On the menu today: Yes, Donald Trump won Nikki Haley’s home state in a primary that turned out to be boring. It was a demonstration that Haley is running a protest campaign, whether she and her team want to admit it or not. So instead, we’ll start Monday morning by focusing our attention on trans issues . . . as in Transnistrian issues, not transgender issues. We’ll look at the Cold War in that corner of Moldova, and the odds of Russia and Ukraine negotiating an end to the hot war next door.
Transnistria, the Fundamental Fulcrum of World Affairs
There’s a little bit of sarcasm in that headline, but only a little bit.
As of this writing, it does not appear that the government of Transnistria — a thin slice of Moldova, nestled up against Ukraine’s southwestern border — will declare itself a Russian colony anytime soon. At least, that’s the assessment of Ukraine’s military chief of intelligence, Kyrylo Budano. The Ukrainian military-intelligence directorate issued a statement Sunday:
“According to available information, on February 28, 2024, the deputies of the unrecognized Transnistria at their congress do not plan to appeal to the Russian dictator Putin with a request to join the Russian Federation. Spreading information about such intentions bears all the signs of a deliberate disinformation campaign aimed at destabilizing the situation in the region.” [Translated from Ukrainian.]
For a couple of days, it looked like the Transnistrians and Russia might just announce that the thin slice of land along Ukraine’s border was part of Moscow’s territory. On Thursday, the Institute for the Study of War warned that the Transnistrian government wanted to formalize its relationship with Moscow — and create a Russian state on the other side of Ukraine:
Warning: The pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria may call for or organize a referendum on Transnistria’s annexation to Russia at a recently announced Transnistrian Congress of Deputies planned for February 28. The pretext for such a call would be the purported need to protect Russian citizens and “compatriots” in Transnistria from threats from Moldova or NATO or both. Russian President Vladimir Putin could, in the most dangerous course of action, declare Russia’s annexation of Transnistria during his planned address to the Russian Federal Assembly on February 29, although that appears unlikely. Putin will more likely welcome whatever action the Transnistrian Congress of Deputies takes and offer observations on the situation. ISW offers this assessment as a warning for a high-impact event of indetermined probability. Moldovan government officials state that the situation in Moldova is unlikely to worsen as of February 22.
Last summer, after departing Ukraine, I had the chance to visit Transnistria, a “mini-Russia” and spectacularly strange little stretch of land where hammers and sickles abound like the Cold War never ended. The historical gist:
As the Cold War approached its end in 1989, most Moldovans began rejecting Soviet-imposed changes, passing laws that made Romanian the official language, adopted the Latin alphabet and rejected the use of Cyrillic, and beginning to embrace its own identity. But groups in communities along the eastern border still felt great affection for Russia and the Russian language and rejected those changes. Tensions grew until open shooting between the two sides broke out in March 1992, and Russia intervened, first by assisting the Transnistrian side and by brokering a ceasefire that left the tiny sliver of land controlled by the Transnistrians with a form of quasi-independence. Not much has changed in the 30 years since.
There are Russian soldiers who serve as “peacekeepers” at the border checkpoints. (For the first time on my trip through the region, I saw Russian armored-personnel carriers that were in one piece.) Transnistria is reportedly home to 1,500 Russian soldiers, although it seems like it has been a while since anyone has published a reliable head count. The bad news for Moldova is that it ranks near the very bottom of all nations in terms of military firepower. The good news is, even if you rank near the bottom in military firepower, you can probably take out 1,500 guys. In fact, those 1,500 guys were recently characterized as “the least capable in all of the Russian army.” Note that Russia cannot easily resupply its forces in Transnistria, as Ukraine won’t let it fly anything in, nor will the Moldovans. Moldova’s not a NATO member, but Romania is, and there’s no way Romania would allow Russians to move military equipment, supplies, and ammunition through its territory, either.
Our Andrew Stuttaford — the kind of adventurous soul who actually wants to visit Transnistria — notes that if the Transnistrians did declare that they wanted to be a Russian colony, Moscow would likely welcome them with open arms. This is a familiar playbook for Putin:
Should it do so, there must be a reasonable chance that Putin will agree. It’s worth remembering that Russia recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk “republics” shortly before launching its wider invasion of Ukraine two years ago (they were later incorporated into Russia). It’s not difficult to imagine something similar happening with Transnistria. While as a practical matter such a step would not make much difference (the Russian troops are already there, together with a very large supplies of munitions), it would give Putin something to brag about.
During my day trip through what felt like Soviet Disneyland last August, our cheerful Moldovan guide downplayed the seriousness of tensions between Moldova and Transnistria. In fact, while in the Transnistrian capital of Tiraspol, we stopped and took a picture, and had a brief friendly chat with a Transnistrian military official, who was wearing a Cossack-style military uniform — Transnistrian Independence Day was approaching. Lots of people may want to change the status quo, but they’re not itching to start shooting anyone over it. There’s a big gap between being dissatisfied or frustrated with the current geopolitical balance and border lines, and being willing to start a war.
But with U.S. aid to Ukraine effectively halted until House Republicans get their act together, the geopolitical dynamics of the region are changing rapidly. Suddenly, Ukraine looks like a riskier bet and Russia looks like a safer bet.
Formally declaring Transnistria a Russian colony — culturally and linguistically, it already is — appears to represent too much risk for too little reward for Moscow . . . for now. Six months from now, or a year, or two years down the road? Maybe not.
Way back before the Russian invasion of Ukraine started, I wrote:
Authoritarian powers tend to see territorial conquests the way most of us see potato chips: it’s very hard to eat just one. The satisfaction of the first increases the craving for the second, The satisfaction of the second increases the craving for the third, and so on.
Transnistria must be an awfully tasty-looking potato chip right now.
Who Defines America’s Interests?
Recently, my colleague Michael Brendan Dougherty — who is not wrong about Ukraine aid because he’s a Putin-lover or because he has some secret deal with the FSB, but is wrong for good, old-fashioned American reasons — contended, “For reasons of geography, history, and current economic relations, Ukraine is peripheral to America’s interests and dear to Russia’s interests, and Americans sense this real asymmetry.”
Eh, okay, let’s take it as a given that America’s interests and America’s capacity to influence world events are limited. But how far, geographically, does Russia get to define where its “dear interests” are, and where our “peripheral interests” are?
Are Poland or the Baltic states “peripheral to America’s interests and dear to Russia’s interests”? I mean, the Sudetenland was “peripheral to America’s interests and dear to Germany’s interests” back in 1938. Poland was peripheral to America’s interests and dear to Germany’s interests back in 1939, and a whole lotta trouble grew out of that. In 1950, wasn’t the Ongjin Peninsula peripheral to America’s interests and dear to North Korea’s interests? Was Kuwait peripheral to America’s interests and dear to Iraq’s interests in 1990?
When you contend, “That place matters more to them than it does to us,” well, part of that equation is up to us, isn’t it? We decide how much a particular country matters to us, not them. So far, our policy-makers, on a fairly bipartisan basis, have offered a clear answer: Ukraine matters enough to us to send it arms and humanitarian and financial aid. It does not matter enough to us to send U.S. troops, to attempt to enforce a no-fly zone, or to get into a direct shooting war with Russia — even when Russia takes down one of our drones over international waters.
Aren’t there circumstances where a place can be far away from our borders, and yet we can still say, “Eh, no, we’re not going to let you conquer that territory without a fight. We’re going to arm the people you’re attempting to conquer”? Doesn’t the largest land war in Europe since World War Two, right at NATO’s doorstep, with war crimes aplenty, seem like a time and place for the U.S. and its allies to declare that some dictator looking for trouble has bitten off more than he can chew?
And when I say, “on NATO’s doorstep,” I mean debris from Russian drones is actually landing on the NATO side of the border in Romania, and Russian rockets are flying through Polish airspace. To say nothing of the large portion of 6.5 million refugees who came into NATO countries. The problem isn’t staying “over there,” it’s spreading into “over here.” The four NATO countries that border Ukraine don’t have the option of shrugging and saying it’s somebody else’s problem to solve. The consequences of Russia’s aggression are literally spilling over their borders.
Also . . . are the Ukrainians’ interests worth considering in here at all, or nah?
And as for that dear Russian interest in Ukraine . . . it’s all based upon the dreams of a restored Russian empire from a guy who seems to have gone nuts during two years of pandemic-induced isolation. And this dear Russian interest manifests in the form a Russian military that acts like barbarians, resulting in widespread rape of “women aged from 19 to 83 years,” “torture in a widespread and systematic way,” and copious unlawful killings and mass graves. Russia has established a network of camps to control the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens, including children. (There’s a Congressional Research Service report on all this, here.)
What Russian interest justifies that? Is there any Russian behavior evil enough for us to say, “Nope, sorry, comrade, you don’t have any legitimate interest here”? Or do we always have to shrug our shoulders and conclude, “Well, Ukraine is geographically closer to you guys, so I guess it matters more to you”?
We can all agree some conflicts do not warrant U.S. involvement. Azerbaijan invaded and occupied Nagorno-Karabakh late last year. America’s allegedly warmongering neoconservatives barely noticed. The stakes weren’t high enough, and the interests of the U.S. not clear or compelling enough.
Michael also concluded, “Taking on Ukraine as a Western dependent is difficult, uncertain, and treacherous.”
Eh, for a Western dependent-in-waiting, the Ukrainians seem pretty darn independent. They’re fighting like hellions in the face of long odds, they’re still going to work every day, teaching their kids, and soldiering on while bombs are falling from the sky and the air-raid alerts go off several times a day. Almost everybody’s got a second job doing something to volunteer to help with the war effort, down to the babushkas making camouflage netting. They’re figuring out how to sink the Russian Black Sea fleet without having a navy. They’re using off-the-shelf civilian drones to drop grenades on the Russian forces. They’re repairing tanks that Western officials had originally classified as destroyed. They’ve got Ukrainian supreme court justices trying to shoot down drones using machine guns manufactured during World War Two. They’ve captured and stolen more tanks from Russia — roughly 500 — than they’ve been provided by the U.S. (31 Abrams tanks and 45 T-72B tanks). What, they’re not hard-working or tenacious enough to make it in the EU or NATO someday? You think after the war, they’re all going to suddenly become lazy and unproductive?
What do the Ukrainians have to do for Americans to say, “Yeah, those guys are worthwhile allies to have, and we ought to keep helping them out”?
ADDENDUM: Earlier this month, the anti-war Quincy Institute commissioned a survey measuring the American public’s support for Ukraine.
One question was, “Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, the United States has responded in part by allocating $113 billion to support Ukraine’s war effort. Which of the following best aligns with what you think the U.S. should be doing in terms of financial aid to the Ukrainian war effort?” Respondents were given three options: “Continue providing financial aid without any conditions attached,” “Continue providing financial aid with specific conditions requiring diplomatic progress (i.e., negotiations to reach a settlement to the conflict),” and “Stop providing financial aid altogether.”
(Considering how much of what we’re providing to Ukraine comes in the form of military equipment, often surplus, I don’t think the term “financial aid” is the most accurate way to describe it, but we’ll put that aside for now.)
The Quincy Institute was likely happy with the results, with 48 percent of respondents preferring to, “Continue providing financial aid with specific conditions requiring diplomatic progress (i.e., negotiations to reach a settlement to the conflict),” 30 percent saying, “Stop providing financial aid altogether,” and just 22 percent saying, “Continue providing financial aid without any conditions attached.” (Again, this wording is not all that accurate, as everything we’ve given Ukraine so far has had conditions attached, such as, “You can’t use this to attack targets inside pre-war Russian territory.”)
It’s not surprising that lots of Americans liked the idea of promoting negotiations to reach a settlement to the conflict; war is terrible, and we’d like it to end.
The problem, as I alluded to last week, is that with the exception of prisoner exchanges, there’s not much of an agreement to be had, at least for now. Sure, Putin says he wants to talk, but also insists that Ukraine is not a legitimate country, and that he will never recognize Ukraine as a legitimate independent country. Some Americans are apparently upset with the Ukrainians for being reluctant to sit down and hash out a deal with the guy who keeps publicly pledging to eradicate them from existence. It’s not all that different from the people insisting Israel must make more concessions to placate Hamas, or the argument that Taiwan has to tiptoe around, lest it “provoke” China into invading.
Free people and free nations “provoke” autocrats by their very existence.
And if roughly one-fifth of American territory was occupied by foreign invaders, with the occupiers committing all kinds of war crimes, rapes, torture, and so on . . . how eager would we be to negotiate a settlement?