After Crimea: Contain Putin

By Brian E. Carlson

U.S. Ambassador (retired)
Naples, Florida

The Ukraine situation today is one where neither the United States nor the Europeans have good military options. Indeed, Putin has demonstrated that he thinks the U.S. and its European allies do not have any options.

So, as Lenin said, “What is to be done?”

The United States and Europe face a recrudescent Russia, a state that increasingly behaves like the Soviet Union used to. If Vladimir Putin thinks the greatest catastrophe of the twentieth century was the collapse of the USSR, then perhaps American and European leaders should recall the policies that helped us bring about that collapse.

A lot of diplomacy in Washington and other capitals is focused on convincing Mr. Putin that he should not continue “illegal actions” in Ukraine. Putin believes that he has the Russian people on his side as he writes a new chapter of Russia’s history.

Crimea is now part of that history. The U.S. cannot reverse Russian annexation of the peninsula.
What we can do is contain future Russian adventurism.

Diplomacy works best when your actions match and reinforce your words. Actions speak louder than words. George Kennan understood that in 1946 when he proposed a “containment” policy to meet the Soviet challenge “by the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points.”

In today’s terms, here’s what a Russia containment policy might look like:

The President should announce that, because Putin’s actions in Ukraine have changed our assessment of Russia’s adherence to previous commitments and to international norms, we are going to start work again on the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe.

This means that the U.S. will resume immediately the planning and construction of the necessary missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic. Of course, doing that means that American military personnel and contractors will be returning to those countries right away to work on design and construction.

A renewed American presence visibly rewards the courage of our newest NATO allies on Russia’s borders.
Perhaps we could even find good reason to send some people to our stalwart, freedom-loving allies like the Baltics, Hungary, Slovenia and other allied countries too? In response to Russian aircraft flights near Turkey, as my colleague Ambassador Bill Courtney has suggested, NATO could sustain joint air patrols over the Black Sea, led by Turkey and together with Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia.

Next, let’s announce that we’re starting a “Nuremburg list” a list of all those individuals responsible for or complicit in the attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. People who find themselves on such a list will face lifelong visa bans preventing them or their children from traveling, living or studying in the U.S. and western Europe. Someday, they may face judgment before the International Criminal Court or national civil and criminal courts.

Such a list is a powerful weapon in the world of public opinion later. It reminds that the people who carried out the 2014 Russian incursion into Ukraine, the ones who profited from it as well as those who committed human rights violations, are guilty in the eyes of the world.

Then, the State Department could announce that, because Russia has failed to abide by international agreements and norms of behavior, we are joining our allies and partners around the world to bar Russian teams from the 2014 FIFA World Cup soccer games in Brazil. Perhaps also from the summer Olympics in 2016, too? Sports sanctions produced real results when they were applied to South Africa in the apartheid years. Even the threat of Russia becoming a “pariah nation” in the eyes of the sports world would underline the serious nature of Putin’s Ukrainian error.

Next, let’s introduce a new scholarship program to bring hundreds of the best and brightest young Ukrainians to the United States for studies in American universities. As thousands of Fulbright and Rhodes scholars have proven, it’s not just the education foreign students get in subjects like the rule of law, free market economics, and democratic government. There is a life-long mental outlook change that comes from sharing a year or two with young Americans on a green and leafy campus.

Lastly, both NATO and the European Union need to very clearly signal that, if the people of Ukraine want it, there is a fast track open for Ukraine’s membership in the military alliance as well as the European Union of democratic and free countries.

The U.S. and the European Union may not have military options to turn the Ukraine situation around. Therefore, this is precisely the time for America to deploy “adroit and vigilant” diplomacy to contain Russian expansionism.

Carlson retired as a career minister in the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as ambassador to Latvia (2001-2005).

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