law. This is because of the course Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe took to modify Article 9, without debate in the Japanese Diet (parliament). To be sure, debate has raged among the Japanese public for years over Article 9, and some of Japan’s more hard-core nationalists have even gone as far as to say Japan should acquire nuclear weapons as a matter of pride. Professor Martin himself has advocated for Article 9 revisions as being necessary for the new realities of Japanese and regional security issues.

I personally agree that Japan ought to have the right to modify the legal ramifications of its security, yet cannot help but be apprehensive of the potential consequences. While Japan’s actions run the risk of stoking regional tensions, there are sound reasons why Japan would undertake such actions. My intention here is not to justify recent Japanese actions or to take sides, but rather to explain why Japan has taken such moves.

In Northeast Asia, Japan almost bears the dubious distinction of being “the country everyone loves to hate.” It’s easy to think that this is simply because China, the Koreas and even Russia are still sore over Japanese atrocities and brutal imperial rule that happened up to just over a century ago, during a relatively small window of time. Indeed, historic memory of Japan lingers here a lot more strongly than memories of the Germans in Europe, and many in Asia state that the sight of a Japanese “rising sun” flag (with protruding sun rays) would be the equivalent to seeing a Nazi swastika in modern Europe.

The history of Japanese military activity in the region is a long one. Indeed, Yi Sun Shin, the “[Horatio] Nelson of the East,” defeated an attempted Japanese invasion of Korea way back in the 16^th century. Nevertheless, while Japan has instigated security crises in the region over the years, in many ways, today Japan is also a lone wolf in a hostile neighborhood, and that neighborhood includes US allies (such as South Korea) as well as other countries against which Japan could not likely depend on the US for help (namely China and Russia). To this day Japan is locked into territorial disputes with China, Russia and South Korea, mostly over small but resource-rich islands and even rocks and reefs.

Recently, Japan repealed a ban on selling arms to foreign customers. To be sure, there were strong economic considerations behind this, as Japanese officials decided increasing arms sales would help boost economic growth for the country. Arms transfers in Asia in particular have long had geopolitical undertones, as countries have sold weapons to customer countries which have enemies allied with the enemy of the arms-manufacturing country (i.e. as India and Pakistan are enemies, China may sell weapons to Pakistan, and Japan may sell to India). No doubt, this combined with the much more recent revisions of Article 9 will send shockwaves through Asia, and, these decisions taken in Tokyo may stoke the fires of regional tensions to the point that things backfire against Japan.  Japanese officials, however, have seemingly calculated that they will not produce an unfavorable backlash.

Indeed, as historic memory informs regional attitudes toward Japan, lessons from Japan’s own history may be a driving force behind its recent decisions. After US naval commander Commodore Matthew Perry forced Japan to open its doors to trade with the West in the mid-1850’s, Japan, under Emperor Meiji, realized that it had two choices: it could either modernize its military and take a forward-leaning, aggressive posture, or it could suffer the fate of neighboring China and Korea, becoming subject to an imperial carve-up by outside powers. Japan successfully modernized, to the point where it became a major imperial power in its own right, taking land, creating alliances with European powers and even earning the distinction as the first Asian country to defeat a European state in war (at the Battle of Fukushima in 1905, when a Russian fleet was all but destroyed).

To be sure, Japan and South Korea are united in their common alliance with the US (and by a shared mistrust of North Korea) but that is about as far as Japan-South Korea warmth goes, and other than that there is little to no lost love between the two. Many South Koreans feel a certain affinity for China; Korea was a tributary state to China, and China has defended Korea against Japanese aggression in centuries past. No ink need be wasted on North Korea’s visceral detestation of the Japanese (North Korea, in fact, sees Japan and the US as working in collusion to subjugate all of Korea in its imperial designs).

Therefore, as historic tensions and animosities linger and the geopolitical cauldron in East Asia continues to rumble and a slow but rising boil, Japan finds itself proverbially with its back against the sea and no sure-fire allies that are willing to unconditionally defend it. The task at hand for not only Japan, but for all countries and powers in the northern part of the Asia-Pacific to see to it that however far Japan goes in re-arming and re-militarization, this is not the catalyst for a massive interstate Pacific conflict.

This Is Not a New Cold War

“To make my future bright, I reach for the fire of the past” say the Tatars. Indeed, the fire of the past is in many ways the only thing we can use to make sense of what’s happening in Ukraine today. Yet it seems that the immediate past, and not the more distant past, is what we are using for our guiding light, which I believe it incredibly wrong and counter-productive. Having undergone a major shift in academic, personal and professional interests from history to political science around five years ago, of late I find myself getting back to my early education in Russian history. My past few posts, especially the one co-authored with my colleagues and my Primer on Ukraine are a prime example of this- have been written with the aim of providing a sense of guidance in these confusing times.

As the heat continues to ratchet up in the Ukraine crisis, in the West the war drum is beating to the sound of the Cold War mentality. People have been saying things in the media like “How can we say there isn’t a new Cold War with Russia? Just look at what’s going on!”. This attitude, however, shows a grave and fundamental flaw in general thinking on Eurasian geopolitics, and more specifically, a tendency to view Russia in a very myopic way.

I have often bemoaned what I perceive as a continued “Cold War mindset” in the US toward Russia. Some have attributed this to the fact that so many of our policymakers were people who made their bones during the Reagan years or before. This, I believe, was more common, and perhaps more justifiable, during the George W. Bush administration, when indeed several key members of the government had been in service since the 1970’s. While there may be some truth to this, I think the bigger issue is a grave public misunderstanding of Winston Churchill’s “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” (In this case, Russia). It’s important to make this distinction between a “Cold War” in which ideology is the driving factor and a revived, expansionist quasi-imperialist Russia because while political ideology can be bought or corrupted by money, a revived nationalism is much more potent and will drive the Russians to do bigger and bolder things.

The “Cold War,” in the strictest sense of the term, was an ideological battle between the democratic, capitalist West and the authoritarian, centralized and command-economy East. In many ways, however, the Cold War was a continuation of the historic battle between Russia and the West that has continued in one form or another for centuries. The biggest differences between the Great Game and the Cold War, however, were the emphasis on ideology over imperial glory in the latter, and the fact that Russia was already in control of the so-called “Eurasian heartland.” It is the control of this Eurasian space that constitutes the biggest factor in the current Ukrainian crisis.

“Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a Eurasian empire.” Among Eurasia analysts, this is one of the most oft-quoted maxims in the field, which comes from Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski. Halford Mackinder stated in his “Heartland Theory” that whoever controlled the Eurasian heartland controlled the world. During the Cold War, Eurasia--including Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia--were all under the command of the Russia-dominated Soviet Union. When the USSR collapsed, a large portion of Eurasia re-opened. Now that Russia is more vulnerable and has lost a considerable amount of its strategic depth, it is seeking to re-expand its empire, and Ukraine is the keystone in the “European” facet of Russia’s Eurasian empire.

Secretary of State John Kerry told CBS’s Face the Nation a few weeks ago "You just don't in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped-up pretext." That comment reveals a lot about Russia’s current actions. As Russia re-emerged from the ashes of the collapse of the USSR, it needed to find a new identity, and naturally it went back to what it could connect with before the Soviet Union; it revived many of the symbols and ideas of the Tsarist era. Indeed today many believe that Russia’s greatness on the world stage can only be had through imperialist expansion, which is arguably what is happening in Crimea, even if Crimeans themselves vote to join Russia. After all, how many imperial possessions have countries obtained from groups seeking protectorate status from a larger power (a case-in-point is Russia’s takeover of Georgia in the early 1800’s, which began as a Georgian request for Russian protection against the Ottoman Muslims).

Some parallels can actually be drawn, I feel, with the current military standoff in Crimea and the Crimean War of 1853-1856. In theory the Crimean War was about who had the rights to protect Christian shrines in the Ottoman Empire’s Palestine. In reality, however, it was an attempt by Russia to stave off the great Western powers, particularly France and the United Kingdom, from taking strategic control of the Black Sea region in light of the declining Ottoman Empire, known by then as the “sick man of Europe.” Now, with the potential that Russia has “lost” Ukraine to Europe, it has taken the opportunity in Ukraine’s uncertain domestic situation to assert control militarily. While it is taking a gamble by sending troops into part of a country that directly borders several NATO allies, Russia has calculated that the West will not respond militarily- no doubt informed, in part, by the West’s relative lack of action in Georgia.

It would be unfair to place blame squarely on the shoulders of Americans for seeing things in this light, however. Russian ideologue Aleskandr Prokhanov has openly stated that he has worked “day and night” for a new Cold War between Russia and the West. The idea is that this will allow Russia to make a substantial re-orientation toward China. Nevertheless, the point is that by continually referring to our relations with Russia in the context of the Cold War risks creating a broad view in the American public of Russia as it’s portrayed in The Hunt for Red October. On the level of the policy makers in Washington and, to a lesser extent, Brussels, if they too continue to see the crisis through this prism, it can only serve to worsen things and cause the West to err and blunder. If we are going to deal with this new crisis in Russia-West relations, we need to give it the proper historic depth and perspective it deserves.

The current conflict in Ukraine is not part of a new, repackaged or revived “Cold War,” and to say that it is shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Cold war was all about. The conflict is rather part of the broader contention for Eurasia, of which Ukraine is a relatively small but pivotally important part. We need to stop referring to the current standoff between Russia and the West as a “new Cold War” in order to break out of that outmoded mentality. I argue that instead of looking to our immediate past, one which we can much better understand given that it is still very much within living memory, we need to look even further into the past to understand what is truly going on. If we are going to deal this this crisis, we may as well try to start off with a proper view of it.

A Primer on Ukraine

As CWCP’s main analyst of Russian and Eurasian affairs, I have been notably silent on the current situation in Ukraine. My main reasons for keeping comment on the situation mostly limited to my Twitter feed are that I had written an article this fall (well before the protests of the Maidan began) published in Ukrainian Quarterly in which I highlighted that Ukraine was coming upon a critical time in its geopolitical orientation, and have focused my more recent writings about countries and issues in Eurasian geopolitics, such as Moldova’s Gagauzia region and Serbia, that tend to be overlooked. Nevertheless, we here at CWCP feel it’s time to make our voice heard on the issue of Ukraine’s Euromaidan.

Ukraine seems to be something of the darling of the community of Eastern Europe/post-Soviet space analysts--even well before the protests, it seems everyone was particularly interested in Ukraine. While some may dismiss this as some sort of “jumping on the bandwagon” in the analytical community, it is not without reason or justification. Not only does the sheer geographic size of Ukraine make it among the most important states in Eastern Europe, but from the standpoint of the geopolitical analyst, in many ways it encapsulates the spirit of the grand geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West.

The media have mostly focused on the battle between protesters in the streets and the Ukrainian security services. As so much focus has tended to be on the actual domestic situation in Ukraine, it’s easy to overlook the broader geopolitical interplay and the implications for Europe as a whole.

In 1795, Ukraine was part of what was known as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Throughout the 18^th century, Poland-Lithuania was subjected to a geopolitical struggle between the Austrian, Prussian (German) and Russian empires. All three kingdoms sought to control the Commonwealth by installing a leader loyal to them by way of Poland-Lithuania’s elective monarchy. During the last third of the 18^th century, there was a series of treaties between the three kingdoms, which led to what we call the “Partitions of Poland.” Insofar as Ukraine is concerned, the eastern half of modern Ukraine was taken by Russia, and the western half by Austria. This history accounts in part for the regional east-west divide in Ukraine today, which has pitted half of the country in favor or closer ties with Europe, and the other half inclined toward Russia. This also explains in part why we have not seen the massive protests we are witnessing in Ukraine in a place like Armenia, which has taken it a step further than Ukraine and stated that they will fully integrate with the Russia-led Customs Union, and that they will not hold bilateral trade talks with the EU, but rather that any commercial discussions between Armenia and the EU will take place in the context of the Customs Union.

A sort of lackadaisical mindset toward Europe, in particular Eastern Europe, seems to have settled into the mindset of the U.S. policy, analytical and other such communities. We tend to think that nothing bad can happen in Europe now that the Cold War is over. NATO has been searching for a purpose since that period. Particularly since so much of Central and Eastern Europe has acceded to the EU and NATO, we tend to overlook that region, and comfortably assume that those parts of the region that have not already joined the West’s supranational structures will soon follow.

I will never forget when I was preparing to apply for graduate school my adviser on the matter, who happened to be a Central Europe specialist, told me I’d be better off focusing on the Caucasus and Central Asia rather than Europe itself, because, my adviser believed, Central and Eastern Europe would be “better behaved” and that not much would come from them. To be sure, this is not 1989, and while it’s true that we shouldn’t expect throngs of protesters jingling their keys in the streets of Prague or Romanians putting their president and his wife on mock trial before live TV cameras, we are currently witnessing a major political crisis not on the periphery of Europe, but at its very heart. Crises that have occurred in Europe since the end of the Cold War have taken place in areas that many dismiss as being pseudo-European or with one foot in Europe and one in the “east” (namely Bosnia and Georgia). Now, however, we cannot deny that Europe itself is facing a majorly unsettling turn of events, and European security is being threatened in an undeniable way at its very core.

The macro-level view of the situation begs two questions: Should Ukraine split into two separate countries? And what is the likelihood of a civil war? To these I can only offer some general insights and cautionary notes. It seems that most level-headed people agree that Ukraine should stay united; this is what I have gathered from both my American colleagues as well as Ukrainians I have spoken to, many of whom are pro-European and hail from the country’s western half. The same argument against Ukrainian division seems to coincide with that concerning the possible severing of Scotland from the UK-- western Ukraine is primarily agricultural, while most of the country’s industry is in the east. A “Republic of Western Ukraine” would not likely survive on its own economically, and would have to depend on the largesse of the EU or Poland in particular.

As to the second question, some spoke of the fear of a civil war in Ukraine ten years ago during the Orange Revolution. While we are witnessing a great deal of violence, to be sure, a civil war does not seem likely or imminent at this point. Having said that, one of the main points of my article is to highlight the fact that the days of American and Western European dismissal of the possibility of violence and instability in Eastern Europe are over. There is a possibility that, if the situation escalates, senior military and police commanders may take their troops and personnel and bring them to the service of the side of the conflict they support, based on their own regional, religious and linguistic background (remember that the eastern half of Ukraine is largely Russian-speaking and Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate persuasion, while the west is largely Ukrainian-speaking and adheres to the Ukrainian Catholic or Ukrainian Orthodox Kyiv Patriarchate). Of course, there is the possibility of a repeat of the situation in Bosnia’s conflict when external suppliers came to meet the needs of the warring factions selling them weapons. Already there is one Russian biker gang, the Night Wolves, participating in the anti-Maidan activities.

At the end of the day, our ability to think of Europe as a sunny paradise is over. How far the situation will escalate with of curse depend on domestic political considerations as well as external diplomatic factors. One thing is for sure: the focus in Eurasian geopolitics has undoubtedly shifted toward the “Eur-“ part of the phrase.