You Can't Eat Sovereignty

Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, and NATO

Today I’m going to write about why I think the West should halt its NATO expansion and make some other concessions to Russia rather than escalate tensions and risk a war that could quite literally go nuclear. This is not because Russia is in the right, but because we have an independent responsibility to make the best of a bad situation and avoid war even when faced with aggressive actions. I also argue that any ethical justification we may think we have for war - especially in the form of abstract ideals such as “sovereignty” - is undermined by the fact that the real, concrete costs and consequences of war and conflict fall disproportionately on those who have no say in the matter. Finally, I express the hope that NATO/EU expansion are unnecessary, and even without a push towards institutional integration, countries like Ukraine and Georgia can and will maintain strong relationships with the West to complement and add to their traditional and historical ties to Russia.

Stakes

I want to start by stating two core beliefs, or guiding principles:

1. Whenever possible, we should strive for peaceful and sustainable resolutions to conflicts. Failing that, we should at least avoid making them worse.

2. Our priorities in determining the best outcomes for a situation should broadly, generally follow something like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: our first priority should be the maintenance of life and its basic necessities, followed by material improvements to quality of life, followed by non-material improvements to quality of life.

A note on point 2: Ideologies can change. Borders can change. Governments can change. The need for food, water, shelter, medical care, etc. cannot change. To me, therefore, it is only logical to focus our problem-solving abilities on securing basic needs even if it requires compromise on issues like ideologies, borders, regimes, or even systems of government.

This is not to say that I universally oppose sacrifice for ideology. If some people feel very strongly that they’d rather freeze to death than join the “socialist” national power grid, they do have the right to make that decision for themselves. However, ethically, I do not feel that it is anyone else’s responsibility to enable or endorse that type of decision-making. Similarly, perhaps you’d rather die than live in a country that restricts freedom of speech, or you’d rather die than live in a country that criminalizes or persecutes homosexuality, or you’d rather die than live in a country that requires you to use someone’s requested pronouns, or you’d rather die than live in a country that enforces a particular religion’s requirements on the populace. Whether the cause is reasonable or unreasonable, just or unjust, some people value ideals over their lives, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I just don’t think that anyone has the right to make that decision on behalf of a group.

For example, I don’t think we would be justified in saying “the Ukrainian people would be better off dead than living under Putin’s influence.” Of course there will be some Ukrainians who are willing to fight for territory, sovereignty, and self-determination, and that is a legitimate political position to occupy. But it is not the only legitimate position, and I do not think that outsiders ought to promote it over other alternatives. Consequently, I do not think that countries like the US should encourage Ukraine to go to war.

Typically when we arm “freedom fighters” or some other group of people - even if they have a just and legitimate cause - we’re putting them in the position to fight a war that we ourselves are not willing to fight. Typically these groups do not enjoy universal legitimacy, which means there are people who are impacted by the fighting who did not want to fight in the first place and did not sign up for the violence or its consequences. There are innocent bystanders in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Ukraine, and in various other places throughout the world who have ended up living in war zones that they had no part in creating. When we promote war, or arm and train rebels, or give any other material or logistical or moral support to parties to these wars, we then become partially responsible for whatever happens to the civilians who actually live in the war zones we are helping to create.

So while I personally might agree with some fight for freedom or sovereignty or even territory, I don’t think it’s right or legitimate to promote a war that will victimize people who have no say in the matter - especially if it’s a war that I personally would not be willing to fight. And make no mistake: almost none of the people who want us to “stand in solidarity” with Ukraine would actually pick up a gun and stand in front of a Russian tank column advancing on Donetsk. And of course we wouldn’t: we have no stake in the matter, and we know it.

At heart, all of this talk of deterrence and Ukrainian sovereignty is a paper-thin veneer over a “let’s you and him fight” mentality. If you want to understand what it means for someone to express “support” for Ukraine, ask yourself whose life is on the line.

Waking Up in Russia

My brother-in-law lives and works in Moscow, and sends money to his mother here in Georgia on a regular basis. She considers this a “second pension” since the pension from the Georgian government is not even close to enough to live on.

This situation is not unusual. As you can see in this chart, Russia in the past has accounted for over 50% of remittances to Georgia. The share of remittances from Russia declined markedly from 2014-2016 because the ruble crashed due to a worldwide drop in oil prices, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Georgians have stopped living and working in Russia - only that the value of the money they make to send home has declined relative to other currencies, so Georgians living in the EU, US, UK, etc. contribute a relatively larger share.

Photo: Transparency International Georgia

The point is, lots of Georgians live and work in Russia.

Meanwhile, the Georgian people are more or less united against the Russian occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (or Samachablo, which is the Georgian name for the region, preferred by people who think that changing what you call something can rearrange geopolitics in your favor). In South Ossetia, there is a border fence put up and maintained by Russian soldiers, and every once in a while they’ll pick it up and move it a few meters further into Georgian territory, usually at night when no one is watching. As a result, there have been Georgians who, as they say, “went to sleep in Georgia and woke up in Russia.”

Of course, this is bad. I would not want to wake up in Russia. I would not want to lose access to neighbors, to services, to land I have used or lived on for my entire life. I would certainly not be happy to wake up under a regime which jails or murders journalists and dissidents and which stomps all over individual rights and freedoms. Still, I can’t help but notice a contradiction between “I would fight and die not to wake up in Russia” and “I’ve decided to move to Russia and wake up there every day because despite its problems it at least has enough of a functioning economy that I can live a decent life and also support my family at home.”

Georgians care deeply about the territorial integrity of Georgia, and yet when the chips are down and there’s a choice to be made, it seems that most Georgians choose to have peaceful and prosperous relations with Russia and Russians rather than go to war over it. I think we should respect that choice, and avoid doing anything which pushes the country towards war. I think we can also build off of it and work towards eventually normalizing relations and ending the conflict.

The other thing about the “creeping occupation” is that Georgia could stop it by agreeing to a set of fixed borders with South Ossetia and putting up their own fence with their own border patrols, but they won’t do it because of pride. Or, as they’d say, because acknowledging a “border” with South Ossetia would be tantamount to acknowledging South Ossetia’s “sovereignty” which would be the same as “giving up” Georgia’s territory, which they claim is a vital and fundamental part of what it means to be Georgian. Again, we have people who think that changing what you call something will somehow rearrange geopolitics in your favor.

Georgia is not Afghanistan - the government can’t just wait until the Russians get tired and go home. The choices available are 1) allow your territory and citizens to be slowly annexed by Russia with no theoretical limit or 2) admit that some of your territory and citizens have been annexed by Russia so that you can at least end the process. Somehow the “pro-Putin” position is 2 and the “anti-Putin” position is 1, despite the fact that 1 is exactly what Putin wants.

It gets even crazier, though. Georgians can’t go to South Ossetia but they can go to Moscow and live there and work and send money back home to Georgia. If Georgia normalized relations with South Ossetia, presumably Georgians would be able to go there too. They could visit their ancestral villages and pour one out over their ancestors’ graves. They could have access if they gave up their (unenforceable) claim to that territory. Personally, I’d prefer access.

Now look: I am unambiguously not saying that I think it is okay for Putin to bully and destabilize his neighbors or that Georgians are wrong for wanting to maintain the territorial integrity of Georgia. What I am saying is that the realistic best outcome here is probably for Georgia to hammer out a deal with Russia that it won’t really be happy about but that will allow its citizens to have peace, stability, and at least some kind of access to the places they want to travel to. The sooner everyone gets on board with that reality, the sooner I can stop worrying that someday my son will be drafted to fight for Georgia against his Moscow-born cousin who will be drafted to fight for Russia in a war that absolutely does not need to happen over some territory that neither of them have ever seen.

As I said at the top: we should look for a peaceful solution to this conflict which prioritizes the material needs of the people. Moreover, Russians and Georgians - who have close, often familial ties - do not want to fight each other. Western governments - who, again, have no stake in the matter - should stop piling fuel onto this fire immediately.

Strategic Concerns and Spurious WWII Comparisons

The strategic concern here is that if the West is seen as “giving in” to Putin it will “embolden” him to pull the same stunts elsewhere. Supposedly the West’s failure to manage the August 2008 war in Georgia laid the groundwork for Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

There’s never an explanation as to why, if Putin’s goal is territorial expansion, he did not simply seize Georgia wholesale in 2008. No explanation as to why he has not annexed Abkhazia as he has annexed Crimea. No explanation as to why he allowed eight years to pass between annexing Crimea and his current alleged plan to annex the rest of Ukraine. No concrete theory as to what his next target might be. There’s no explanatory model of Putin’s mind that predicts what he’s going to do or when, or even explains what he has done in the past or why. What there is, however, is an unending barrage of spurious Hitler comparisons, as if Hitler had taken Poland one province at a time over a period of eight years. Also, the last time I checked, Russia already has quite a lot of territory, so I’m not sure what Putin would think he has to gain by doing heavily-contested land grabs and risking international ire (and sanctions) in the process.

I think the realists, as exemplified by e.g. John Mearsheimer (pdf, also see the lecture below), have the more convincing explanation of Putin’s behavior: he is not concerned with territory, but with security. Putin wants a military, political, and economic buffer between Russia and the West. Putin looks at military expansion through NATO, economic expansion through the EU, and political expansion through NED/USAID, and sees a tripartite assault on Russia’s national interests.

Putin is not mistaken about this threat, but as Mearsheimer points out in his lecture, it wouldn’t matter if he were: international relations requires us to put ourselves in the shoes of the various actors involved and see things from their perspectives, even if those perspectives are different or even factually incorrect. And Putin can make his own WWII comparison: Russia remembers being invaded by European forces along its vulnerable Western flank, and according to Russian estimates, somewhere in the ballpark of 20 million Russians died as a result. WWII was not the first invasion of Russia from the West and Putin thinks it might not be the last. But again, I’m not here to adjudicate whose WWII comparison is more valid. The point is that Putin views Ukraine as a key strategic interest and has his own reasons and justifications to support that view.

The West, on the other hand, does not see Ukraine as a key strategic interest. The West sort of blundered into this crisis thinking it could pursue Euro-Atlantic military, political, and economic integration with no consequences and no complaints. That was fine - we’ll take an easy win - but it’s not something we’re willing to fight Russia over. Ultimately, no one in NATO is willing to risk war - let alone nuclear war - over Ukrainian sovereignty or territorial integrity.

Giving in to Putin here would undoubtedly remove any lingering doubts about Western resolve viz-a-viz Ukraine, but Putin is calling our bluff here, and we absolutely are bluffing. The US evacuating its embassy in Kiev is all the evidence you need that we aren’t planning to go to war to defend Ukraine’s territory. Sure, we’ll beef up security in Poland to soothe nerves among NATO allies, but Ukraine is not a NATO ally. No Article 5, no defensive alliance, no defense. We’ve already given in to Putin.

Unfortunately, the only two realistic options here are a) Ukraine becomes a proxy war, in which we arm the pro-Western forces and Russia arms and supports the pro-Russian forces, and this ends up being an absolute unmitigated catastrophe for the people of Ukraine but no real progress is made on either side and neither side is willing to officially commit troops for fear of escalating the conflict to all-out war; or b) we negotiate our way out of it, largely by appeasing Putin.

Appeasing Putin means disavowing or dropping NATO expansion plans - although it may be possible for NATO to quietly agree to drop expansion plans while publicly maintaining face in some way. It probably means halting the integration of Ukraine into the EU and/or cutting Russia in on any economic agreements or partnerships that involve the EU and Ukraine. It probably means some kind of guarantee of minority rights for ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers in Ukraine. At this point, it might entail Ukraine losing meaningful control over Donbas.

None of these are unreasonable concessions. What I mean is, these are concessions that could stop the fighting, and thereby save lives, and lay the groundwork for development in Ukraine which would improve people’s material, economic conditions. The only downsides are that that NATO and the EU would have to sacrifice some of their ambitions, and some people would (incorrectly) perceive it as a loss of sovereignty on the part of Ukraine.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

I keep encountering the argument that Ukraine is a sovereign state and has the right to decide if it wants to join the EU and NATO and any other international institution. This is undoubtedly true, but irrelevant. I am not suggesting Ukraine should somehow be stripped of its right to join international organizations. I am suggesting that the member states of NATO and the EU should exercise their own sovereignty by halting their efforts to expand.

I’ll start by just looking at NATO expansion. At its simplest this is a conflict of interest between two parties. NATO wants to expand eastward. Russia wants NATO not to expand eastward. One or both parties will have to compromise (not get what they want) in order for this situation to be resolved.

My personal favorite solution would be for Russia to just give in. It would be great if Ukraine could join NATO and Russia could just be okay with it. If I had any power to influence Russian policy I would advocate for this solution. If I had Putin’s ear I’d tell him to let Ukraine join NATO, let Georgia join NATO - heck, let Russia join NATO, and we could all bandwagon against China and it would all be sunshine and rainbows on the European front.

Unfortunately for my dream of pan-European peace and cooperation, Putin is not going to be willing to go along with this plan. Lots of people are saying that Putin is evil or aggressive or malicious or malevolent, and if this is true, then we certainly shouldn’t expect him to suddenly reverse course on the NATO expansion issue. This does not morally excuse Putin from blame for the current crisis, but it does narrow our solution space down quite a bit.

Given that we can’t get what we want - which is for Russia to give up its demand that NATO cease its eastward expansion - we have two remaining options. One, we give up on NATO expansion. Two, we go to war with Russia over Ukraine.

Note that NATO is a security alliance - its mission is to safeguard the security of its members. War with Russia would be the opposite of that. So NATO can’t really pursue option two, and no one really expects them to, since it goes against their entire raison d'être. That leaves concession.

Again, the world would be better off if Putin could be convinced to give up his demands. Unfortunately, he can’t. It doesn’t matter if the US is in some sense morally “right” about the status of Ukraine and Putin is in some sense morally “wrong” for disregarding Ukraine’s sovereignty, because in global politics there is no moral arbiter for you to make that case to - at least, none with the enforcement power to get Putin to back down.

Instead, it is every country’s responsibility to see to its own interests. Russia is seeing to its interests. Given that, NATO members need to see to their interests as well. War with Russia is not in the national interest of any NATO member. We can’t get what we want in this situation, and the right thing to do therefore is to acknowledge that and act accordingly. What NATO needs to do now - and probably will do, by all indications - is figure out a way to back off without losing too much face. The open question, I think, is whether they’ll back all the way off, or only back off enough to avoid nuclear war but leave Eastern Ukraine smoldering in a civil/proxy war indefinitely.

Perhaps someday the political realities in Russia will change. Putin will not be in charge forever. The rise of China could totally upset the balance of power. NATO can afford to play the long game. NATO can’t afford a nuclear war. Note that the question of Ukrainian sovereignty does not arise anywhere in this analysis: this is about NATO members pursuing their own interests. As a US citizen I am pointing out that it is in the interests of the US to avoid war.

But also, if we are to consider the interests of the Ukrainian people, I just want to reiterate that provoking Russia into a war on Ukraine’s territory (or allowing Russia to provoke us into a war on Ukraine’s territory - same consequence no matter how you frame it) can hardly be said to be in Ukraine’s best interests, sovereignty or no sovereignty. If someone asked you to sign up for a war for Ukrainian sovereignty that would be fought on the streets of your hometown, I doubt you’d find the issue so clear-cut. We are talking about Ukrainian people who would die, Ukrainian infrastructure which would be destroyed, Ukrainian children who would grow up without parents. If NATO members are being asked to consider Ukraine’s interests, we need to consider all of Ukraine’s interests, and prioritize them appropriately as well.

I think it would be better for Ukraine for NATO to back all the way off, and let the EU negotiate some kind of resolution to the conflict which actually ends hostilities, even if this ends up leaving Ukraine more subject to Russian influence than the EU would prefer. The priority should not be expanding the European common market - the priority should be ending the eight-year-long war in Ukraine.

The economic analysis is similar. It is probably not in the EU’s interests to have a conflict with Russia over Ukraine. The EU and Russia are economically interdependent - specifically, the EU relies on Russia as a major supplier of natural gas - which means conflict between the two entities will be costly to both. As Mearsheimer points out, Russia is willing to endure economic hardship in pursuit of core security goals. However, the EU is unlikely to want to endure economic hardship in pursuit of economic or soft power goals. Again, the question of what Ukraine wants is not really relevant to the question of whether it is in the interests of the EU to expand to include Ukraine.

A final small note: I am leaving out of this analysis the question of Ukrainian sovereignty, because I don’t think it impacts the decisions to be made at the EU and NATO level. I am also leaving out the question of the sovereignty, autonomy, and self-determination of the people in the breakaway regions. Very few people seem concerned about what the citizens of Crimea or Donbass want, or deserve, or are entitled to.

In fact, which entities are entitled to sovereignty and which are not is generally a result of historical applications of power, rather than some sort of fair, natural, organic, or rational sovereignty allocation process. One might ask why Kiev gets sovereignty but Donetsk does not. Why the Turks and Iraqis have sovereignty but not the Kurds. Why the US and Canada have sovereignty but not the First Nations. Why Tbilisi has sovereignty but not Sokhumi. Why Israel has sovereignty but not Palestine. These questions are fraught and provocative, and I will not answer any of them, because again, “great power” politics is not concerned with moral or ontological questions like “who gets to be a state and who doesn’t”. You’re sovereign if you have the power to be recognized as sovereign, end of story. Ukraine, it turns out, does not have the power to join NATO - or even to govern its whole territory. You might think it should, but you don’t have the power to give Ukraine that power, no matter how vehemently you assert it on social media, and you can either act accordingly or you can be in denial. Just remember that Putin is many things, but “in denial” is not one of them - and dealing with him competently requires us to engage with reality as we find it, not as we wish it.

Conclusion

The West should negotiate a new status quo with Russia that is acceptable to both sides and does not result in a series of war zones and frozen conflicts remaining along the periphery of Europe. It is in everyone’s best interests to do this. It would involve concessions from the West which would be made with a clear-eyed assessment of what is achievable and what is feasible.

If this new status quo leaves countries like Ukraine and Georgia more open to Russian influence, that will certainly not be something to celebrate - but it will certainly not be worse than war.

Personally, living in Georgia, I do not believe that the process of Westernization is so fragile that a withdrawal of the invitation to join NATO will result in a wholesale loss of the country to Russia. Georgia has deep economic and cultural connections to both Russia and Europe and a strong independent streak. When I go shopping here I routinely see Russian, Ukrainian, and Western European goods alongside each other on store shelves. Nearly every Georgian I know speaks at least some English and some Russian. Georgia will not simply abandon these ties. I suspect the situation in Ukraine is similar.

I also believe the current status quo is not just untenable, but deeply unfair to Georgia and Ukraine. The West has allowed these countries to believe that we will help them solve their territorial disputes - that NATO membership is the magic bullet that will restore Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Donbas, and Crimea to them - when in fact we have absolutely no plans to do this. We’ve been overpromising and underdelivering for years, and in doing so we have been undercutting their incentive to make the hard choices, cut their losses, and come to terms with their new realities.

Overblown rhetoric about “Russian aggression” might feel good, but it accomplishes nothing. If this were a morality play, we could all boo and hiss at Putin and be right, and nothing more would be asked of us. But this is the real world, and lives are at stake, and people are treating this conflict like a game of Risk or exploiting it to score unrelated political points. We should instead be telling our representatives, with one voice, that we do not want war, we do not want belligerence, and we do not want to push people in other countries to play out our childish fantasies of world domination.

Warning: Do not try this at home in the real world