“One thing is clear: there can be no solution without Europe.” This remark by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen about the Ukraine security crisis resonates through the current diplomacy between the United States, Nato and Russian representatives.
Absent, too, from the talks were Ukrainian representatives, despite the possibility of a Russian invasion led by the 100,000 Russian troops marshalled on its border over recent months. US and Nato diplomats rejected Russian demands that Ukraine should never join their alliance, saying it has a sovereign right to choose.
Since any war would have huge consequences for Europe and Ukraine, their absence is bizarre. They both need to be part of whatever solutions emerge to avoid a military conflict.
Nato expansion was pursued by the Clinton administration in the 1990s and allowed by its European allies, despite US assurances in 1990 that it would not happen
Among the most convincing potential solutions are two rooted in European historical reality and statecraft: a treaty of permanent neutrality for Ukraine; and the 2015 Minsk II accords drawn up by a team including Germany, France, Ukraine and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe after the last round of fighting there.
A neutrality treaty could be modelled on the 1955 Austria one signed by the Soviet Union, the US, Britain and France and then endorsed by the Austrian parliament. This renounced alliance membership and foreign military bases on its territory, thereby allowing the sovereignty lost in the second World War to be regained.
The Minsk accords provide for a ceasefire, military withdrawals by foreign troops and a federal decentralisation in Ukraine giving veto powers to the disputed Donbass territories which have large Russian ethnic populations. The accords remain unimplemented because they demand too much from Ukrainian, US and Russian parties, but they are still a sensible way to tackle the intractable issues posed by Ukraine’s geopolitics.
Nato expansion was pursued by the Clinton administration in the 1990s and allowed by its European allies, despite US assurances in 1990 that it would not happen. A 2008 Nato summit endorsed possible Ukraine and Georgia membership despite repeated Russian warnings that this was a strategic threat.
The consequences of a direct US-Russian clash in Ukraine would be catastrophic. A full-scale conventional war would have the strong potential to escalate into nuclear war
The 2014 fighting and taking of Crimea bore that out and the same fear underlies today’s confrontation. The point stands despite the additional fear in Putin’s oligarchy that a democratic Ukraine would set a bad neighbouring precedent for their own continuing rule.
‘Redoubled insecurity’
As the Irish-American geopolitical analyst Gerard Toal put it in these pages recently: “The insecurity that Nato expansion was designed to address only redoubled insecurity as Russia rebuilt its power and reacted. A self-fulfilling security dilemma took hold. Nato expansion was justified by the very insecurity it produced.” And the same effect could be seen in Ukraine and other central and eastern European states as they reacted to Russia’s neo-imperialist behaviour.
A neutral and federalised Ukraine would cut across many of these interests, which is why such proposed solutions are so difficult to stomach and deliver.
It suits US and Russian leaders to disregard those who might favour them in the EU and Ukraine. If both are to help deliver solutions, they will have to overcome their respective disunities and make a convincing case that military options are best put off the table.
Another well-informed analyst on these questions, Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute in Washington, argues that a neutral, decentralised Ukraine could draw on the 1998 Belfast Agreement to make this case.
He is really worried about military escalation: “The consequences of a direct US-Russian clash in Ukraine would be catastrophic. A full-scale conventional war would have the strong potential to escalate into nuclear war and the annihilation of most of humanity. Even a limited war would cause a ruinous global economic crisis, necessitate the dispatch of huge US armed forces to Europe, and destroy for the foreseeable future any chance of serious action against climate change.”
From an Irish point of view, it is interesting to see such constructive potential uses of neutrality being discussed. It is time for these issues to be more thoroughly debated.
Ireland’s military neutrality is less legally entrenched than other European neutrals and is more pliable politically; but it is also much less well funded and its priorities too little discussed given these escalating threats and the radically changed strategic and economic environment of this State.
We are now a significant player in the transatlantic economy, facing cyber-security threats and can no longer hide behind Britain in the EU.
