Crafting a win-win-win for Russia, Ukraine and the West
An Armoured Presonnel Carrier of the Ukrainian forces rolls in the village of Pisky, close to the airport of eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk on December 3, 2014. (Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images)
The writers are fellows in the foreign policy program of the Brookings Institution.
Recent reports of more troop and equipment movements
into the separatist-held regions of Ukraine suggest that Russia is once
again seeking to stir up trouble. The natural Western reaction has been
to respond with firmness. Sanctions may be tightened;
defensive weaponry may be provided to Ukraine’s underequipped and
overmatched military. Given such bullying Russian tactics, this reaction
is not only natural but perhaps inevitable.
Yet
the Western policy response is half-wrong, and the incorrect part of it
risks making 2015 just as bad a year for Ukrainian security and
East-West relations as was 2014. Western policymakers do not deserve
blame for the unconscionable tactics that Russian President Vladimir Putin
has employed in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. But their actions risk
reinforcing an action-reaction dynamic that will quite probably make the
No. 1 victim of this crisis to date — the people of Ukraine — worse off
than before.
This is not a moral question.
It is entirely justifiable to provide weapons to a sovereign nation
seeing its territory assaulted by a much more powerful neighbor. But
regardless of right and wrong, the result of providing weapons will not
be a robust self-defense capability for Ukraine. The Ukrainian military
faces Russian armed forces more than five times as large and perhaps 10
to 20 times as powerful. Indeed, should such arms encourage Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
to directly challenge Russian forces on his territory, the most likely
outcome is escalation of the military crisis and a dramatic increase in
death and destruction in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian propaganda would
continue to vilify the West and sow the seeds of future crises elsewhere
in Russia’s neighborhood.
continues:......................http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/crafting-a-win-win-win-for-russia-ukraine-and-the-west/2014/12/05/727d6c92-7be1-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html
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