Paul
Goble
Staunton, April 19 -- The US
Department of State has declared that Washington will never recognize Russia’s
annexation of Crimea, but such declarations, important as they are, need to be
given real content to ensure that no part of the government, intentionally or
otherwise, takes steps that undermine that policy.
In short, what is needed now
is a new non-recognition policy. That is all the more important now given
continuing Russian meddling in Ukraine and elsewhere in the former Soviet
space.
Given all that has happened since Moscow’s
seizure and annexation of Crimea, it may seem to some that any such call has
been overtaken by events. But in fact, continuing Russian aggression in Ukraine
and elsewhere in the former Soviet space make it even more important.
The
immediate danger of not having such a clearly defined and articulated policy
was highlighted earlier this month when the Voice of America put up on its
website -- and then fortunately took down -- a map showing Crimea not as an
internationally recognized part of Ukraine but as part of the Russian
Federation whose government under Vladimir Putin has engineered its annexation
by force and the threat of force.
But
the larger dangers are even greater.
Since at least 1932, it will be
recalled, the United States has maintained as a matter of principle that it
will not recognize changes in international borders achieved by the use of
force unless or until they are sanctioned international agreement. That doctrine was enunciated by Henry L.
Stimson, the US secretary of state at the time, in response to Japan’s seizure
of China’s Manchuria province and subsequent creation of the puppet state of
Manchukuo.
While the US has not always adhered to this doctrine has not always
been followed, it has never denounced or disowned it. And in one case, its
articulation and maintenance helped right a terrible wrong and contributed to a
most positive outcome.
The most forceful expression of the
Stimson Doctrine was US non-recognition policy regarding the Soviet seizure of
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in 1940 under the terms of the secret protocols
of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Hitler and Stalin.
On July 23, 1940, US Undersecretary of State
Sumner Wells declared that the Baltic countries had been “deliberately
annihilated by one of their more powerful neighbors” and that the US would continue
to stand by its principle in their defense “because of the conviction of the
American people that unless the doctrine in which these principles are inherent
once again governs the relations between nations, the rule of reason, of
justice and of law – in other words, the basis of modern civilization itself –
cannot be preserved.”
That declaration was given content
by a policy that the United States followed until 1991 when Estonia, Latvia and
Lithuania escaped from Soviet occupation and recovered their de facto
independence, a policy that included among other things, provisions that the US
would maintain ties with the diplomatic representatives of the pre-1940 Baltic
governments and that the Baltic flags would continue to fly at the State
Department, that no map produced by the United States government would show the
Baltic states as a legitimate part of the USSR but would carry the disclaimer
that the US did not recognize their forcible incorporation, and that no senior
US official would visit the Baltic countries while they were under Soviet
occupation.
It is important to remember what
such policies did not mean. Neither the Stimson Doctrine nor Baltic
Non-Recognition Policy called for American military action to liberate occupied
territories, but both provided enormous encouragement to the peoples of these
occupied areas that they would at some point once again be free and thus reflected
the principles and values of the American people.
Why shouldn't such a policy be announced now? There are three main
objections, none of which withstands examination. The first is that the US has not always lived
up to its doctrines either in its own actions or in its willingness to denounce
the use of force to change borders. Washington did not issue such a policy
after the Soviet invasion of Georgia in 2008, for example; why should it do so
now? But arguing that past mistakes
should be repeated just because they were made once is hardly compelling.
Second, it is said that Crimea is
only part of a country and therefore a non-recognition policy regarding it
couldn’t look exactly like Baltic non-recognition policy. That is true. A new non-recognition policy would
not include maintaining ties with any pre-occupation government but it could
keep senior American officials from visiting the peninsula and include continuing
US recognition of Ukrainian passports of the residents of that peninsula, much
as the US did in the case of holders of pre-1940 Baltic passports. Arguing that
you can’t get everything and therefore should do nothing, a suggestion made all too often of late, isn’t very compelling either.
And third, it is maintained that
Putin isn’t Stalin and that the US shouldn’t anger him because we have so many
concerns in common. Tragically, some US
officials have even insisted that Putin shouldn’t take anything we say or do
about Ukraine “personally.” That is
absurd. Putin is the aggressor in Crimea and Ukraine more generally. If we make
him uncomfortable, we are only doing the minimum to live up to our principles.
Moreover, despite what Moscow suggests and some of its supporters in the West say, some
future Russian leader or even Putin himself will cooperate with us when he or
they see it is in their interest. US non-recognition policy regarding the
Baltic countries did not prevent the US and Stalin’s USSR from becoming allies
against Hitler or the US and later Soviet leaders from cooperating. Again, the objections fall away.
It is thus time for a new non-recognition
policy so that at a minimum no one will ever see a map of Ukraine put out by
the US government that shows part of that country belonging to another.
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