The Resolve Fairy Strikes Again
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My latest at the Diplomat looks at one of the more interesting points made in the big Jeff Goldberg article on Obama:
But as Ioffe points out, that idea that the “red line” in Syria mattered a great deal to Russian decision-making appears to be news to actual Russians who make decisions. Instead of carefully calibrating their foreign policy based on close analysis of Obama’s rhetoric, Russian policymakers appear to have scrutinized their own national interests and capabilities. In short, Ioffe finds no evidence whatsoever that Russia viewed Obama’s Syria decisions as a green light for invading Ukraine. This finding accords with nearly all the relevant researchon the topic in the field of international relations.
Worth quoting the Ioffe article at some length:
But did Obama’s refusal to bomb Syria in 2013 really give Putin the green light in Ukraine? It is a question Jeffrey Goldberg poses to Obama, who, of course, swats it away. “Look, this theory is so easily disposed of that I’m always puzzled by how people make the argument,” Obama says. “I don’t think anybody thought that George W. Bush was overly rational or cautious in his use of military force. And as I recall, because apparently nobody in this town does, Putin went into Georgia [in 2008] on Bush’s watch, right smack dab in the middle of us having over 100,000 troops deployed in Iraq.” Obama repudiates the “crazy Nixon” thesis, which says, essentially: Be crazy, be unpredictably harsh, and geopolitics are your oyster.
And:
Goldberg’s exploration of the Red Line Moment made me curious about how the Russians see this common and unexamined refrain: Obama showed weakness on Syria so Putin exploited it in Ukraine.
“Wow, it’s kind of a revelation what you just said,” said a very surprised source from the Russian Foreign Ministry, who was not authorized to speak on the record, on hearing the question. “It’s not tied to any kind of reality. These things are not connected to each other in any way.” “It is absolutely made up,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the equally surprised editor ofRussia in Global Affairs, who has a reputation for channeling the Kremlin view. “You shouldn’t think of Putin as such a primitive guy. It’s totally clear that the Syrian and Ukrainian crises had nothing to do with one another.” For Lukyanov, it’s almost insulting to suggest a connection. “Technically, it was possible then for Obama to hit Syria and destroy Damascus,” Lukyanov said. “Then Syria would have been yet another government that would’ve paid for doing something wrong. But Russia is a nuclear superpower, and this kind of rationale vis-a-vis Russia is senseless.”
I cannot recommend strongly enough reading the Syria section of Goldberg’s article. Obama essentially, on his own, rejected the broad (but utterly evidence free) Washington consensus on the importance of “credibility” in American foreign policy.