John McWrice
Member
- Jan 31, 2017
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Recent article “The Ukraine-Russia Conflict: A Way Forward” by Matthew Rojansky in “The National Interest” (The Ukraine-Russia Conflict: A Way Forward) starts with quite strange introduction: it tells about preliminary finding issued by International Criminal Court (ICC) on November 14, 2016, which endorsed Ukraine’s claims about Russian aggression. The introduction ends with a meaningful phrase: “Russia canceled its membership in the court” in reference to triumph of justice and evasion of Moscow from the trial.
The strangeness of this message lies in the fact that the United States (The National Interest is American media) by themselves do not belong to ICC and are not going to come into it. Moreover, the author does not tell about any benefit to Ukraine from ICC finding; perhaps, the point is that all it judgements have no practical use...
The introduction is followed by the hoary cliches about “Russian invasion”, “Russian troops in Ukraine” (which nobody has ever seen), “occupation of the Crimea” and “Russian threat to Europe”. Conversely, the Mr. Rojansky tells that Russia is only a guarantee of ceasefire agreements between Ukraine and “pro-Russian separatists”. It turns out that he contradicts himself! Or, maybe, it is double standards.
By extension of the idea about Minsk II inefficiencies, the author comes to another odd conclusion – the USA should play a central role in management of the conflict in Donbass. This statement is reasoned by the same old idle remarks like “United States still holds many of the important cards, in terms of incentivizing Russia to cooperate” or “Washington clearly has an inescapable role to play in this process”. It should be noted that Mr. Rojansky is blunt about the fact that the USA has “vital interest” in Ukraine which situates “in a region of enormous strategic importance” – in other words, Ukraine is just an aim of US strategic interests. He also mentions that “the United States has expended more than $5 billion over the past quarter century to support Ukraine’s democratic development” – which turned out to be financial support of pro-American actors.
Seems like Mr. Rojansky discount a fact that Russia also has its own interests in this country…As for his statement about “threat to European security” from military buildup by Moscow (which makes it on its own territory!), he obviously forgets about it safeguarding concerns fueled by NATO activities near Russian borders.
What does the author mean by a central role of the USA in peace process? It is a funny thing, but this is not about talks with parties to the conflict – Ukraine and “pro-Russian separatists”. Mr. Rojansky offers to “increase Russia’s incentives to support a road map for Minsk II implementation by linking each step to specific sanctions relief” - in other words, not equitable dialogue but patronizing tone which was used by the USA towards Moscow in 1990-s.
It looks like the author is obvious to the fact that Russia of 1990-s and modern Russia are two completely different states with different potential and ambitions. Today Moscow has its own strategic interests in the world and Russia is an important player in global policy, whether Washington likes it or not…
