5 Fallacies of Stephen Cohen on Ukraine --- Professor Stephen Cohen is one of the most vocal voices in the West who tries to show the Russiann position and argumentation in the current crisis in Ukraine. By doing so, however, he does not end up showing a balanced picture; instead, his analysis serves to justify Russian actions and puts the blame on the West. In his latest article “The New Cold War and the Necessity of Patriotic Heresy: US fallacies may be leading to war with Russia” he lists five commonly accepted opinions in the West and, by dismissing them, directs the blame away from Moscow towards Washington. In this short essay, I refute his opinions (or what he calls “facts”) to critically assess Cohen’s own assessment of the topic. 1. The first step in Cohen’s ladder of argumentation regards the West’s mistreating of Russia. Here Cohen argues that since the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation was not treated as an equal partner but was rather neglected as a defeated power. In Cohen’s words, the West did exactly that when it “spearheaded the expansion of NATO into Russia’s traditional zones of national security”. In this drive, as Cohen believes, “Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Georgia, were the ultimate goals.” The biggest mistake in this argument is that Ukraine and Georgia are viewed not as sovereign states, but merely as “Russia’s traditional zones of national security”. What about Ukraine’s and Georgia’s traditional zones of national security – their own sovereign territories? The idea of Ukraine and Georgia being nothing more than “Russia’s traditional zones of national security” is a remnant of the Cold War and the bipolar perception of world affairs. Therefore, Stephen Cohen makes a mistake when, on the one hand he accuses Washington of resuming the Cold War and on the other, justifies Russian interests with a Cold War era argument. Another interesting point is that Cohen distinguishes only Georgia and Ukraine as NATO’s preferred “prizes” in undermining Russia’s security, while leaving out other former Soviet states in the Russian neighbourhood: Belarus, Moldova, Armenia or Azerbaijan. He fails to explain why Ukraine and Georgia were desired objects for NATO, and not, say, Azerbaijan, which has an additional perk of owning huge amounts of oil. What Cohen did here iswhat Paul Goble calls disinformation: first, he disregarded the fact that since 2010 Ukraine withdrew its desire for NATO integration and left Georgia as the only country in the neighbourhood aspiring for the membership in the alliance. Second, he somehow managed to interpret Georgia’s wish for NATO membership as NATO’s aggressive expansion not just in Georgia, but in Ukraine too. In the end, the readers get the impression that NATO forced two countries in Russia’s neighbourhood into its alliance against their will, while in reality, only one country had been trying in vain for the last decade or so to become a full member of NATO and did not even manage to receive a Membership Action Plan, not to say anything about membership itself, thanks to the reluctance within NATO. 2. According to Cohen’s second statement, Ukraine is not even a single nation. And the country’s many divisions on ethnic, cultural, linguistic, economic and political lines, he argues, do not allow a united Ukraine to “escape Russians and join the West. The first mistake here is seeing eastern Ukraine as dominated by ethnic Russians, thus politically automatically pro-Russian. According tothe 2001 census, only in Crimea were the Russians in the majority. In the east of Ukraine, the Russians represent only a minor share of the population. For instance, in Donetsk and Luhansk, the regions that are supposedly keen on joining Russia or at least separate from Ukraine, 57 and 58 per cent of the population identify themselves as Ukrainian and only 38 and 39 per cent as Russian respectively. This however does not mean that we should perceive peoples from the western and eastern regions of Ukraine as having similar economic, political or even cultural attributes and foreign policy preferences. But is it correct to assume based on these differences that there is no single Ukrainian nation? There is barely a country in the world as big and as populous as Ukraine that does not have similar divisions among its different regions. The other important attempt of disinformation from Stephen Cohen is portraying Ukraine’s choice for the EU as incompatible with the presence of a large ethnic Russian minority mostly in the east and south of the country. First of all, the joining with the EU (which is not even part of a short or medium-term agenda) does not imply ending Ukraine’s economic, political or cultural relations with Russia, unless Moscow decides so. Lithuania is a good example of this: despite being a full member of the EU,her biggest trade partner is still Russiawith 16 per cent of export going to and 30 per cent of import coming from Russia. Second, Estonia and Latvia, a quarter of whose population is ethnically Russian, represent a very strong precedent of ethnic Russians enjoying their respective countries’ membership in the EU. 3. Cohen next argues that it was aggression from the side of West, not Russia, which led to the current crisis. Specifically, “the EU proposal [on Ukraine’s Association Agreement] was a reckless provocation compelling the democratically elected president [Yanukovych] of a deeply divided country to choose between Russia and the West. So too was the EU’s rejection of Putin’s counter-proposal of a Russian-European-American plan to save Ukraine from financial collapse.” First, despite Cohen’s attempt to portray the Association Agreement with the EU as a zero-sum decision, it is everything but. Nowhere in the text of the agreement, nor in the speeches of the EU representatives, can we find wording, nor a slight implication, that Ukraine must stop or reduce the level of relations, be it economic, political or any other kind, with Russia. The only limit that is introduced is Ukraine’s possibility to become part of the Eurasian Union, because the trade deal with the EU will not, in practical terms, work otherwise. If this is “a recklessprovocation compelling to choose between Russia and the West”, then so was theMoscow’s multiple threatsto stop trade with Ukraine if Kyiv had signed the EU deal. According toRT, Russia’s state-financed media outlet, “Ukraine sees more economic opportunity in Europe and hopes to act as a ‘bridge’ between Russia and the EU, [but] Russia has made it clear there will be no ‘bridge’ if Ukraine steps Wes.t” From the rhetoric we have been hearing for the past years regarding the EU-Ukraine deal and import bans from Russia against Ukraine and other neighbours, one could observe that the only actor who used a zero-sum approach as a method of coercion was Russia and certainlynot the EU. Cohen continues to blame the EU for rejecting Putin’s trilateral plan for helping Ukraine financially. The first lie is obvious: it was not the EU, but Ukraine, which rejected the Russian plan. Only 14 per cent of the whole Ukrainian population supports federalisation, which was the main condition of this plan. In the east and south of the country the number is a little higher (26 and 22 per cent respectively), but not sufficient enough for Ukraine to embrace the plan. But what is more interesting, Cohen fails to recognise thereasonsbehind the rejection. Other than forcing Ukraine to federalise, which considered giving unprecedented amount of power to the regions, including over the issues of foreign affairs,the Russian plangave unrealistic rights to Russia over domestic areas of its neighbouring country, such as conditions to Ukraine to postpone presidential elections, make changes in the Ukrainian constitution, and pledge political and military neutrality, which means Ukraine refusing to pursue NATO membership. 4. In search of roots of the current conflict, Cohen argues that “Putin’s actions have been mostly reactive” and therefore, he must not be blamed for the conflict escalation. Instead, it was the “February coup” (when Viktor Yanukovych fled to Russia) and its architects (“extreme nationalist and even semi-fascist street forces” of the Maidan, Europe and Washington) who are to blame for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the rebellious war in Donbas. First, let’s define the so-called “coup”. I side with the definition of Anders Aslundaccording to which “[Yanukovych] lost his parliamentary majority on February 20 after having ordered the killing of 100 citizens and he was voted out with a constitutional majority of two-thirds.” This act was well above those standards of democracy that Yanukovych himself established during his presidency. And by far more democratic than changing the constitution to allow oneself a third (and expected fourth) term of the presidency, as it happened in Russia, the country which blames Ukraine for not keeping up with the accepted norms of democracy. However, whether we accept the notion of a “coup” or not is absolutely meaningless in the debate. It is more important to establish whether the “coup” itself can be used as an excuse for starting a conflict. I agree that Putin’s steps were largely reactive, but it was still his own decisions, whether reactive or well-planned years before, that really constituted the start of the war in Ukraine. Only the claim of “coup” cannot explain the sudden desire among the Crimean Russians to hold a referendum and split from Ukraine, or among the Donbas residents to take up arms against Kyiv. The onlypossible threatto the ethnic Russians in Ukraine could have been the cancellation of the 2012 language law (allowing the regions to officially use minority languages) which was not even fulfilled in the end (because it was vetoed by the acting president Turchynov). Even in 2010, before the law was adopted to give more rights to the Russian-speakers, only nine per cent of Ukraine’s population felt that their own native language was repressed. Even if after Turchynov’s veto, some concerns continued to exist among the ethnic Russians of Ukraine, it could not have possibly justified the presence of Russian troops in Crimea and Russian intelligence officers and armament in Donbas. The mere replacement of pro-Russian Yanukovych by a more pro-Western government cannot be counted as a rational cause for armed conflict in Donbas and for the referendum in Crimea. Unless, of course, you bring in other variables to the mix: the Russian media propaganda that portrayed the new government in Kyiv as almost a reincarnation of the Third Reich and Russian military’s encouragement to instigate rebellion against the government in Ukraine. These most meaningful factors, however, come from the Kremlin and indicate that Putin’s actions, more than anything else, brought the biggest damage to Ukraine. 5. Finally, Cohen discusses the possibility to end the conflict. He does not believe that Putin is capable of ending the conflict by stopping his military support. Instead, Cohen considers the key to peaceful resolution lay within Washington, which has to convince Kyiv to stop military action in Donbas. The maximum of what Putin can do, according to Cohen, is to bring the “rebels” to the negotiating table after Kyiv stops its military operation. Playing down Putin’s influence is a comfortable tactic to remove responsibility from Russia and attach it to the rival actor. This, however, is an incorrect assessment of the situation. The conflict in the east of Ukraine started with Russia providing arms and personnel to the Donbas locals, proclaiming the People’s Republics in Luhansk and Donetsk, and starting a military siege of the regions. Kyiv’s military action is directed at forcing the illegal warriors in the region to surrender. Therefore, Kyiv cannot stop its action unless it sees the readiness from the opposing side to peacefully end the crisis. Raising the issue of American responsibility to end the violence in eastern Ukraine is even further from logic. Cohen believes that Putin cannot have much impact on the rebellion, even though as the professor himself admits, Putin “influences and no doubt aids the Donbas self-defenders”. Unlike Putin, Obama does not arm or support Kyiv in any meaningful way in its actions against the “rebels”. Washington’s leverage over Kyiv is incomparably lower than that of Moscow over the Donbas rebellion. Therefore, if Cohen does not consider one foreign actor to be capable of stopping one party of the conflict (over which he certainly exerts influence), it is curious then why does the professor believe that the other foreign actor (with much less tangible influence on the second party of the conflict) is able and responsible to end the violence. Moreover, if Moscow viewed an American attempt to stop Assad from annihilating opposition warriors and peaceful population alike as an illegitimate act of foreign interference in Syria’s domestic affairs, why does Putin encourage Obama to interfere in Kyiv’s attempt to restore order within its sovereign territory? I understand that it is preferable for a journalist or a scholar to look at the issues from more than one angle. However, this is not enough for a sound judgment or objective evaluation. As Paul Goble has recently noticed: “Many western journalists confuse balance with objectivity. That means if anyone is in a position to put out a version of the story, however outrageous, journalists will often report it as one of the points of view out there, especially if the situation is confused or uncertain. Invariably, doing so is called objectivity but in fact it is anything but. Instead, it gives an opening to governments, which are prepared to lie and to spread their lies widely, confident that what they say, however untrue or outrageous, will be reported.” Stephen Cohen’s attempt to revise mainstream western views simply by bringing Moscow’s argument cannot bring us any closer to the truth. It is just a repetition of the Kremlin’s disinformation. Gela Merabishvili works at the Tbilisi State University as an editor of the e-library. He studied at the Tbilisi State University and Maastricht Univers
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 13:29:46 +0000
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