Ukraine as a Solution by Shiping Tang

Membership in EU but not NATO - essentially a neutral Ukraine, backed by EU & Russia

Pekingnology today is proud to publish Ukraine as a Solution by Professor Shiping Tang 唐世平.

Prof. Tang is Cheung Kong Distinguished Professor, Ministry of Education, China; Fudan Distinguished Professor & Dr. Seaker Chan Chair Professor, School of International Relations and Public Affairs (SIRPA), Fudan University.

With five single-authored volumes in English, as the 1st Asian and Chinese scholar to win a major book award in international relations, and as the 1st Chinese scholar to join the editorial board of leading journals in international relations, Prof. Tang is one of the most influential Chinese social scientists internationally.

The article below was authored on January 8, 2009, after the Russo-Georgian War. Prof. Tang on Saturday Feb. 26, 2022 told your Pekingnologist that thirteen years ago he submitted it to some newspapers in the United States and Europe, and even English-language newspapers in Russia, but none ran it, perhaps because he was less well-known at the time. (He wrote about that briefly in 2014 on his personal blog in Chinese.)

In May 2014, amid the Russo-Ukrainian War, Open Asia, a Japanese-hosted web site published the article, but the link broke down and thus it is no longer available. Therefore, Pekingnology is proud to publish it - provided by Prof. Tang - as a de facto exclusive.

Some of his foresight thirteen years ago have tragically proved true now, including

Unfortunately, joining NATO is not even in Ukraine’s long-term interest. The hard reality is that if NATO wants to pull Ukraine into their alliance and Ukraine’s Russo-phobic elite want to escape from geography by allying with NATO, the Russian population in Ukraine may want secession. Once it happens, civil war and then a partition of Ukraine along the ethnic-geographical divide is not an impossibility. And when it comes to push-and-shove, NATO and U.S. may still stand by just as they have done in Georgia: no sane U.S. and EU leaders will risk a war with a nuclear Russia if Russia decides that it wants to partition Ukraine under the pretext of intervening in a civil war that kills ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

Given the New York Times report by Edward Wong and Wall Street Journal report by Lingling Wei on Friday, Feb. 25, it’s also worth noting that, on Jan. 25, Prof. Tang publicly predicted [Chinese] that it’s highly likely that Russia will send troops to Ukraine this winter.

Before we go, this line probably should resonate for a long, long time.

[T]he art of diplomacy is not to search for the emotionally gratifying, but the rationally possible, within geographic constraints.

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Ukraine as a Solution

by Shiping Tang   January 8, 2009

Nineteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new Twenty Years Crisis is looming over Europe, in the wake of the Russia-Georgia conflict.

After all the indignation spitted and all the ink spilled, it becomes apparent that most elites in both EU/NATO and Russia are still thinking in traditional geopolitical logic, blinded by ethnocentrism, fear, greed, and perhaps even animosity. With each of their self-righteous condemnations and accusations against each other, the two sides are exacerbating a security dilemma, one notch at a time. As a result, they are dragging themselves into an ever more likely cold peace - if not a cold war - and have few clues on how to forestall it. Indeed, many on both sides do not want to forestall it: what they want is to punish each other and fight it out. A real tragedy is in the making.

As the drama unfolds, many have come to see Ukraine as the next battleground for the two sides’ resolve. On the one side, while major European countries remain muted on the subject, major U.S. politicians, from Bush, Cheney to Obama have all repeatedly asserted that Ukraine will be in NATO one day. On the other side, Russia has made it clear that it would not accept a Ukraine inside NATO.

Yet, Ukraine can also present a golden opportunity for preventing a new Twenty Years Crisis in Europe. The solution is a Ukraine with membership in the European Union (EU) but without membership in NATO - essentially a neutral Ukraine. A neutral Ukraine that is backed by the EU and Russia is in the best interest of Europe - Old and New - and Russia. A neutral Ukraine backed by the EU and Russia is a powerful signal that the two sides refuse to engage in another cold war and treat the other side as an eternal foe. It freezes the spiraling security dilemma between them and preserves the possibility of forging a more constructive relationship between them.

By now, leading European states (read, France and Germany) must admit that the days when European leaders could pretend that the EU and NATO are always together had ended when the Cold War ended. In post-Cold War Europe, the interest of the EU and that of America often diverge - sometimes fundamentally, and France and Germany cannot continue to pretend that they and America can patch up all the time.

In post-Cold War Europe, Europe’s core interests are best served by the enlargement of the EU, which seeks to produce a wide security community based on international law and norms rather than merely military might. The expansion of NATO, which has always been and will remain a U.S.-centric alliance in perpetual need of an enemy, serves Europe’s core interests only sometimes.

America’s primary strategic objective after the Cold War has always been to prevent the emergence of a peer competitor, explicitly advocated in the leaked Pentagon’s Defense Planning Guidance in 1992. For all their ideological differences, George Bush senior, Bill Clinton, and George Bush Jr. all have pursued this objective in earnest. And who can blame them - as America’s presidents, they must firmly believe that U.S. primacy is good for the U.S. thus the world and act accordingly.

Under the strategy of preserving primacy, America regards a united Europe - just like China, India, and Russia, as a potential peer competitor. Only in light of this logic can we understand why so many U.S. policy elites were so worried about the Euro. The Euro can potentially unseat the dollar as the only reserve currency in the global financial system, thus weakening one of the pillars of America’s primacy.

For the United States, surely the easiest way to prevent the EU from becoming a peer competitor is the time-tested golden rule of “divide-and-rule”. As long as Europe remains divided, America will have one less peer competitor to worry about.

Not surprisingly, America has been busy driving wedges among European states. Rumsfeld’s infamous calling the “Old Europe” as things of the past whereas the “New Europe” the future precisely reflects this strategic logic. By installing military bases in some of the “New Europe” states here and there, America has been making sure that there will always be some European states that value their ties to America more than their ties to the EU, thus dividing Europe into two camps effortlessly. Needless to say, such a strategy also achieves the ends of containing and humiliating Russia, thus further, if not permanently, dividing Europe.

The EU - or more precisely, France and Germany - must put a stop to this U.S./NATO way of approaching European affairs, if they want to avoid making Russia their permanent enemy. Berlin and Paris have to speak loud and clear: when it comes to European affairs, they will take charge, although Washington will be consulted. Fundamentally, Berlin and Paris must demand that when it comes to making a choice, European states - “Old” or “New” - will have to choose EU over NATO.

So far, however, Berlin and Paris have been reluctant to force other European states to choose, because they themselves do not want to make a hard choice. By allowing NATO to push further and further toward Russia and doing nothing to stop the process, Berlin and Paris have been willing accomplices to Washington’s drive to contain and humiliate Russia. Paris and Berlin have been hoping that Russia will simply swallow all its pride and all the bitter pills.

Perhaps France and Germany, just like Russia, are still thinking in traditional geopolitical logic for all their talk of EU being a “normative power”, thus secretly applauding NATO’s march toward Russia’s doorsteps. For many in Berlin and Paris, the surest way to deal with Russia is simply to contain it. Due to this Russia-phobic policy, it is not surprising that fear and suspicion between the EU and Russia have increased substantially. Russia’s forceful partition of Georgia signals that Russia is not going to take it anymore.

A neutral Ukraine puts a stop to this U.S./NATO-centric approach of containing and humiliating Russia. Yet, Russia does not get a free ride. A neutral Ukraine also demands Russia to signal its benign intentions by committing itself to uphold the territorial integrity and neutrality of Ukraine. If Russia does agree to such an arrangement, Russia will be effectively binding itself against reconfiguring a new empire: a new Russian empire is impossible without first incorporating Ukraine.

Many may accuse the solution of a neutral Ukraine as appeasement. This will be a cheap shot. Vladimir Putin is not Hitler, for all his tough talks. Hitler was one-of-a-kind and to paint Putin a Hitler is to distort the picture: doing so only serves to drive up the hatred and fear for domestic consumption.

Putin is a typical Russian realist, grounded thoroughly in traditional geopolitical thinking. He wants a Great Russia that is respected by others, including the United States and Europe; but he has no ambition to turn Russia into a Third Reich. Moreover, there have been no credible signs that Russia wants to reconfigure its former colonies into a new empire by force and intimidation.

Russia, for all its tough talks and faults, has not done the kind of things that Bush and Cheney have done. Russia did not tear down the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, scrap the Kyoto Protocol, and invade Iraq. Russia merely wants some prestige restored, and yes, some respect for their “sphere of influence”. And before European states (and the U.S.) denounce Russia’s talk of the sphere of influence, they better ask themselves: haven’t they been trying to expand their sphere of influence up to Russia’s doorsteps with NATO’s expansion?

Some elite in Ukraine may charge the solution of a neutral Ukraine is to sacrifice their hope of dual EU and NATO membership, for the sake of appeasing Russia. With all the unpleasant experiences first in the Russian empire and then the USSR, fear and hatred against Russia run deep in many former republics of the USSR and East European states. Ukraine is no exception; it thus wants to be totally safe from Russia.

Unfortunately, joining NATO is not even in Ukraine’s long-term interest. The hard reality is that if NATO wants to pull Ukraine into their alliance and Ukraine’s Russo-phobic elite want to escape from geography by allying with NATO, the Russian population in Ukraine may want secession. Once it happens, civil war and then a partition of Ukraine along the ethnic-geographical divide is not an impossibility. And when it comes to push-and-shove, NATO and U.S. may still stand by just as they have done in Georgia: no sane U.S. and EU leaders will risk a war with a nuclear Russia if Russia decides that it wants to partition Ukraine under the pretext of intervening in a civil war that kills ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

A neutral Ukraine backed by the EU and Russia thus also demands Ukraine to commit herself to live peacefully with Russia. No country can escape from geography, and Ukraine is no exception. Despite its emotional attachment to the West, Ukraine thus must learn how to live peacefully with Russia. Making Russia Ukraine’s permanent enemy by joining NATO is to allow emotion trumps rational calculation.

Perhaps Ukraine will be wise to learn some lessons from Vietnam’s experience in living with China. Having fought China for a millennium (and France and the United States briefly) and allied with the Soviet Union against China from 1975-1989, Vietnam has grudgingly admitted that it can ill-afford to antagonize China regardless of how powerful its external allies are. Hence, in the past twenty years or so, Vietnam has been trying to achieve a delicate “middle ground” between China and other external powers (i.e., the U.S.), without declaring neutrality. Vietnamese leaders understand that the art of diplomacy is not to search for the emotionally gratifying, but the rationally possible, within geographic constraints.

In a similar vein, perhaps Georgia too should be presented with such an option of having EU membership but not NATO membership. If that is the case, Georgians may also come to recognize that their welfare is more tightly linked with the EU rather than U.S and NATO. A neutral Georgia will also commit Georgia to live with Russia peacefully, however grudgingly.

If the EU cannot stop U.S.-centric NATO from pushing toward Russia, Russia can only become more fearful and angry. And if Russia cannot commit herself to a neutral Ukraine, then the EU may have to prepare for a possible new containment of Russia. A neutral Ukraine provides a test for their willingness of accommodating each other via credible commitments. Of course, a neutral Ukraine backed by the EU and Russia is only the first step toward a more tranquil Russia-EU relationship. If U.S.-led NATO can also back a neutral Ukraine, it will signal America’s benign intentions toward Russia too. That would be an ideal outcome.

If the EU and Russia cannot get Ukraine right; it will be Europe - Russia included - that will suffer the consequences. The result is likely to be a cold peace, if not a new although less ideological cold war. By then, geo-politicians in the U.S., China, and India will have a field day, laughing at the self-proclaimed enlightened Europeans at their stupidity. After two bloodiest wars in human history and only short twenty years after the Cold War, the Europeans are now back at the game of hating and possibly killing, each other again. Europeans, Old or New, are just the same old bunch that cannot manage to live together with each other peacefully.

If Europe and Russia can get their acts together, however, maybe the EU can provide the ultimate home for Russia that Russians have always longed for. God bless Europe. (Enditem)

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Please note again the article was authored on January 8, 2009 by Professor Shiping Tang 唐世平. You can follow him on Twitter as well, though he is not very active.