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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Crafting a win-win-win for Russia, Ukraine and the West

Crafting a win-win-win for Russia, Ukraine and the West

By Michael O'Hanlon and Jeremy Shapiro  |  7 December 2014
The writers are fellows in the foreign policy program of the Brookings Institution.
Recent reports of more troop and equipment movements into the separatist-held regions of Ukraine suggest that Russia is once again seeking to stir up trouble. The natural Western reaction has been to respond with firmness. Sanctions may be tightened; defensive weaponry may be provided to Ukraine’s underequipped and overmatched military. Given such bullying Russian tactics, this reaction is not only natural but perhaps inevitable.
Yet the Western policy response is half-wrong, and the incorrect part of it risks making 2015 just as bad a year for Ukrainian security and East-West relations as was 2014. Western policymakers do not deserve blame for the unconscionable tactics that Russian President Vladi­mir Putin has employed in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. But their actions risk reinforcing an action-reaction dynamic that will quite probably make the No. 1 victim of this crisis to date — the people of Ukraine — worse off than before.
This is not a moral question. It is entirely justifiable to provide weapons to a sovereign nation seeing its territory assaulted by a much more powerful neighbor. But regardless of right and wrong, the result of providing weapons will not be a robust self-defense capability for Ukraine. The Ukrainian military faces Russian armed forces more than five times as large and perhaps 10 to 20 times as powerful. Indeed, should such arms encourage Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to directly challenge Russian forces on his territory, the most likely outcome is escalation of the military crisis and a dramatic increase in death and destruction in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russian propaganda would continue to vilify the West and sow the seeds of future crises elsewhere in Russia’s neighborhood. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/crafting-a-win-win-win-for-russia-ukraine-and-the-west/2014/12/05/727d6c92-7be1-11e4-9a27-6fdbc612bff8_story.html

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