JVLV: UKRAINE CEASE FIRE: NO MORE U.S. “STRATEGIC PATIENCE!” By Jiri Valenta with Leni Friedman Valenta

The 17 hours Minsk negotiations of EU, Russian and Ukrainian leaders has produced a cease fire, effective February 15 -- but will this one stick?  A prior September 5^th Minsk agreement, did not.

First we must know what produced this one. Not just depressed oil prices, but the real threat of the U.S. arming the Ukraine and applying additional  sanctions  -- something  we were among the first to  suggest in the April 2013  Kyiv Post,   and which should have been done long ago.

The only thing that has ever worked with the Russians is not appeasement, but strength – as under Kennedy (Cuban Missile Crisis), and Carter and Reagan (Afghanistan and Poland). But in the spirit of “strategic patience” it has taken our leaders many months to  arrive at this crucial perception  with the loss of thousands of innocent lives.  If indeed they have.  America should not back down on arming Ukraine.

The U.S., with its leading from behind approach, was left behind at this summit.  But, the present agreement can only stick if the indispensable power, gets behind the agreement  pro-actively, leading from in front.  We caution that the Russians are masters of maskirovka [deception]. They create and look for ambiguous  loopholes  when crafting agreements and have followed some s with surprise invasions.

So far, key segments of the present cease fire are hazy with regard to who governs key regions and who controls the borders, nor can the agreement hold without clarity here.  Neither should the intended separation of the combatants with a demilitarized zone result in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions becoming de facto Russian protectorates as have Georgia´s South Ossetia and Abkhazia  after the 2008 Russo-Georgian war. 

Remember Reagan:  “Trust but verify.” The withdrawal of heavy weapons by the Russian separatists has to be verifiable with inspections and  U.S. and NATO intelligence  involved in the process.  Recall that for a long time  the separatists would not  even allow retrieval of dead bodies from the Malaysian plane tragedy. 

Also be aware of what caused this invasion.  It came after Putin’s Ukrainian puppet, corrupt and brutal Viktor Yanukovych,  took flight during a democratic Ukrainian revolution.  Putin was willing to accept a leader he could control.    

A second cause of the present intervention by proxies in the eastern Ukraine,  were the prior responses  of Presidents  Obama  and Bush the Russian 2008 invasion of Georgia.  The projected responses of the U.S.  is always key to the Russian decisions to use military force.  Amidst the presidential elections and administrative exhaustion, there was no significant response to the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008.  Under  Obama, It was followed by Hillary Clinton´s foolish attempt to “reset” the relationship with Russia  forgetting that two breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia  were carved from an independent country, Georgia.  “Gimmicks,” wrote former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, “ generally backfire.” Then came Obama´s weak response and failure to follow up with force after Assad crossed the chemical weapons Red Line in Syria.  .

Since military intervention discussed above is only one mode of Russian interventionism, we must focus on others, above all cyberwar as also happened in Estonia in 2007. By the same token, we should relentlessly engage pre-emptive diplomacy, economic reform and conflict avoidance at Russia´s periphery in neighboring country, above all Moldavia, and maintain our NATO commitment to the Baltics with small, trip-wire deployments. We must also encourage policies in Estonia, Latvia and Moldavia preventing any form of discrimination against Russian speakers.

Support for the new cease fire agreement, moreover, should be only the beginning of developing a comprehensive, double-pronged strategy aimed at curbing Russian interventionism at its periphery.  One prong would be to raise its cost  for Russia  with a firm American response.  The second prong should encourage reform-minded and democratic forces within the Russian Federation. We should not make the mistake of thinking there aren´t  any. As former NSC and Harvard historian Richard Pipes advised,  reform elements should be supported.  It was this policy, as well as the firmness of President Reagan, that previously aided the reform-minded leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev in the mid1980’s.

Our strategy should not be aimed at regime change in Russia.  Rather we should contain  Russian imperial ambitions by providing  a whole array of instruments aimed at curbing her expansionism including economic inducements and manipulation of gas and oil prices.   In the long run we must promote LNG export to our allies in Western Europe to lessen their dependence on Russian gas.

Finally, we acknowledge that Russian cooperation has been helpful to us in the past  with Syria and Iran.  Providing that Russia holds to the Minsk agreement this time, we could develop a strategic fellowship with her against the Islamic Jihad as we proposed earlier in The National Interest.