The Historical Context of the Ukrainian Conflict
(Amb. Joseph Mussomeli, March 16, 2022)
Transcript available below
About the speaker
Joseph Adamo Mussomeli was Ambassador to the Republic of Slovenia from November 2010 until January 2015 and the Ambassador to the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia from June 2005 to August 2008. He was the Assistant Chief of Mission in Kabul from May 2009 to May 2010. Prior to that assignment, Mr. Mussomeli served as the Director of Entry Level Career Development and Assignments. He received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award in 2009 and the Raphel Award in 2010 for developing, mentoring, and supporting his staff. Since his retirement in April 2015 he has given lectures on a variety of topics including leadership, foreign policy, and interagency cooperation at FSI, DOD, and various universities.
Mr. Mussomeli was born in New York City on May 26, 1952. He graduated from Camden Catholic High School in 1970. He then went to Rutgers University for two years before dropping out and becoming an upholsterer, and then spending several months hitch-hiking through Europe. Upon returning to the United States, he attended Trenton State College and graduated summa cum laude in 1975, earning a BA in Political Science. In 1978, he earned a Juris Doctor degree from Rutgers Law School. Following law school Mr. Mussomeli served as a law clerk to the Appellate Court of New Jersey from 1978-1979, and then worked as a Deputy Attorney General for the State of New Jersey.
Mr. Mussomeli entered the Foreign Service in September 1980 and began his career serving in Cairo, Egypt, as a General Service Officer. Following Cairo, Mr. Mussomeli served in the Department as staff assistant to the Undersecretary for Security Assistance. He then served in Manila, Philippines as a consular officer from 1984-1986. His subsequent tours included: North Korea Desk Officer (1986-1988), Senior Watch Officer (1989-1990), Economic Counselor in Colombo, Sri Lanka (1990-1992), Office of Inspector General (1992-1994), Political Counselor in Rabat, Morocco (1995-1998), Deputy Chief of Mission in Manama, Bahrain (1998-2001), and as a member of the Senior Seminar (2001-2002). He served as Deputy Chief of Mission in the Philippines (2002-2005).
Transcript
Introduction
Robert R. Reilly:
Hello and welcome to the Westminster Institute. I am Bob Reilly, its director, and today we are particularly delighted to welcome Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli to discuss the historical context of the current crisis in Ukraine. Now, Ambassador Mussomeli served for almost 35 years as an American diplomat, including tours in Egypt, Afghanistan, Morocco and the Philippines, where he served as deputy chief of mission. He was also Deputy Chief of Mission in Bahrain. Ambassador Mussomeli served as U.S. Ambassador to Slovenia, and he was also the U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia. Before entering the U.S. Foreign Service in 1980, he worked as Deputy Attorney General in New Jersey. Ambassador, welcome.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Thank you. It is good to be here.
Robert R. Reilly:
You have written quite a bit in terms of the historical context of the current conflict in Ukraine and how we seem to have achieved a state of mutual incomprehension.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
That is a good way to put it, yes.
Mutual Incomprehension
Robert R. Reilly:
What is particularly valuable is to hear you speak about that historical context, but as an example of what I just said, I am going to read two quick quotations. One is from the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah.
Robert R. Reilly:
Now, quote, “NATO’s relationship with Ukraine is going to be decided by the 30 NATO allies and Ukraine. No one else,” unquote. Now, the countervailing quote from President Vladimir Putin. Quote, “Every country certainly has the right to choose the most acceptable way of ensuring its security, but it must be done in a way that does not infringe on the interests and undermine security of other countries, in this case, Russia. Ukraine is being pumped up with modern weapons, which poses a direct threat to Russia’s security,” unquote. So we have two ships passing in the night here, but according to you, that is not news. It goes back quite a quite a ways.
Russia, not just Putin
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
This goes back at least a decade, probably three decades, and it does not start with Putin. It really starts with Gorbachev and certainly with Yeltsin. Yeltsin made it clear, even though he was trying to be very friendly to us, that Ukraine was just a red line, a deep red line made in blood, that this would just be unacceptable. I know that one of the problems here is that we are not even thinking of Russia. We are just thinking of Putin, and the people who work on this issue in the State Department have a particularly deep, personal loathing for Putin, and because of that I think that makes it even harder for them to be objective or to see things from the Russian perspective.
Robert R. Reilly:
What are they missing?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
They are missing what we all learned in kindergarten. At least for diplomats, you learn you always put yourself in the other person’s shoes. What would you do in his place, you know? And when you think of that, if you look at it really honestly and objectively, if you were the leader of Russia, [you] probably would not be as obnoxious as Putin, you would not be as corrupt as Putin, you would be more democratic and tolerant of people than Putin is, but when it comes to Ukraine, I do not think anybody would be doing anything much different than what Putin is doing.
Robert R. Reilly:
Whether it is the Secretary General of the Communist Party or a Czar?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Anybody, yeah, even if it were Yeltsin, even if it were Gorbachev today.
Russia’s Concerns
Robert R. Reilly:
And how would you describe their concern in relation to Ukraine?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Well, they have a mix of concerns. I mean the problem is they are talking past each other. The one main problem is that NATO keeps just saying we are no threat to Russia, and the Russians are supposed to just say oh, okay, you are no threat to us, as if there are not a hundred historical instances where people have said they are not threats, and then they are threats. In this particular case, we have the problem of Serbia where for 50 years, 40 years NATO was truly a defensive organization, but then it decided in the early 1990s to attack Serbia even though it had not been attacked by Serbia.
You could argue all day that there were good reasons for them to attack. Certainly, there was a humanitarian problem there. There were concerns about a genocide there, but NATO was not the right vehicle for doing that because if you could say that NATO could attack Serbia, which was no threat to NATO, then why can you not say that in some future circumstance NATO could attack Russia because Russia is mistreating some minority like the Chechens? What would not justify that? They already have the Serbian precedent now, that they can legitimately use NATO resources to protect minorities or others within sovereign states that are not a threat to NATO.
Russia is Weak
Robert R. Reilly:
I recall from that period the statement, I think by Maggie Thatcher, that Milošević was Hitler. Well, in other words, that you have to stop him now or he has ambitions that will outstrip our abilities to defend against him.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
That is absurd.
Robert R. Reilly:
It is.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
And you are already seeing in the Ukraine invasion that even if NATO could not defend itself, the Russian tanks would never get to Berlin before they ran out of fuel. Their logistics [and] their organization are pathetic. If NATO says it is not a threat to Russia, the opposite is also very true. Russia is hardly a threat to NATO.
Robert R. Reilly:
Because of its incapacity that is being demonstrated in Ukraine?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Right now.
Robert R. Reilly:
But on the other hand, Russia is a country with an economy about the size of Italy’s.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah.
Robert R. Reilly:
But it dedicates it to the modernization of its nuclear weapons, the development of hypersonic weapons…
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
It has to do that.
Robert R. Reilly:
…and elite, professional military, not the conscripts, some of whom we are seeing in Ukraine, so that would be a cause of concern, particularly when Vladimir Putin has raised the nuclear issue in the context of this war. But let us not neglect more of the historical context. This intervention by NATO in Serbia, according to you, created quite a grievance in Russia.
Serbia, Kosovo, and International Law
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Two of them [did]. The first one is just the attack itself since Serbia was not a threat, [it] did not attack any NATO country, [and it] had no intentions of ever attacking any NATO country, so there is the first point that we have already talked about. The bigger, more fundamental point is that out of Serbia they carved Kosovo. This violated 70 years of understanding and international law, that you do not create new countries. We have had an understanding since World War II that all borders are sacred. We have that understanding because once you start letting reasonable arguments, that these people suffered, these people were at risk of genocide, these people have been divided arbitrarily by colonial powers, there are lots of good reasons to change borders, but once you start that, there is nowhere to stop it.
Africa is especially bad. If you start looking at justice and what makes reason, you change all the borders in Africa, so it is better to just leave the status quo as it is, and this is what we had in Europe, also, until the United States and the Western Europeans decided to let Kosovo be a new country. This outraged Russia, and frankly, there are NATO countries that still have not recognized Kosovo because of it.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, Russia saw itself as the protector of Slavs. That was an element in the Serbian [conflict]?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
This is true also.
Robert R. Reilly:
Now, when you mention no new countries, on the other hand, Yugoslavia was disintegrating.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Right, but they always had republics. It was always a pseudo-federated state.
Robert R. Reilly:
I see, so that would be the integrity of that 70 years that was violated by the Kosovo creation?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Exactly. I mean and remember also that early on we did not even want Yugoslavia to disintegrate.
Robert R. Reilly:
Yes.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
We were hoping they would stick together. When they did not, it was natural that they should separate into their former republics. But Kosovo was never a republic, it was an autonomous state, and it should have remained so. And the Serbs, you know, these things are never black and white. The Serbs should have been more tolerant of them, should have given them more autonomy for their schools, for their police force, things like that, but they, [the Kosovars], should never have declared their own country.
NATO’s Expansion and Russia’s Understanding
Robert R. Reilly:
Now, let us also delve further into the history of NATO expansion. There are two contending sides on this. The Russians claim that NATO promised that it would not expand.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
[They claim that they promised they would] not move an inch eastward.Robert R. Reilly:
And the Russians claimed that there were legal guarantees regarding this. The United States claims, well, there really were not legal guarantees. The first such instance it seems is the agreement with Gorbachev for the reunification of Germany.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
That is right.
Robert R. Reilly:
And the Russian claim is at that time the condition for the agreement by what was then the Soviet Union to allow Germany to be reunified was that NATO would not then move eastward from the border of Germany. Now, is that true?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
It is true that in convincing Gorbachev that when Germany unites, it should be part [of the West], it should be tethered (‘tethered’ I think was the word they used, tethered to NATO) because nobody wanted a unified Germany that was untethered to anyone, and that Baker did verbally assure them that we would not move an inch eastward.
Now, that could be. The problem is it was never written down and it was never clarified what that meant. Baker later, I believe, said that he meant there would be no troops moved, not that NATO’s borders would not be moved, but that U.S. troops and German troops would stay where they were now.
I think that is a little disingenuous. I think it was clear that what Gorbachev was worried about was a united Germany that could not be controlled, and so I do not think at that point people were really imagining that the whole Warsaw Pact was going to fall and join NATO. It may never have been envisioned by either side, but clearly the spirit, not the letter because there were no letters, there was nothing written down, but the spirit of the times was that Russia was not going to be threatened by the entanglement, the encroachment of NATO closer and closer to its border.
Russia in NATO
Robert R. Reilly:
Now, we have had as a guest on this program several times Dr. Andrei Illarionov, who was the key economic aide to President Putin in the ’90s and one of the architects of the economic turnaround in Russia, who resigned when he saw the direction that the Russian state was taking in Putin as a Siloviki state as he describes it.
Now, he does look back sort of nostalgically at what he thinks as a Russian was a lost opportunity for NATO to extend its arms to Russia, not just in the association that was created, but-
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
…as an actual member.
Robert R. Reilly:
Was that a reasonable expectation for Russia to have, and do you think it was a missed opportunity for NATO or that it was so unrealistic that NATO never took it seriously?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
They never took it seriously, but I think it is the worst mistake we have made since World War II. For the last 70 years, I cannot think of anything that was a bigger mistake, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, nothing compares to not allowing [Russia to join NATO]. If you want a united Germany tethered to NATO, you certainly also want Russia tethered to NATO. There is no reason why [we could not have had Russia join NATO]. Gorbachev asked in 1989, I believe, why not us? Why should we not also join NATO? If we had taken that seriously, if we had not been so hubristic and triumphalist as we tend to be whenever we succeed, I think we would be in a much better place now.
Of course, Russia was not ready to join NATO in 1989 or 1995, but if we had started the process, if we had said you have to do this on democracy, you have to do this on human rights, you have to develop your military in this way, by 2000, by 2010, for sure they could be a full-fledged member. Now, the counterargument to that, which I think is nonsense, but it is there, is that if you do not have Russia as an adversary, why have NATO at all? [This] is a very cynical view, but when you get down to it, that is what they are really saying, that, well, once Russia is part of us, then we do not have a raison d’être to be.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, that is not an unreasonable argument because it is a defensive alliance and if it does not have anyone against whom to defend, what is its purpose?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
But then the implicit admission there is that we want an enemy, and that is not acceptable.
Robert R. Reilly:
Yes, well, I mean back in those days, I mean the early 1990s when the discussion was taking place about the potential expansion of NATO, I remember having a discussion with the former Under Secretary of Policy for Defense, Freddie Clay, who was a key strategic thinker in the Reagan administration. And it was his opinion that if you expand much further eastward from Poland or parts of what had always been thought of as key states in Western Europe, the result would be to make Russia a permanent enemy.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah.
Robert R. Reilly:
Do you think that is the reason this has happened?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I think that is the key, the core reason. There are others, of course, but that is [the key reason], I think, that we have not only ignored Russia’s legitimate fears, but we have just laughed at them, and we have said they are not real, that he is just using this as a pretext to crack down at home and to divert attention from the problems the Russian people have. And it is too bad because, of course, Clay was not alone. Our real architect of the Cold War, George Kennan, said essentially the same thing. He said you guys, if you expand NATO, you are going to play to the worst paranoia, the worst instincts of Russia, and then when they react, you are going to say good thing we expanded NATO because if we had not [expanded], Russia would be taking over those countries again.
Before and After 2008
Robert R. Reilly:
On the other hand, is there not some merit to the argument that Putin needs an external enemy to rally people to his side within Russia, or at least we can look at the actual facts, that when in 2014 he took Crimea, his approval ratings skyrocketed?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, but that is like Hitler doing the Anschluss. I mean it was painless, bloodless. Of course, it helped his ratings. This is completely different, and he must have known. I mean I do not know Putin’s mind. I think he thought it was going to be easier, but he must have realized that it was going to be really bloody and messy to try to take the entirety of Ukraine, so I do not think [this is a complete shock to him].
I think that Putin tried very hard for several years to be friends with us. I think the fact that he was the first to call Bush after 9/11, the fact that he immediately opened up Russian airspace, offered his air bases for American planes, that he was doing intel sharing with us about the Taliban [demonstrated his intention to have better relations with us]. I think that he really tried, that he did not have the Russians veto the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He kept trying to accommodate us as far as I could see until about 2008, and then he sort of gave up, and since then it has been another Cold War, and now not even cold anymore.
Robert R. Reilly:
[2008], which is the year of the war with Georgia?Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, yeah, and NATO saying explicitly that Georgia and Ukraine will become part of NATO. It is like we are intentionally just jabbing him or jabbing Russia. I do not like to say him because that is what American policymakers want to think, that this is all about Putin, but it really is not. Putin is not a particularly pleasant guy anymore, but this is the Russians. They will not accept this. The fact that they are even willing to risk nuclear war to prevent Ukraine from becoming a NATO member tells you something about how frightened they are, not how aggressive they are.
What Russia Wants
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, one thing for sure is that this war was predictable.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, yeah, some of us predicted it 10 years ago.
Robert R. Reilly:
But I mean the repeated warnings by Putin. This is not speaking to the merits of his side of the question, it is just that he was extremely clear about the conditions that had to be met for what he thought was legitimate Russian security concerns about which you have spoken, so that was clear. They had to accept neutrality. They had to demilitarize, and they had to recognize Russian claims to Crimea and the autonomy of Donetsk and Luhansk. And there was a forum for the negotiation of these issues in the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements, which seem to have simply been left aside.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
It is too bad because they were moving forward. There was some progress. And it is unfortunate. I think Crimea would always be a problem now, but giving some autonomy to the Russian-speaking provinces is frankly something that NATO should want. I mean nobody is talking in the mainstream about how the Russian minority was discriminated against by the Ukrainian majority, [how they were] not allowed to have schools in Russian. I mean that that would be considered a human rights violation in Western Europe, but nobody talks about that because in any war we always want to think of our ally as purely white and the others as purely evil and black.
Robert R. Reilly:
It is very interesting that Solzhenitsyn as long ago as when he was writing the Gulag Archipelago said from his experience in the gulag himself that the Ukrainians who were also there with him were brothers, but that they nursed legitimate historical grievances from Stalin’s forced starvation in the ‘30s of the loss of 3 million some Ukrainians to that horror, and that Russia ought to allow for exactly what you are speaking of and that Ukraine ought to allow for it too, and that is a local autonomy for those groups who do not want to be affiliated with the one or the other, and that this was extremely complicated, but the only way to do this peacefully was an approach such as that.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, and in a way, you could argue that the Ukrainians are guilty of the same thing the Serbians were guilty of. Serbians were intolerant of the Kosovars. The Ukrainians were very intolerant. They were not as bad. They did not start slaughtering the Russian speakers, but they certainly were discriminating against them, and this need for autonomy is the only way to keep the nation-states with the proper borders that they have had since World War II.
Ukraine is a Real Nation
Robert R. Reilly:
On the other hand, Putin was making the remarks that Ukraine is not a real country.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, yes.
Robert R. Reilly:
And subsequent to his invasion, I think he has discovered that it really is.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah.
Robert R. Reilly:
[He discovered] that the Ukrainians have a fierce spirit of nationalism and obviously are so courageously putting their lives on the line to defend it.Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, they are Russia’s brothers. Of course, they are going to be brave, they are going to be tough, they are going to suffer all they have to in order to try to be independent. You have to admire them.
A Preventable War
Robert R. Reilly:
Indeed. Was this necessary?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Not at all.
Robert R. Reilly:
How could it have been prevented?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I think with just a little understanding of Russian history and the Russian psyche, with a little less arrogance on our part, with a little less personal animosity. I think we get back to that. Those people who are running the Russian policy in Washington hate Putin personally, and that is a big problem. Not Biden, probably not Blinken, but others definitely do. They want to see Putin humiliated. They want to see Russia put in its place as if it has not already been for the last 30 years. I think that it is a real Greek tragedy because it is a tragedy that could have been so easily avoided, except like the ancient Greeks, the hubris got in the way, not only on our side. Putin also is a very arrogant person, but I would say of the two sides in apportioning blame, far more of the blame goes to America than to Russia.
Robert R. Reilly:
There is a reaction amongst the many Ukrainians that they have been betrayed by the West.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I am not sure why they think that. I worry that they have been given some sort of verbal assurances by some of these people in Washington that just be tough, do not compromise, you cannot trust Putin, just stick to your guns and we are behind you.
Robert R. Reilly:
…And we are behind you, and these protestations of the integrity of Ukraine’s sovereignty were made frequently. And as it comes now, there is no help for them aside from the war material that is being provided.
Tactical Nuclear Weapons
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Which makes it worse. I mean that just expands and extends the suffering of both sides. If Russia fails, I do not think it is beyond them to use tactical nuclear weapons to subjugate Ukraine. I do not think they will do that because I do not think they will ultimately fail, but I do not think they could lose and still survive. Putin cannot survive.
Robert R. Reilly:
So everything is on the block right now?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, and I think we have made it worse by moving our troops closer to the borders, by moving military equipment and weaponry to Ukraine. If I am Putin, if I am any leader and I see this happening a few months ago, then I have to conclude I better strike soon. If I do not strike soon and a year from now there is going to be more casualties, 10 years from now it is going to be impossible.
The Last Straw for Putin
Robert R. Reilly:
Yeah, I was going to ask you that question, that this seemed to be a manufactured crisis by Putin because there was no imminent membership possibility for Ukraine, but he decided to bring it to a peak now, and you just suggested a reason as to why he may have done that.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
That is right. I mean even Putin knows that it is 10 years away, but what you do have is over the last year, movements of military equipment into Ukraine, so that when there is a battle, it is going to be [bloodier] and [messier]. It never made the newspapers, but on November 10, we signed a framework agreement with Ukraine, giving them their map to joining NATO, and at that point I think Russia, Putin especially but Russia in general, said they are really serious about this. They are going to give [them a roadmap to NATO membership] and even before they join NATO the United States may sign a bilateral agreement, saying we will protect you. What might they do in the next few years? We better hit them now.
Robert R. Reilly:
So you think that incited action sooner rather than later?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, even Robert Service wrote an article on this, that this was one of the last [straws], really the last straw for Putin.
What Next?
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, of course, this is not over and there are unforeseen consequences. The United States has undertaken, as have NATO members, extraordinary economic sanctions against Russia, never before attempted against a sovereign country, the blockage of Russian banks, even the Central Bank of Russia, financial transactions, and other economic measures are being taken to increase the level of pain so that Putin will withdraw.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
And then what?
Robert R. Reilly:
And, well, for Putin then what? That would be the question.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
…and for Russia. That means that Ukraine will be part of NATO. Georgia will be part of NATO. Russia will be completely isolated because we never offered them membership.
China is the Real Winner in Ukraine
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, they are not completely isolated because they have fallen solidly into the lap of China.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, yeah. This unfortunately I think is [true]. I put that in my last article, that I think the real winner here no matter what is China. I mean I think we have turned things upside down. The whole point of us making China so strong and recognizing China in the ‘70s was to counterbalance the Soviets and let them fight each other so that we are not alone, and now we have created this situation where Russia has no recourse but to count on China. And you know the more economic sanctions we impose on them, the more reliant they are on China and to a smaller degree India. And they will owe a great deal to China, and they will pay their debt. Ten years from now when China takes over Taiwan and starts expanding in other areas, Russia will stand side by side with them because of this.
The Oil Embargo and World War II
Robert R. Reilly:
Now, when these sanctions were announced, the reaction from Russia, from Putin was that this was akin to an act of war, and this of course is not a exact parallel, but it reminded me of what happened in 1941 when President Franklin Roosevelt, who was so displeased with the behavior of the Japanese in China, particularly when Vichy France gave it the permission to occupy Indochina, that to Roosevelt this was unacceptable, and therefore he instituted the oil and steel embargo against Japan.
So, attempting to achieve a geostrategic objective purely through economic means and not the military means that would have been necessary to do it, leaving Japan with its militaristic cabinet in the position of saying, well, we cannot continue our wars or our consolidation of our Southeast Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere without oil and without steel, so we are going to get weaker as a result of this, so we better strike now. And as we know, later in ‘41 we had Pearl Harbor, so do you think any kind of danger exists of a backlash of this kind, [that] we imperil the existence of Russia to the extent that they lash out in this desperate way and widen this war?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I honestly do not see that. I do not see Putin attacking us or any NATO member right now just for economic reasons. I do not see that ever happening. What I do see, which I think is almost as bad is that if the economic sanctions are really effective, it is not going to get Russia out of Ukraine, it is going to have Russia just implode. It is going to cause such problems in Russia that we are going to have chaos, and then we do not know what might happen.
We do not know who will come into power. We do not know who will be taking control of their nuclear weapons if there is no central power. I think that while those in Washington who are doing this want Russia to get out of Ukraine, I do not think they have thought clearly enough what the consequences will be for Russia itself if Russia does that. The economic pain is one thing, but the social cohesion of the country could just break down completely, and that would be really bad.
The Conflict is Causing a Global Food Crisis
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, [it] certainly seems that there are going to be very grave consequences for other parts of the world. The obvious one is if you try to embargo Russian oil, which I think provides some 10 percent of the world’s oil, the prices are going to skyrocket, which they already have.
And of course, the countries that will be hurt the most from that are the ones who cannot afford [it]. The poorest countries [cannot afford] that higher price. The UN Food Agency has alerted countries to the danger of the consequences of a loss or diminution in the supply of Russian and Ukrainian wheat and sunflower oil, and that will particularly hit Africa very hard, and also some South Asian countries. [It will] hit Pakistan very hard, so the pain may spread in unexpected ways that are going to cause a far larger crisis in the world. And of course, many people suggest that war adds to inflation.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
…which is already at what, seven percent?
Robert R. Reilly:
No, it is actually higher now, and that this of course can occasion recessions in the United States and other countries, so we are undertaking-
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Well, I honestly had not thought of the consequences to the Third World in all this, but that is a very good point, but the main thing is to remember that in Washington nobody will be to blame for this. They are never to blame.
More Responsibilities, Fewer Means
Robert R. Reilly:
Failure never has consequences in the State Department. I am familiar with that syndrome. Well, the other very strange thing about this is that as NATO has chosen to expand, 16 countries when the Soviet Union disintegrated, and 14 new countries since that time, all countries moving more eastward toward Russia and obviously the Baltic states right on the border of Russia, but at the same time NATO has increased its defense responsibilities, it has drastically reduced the military means to meet those defense requirements, so Germany drastically cut its military forces. Great Britain has cut its military forces.
And we have certainly cut military forces, and in another extent degraded our military forces from multiple wars. We have not really even resupplied the ammunition we need to meet our commitments. The Congress just recently passed, finally, an Appropriations Bill after letting the Defense Department limp along on a Continuing Resolution, and actually, I think, increased the defense budget for the first time above what will be the rate of inflation, though we are not sure since that is going to be eight percent.
We see this extraordinary turn around in Germany, [which] has announced that they are participating in this, the sanctions against Russia. They have said they are not going to allow the Nord Stream 2 supply of Russian gas, and they have just announced major increases for the first time in their defense spending.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Right, yeah.
Robert R. Reilly:
Other European countries are making similar sounds, so one effect of this is that we in these countries might start taking our defense seriously.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
…which some would say is a very good thing, and I would sort of agree with them, that the Europeans have not been holding their share of this. On the other hand, I do not think it will last unless we find ways to continue this conflict. I think if the Ukraine crisis ends in the next month or two, in a year, Europe will go back to what it was. I do not see them [making sustained increases in defense spending]. I may be wrong, but I just do not see much taste for militarism in any part of Western Europe.
European Reliance on Russian Gas
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, at the same time that Europe was cutting its military, expanding NATO membership, it proceeded to make itself even more reliant on Russian gas.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, they do not like nuclear power, especially the Germans do not [like nuclear energy], and so they need to get that gas somewhere. They should have thought of this ten years ago when this crisis started.
Robert R. Reilly:
But that is the irony, that you would make yourself more dependent on the nation against whom you are supposedly defending yourself. I mean that certainly instigated President Trump putting sanctions on Nord Stream 2, and of course, President Biden removed those sanctions, but they are back on again.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah.
What China See in the Western Response to Ukraine
Robert R. Reilly:
If indeed we begin taking our defense more seriously, and that is a side effect of this conflict, the nation that would be most worried about that would not be Russia, it would be China.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Right, except China is probably delighted with this because our attention is in Europe now, and even if we increase our budget, that equipment and personnel will go to NATO. And I think this is going to actually weaken our defenses in the Pacific. We do not have the money. We do not have the capacity for augmenting both Europe and Asia. Our budget deficits are way too high already and with inflation as it is, I just do not see it.
Robert R. Reilly:
What do you say to those who are commenting that seeing the cohesion amongst Western countries against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the great economic penalties that they are bringing down on Russia as a consequence may give China pause about its plans to forcibly take Taiwan?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Really, people are saying that? They are more deluded than I thought.
Robert R. Reilly:
Yes?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I think all this has taught China is that when they take Taiwan, they do it quickly. They knock out all the air assets the first day. They make sure they have their logistics in place and within a few days, it is over so that the damn Western powers do not interfere too much.
Shock without Awe in Ukraine
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, it is interesting that the Russian invasion did not achieve that. If that was their objective, they really failed.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
They did, miserably.
Robert R. Reilly:
They were supposed to do a kind of shock and awe invasion, but here we are weeks into it, and they still have not achieved their objectives. Now, nor have they used everything they have to use.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, which is surprising.
Russia Will Respond to Sanctions
Robert R. Reilly:
So there is some kind of restraint, not only in relation to what is happening immediately in Ukraine but in response to these economic sanctions. Russia has not fully retaliated.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
No, but they are going to.
Robert R. Reilly:
…but they are going to, and they could do some very harmful and damaging things.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah.
Robert R. Reilly:
We have seen the skill of Russian hackers and cyber warriors before. Our electric grid is extremely vulnerable, [our] energy grid is extremely vulnerable. The cables crossing the Atlantic are extremely vulnerable were they to be cut. There are very harmful, escalatory things that could take place and I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. I do not know about you.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I think that Putin is reluctant to do this. I think he just wants Ukraine settled and then he is hoping everything will calm down. I think with China’s quiet support Russia can endure these sanctions for quite a while, and they could always do other things like nationalize Mcdonald’s.
Robert R. Reilly:
He has already spoken of doing that.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Okay, so he does not have to be too aggressive if he could get this war over, and that has already been his biggest failure. And as I have tried to explain, while we have miscalculated grossly, so has he. He never expected such a violent and heroic defense by the Ukrainians, but you know, the real problem as far as I see it is that there are people in Washington who are willing to fight this war to the last Ukrainian.
Robert R. Reilly:
…to the last Ukrainian, yeah.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
They are very brave.
Neutral Buffer Zones
Robert R. Reilly:
Here is a statement that the former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, recently made in the last few days. I am quoting from her here. “Ukraine is the last defensible territory between the Russian military and our NATO Article 5 commitments to the Baltic states and Poland and Romania, and so I think we have to throw everything at it that we can, that the administration believes will not widen the war and do it as quickly as we can,” unquote.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I do not understand. She used to be such a reasonable creature. I am shocked at that. I would have expected [greater restraint], although she did think that the invasion of Iraq and ‘03 was brilliant at the time so she has misjudged before. I think that that the whole point is that you need buffer zones between military alliances and organizations. Ukraine is ideal to be neutral like Finland was neutral during the Cold War. I do not understand why they think it needs to be part of [NATO]. Putin’s initial request was simply that Ukraine be neutral. Now that may no longer be possible to the Russians after all this blood, but that was ideal for NATO and for Russia to just have it neutral.
Robert R. Reilly:
In about the second day of this war, President Zelensky said that they would be willing to offer neutrality, but he did not [say that before hostilities began]. Had he said that two weeks before or two months before, that might have [prevented the war].
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Two days before would have been fine, and I still think it is possible if it will be a written treaty that that the Americans sign up on. What Russia does not want is a treaty under duress, that then Ukraine five years from now says, well, we did not really mean it.
Putin Must Justify the War or Lose Power
Robert R. Reilly:
Yes, so Russia wants a constitutional change in Ukraine, guaranteeing its neutrality. It wants recognition, as we already said, of Crimea and of the autonomy of Luhansk/Donetsk, but one wonders after the expenditure of treasure and lives that Russia has made in there, whether that is all they want now because it is very clear in the south where they have been more successful that they are they are going to have their land bridge from Crimea to Donetsk, and apparently they want to move even further westward to Odessa and take the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
People will not like this historical analogy, but I think it fits, not on a moral level, but on a practical level. When Lincoln begins the civil war, it is all about the Union. After all that blood and violence and death, it becomes about ending slavery. Once the war begins, you have to find a better justification for all the suffering and all the dead, so for the Russians now, after these last few weeks, I think they need something more psychologically and maybe even politically than just neutrality because now with all this blood expended, how do they justify that to their people?
So, just like with Lincoln making the civil war more of a crusade against slavery to justify [the losses and expenses of the Civil War], they will maybe say something like Putin has suggested that [they are restoring the] greater, pan-Slavic sort of federation that he dreams of. I think that would be unfortunate. I think neutrality was always what was good for both NATO and for Russia, and he is going to have a big problem trying to control Ukraine. I think a guerrilla war or massive civil disobedience is the future for the next 10, 20, 30 years if he tries that.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, are you contemplating that they will try to take control of the entire country?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I fear that may be the consequence of this.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, I think every military expert I have heard from makes clear that they do not have enough troops to do that.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
They do not and they would have to be extraordinarily brutal in order to even have a chance, and that would alienate everybody, even those who sympathize with them now.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, the problem is let us say that they are not going to take the whole country, but they want to keep that sliver of land along the Black Sea coast. That region, however, is Ukrainian. It is not like Crimea, which was populated mainly by Russians.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Right.
Robert R. Reilly:
So, if they kept that property, it would be a thorn, bleeding in the side of Ukraine, that of course they would have the undying antagonism of the Ukrainians in those areas.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
[They] already have that.Robert R. Reilly:
They already have achieved that, and [there is] also the temptation for Ukrainians outside of that area to feed what is necessary to conduct a guerrilla war against them.
Off-Ramps
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Exactly. I mean there are ways to finesse this, of course. They could ask for a lease, a 99-year lease of that property, and never claim it as anything but Ukraine sovereign soil, but that they are just using it as a friendly nation like we use Guantanamo or the Brits used Hong Kong, but I do not think the Ukrainians would go for that and I do not blame them. They should not. The problem is now that the war has begun, there are no really easy solutions. A month ago, it was easy, but nobody in Washington would listen.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, so the off-ramps get harder to find.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, for sure.
Robert R. Reilly:
Is there no way to get back to Minsk II? That has been obviated by the conflict?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
It would take both wisdom and courage, and they are both in short supply in Washington. I do not see it. The people there are so self-righteous. They are outraged by this invasion. They cannot believe that even though they knew it was going to happen, even though they provoked it. Now they are outraged.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, the outrage is not hard to understand. There is certainly a very strong, emotional reaction to the brutality and the suffering under which the Ukrainians are going and admiration for the extraordinary braveries that they are exhibiting.
Muddled History
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I mean this is true, but this is true in every war. You always, especially among Americans, we always support the underdog. We always feel that if you are smaller or weaker, you must be better and more honorable, but that is not always true. In this case, there is a good argument for it, but the Ukrainians can be very brutal too, historically. You know they had as many pogroms against the Jews as the Russians did. Many of them welcomed the Nazis when the Nazis came through.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, for good reason.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
…because of the famines.
Robert R. Reilly:
They did not know what the Nazis were going to do to them at that point.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, at that point, but then they even cooperated, some of them.
Robert R. Reilly:
Yeah.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
The thing is every country’s history is very black and white and muddled, and it is a trap, an emotional trap to just think that because they are heroic, that that is the end of it, that we should not look further into the problems of this crisis.
A Coastal Occupation
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, if I just get back to this idea that Russia will want more now because of what it has expended, the reaction by NATO and the United States and other Western countries should they occupy the Black Sea and Sea of Azov coasts and say we are going to keep those, would that not instigate the Western powers to continue with sanctions?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yes.
Robert R. Reilly:
It would? So there would be no end to this?
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
It would be legitimate at that point. You cannot allow Russia to [annex Ukraine’s coast]. I mean Crimea even fair-minded people in the West can say, well, that was just Khrushchev handing it over to Ukraine. It was really part of Russia for centuries, and it is a tit for tat for Kosovo, but when you go beyond that, then you are [opening Pandora’s Box], then it really gets out of control.
The Polish MiG Fiasco
Robert R. Reilly:
Now, you reacted to the Condoleezza Rice statement. I would like to get your reaction to the proposal that the Polish MiG fighters be transferred to Ukraine, and their desire to send those jets to Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany to make sure it is NATO that transfers the jets rather than Poland all by itself.
Now, here is an extremely interesting response to this by an editorialist, this one in The Wall Street Journal, talking about the Polish MiG fiasco. They say, “there is a risk of escalation in any war, and needless provocation should be avoided, but the risk of giving Mr. Putin a veto over NATO actions is that it undermines the credibility of deterrence.” I see the logic of that has [stunned you].
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Wow, well, you know, if you are bright enough, you could make an argument for anything. That is ludicrous. If Putin was saying, you, the Poles, cannot move their MiGs to Ramstein or telling any NATO country what they could do with their military within NATO, then that would make perfect sense, but when you are talking about moving things outside of the NATO alliance into a war zone, what are they smoking? I do not get it.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, the reaction in Russia or at least by Russian officials to this proposal when it first surfaced is that we would consider the nation that transfers these weapons to Ukraine a belligerent in the conflict.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Of course, that is why Poland does not want to do it directly.
Robert R. Reilly:
I presume that is why President Biden has said NATO will not do it either or the United States will not do it either.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, that is the first wise thing he has done in this. He has not listened to the others in Washington who have been pushing it.
Robert R. Reilly:
Let me get your [reaction to another editorial]. This is another editorial by an individual saying that what is at stake in this conflict is the credibility of NATO, and I am quoting now, “It is about signaling to Vladimir Putin that America and its chronically weak-willed allies will finally resist his ambition to extend Russia’s ambit across Europe because a world in which such a regime is expanding its reach is not a safe one for Americans.”
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
[That is] incredibly convoluted logic. Russia would never want to try to take over Europe. It wants to be part of Europe, and it has been alienated by us and by most of Western Europe. And I think it is not trying to form its own birthday party in Europe, it is just trying to ruin the party because it was not invited, and it does not have the capability or the will, I think, to threaten any NATO country. It is NATO that keeps moving closer to Russia, not Russia that is moving closer to NATO. It is a really fascinating, bizarre reasoning.Putin is Not Hitler
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, it seems to be reasoning based upon a conception of Putin as a Soviet Secretary General of the Party, right, whose ambitions are unlimited because of the nature of the Soviet ideology at the time.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah, and he is tyrannical and dictatorial, but I do not think he has completely lost his mind. He is not Hitler. I think we keep getting into this mindset, and I have written about this several times, that for Americans, the problem is not that they do not know history. For Americans, the real problem is that they only know one decade of history. All of history boils down to 1938 to 1948. Everything that is important to America starts with Chamberlain at Munich and ends with the Marshall Plan, and you could look at American history for the last 60 or 70 years, and whether it is Saddam Hussein or Ho Chi Minh or Kim il-Sung, it is always a new Hitler.
We cannot get it out of our damn minds that Hitler was unique.
We have much better historical antecedents; World War I, our own civil war, the Peloponnesian Wars. There are lots of history lessons to be learned, but the rest of history is just a footnote for Americans. All we ever focus on is that one decade, and it is worse than not knowing any history at all because that decade was very aberrational in the 10,000 years of history where you had somebody who truly wanted to take over the world, and you had economic [foreign aid as a tool of foreign policy], the Marshall Plan that actually worked. I mean think of all the mischief that has caused in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We keep thinking we could do in other countries what we did in Western Europe. We make these same mistakes over and over, whether it is Munich or Marshall Plan or Yalta. It is very frustrating. We really need to stop teaching that decade.
Russians See a Regime Change Agenda
Robert R. Reilly:
I am also going to bring to your attention that in recent testimony, Victoria Nuland, the Under Secretary of State, when asked about the possible end of this conflict, that either it would come with the victory of the Ukrainian people or when the people of Russia themselves decide to find new leadership.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
Yeah.
Robert R. Reilly:
So basically, I can imagine a Russian listening to that testimony or reading the transcript would guess from an official that high in the State Department, that now U.S. policy is regime change in Russia.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
But that is what Victoria [Nuland] has always wanted. She would like to get rid of Putin, so would several others. That is unfortunate, but she sees it, and many see it as a Manichaean struggle. We cannot be reasonable in a diplomatic way because this is absolute good fighting absolute evil, and you do not compromise. You do not make concessions to evil, and that is the way they see it. And Putin is evil incarnate to them.
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, Putin’s worry I think for some time has been regime change. He would not have needed a statement from Victoria Nuland to convince him because he does believe the United States instigated the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. I think the Ukrainian people did that, but I mean the EU did it by opening the prospect of their membership.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
But that is legitimate.
Robert R. Reilly:
[It] created a reaction from Russia that now we are losing Ukraine, it will be in the West. And then Putin holding the United States responsible for instigating regime change in that country, so it would not be unreasonable, since he did think that. I do not know whether you think there is any merit to such a perspective. I find it a little hard to believe.Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I find it easy to believe that is what he thinks. I find it hard to make a rational argument for it, but he is paranoid. Russia is paranoid. And if you get rid of Putin (I think [Victoria Nuland] is wrong on this), there may be a few years or maybe even a decade of peace with Russia, but it will come back, and somewhere along the line, there will be a Russian leader who will remember the humiliation of 2022, and they will come back and there will be another conflict unless somehow if Putin is deposed, that we do a real olive branch to Russia this time and tether them to NATO. If we offer NATO membership to a new Russian leader, that might obviate this problem, but otherwise, it is not going to go away forever. The Russian people are not going to rise and all of a sudden decide we want NATO on our doorstep, and we are not a member. No Russian leader is going to want that.
Russia Never Faced Its Past
Robert R. Reilly:
Let us close with a larger picture question of the character of Russia. I was a student of the Soviet Union. I avidly followed it. I read Soviet ideology. Of course, I read all the dissident literature. [I] came to know some of those extraordinary people, and the hopes for a transformation of Russia after the fall of the Soviet regime. There were high hopes.
Now, I have heard this both from former Russian dissidents and I have heard it from scholars on Russia like David Satter, who is I think one of the most profound writers on the subject of Russia as he was in the Soviet Union for some years, and [he was] expelled, and [he] went back after the Soviet Union declined. And he will say, just as Vladimir Bukovsky said, Russia never faced up to its past. It never had the equivalent of what was required as did Germany after the Nazis. They had their Nuremberg trials.
Now, the suggestion was never that rump courts are set up to execute former communist leaders or to engage in blood retribution. The suggestion was that publicly, these crimes would be admitted to, accounted for, and renounced, and that that never happened. It was supposed to happen under Yeltsin, and that is why Bukovski went over into the Party Archives to do research for material that could be used at such a trial, but that never happened. Now, David would say that Russia is still not a normal place because it has not made that accounting.
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I have to agree. It is not normal by our [understanding].
Robert R. Reilly:
But is not simply that it is Russian, and we are Western, or you know that it is Orthodox, and we are Christians and Jews. When I spent time in the Soviet Union during its last days, the thing I heard most often, and this was not from dissidents, was that we just want to be normal. They just wanted to be normal, but when you scratch the surface to find out what they meant by that, you saw that they had lost the frame of reference because so much damage had been done in the Soviet Union since 1918. The babushkas were already gone and there was no living memory of what was normal.
Now, there was in Poland, which is why Poland recovered so quickly, but for Russia to become normal, something more needed to be done and an invitation to join the West [would have helped].
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I think that has to be a large component of it.
Robert R. Reilly:
It has to be something that would instigate that accounting, though it is [a little late now].
Amb. Joseph Mussomeli:
I mean that could have been part of the whole NATO membership process, that there would be some sort of accounting and some sort of revelation of all the past, and it would have been possible in the ‘90s. It was easy for Poland because communism had been forced upon them by the Soviets, and then, of course, they were embraced by NATO very quickly, probably more quickly than they were qualified to join. But Russia, I really feel, I know, that they really thought that after the fall of the Soviets, they were going to be embraced, and they were finally going to become part of Europe, and we kicked them in the teeth as far as they see it.
Conclusion
Robert R. Reilly:
Well, I am afraid we are out of time now, and I would like to thank Ambassador Joseph Mussomeli for joining us today to discuss this terrible war in Ukraine and the larger historical context for it, both in terms of Russia/Ukraine and the NATO countries. I would like to invite our audience to go to the Westminster Institute website to see our other offerings on our YouTube channel, including programs about Russia and Ukraine as well as China and other foreign policy subjects. Thanks for joining us. I am Robert Reilly, Westminster director.