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A “Civilizational Choice” That Hasn’t Been Made

Paula Dobriansky recommends the usual assortment of ineffective measures to punish Russia for its actions towards Ukraine: Moscow must be informed, first privately and soon thereafter publicly, that the United States will press for a broad range of measures, including WTO sanctions, Russian expulsion from the Group of Eight and even a boycott of the […]

Paula Dobriansky recommends the usual assortment of ineffective measures to punish Russia for its actions towards Ukraine:

Moscow must be informed, first privately and soon thereafter publicly, that the United States will press for a broad range of measures, including WTO sanctions, Russian expulsion from the Group of Eight and even a boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics by political leaders, unless Moscow abandons its strong-arm tactics toward Kiev.

These measures are either useless or misguided. WTO sanctions would impose some additional costs on Russian businesses, but it is doubtful that this would dissuade the Kremlin from what it is doing. Boycotting Sochi would, like previous Olympic boycotts, punish the athletes of the boycotting nations while doing little to Moscow except very briefly embarrassing it. Expelling Russia from the G-8 is one of those things that hawks love to demand, but it is a fairly empty gesture. Just as inclusion was a symbolic gesture intended to placate Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, expulsion would be a symbolic gesture that would provoke it to no constructive purpose. It would represent a sort of humiliation for Russia, but typically Moscow’s reaction to public humiliation by Western governments is not contrition and better behavior. On the contrary, concerted efforts to punish Russia over Ukraine will in all likelihood cause Putin to become increasingly more intransigent, and that could easily spill over into other areas where Russian cooperation is needed.

Dobriansky argues that the U.S. should want Ukraine to “honor the Ukrainian people’s civilizational choice,” but framing it in these terms ignores the majority of Ukrainians that does not favor the choice that Dobriansky wants them to make. It is unnecessary and foolish of the U.S. to take sides Ukraine’s internal dispute, especially when the country is so evenly and deeply divided. It would be even more foolish to increase tensions with Russia over this when doing so has no realistic chance of changing Moscow’s behavior.

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