Eastward expansion of NATO and the Ukraine crisis

Back in the stable days of the Cold War, in August 1983, I was on a comparative legal study (and vodka drinking) tour of the Soviet Union. (We were told by our charming tour guide that vodka was the only way to avoid bacterial illness; we didn’t question her).

Traveling in the Soviet Union was an experience of empathy for those of us interested in international politics. Being on the other side of American power, seeing the United States from their eyes, was dramatic, with American power in NATO to the West, a mere 1,200 miles away.

The United States, not being content with being limited to the Western Hemisphere, also had power to the East in the Pacific region. And there, not limiting itself to an island ladder of defense, it asserted itself on the mainland of Asia in Thailand and South Korea, after having spent years in Vietnam.

Sitting in Kiev (Kyiv), Ukraine, we felt surrounded by American power. Today, American power is even closer, inside Ukraine itself! With American pushing, NATO expanded eastward toward the Russian border after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Some of the new states of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union became NATO members. Some were promised future membership. Those not directly part of NATO could become “partners.”

“Ukraine last year sealed deeper ties with the alliance, becoming an ‘enhanced opportunities partner.’” Wall Street Journal, 4/14/21.

Indeed, America has been triumphant, exercising its power right up to the Russian border. Gen. Colin Powell’s pottery maxim comes to mind when he was advising President George W. Bush on Iraq II: You break it, you own it. Or, the old adage: Be careful what you wish for; you may actually get it. To wit: Russia, our Great Power “adversary,” has recently built up its military forces, including Iskander missiles, on the Russian border with Ukraine, the biggest buildup since 2014, when it took Crimea.

On March 24, 2021, our secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave a speech to NATO members in which he reaffirmed the American commitment to NATO and to our “partnerships.” Recently, on "Meet the Press," the secretary threatened Russia: Speaking for our president, Mr. Blinken said, “there will be consequences” if Russia uses force against Ukraine. This is a line-drawing threat by one nuclear power to another, about as dangerous as it gets. A miscalculation could be catastrophic.

From a political science, sphere of influence perspective, Ukraine is within the Russian sphere. Lately, the United States has been intruding upon that sphere of influence, and also on the Chinese sphere, regarding Taiwan, potentially threatening world peace.

From a legal standpoint, Ukraine is a sovereign state in international law, which should not be threatened or attacked under Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, and it has under Article 51 the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense, under which NATO was organized. NATO and its members certainly have a legal and a moral right to organize with Ukraine for its defense.

But is it prudent under the sphere of influence approach to use force to defend Ukraine? One is reminded that Khrushchev in 1962 had a legal right to put offensive weapons in Cuba with Cuba’s consent, a sovereign state under international law. President John Kennedy saw the situation in political science, sphere of influence terms and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis to protect our interests regarding Cuba. (Kennedy tried to be legal; he had a legal authorization for the blockade under an Organization of American States authorization).

But political science trumps law, even morality, when it comes to security in the nuclear age, I believe. When we were sipping our prophylactic vodka cocktails in Kiev, Ukraine, that summer of 1983, we certainly could not have imagined that a nuclear-war threat could occur by an American defense of Ukraine, where we were, from a Russian attack. What dangerous irony.

My professor, Inis Claude, had a concept he called “prudential pacifism” — peace based not on morality, or law, but on prudence between nuclear powers. Prudence should prevail over morality or law here in the case of defending Ukraine on the Russian border.

James W. Pfister, J.D. University of Toledo, Ph.D. University of Michigan (political science), retired after 46 years in the Political Science Department at Eastern Michigan University. He lives at Devils Lake and can be reached at jpfister@emich.edu.