We think we know what has happened in Ukraine. We have been told by the nation’s press that the military operation is simply Russian aggression. In other words, business as usual.
There were several warning signs in February. Russian President Putin recognized the independence of the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk. Ukrainian President Zelensky declared a state of emergency. Putin announced a “military operation” in Ukraine. The next day all hell broke loose.
Most media accounts have summarized the escalating situation into a simple narrative: Russia is waging a war of aggression; Putin’s actions are an “invasion” rather than a defensive measure.
The New York Times has called Putin’s actions a “blunt defiance of international law.” Western leaders have scrambled to hold emergency meetings. U.S. President Biden and other Western leaders have placed sanctions on Moscow.
All of this was preventable. Russia’s military buildup and subsequent actions are a result of the West’s less-talked-about complicity in Ukraine, dishonored security assurances, and a failure to learn from the past.
There are several theories regarding Putin’s actions. Some individuals believe Putin is attempting to renegotiate the end of the Cold War by extending and restoring Russia’s sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, while others question the rationality of his thinking. A third theory states that the motive behind Putin’s aggression is a diversion from domestic woes and an attempt to consolidate support for his regime.
As with any major crisis, the devil is in the details. Here in the U.S., we need to put the conflict into its social-historical context. Dating to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Russia has insisted that Ukraine not be granted NATO membership. In recent history, Russia has demanded a reduction of NATO’s military expansion into eastern European countries that share Russian borders, yet the U.S. and other NATO members rejected these requests.
It is incredibly hypocritical to leverage a charge of aggression against Russia.
Recently, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated, “(O)ne country does not have the right to exert a sphere of influence. That notion should be relegated to the dustbin of history.” But, throughout centuries, the U.S. has continued to exert its sphere of influence. Consider just two perhaps-forgotten examples of U.S. deployment of power — in addition to our known involvements in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria: the Banana Wars in several Latin America that spanned from 1898 to 1934, and President Reagan’s covert operations against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua.
These incursions were fought by U.S. forces on foreign soil and in light of the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 which stated that the United States “should consider any attempt [on the part of European nations] to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.” Teddy Roosevelt made changes to the document in 1904 to allow for U.S. involvement in Latin American countries where “cases of clear and long-term wrongdoing” were afoot. This country’s heavy-handed involvement in Central America and the Caribbean helped consolidate the Western Hemisphere into a sphere of influence steered by our best interests.
Similarly, in Vietnam, working under the “domino theory,” U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia was designed to keep one country from falling under the influence of Communism. In violation of international law, what began in Vietnam spread to the wide scale operations in Cambodia and Laos. The U.S. spent more than $120 billion to protect its democratic interests in a foreign country, and after more than two decades of fighting, two million Vietnamese people were killed, three million were wounded, and 12 million became refugees.
The two incursions cited above were carried out to prevent foreign powers from establishing spheres of influence in the Western Hemisphere and beyond. Today, our uninvited military activities are carried out in order to prevent foreign powers such as China and Russia from establishing spheres of influence in the Western Hemisphere.
No American leader would allow Russia or China to establish a military camp in a country neighboring the United States. Former vice president of the National Intelligence Council Graham Fuller writes, “A Chinese military presence in Canada or Mexico would evoke extreme reaction in Washington.” Yet the U.S. continues to push NATO up to Russia’s very borders.
For a country that enjoys one of the largest spheres of influence in the Western Hemisphere, Blinken’s observation is symptomatic of how the U.S. views and interacts with the rest of the world. Russia’s “security” concerns are a cause of the invasions it has suffered over the past two centuries; the threat Russia feels is not merely a theoretical geopolitical shudder. Napoleon’s charge into Russian in 1812 resulted in nearly half a million Russian casualties, Nazi Germany’s storming of Russia with more than three million troops in 1943 resulted in the loss of 27 million Russian lives.
According to recently declassified documents, Western leaders offered security assurances against NATO’s expansion into eastern Europe to Russian leaders in 1990 and 1991. A panel convened by the National Security Archive notes, “(S)ubsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels.” The NATO promise that there would be no such eastern expansion, including Secretary Baker’s “not one inch eastward” proclamation, was the security assurance General Secretary of the Communist Party and President Gorbachev sought in 1990.
Complicity? The reality is that all policymakers seldom reflect on their own history. They don’t admit their own geographic sensitivities, their own territorial realities. Leaders often assign benign humanitarian concerns to their actions, denying others’ claims to the same. In Ukraine and Russia, the border zone in contention must be demilitarized and NATO’s eastward expansion must be checked. It is necessary to reassure President Putin that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO as even President Zelenskyy has stated the country will not become a member of NATO. The West should build on that acknowledgement and broker a peace deal that assures that Ukraine becomes neutral buffer state between Russia and NATO.
The saying goes that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. For the victims of war, farce is a tragedy compounded. In the endless media accounts of the situation in Ukraine, it is assumed this is a conflict in which the U.S. will play a lead role. Our government has done nothing to counter the assumption, but rather has warned of reprisals and mayhem (military support to Ukraine and severe sanctions against Russia), should the war escalate.
Is the Russia-Ukraine conflict one in which the U.S. must participate? While this country has, in fact, assured Russia in the past, is it in our best interests to turn our attention away from our own internal economic, political, social and cultural issues? Is it up to the U.S. to muscle its provision of military and financial resources into a European conflict? Our further or expanded involvement in Ukraine will come at a cost, a cost measured in dollars and lives. If there is a sphere of influence being exerted, our involvement, at this time, must be relegated to the dustbin.
About the Author
Christopher Zambakari holds a Doctor of Law and Policy degree from Northeastern University and is chief executive officer of The Zambakari Advisory. He is a Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow, and the assistant editor of The Bulletin of the Sudan Studies Association. His area of research and expertise is international law and security, political reform and economic development, governance and democracy, conflict management and prevention, and nation- and state-building processes in Africa and in the Middle East. His work has been published in leading law, economic, and public policy journals.
Dr. Christopher Zambakari, MBA, MIS, LP.D.
Founder & CEO, The Zambakari Advisory
Hartley B. and Ruth B. Barker Endowed Rotary Peace Fellow
Assistant Editor, Bulletin of The Sudan Studies Association
While I appreciate your walk through history here and your view of the West’s historic involvement in global conflicts, I am unsure what you intend with your conclusion that, “our involvement, at this time, must be relegated to the dustbin” when discussing Ukraine. This conclusory remark comes across glib, ignoring the suffering of millions of Ukrainians. Do you propose the West just sit by idly and watch? Wouldn’t this add to the complicity you already criticize so sharply?