Global Insight
March 19, 2014 11:10 am
Obama forced to focus on new Russian threat
Russia’s intervention in Crimea changes policy landscape
Six months before his 2012 re-election, President Barack Obama was caught on microphone talking to his then Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev. When it comes to sensitive issues such as missile defence in Poland, Mr Obama pointed out, “after the election, I will have more flexibility”.
As Vladimir Putin has cemented his control over Crimea in recent days, those words have been replayed by political opponents of the American president who see them as evidence of a stark naivety about the nature of the Russian regime.
In eastern Europe, the same hot mic conversation seemed to confirm the pervasive fear that the Obama administration was prepared to sellout the region’s security concerns – even of Nato members such as Poland – in the forlorn hope of doing diplomatic business with Mr Putin.
Russia’s military intervention in Crimea has changed the foreign policy landscape in Washington. The Obama administration is no longer building a large part of its foreign policy around doing deals with Mr Putin and it is eager to repair the perceived neglect of eastern Europe. After a period when the US wanted to focus on Asia and ended up obsessing about the Middle East, it will now pay much more attention to European security.
Vice-president Joe Biden is this week visiting Poland and Lithuania – two former Soviet satellite states in a high state of anxiety because of events in Ukraine – while Mr Obama will spend most of next week in Europe for a long-scheduled trip that will now be dominated by the new Russian threat.
One of Mr Obama’s challenges when he visits Europe next week will be to begin articulating a vision for how Nato, which is winding down its long war in Afghanistan, will respond to Russia’s newfound willingness to redraw European borders.
As well as the tough sanctions that the US is preparing if Russia intervenes in eastern Ukraine, Mr Obama will be under pressure in some quarters to provide greater military deterrence against Russian expansionism.
The US has already taken modest steps to boost Nato’s eastern presence. The Pentagon has sent 12 F-16 fighter jets to an aviation training exercise in Poland and another six aircraft to a Nato operation in the Baltic states. Two surveillance aircraft are to fly over Poland and Romania to monitor Ukraine, while a long-planned military exercise with Ukraine is still scheduled to go ahead in the summer.
Admiral James Stavridis, a former Nato commander, has suggested that the alliance should start sharing intelligence information with Ukraine and providing its forces with advice on how to position themselves in the event of a conflict.
Eric Edelman, a former senior Pentagon official and ambassador, says that Nato should revisit its pledge not to station substantial combat forces in former Soviet bloc members, such as Poland, and should seek to boost their defensive capabilities with anti-tank and anti-air systems. It might also consider equipping Polish military aircraft to carry nuclear weapons.
“I am not talking about a large, provocative, conventional military build-up,” he says, “but we need to make it difficult for Russia to do the sorts of things to Nato members that it has done with impunity in Crimea”.
There are two main problems with such ideas. The first is the potential impact on Russia. With Mr Putin capable of labelling anything Nato does as a provocation, the last thing the White House wants to do at the moment is to give him a propaganda excuse to interfere further in Ukraine.
The other risk is that they expose further political divisions within an alliance already at odds over what sort of sanctions to impose on Russia because of Crimea. The Bush administration’s 2008 proposal to bring Ukraine and Georgia into Nato was rejected by Germany and France. Mr Obama must therefore tread carefully. If he raises the military temperature too high, he could create a new split with Germany and other European governments. If that happens, the leader enjoying more flexibility would be Mr Putin.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2014.
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