What Comes Next in Ukraine? A Debate (2)

After the downing of flight MH17, it's worthwhile to take stock of our knowledge of the events on the ground. The tragedy can lead to two very disparate outcomes. On the one hand, the crash could encourage Europe to put the kind of pressure on Russia needed to finally end its meddling. On the other, both sides might see little reason to avoid escalation. In a previous post, I presented the case for the former outcome. I'll now discuss the latter.

While a case could be made that the events in Ukraine have finally reached a decisive point, there is no guarantee that pressure from Europe will force Russia to stop encouraging its proxy war. This is the argument presented by political scientist Paul D'Anieri in The Monkey Cage, which is hosted by The Washington Post. As he writes,

To see why a cease-fire works to Russia’s advantage, the Ukrainian leadership need only look to Ukraine’s western border, where a slice of its neighbor Moldova known as Transnistria has been occupied by pro-Russian forces since 1992. The conflict began when a group that did not want Moldova to secede from the Soviet Union took up arms, with extensive support from the Soviet/Russian military. A cease-fire was declared in July 1992, and the conflict has remained “frozen” ever since.

The Ukrainians can also look to Azerbaijan, where the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh has been occupied by Armenia—with support from Russia—for nearly the same period, again after a conflict and cease-fire. Or it can look to Georgia, where a similar practice was followed, until Russia actually invaded, detaching Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia in 2008.

Indeed, what is happening in Eastern Ukraine seems not to be a one-off conflict, but rather the most recent in a series of moves by Russia to exploit local tensions and seize bordering territory. The downing of a civilian airliner was madness, but there is method in everything else that Russia has done in Eastern Ukraine.

Of course, the Ukrainians can also look at their own experience with Crimea, where the international community briefly registered outrage at its annexation before returning to business as usual. Russia has spent considerable time and resources building its influence in Europe and in Washington, and it understands how to wield it. While the Dutch and British governments have been vocal in their outrage over the incident, other European leaders have been quieter, preferring, it seems, to try to preserve a constructive working relationship with Russia. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany has been particularly reticent, perhaps because of Germany’s long-standing coziness with Russia, and perhaps because of her outrage at the recent revelations of U.S. spying on Germany.

It is natural to ask what ‘the West’ can do to stop the conflict. Raising the cost for Russia may help to deter future aggression, but an enormous amount of empirical research on sanctions shows that their efficacy is extremely spotty. NATO governments have so far has been unwilling to incur major costs to punish Russia. Russia reads this level of commitment clearly: In response to the sanctions enacted over Crimea, Deputy Prime Ministry Dmitry Rogozin tweeted that “NATO people” should “send me your teeth ground in impotent rage.”

In sum, both the Russian and Ukrainian governments are much more realistic about how this will really play out than are international optimists. The Russians know that holding the territory is key, that they can deflect serious consequences, and the demanding a cease-fire helps them do both. The Ukrainians know that the only way they will get their territory back is to take it by force.

D'Aneri's argument fits nicely within the framework of a classic example of Game Theory - the prisoners' dilemma. Most people are aware of this decision-making model, but for those that aren't here's the gist. Under a prisoners' dilemma, two agents are forced to decide whether or not they cooperate. In the case of two prisoners, they can cooperate by both remaining silent. If they do, they have the chance of receiving a reduced sentence. On the other hand, if either testifies against the other, he could potentially avoid prison altogether while condemning his partner to a long sentence. If both agree to testify, both will suffer.

The available choices can be formally described in this kind of table that follows. Game theorists analyze these scenarios by precisely quantifying the potential losses each agent faces in the possible scenarios, but we don't need to go that far for this example.

The prisoners' dilemma, as described by National Affairs.

In the case of Russia and Ukraine, each country is presented with the following choices. They can choose to cooperate by seeking a diplomatic solution, or they can choose noncooperation through military escalation and increased violence. Cooperation would benefit both countries most in the end, by avoiding war, but the costs of backing down whole the other side pushes on are so high that the optimal solution for both sides is to fight on.

Ukraine cannot accept the invasion of Donetsk. It had to fight on, and it has to be prepared to invade Crimea if it is able to secure a position in the East. The current government has almost no legitimacy as it is. How could they claim a mandate to rule if they cannot ensure territorial integrity? Moreover, much of Ukraine's wealth is located in the east, which is home to a majority of its heavy industry. Ukraine is already facing an economic crisis. It's hard to imagine how the western half of the country would function if it did actually split.

Similarly, given the war fever gripping the country, Russia faces such huge domestic costs from backing down - national humiliation at the top of the list, that I'm not sure that we should rule out the chance of an invasion. After all, Russia is now using artillery on the boarder to assault the Ukrainian army advancing on Donetsk. The media have attached so much national value to this 'rescue' of Novorossiya that Putin's standing as a leader is now at stake.

Framing the issue this way, it's hard to see a good reason for Ukraine to stop bombing and Russia to stop shelling. The longer this continues, a diplomatic solution will only become less likely. Residents of Solvyansk and Donetsk are irate by the Ukrainian army's inability to distinguish between rebels and civilians. As I wrote in a previous article, a thousand of people have died and a hundred thousand have already fled. The bad blood won't suddenly dissipate if the Ukrainian and Russian governments magically decide to talk.

Even if this is the beginning of the event, we should definitely expect more violence along the way. Both sides benefit by applying as much force as possible during this critical moment. This makes me wonder if there is a point where the strategic calculus changes. Is there a way to make the price of escalation high enough so that neither side wants to push things further? If we wish to draw the line, where would we want that to be? Would we allow for a Russian invasion?

This is a very difficult question to answer. We have no meaningful alliances with Ukraine, and the threat of nuclear war with Russia lurks, even if it is still very unlikely. We couldn't accept that, which makes me believe that the US and Europe might eventually decide that a Russian invasion is tolerable. We allowed this in Hungary and Prague during the Cold War, and it's arguable that the stakes were much higher then.