None of Russia’s Many Excuses for Invading Ukraine Withstand Scrutiny

In a recent article, Noah Carl commented on a video published by NATO in which the organisation rebutted a couple of points of contention, calling the video “bizarre”. Noah contests NATO’s first point – that it’s a defensive alliance and is not trying to encircle Russia – by pointing out, amongst other things:

Since 1992, NATO has carried out several offensive operations, such as […] the invasion of Afghanistan

This remark brought to mind a quote usually attributed to Daniel Patrick Moynihan:

You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

There are of course some alive today who were either born after September 11th 2001 or who were too young to remember it clearly, but for anyone who was around at the time or who has learned about it since, it would be rather remiss – to put it mildly – to disregard the only time in NATO’s history when the mutual defense clause, Article 5, was invoked. It was of course a defensive conflict under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and to ignore that fact is “bizarre”.

As to the NATO operations in Libya and the former Yugoslavia which Noah also cites, it’s fair to say that these very limited air-only operations could only be considered “defensive” in nature if one views the defence of peace and human rights as a legitimate basis for intervention – which some people dislike, although interventions by individual states or coalitions on human rights grounds can, I would argue, be legitimate and morally just. However, it’s also quite difficult to apply the term “offensive” to these operations, since the aim was not the acquisition of territory or even the military surrender by one state to another. It’s a grey area, but one which the international community is increasingly finding itself having to address. The details matter, but so does the bigger picture: it is quite unserious to imply that those NATO operations have really made Russia fearful of an attack by NATO, and nor do those operations seriously undermine the fundamental purpose of NATO as a defensive alliance.

Noah also implies that Russia’s stated fears over a hypothetical NATO presence in Ukraine are akin to JFK’s point-blank refusal to allow the Soviet Union to position nuclear missiles in Cuba, which gave rise to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. But this ignores the very important fact that this event occurred before the existence of ICBMs, meaning it gave the Soviet Union a potential first-strike capability that was a genuine existential threat. It’s also true that the US’s prior positioning of similar missiles in Turkey was a threat to the Soviet Union and a rather reckless move. But no such threat would come into existence by the accession of Ukraine to NATO, so Cuba is simply a bad analogy.

Later on in his article, Noah describes as “amusing” the statement by NATO that “every sovereign nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements”. He finds this amusing because of comments made by the U.S. regarding the recently-signed security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands, in which it is said (amongst other things) that the U.S. would have “significant concerns” about a permanent Chinese military presence on the islands:

So the U.S. clearly doesn’t accept that “every sovereign nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements”, since it believes the Solomon Islands doesn’t have the right to host a Chinese military base.

But having “concerns” – even “significant concerns” – about such a military presence is very far removed from a denial by the U.S. of the sovereign right of the Solomon Islands to conduct its own policies in this regard. Indeed, that very same U.S. statement contains the following words:

The United States respects the right of nations to make sovereign decisions in the best interests of their people.

I would urge readers to review that U.S. statement (and the actions of the U.S. in regard to the Solomon Islands generally) to see if there really is anything of the sort that Noah suggests. I may be wrong, but I don’t think an invasion of the Solomon Islands is imminent – despite the fact that the U.S. (or Australia) would easily win such an engagement. The quote-mining and distortion of reality in order to paint U.S. or NATO actions as sinister – or at least hypocritical – puts me in mind of the brilliantly-imagined Noam Chomsky analysis of The Lord of the Rings in which we’re informed that it’s all a plot by Gandalf to corner the pipe-weed market.

But when it comes to quote-mining, two can play at that game. Consider, for example, Putin’s comments in 2014 regarding Kazakhstan:

Kazakhs had never had statehood.

One doesn’t have to have a terribly cynical view of the world to see that Russia has been playing the same game with Kazakhstan as it has with Ukraine (even possibly lining up for an attack). I quote this because if Noah believes that Putin’s denial of Ukrainian statehood and the invasions since 2014 were really NATO’s fault, he should have an explanation of why Putin is so clearly unconcerned about Finland joining NATO, and why Putin takes the same attitude towards other ex-Soviet nations on its borders, even those who have never been considered as future NATO members.

In other words, the expansion of NATO is neither a necessary nor a sufficient explanation for Russia’s actions. The very simple and straightforward explanation is that – as with other ex-Soviet states on Russia’s borders – Putin doesn’t consider that Ukraine has a right to exist, and is carrying out an irredentist policy with the final aim of extirpating the quite distinct and separate Ukrainian culture, language and identity and absorbing its territory, people and resources into a ‘greater Russia’.

But if these supposed fears of NATO expansion don’t sound like a good enough principle for Russia to stand on, then don’t worry, Russia has other ones. In fact, Russia has a myriad of factitious grievances tailored to suit the prejudices of any given audience, so there’s always ‘neo-Nazism’, ‘oppression of “ethnic Russians”‘, ‘Maidan was a coup’, ‘lack of a distinct Ukrainian identity and state’, ‘too many powerful Jews’ and ‘promotion of gay rights’ – many of which are mutually contradictory, none of which are credible or just, and all of which boil down to jealousy, greed and a lust for power.