Why is Victoria Nuland reliably confrontational and
antagonistic toward Russia? Why does she push power, force, and military
might to the forefront in Ukraine? Why does she risk war with Russia? Why
does she even care about Russia’s relations with Ukraine enough to inject the
U.S. government into their affairs and conflicts?
Her philosophy is the same as her husband’s, Robert
Kagan. One article calls them “THE ULTIMATE AMERICAN POWER COUPLE“. It says “Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan fell in love ‘talking
about democracy and the role of America in the world’ on one of their first
dates. It’s a shared passion that hasn’t faded over time.” Presumably that
inner quote is from one or both of them.
For a brief profile of Robert Kagan’s ideas, shared by Victoria Nuland, see here. That article contains some
criticism of their positions coming from the academic side. It is enough to
know that Kagan supports Hillary Clinton in foreign policy and that she
appointed Nuland to see that in foreign policy Americans at the moment have
no major party presidential choice except more of the same.
Kagan and Nuland advocate U.S. activism and intervention
throughout the world. Kagan has always endorsed more and more and more U.S.
commitments worldwide. In September, 2003, he endorsed “a
‘generational commitment’ to bringing political and economic reform to the
long-neglected Middle East–a commitment not unlike that which we made to
rebuild Europe after the Second World War.” (The phrase “generational
commitment’ is Condoleezza Rice’s.) The article’s title is “Do what it takes
in Iraq”, which is never enough to suit Kagan. This is one of his excuses for
why the policies of war and might that he advocates have failed. The U.S.
doesn’t try hard enough to suit him. The U.S. tried very, very hard in
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, however. It still did not produce what Kagan
and Kristol glowingly wanted in any of these countries and in Libya:
“American ideals and American interests converge in such a project, that a
more democratic Middle East will both improve the lives of long-suffering
peoples and enhance America’s national security.” The very opposite has
resulted!
The projection of American power and might into these lands has not produced
what Kagan and Kristol forecasted would be the result.
The ideas and policies of Kagan and Nuland are
influential in Washington and on Obama. They are always the most hawkish. In
a Sept. 5, 2014 essay, Kagan
wrote “The most hawkish members of Congress don’t think it safe to argue for
a ground attack on the Islamic State or for a NATO troop presence in
Ukraine.”
Kagan wants both an American ground attack on IS, which
would mean attacks in three or more countries, and NATO in Ukraine. Nuland
has constantly made provocative statements about Russia and she supports
every move by Washington deeper and deeper into Ukraine’s politics and
military campaigns. If Poroshenko is removed from office by another coup,
Nuland will be there to influence and control the new leaders. She will anoint
and bless them, even if they are neo-nazis.
The same article contains Kagan’s distorted
interpretation of history. Kagan stands for the liberal values that came out
of the Enlightenment and characterize the Western states. But he also
believes that these states are pansies who need to be muscular in defense of
these values. “Muscular” means interventionist and ever-willing to insert
force and arms in foreign lands; not in classic self-defense but on a
pro-active, preemptive basis. In other words, to maintain liberal values and
promote liberalism worldwide, the liberal states have to behave illiberally.
They have to attack other countries that they deem threatening. They have to
be provocative toward any country that doesn’t meet their standards of liberality.
Kagan prefers the title “liberal interventionist” (Nuland presumably is the same.) This policy position is
self-contradictory. A liberal position allows for self-defense, but it does
not allow for remaking the world and attacking other countries. It is not
necessarily the case that when the U.S. government provokes and confronts, or
even invades, other nations that have different political setups, this
benefits Americans.
Kagan’s idea is that there are military solutions to what
he assumes are American problems in Syria and Ukraine. He bemoans “‘There is
no military solution’ is the constant refrain of Western statesmen regarding
conflicts from Syria to Ukraine…”, implying that there are such solutions.
But are these lands actually problems for Americans in the first place? It’s
hardly obvious that they are. They become problems only when the U.S.
government follows the Kagan-Nuland philosophy of liberal interventionism and
inserts itself into these conflicted lands. Kagan wants military solutions
for problems that he has helped to create by his constant support and
promotion of interventions.
Kagan’s justification of pro-active and preemptive
military interventions and military solutions goes back to his interpretation
of 20th century history, in particular, the role of Germany and Japan versus
the western powers. He sees appeasement as a basic component of World War II.
And he argues that Germany and Japan had grievances and resentments that
could not be assuaged by concessions or accommodations from the West. He
transfers this argument to the present and sees new enemies and threats in
Russia, China and the Middle East.
Kagan’s ideas about Japan are oversimplified. The history of
Japanese-American relations has to go back to armed U.S. naval expeditions in
1846, 1848 and 1852. It has to go back to friction over the Open Door Policy
and U.S. immigration policy. China became an important bone of contention.
Appeasement is hardly a consideration in any of this. Just the opposite. It
is American resistance to Japan’s policies in China that is a nexus of
frictions.
To engage in appeasement is to make a concession over
what one owns or has a legitimate interest or obligation in. What concessions
or legitimate interests did the U.S. sacrifice in order to avoid war with
Japan and Germany? The U.S. did not have a treaty obligation to
Czechoslovakia. The U.S. didn’t sign the Munich Agreement. The U.S. didn’t
undertake to enforce Wilson’s idea of self-determination of nations when they
came under threat from larger powers. It cannot be said that the U.S.
appeased Germany. Furthermore, the U.S. participation in World War I, which
would have been approved of by the Kagan-Nuland philosophy, had results that
led to World War II. It cannot be argued that the U.S. appeased Germany in
and before World War I.
With respect to the U.S. and NATO, it cannot be argued
today that Ukraine is another Sudetenland or Czechoslovakia. The U.S. has no
treaties with Ukraine to protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine or
prevent it from breaking apart in a civil war. If it did have such a treaty,
as it does with a good many other countries, it would only be asking for
trouble.
Kagan’s understanding of the 19th century and appeasement
is subject to serious questions. And when one considers how different the
situations are today with respect to those states or countries that he seeks
to replace Germany and Japan with, such as Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Islamic
State, Russia and China, the Kagan-Nuland philosophy of American force
projection is far more simply needless provocation and war-making than the
non-appeasement that Kagan and Nuland envision it to be. Furthermore, the
military intrusions of the U.S. can hardly be said to have appeased anyone;
and they have done nothing to promote those liberal interventionist aims that
Kagan and Nuland fell in love over.
