Yeah, but technocratic boredom can also be a weapon, shutting out a large chunk of broader participation / oversight.
(Haven't clicked through yet.)
what a mystery why Russia distrusts NATO. They must hate the classic liberal values or something
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal--20160530-snap-story.html
After the Berlin Wall fell, Europe's regional order hinged on the question of whether a reunified Germany would be aligned with the United States (and NATO), the Soviet Union (and the Warsaw Pact) or neither. Policymakers in the George H.W. Bush administration decided in early 1990 that NATO should include the reconstituted German republic.
In Syria, a slow-motion genocide while diplomats chatter
In early February 1990, U.S. leaders made the Soviets an offer. According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation on Germany, U.S. could make "iron-clad guarantees" that NATO would not expand "one inch eastward." Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany's western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO's expansion.
"In Syria, a slow-motion genocide while diplomats chatter" is cut and paste error
3: Fortunately, my cut and paste errors haven't had such tragic consequences.
2: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. A thousand times no.
"Western leaders never pledged not to enlarge NATO, a point that several analysts have demonstrated. Mark Kramer explored the question in detail in a
2009 article in The Washington Quarterly. He drew on declassified American, German and Soviet records to make his case and noted that, in discussions on German reunification in the two-plus-four format (the two Germanys plus the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France), the Soviets never raised the question of NATO enlargement other than how it might apply in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).
...
"Gorbachev replied: "The topic of 'NATO expansion' was not discussed at all, and it wasn't brought up in those years. ... Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO's military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker's statement was made in that context... Everything that could have been and needed to be done to solidify that political obligation was done. And fulfilled.""
"Yet the claim that the negotiations towards this treaty included guarantees barring Nato from expansion into Eastern Europe is entirely unfounded. In the discussions leading to the treaty, the Russians never raised the question of Nato enlargement, other than in respect of the former East Germany. Regarding this territory, it was agreed that after Soviet troop withdrawals German forces assigned to Nato could be deployed there but foreign Nato forces and nuclear weapons systems could not. There was no commitment to abstain in future from eastern Nato enlargement."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/24/russia-nato-expansion-memory-grievances
etc etc etc
And even had such assurances been made, I don't see how that gets around CSCE (now OSCE) commitments that European countries are free to determine which alliances they choose to join.
"Oh sure, Warsaw, you've just spent the last 40 years under Moscow's thumb, but now that you have free elections and a multi-party system, you still have to stay under Moscow's thumb because reasons." Yeah, no.
And even if such assurances had been made, and even if Western leaders had been foolish enough to condemn Central Europe to permanent subjugation to Russia -- or at best to languish in a gray zone of neither here nor there -- what evidence is there that this would have produced a more secure Europe? And more secure for whom? Western Europe, again purchasing security that's paid for by their Central European neighbors? And this is supposedly the more moral course because Russia?
No.
If we did screw over the Russians, I think we can call it square now.
I'm reading the longer scholarly paper by the author of the LA Times article linked in 2. It seems to boil down, the USSR got a verbal commitment about NATO nonexpansion and they had a right to expect that to be just about as good as a written one. It's true it's not commerce but diplomacy, so words exchanged aren't nothing, but still, governmental commitments change, voters change, etc., so my own sense is for grand-strategic things like the scale of NATO they probably shouldn't have been content with verbal.
The Constitution doesn't let the president bind future governments via treaty without 2/3rds of the Senate for very good reasons. It's nuts if Bush's people offered that even more nuts if the Soviet people believed it.
On the other hand one can believe strongly that the rights of Eastern European nations should be protected without necessarily thinking it a good idea to commit to war with Russia if needed to protect them. Being a small, weak country bordering a bigger, stronger country is rough (sorry, Mexico), but it's not weird that the Russians don't like having NATO on their borders.
I guess it's not weird that they care but I don't like the implication from some that there's some moral reason (usually framed as some vague invocation of "fairness" relative to the USA) to want to preserve Russia's status as a great power. A powerful Russia was basically a sheer and uniform disaster for the world from 1650-1991 (1941-45 exempted, of course, but a Europe without a powerful Russia looks so different that it's not fair to imagine that in that timeline too Hitler appears) and relegating it to second-power status was a big world victory. TBC I'm only talking about its status as a military empire, the rest of the 1990s were terrible for Russia and its people as its assets were looted to the benefit of a few Russian billionaires.
I think you also need to exempt some time around 1812 or explain why you admit Napoleon so much.
Bottom line: Napoleon was a huge dick but I'd take being ruled by him in a heartbeat vs. being ruled by Alexander I or Nicholas II or most other European rulers of the time or of the immediate restoration.
why you admit Napoleon so much
Extreme vetting might have solved this.
5 is correct. It should be noted that Gorbachev was remarkably casual about the Warsaw Pact, if not foreign policy in general. He wanted to wrap up the shitshow and focus on domestic stuff, so he did.
The Soviets stated repeatedly during the Cold War that the price of reunifying Germany* was at least the disarmament and neutralization of Germany, at most essentially the dissolution of NATO.** When the time came to reunify Germany, the legitimate rulers of the USSR didn't care, so they discarded that policy. The siloviki doubtless remember all this and make it a dolchstosslegende, but the dolch belonged solely to their own rulers, not NATO.
*Not that this was ever a serious prospect, but they said some variety of this whenever the topic came up.
**They originally formed the Warsaw Pact just as a token they could discard for a pretense of parity in this scenario.
So 2 accurately reflects Russian perception, but it doesn't follow that the Russian perception is right, or that anything should be conceded to it.
Also, 4 is great.
it's not weird that the Russians don't like having NATO on their borders.
Its not, but to the extent to which that concern is born out of a broader desire to spread past those borders, I really have very little sympathy for their position here. I mean, I accept that maybe that there is an argument for going along with their wishes as far as NATO presence in Eastern Europe as a practical matter, but I'm not sorry that they are mad that the neighbors are exercising their sovereign right to not be occupied by Russia.
Maybe I'd be a little more accommodating here if they hadn't just taken over Crimea.
Pwned by 12.... I have shitty internet right now so apparently I'm commenting on stale pages.
1: Of course this is true. The vague point of the OP isn't that dull technocracy is perfect, but that often it's necessary. It's a counterpoint to all the idiots who want some "strong decisive leader" to march in with balls swinging, ignore the details and just tell everyone what to do, although that's only occasionally effective. In particular, if you want to achieve anything eventually you need to work with other people, who expect to be treated as equals, even if in fact they aren't; and that NATO works through the details in that slow, tiresome fashion is part of the reason all those Eastern Europeans mostly side with NATO, not Russia.
IMBIS that when I was in Kabul we walked by the part of Camp Eggers where they had a bunch of flagpoles, flying national flags of recently (past week?) deceased soldiers. There were a lot of different flags flying that day.
12, 22: I'm not suggesting that it's morally correct for Russia to abuse its neighbors. I am suggesting that it's not necessarily in the national interest of the United States to commit to a war that would likely become nuclear to prevent Russia from abusing its neighbors, and also that it is not inherently wrong for Russia to object to having the United States form military alliances with its immediate neighbors. Putin is a horrible person, Russia is a horrible mess, and it's very hard to see how Putin's misconduct serves Russia's strategic interests, but war between the US/NATO and Russia would be bad enough that non-military means of addressing the situation are to be preferred even if they don't get immediate results.
Russian commitments to peaceful resolution of disputes and the inviolability of borders are much, much clearer than anything people in the Bush I administration might have let the Soviets believe. Specific Russian guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine's nuclear disarmament are as unambiguous as anything gets in international relations.
And yet, three years ago Russia invaded, seizing Ukrainian territory by force of arms.
If one were designing a European Security Organisation from scratch, one would get something that looks a lot like today's NATO. The difference between NATO and an optimal ESO (if anyone could agree on what constitutes optimal) would be so much less than the gains of more than half a century of working together in the dull-but-essential ways the OP describes as to make no nevermind. The institutional arrangements supporting peace and prosperity in Europe really are the envy of the world, and it's kinda crazy-making to see large numbers Europeans apparently determined to forget that.
I wish I remembered more of Armageddon Averted, not least because I read it only a couple of months ago.
26: NATO isn't military means, it's diplomatic means so formidable as to prevent the use of military means from being necessary. If Ukraine were NATO* Crimea would still be Ukrainian. Russia would still be stirring, but far below the threshold of violence, as it does in the Baltics.
*Not that I'm saying it should be.
IIRC 20.1 is Armaggeddon Averted in a nutshell.
29, 31: It's been five years since I read it, so I don't feel bad about not remembering much of what's in the book.
30: The failure of the Viktor and Yulia show is one of the greater tragedies of the post-Soviet era.
France and Britain are kind of locked in an unspoken conspiracy to deny that NATO is the EU in uniform (the French pretending that NATO is something totally different and worse, the British pretending it is something totally different and better).
That said I remember visiting NATO HQ, SHAPE, and the European Commission on successive days. Similarities: boring bureaucratic cooperation, good coffee, slightly awkward international conversations. Differences: the old NATO HQ was kind of cheap and the Commission was hella 70s sci-fi, but SHAPE was a header right into the Kennedy administration.
26: you can't see any US national interest in ensuring a secure Europe that doesn't have to worry about foreign invasion? Really?
Think a bit harder.
Also agree with 22. Lots of countries have NATO on their borders and are perfectly ok with it. Switzerland is entirely encircled by NATO! But then Switzerland doesn't have a national identity that is based on its ability to invade and brutalise Austria and Italy at will.
So you're saying Russia's problem is that it never developed not-shitty cheese.
Ireland isn't in NATO either. Our only concerns are internal, really; occasionally there is a bit of agonising about whether we should become more deeply involved in EU military co-operation.
You'll soon have a land border with a non-EU nation, so you'd better seek some protection.
Neither Liechtenstein nor Austria are in NATO. Ajay just lost credibility for all time.
Not exactly on topic, but "Force de Frappe" is my favorite name for a nuclear arsenal ever.
I prefer the tall man with the wide hat.
34 and 35 pissed me off, but re-reading the thread, my original point wasn't nearly as clear as it could have been. My 26 was following up on my 11, but neither was as clear as it could have been and both together could be read a lot more broadly than I intended.
What I meant to say was only about the extension of NATO membership after the Cold War. NATO and its security guarantee in Europe are absolutely a good thing, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was wise to bring many of Russia's former satellites into the alliance as soon as the Cold War ended. Ideally we'd have had more time to bring those countries into western economic and security institutions before considering a military alliance. And inviting its former satellites into a Good Guys Club that Russia can't aspire to join was predictably provocative. That doesn't justify Putin's bad behavior, but it's possible that Russia's politics would have been different if the west had behaved differently.
And I'm highly skeptical about 30.1 and glad that Ukraine is not a NATO member. It's good that the US and Europe are applying strong non-military pressure to change Russia's behavior, but extending the NATO security guarantee to Ukraine would be scary as hell.
39: Without Liechtenstein we're doomed.
45. Oh please. The reason ordinary Russians post-1995 or so are pissed at the west is that roughly speaking we destroyed the economy there while the murder rate doubled, maybe worse, for a decade.
Geopolitics maybe didn't help much, but even if there were videos showing giant Stalin statues lots of places, that doesn't change the fact that Harvard advice led to harmful and uncontrolled instability with a soundtrack of gunfire.
I have a hard time considering the counterfactual of a NATO Ukraine. I guess if Yuschenko hadn't been poisoned and succeeded in bringing a wave of outside investment and internal institutional competence, with Maria Gaidar succeeding him on the back of unicorn Pegasus.
45: As complicated and tightly integrated as NATO is, its obligations are a lot less challenging than the acquis of the European Union. That's a big part of why the states of Central Europe aimed to join NATO first.
As for hastiness, as much time passed between the collapse of communism in Central Europe and NATO membership for three states in that region (Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic) as elapsed between the surrender of Nazi Germany and West Germany's accession to the alliance. Another five years passed before seven more countries in Central Europe joined the alliance.
It's worth noting that the United States never recognized Soviet control of the Baltic states and regarded Soviet rule there as illegal occupation.
In terms of borders, both Norway and Turkey bordered the USSR, so there's nothing new there either. In any event, the 1999 enlargement only added a land border with Kaliningrad -- unless one regards Belarus and Ukraine as part of Russia. And if one does, isn't that precisely the problem?
47: Don't assume that the Soviet economy was working before 1991.
It clearly wasn't, but having the only part that could work (basically mineral wealth) looted by a handful of assholes while mob dudes shot at everyone and grandparents lined up for food doesn't really seem like an inevitable consequence of the 1980s either. Not that I really know what I'm talking about, but someday someone will do a great history of 1990s Russia compared to the other Eastern European countries.
The reason ordinary Russians post-1995 or so are pissed at the west is that roughly speaking we destroyed the economy
Russia had some agency in the whole "destroying the economy" thing. Sure, Harvard helped, but it was looted from the inside.
On preview: dammit, pwned by Halford second time this thread.
Specifically, they were looted by the same alliance of apparatchiks and oligarchs which are still running the country today. Dolchstoss etc.
Yup. Maybe the workers should seize the means of production?
Further, another point in Armageddon Averted is that most of the Soviet economy was essentially reduplication of Stalin's war economy. Essentially the whole country was Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, as Kotkin puts it. There was no way most of those enterprises could survive in an open economy. No doubt there were better ways to handle the transition, but the responsibility for finding them rested with Russians and their government, not with Western economists.
45 last: I also don't see a plausible alternate history where Ukraine joins NATO, but had it done so I think it's totally plausible that the current Ukrainian war wouldn't have happened.
I also don't see a plausible alternate history where Ukraine joins NATO
I do, but it involves Ukraine keeping the nukes.
It is astonishing that they (and Belarus, and Kazakhstan) did that. I mean, they all know what Russia is like.
But they got to keep that all that Crimea!
Essentially the whole country was Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
Make the Soviet Union the Make America Great Again Idea of America Again
You know what really deserves a second chance? The czar. Seriously, IANAHistorian, but hasn't Russia always been pretty screwed up and miserable place for anyone who wasn't one of the oligarchs?
54/58: Amusingly Bethlehem isn't even Bethlehem, but actually a quite charming smallish city now. The steelworks are now a (Shel Adelson owned, sigh) casino with a great small performing space; the downtown area has kept is colonial, Moravian flair, along with a few beautiful robber baron mansions; the schools and libraries are good; and the Lehigh Valley as a whole is a mixed economy with decent job opportunities.
I think you're obliged to tell Kotkin.
BOGF is from Bethlehem, so I have mixed feelings about it. Never been back since the casino opened, and expect I never will.
No doubt there were better ways to handle the transition, but the responsibility for finding them rested with Russians and their government, not with Western economists.
But wasn't the reason the Harvarders (?) went over precisely that they were so smart that they could figure out a better way? If not, what were they doing?
Harassing recently-poor young Russian women?
63: Fucking up and ripping off the client.* I'm not saying they are free of blame, I'm saying the Russians were adults and bear primary responsibility for their policies.
*I guess; I don't know any particulars about them.
Fucking up and ripping off the client.
"Consulting" is the preferred term for that.
I think they were performing the other function of consulting -- passing off what the people in power want to do as the advice of disinterested experts.
They were being naive (possibly culpably so) by underestimating the degree to which Russian society had been criminalised during the 1980s. Russian organised crime is emphatically not a post-1991 phenomenon- like the Russian Revolution, it stems from an ill advised decision you a Russian leader to try to stop Russians drinking so much.
My 47 was intended to reply to the idea that expanding NATO damaged relations with Russia. This I read as suggesting that if only Jaruzelski and Jakes had been kept in place, there would have been no hyperinflation or cholera in the nineties.
Of course the Russian economy was appalling in 1988. "We destroyed" isn't right, I stand corrected, definitely a team effort. Summers had a lot of help from Chubais in putting damaging policies into action.
As far as crime-- yes, it existed, but I remember a lot of conversations 1999-2002 with Russians who did not at all recognize a terrifying new Moscow, young perceptive people who had gotten out. not frightened dead-enders stuck there, those were and are their parents.
And while I'm at it, I'd like to draw a really firm line between the Russian government under Putin and Russians more generally. I'm finding it hard to believe it's coming up on six years since I moved to Moscow, for what wound up being not even a full year there. My better half was brought in by an international NGO to work with the Russian government on growing into its new role as a global donor, rather than as an aid recipient. The stolen elections in the autumn of '11 and Putin's return in '12 put paid to that. At least we got to plan our exit. In October of '12 the folks at USAID were thanked for 20 years of cooperation and given two weeks to close up shop and gtfo.
Anyway, as the officially non-political half, I worked with a slightly dodgy Russian internet company (they are all at least slightly dodgy) and had some truly fabulous people as colleagues. Smart as whips, dedicated, interesting; I hope that Jane and Olga who managed our Chinese partnerships are having the careers they deserve. My section's leaders (including a very pale, blue-eyed Russian Muslim woman who wore a headscarf) also managed to keep our weekly departmental meetings to 20 minutes or less every single week. None of the German companies I have worked for or with has ever managed anything close to that. The folks at an oil exploration company whose English I tried gamely to improve once a week (when Moscow traffic didn't delay me longer than the length of the meeting) were also much like big-company people I have worked with in the States and elsewhere.
Which is to say that for all of the fucked up things that happened in the '90s, there was massive and real improvement in many, many people's lives. Russia doesn't need to be snatching bits of its neighbors to be great.
They used the end of communism to send everybody who parks like an asshole here.