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Fundamentally, the issue of adherence not to international law in general, but the norm of not allowing territorial conquest by war, seems critical. Regardless of Ukrainian claims, if Russia is allowed to keep territory it gained militarily, it weakens the single most important reason for states not to engage in military conflict, returning to the pre-WWII status quo. The indirect implications for China and Taiwan, and for leaders around the world in the coming decades, contribute to—or detract from—international stability in ways that are far more important than the direct implications.
That said, I think that considering a binary question is mistaken, and in fact the international economic and other pressure against Russia, is enough to reinforce the norm, while hopefully allowing a stalemate or indefinite ceasefire in the region, addressing the other concerns.
The norm of not allowing territorial conquest by war does not really exist as stated. The norm is to not allow conquest into the recognized borders of other sovereign states. Conquering unrecognized states and breakaway regions is fully normalized, as shown for instance by the nonexistent international reactions to recent wars in Tigray and Karabakh.
China invading Taiwan would not be classical territorial conquest by war because Taiwan is not recognized as a sovereign state. According to international law, China already has the legal right to invade Taiwan. If anything, Ukraine invading Crimea, not Russia invading Crimea, is analogous to China invading Taiwan.
Are there other cases where something similar to the 2014 invasion of Crimea might happen—sure. But the idea that invading Crimea now will help make leaders decide against such stunts is speculative and unsubstantiated. Different parts of the world, different scenarios with different stakes. And in cases like Crimea, where the domestic majority welcomes it and there is little to no bloodshed, it’s hardly something to be upset about.
It is a highly dubious view of norms: that they are so powerful that they govern state behavior, but so fragile that when one country violates them many others will as well.
Yes, well, I would think that annihilating their military and sweeping them out of mainland Ukraine would be enough to reinforce the norm.
Crimea was a part of Ukraine when it was conquered by Russian troops. Unambiguously. The claims by Russia that it really would have wanted to break away may even be correct—but they don’t get to invade first, then run an election to say they declared independence. It certainly needs to be the other way around for it to be at all similar to those other cases.
If you only enforce the rules when there is already a military conclusion, you’re not enforcing international law, you’re saying that might makes right. There needs to be continued pressure on Russia about the fact that they are in continuous violation of international law. And at this point, if they want Crimea legally, they would need hand it back to Ukraine and let them vote on succession. (Or they need Ukraine to recognize their claims.)
That’s assuming norms are binary, is reductive, and makes no sense as a response. Yes, norms are degraded by violations, and yes, they are important guides to state behavior in a wide variety of cases. If you don’t think either one of those claims is true, I’d be happy to defend it.
That’s beside the point, I wasn’t claiming otherwise. The point is that Taiwan is more like those other cases.
I wasn’t arguing against the use of sanctions to punish countries for violating international law (or some laws, at least).
And enforcing law requires might, and sanctions are might of a different form, so this doesn’t make sense anyway.
I don’t think we fundamentally disagree there but I’m saying this stuff is very tenuous as a rationale for foreign policy—one norm violation doesn’t make a great deal of difference.
I’ll look through this in greater detail eventually, but the main things that jump out at on this post is the lack of engagement with two of the biggest issues at stake:
(1) Ukraine’s inability to join NATO so long as it has outstanding territorial disputes, and hence its susceptibility to future invasions and war crimes.
(2) Russia’s continued possession of Sevastopol and Crimea allowing it to threaten Black Sea shipping, blockade grain exports, and cause/threaten to cause global famine as political leverage as happened early last year.
These would likely be the determinative factors, along with the likelihood of the Crimeans being subject to abusive autocracy (improbable) or that nuclear war will result (highly improbable). Reasonable people can definitely disagree on how it all adds up on net, but I do think a comprehensive attempt to engage with the topic requires addressing (1) Ukraine’s top concern of future security, and (2) the absolutely critical issue of global famine.
I should have mentioned this, but it will only have an outstanding territorial dispute if it continues to claim sovereignty over Crimea, not if it makes a deal as described in the end section.
To some extent this falls under the topic of weakening Russia. But making a peace deal with Russia would just as quickly solve this risk as taking Crimea, making this a reason to especially prioritize shortening the war. I didn’t mention it because it’s currently solved with a deal to allow the exports, and it presumably won’t be a problem in peacetime.
I downvoted for the use of the word ‘invading’. ‘Invading’ describes what Russia did to Crimea in 2014, ‘retaking’ would be a better word for this context.
As for self-determination, 54% of Crimieans voted for Ukrainian independence in the 1991 referendum. Since the 2014 invasion, Russia has probably imported so many citizens that the demographics have changed massively and this would skew any future referendum.
Both words are accurate. You can use whichever one you want.
You’re citing this 1991 result for a completely different scenario as if I didn’t just give you evidence on how Crimeans have actually felt on the actual issue at stake since 2014.
I’m not sure of the practical details, but a referendum might be closed off to recent immigrants.
Speaking of word use, “imported” is definitively incorrect as people choose where to live, they are not inanimate goods. It’s also delegitimizing language that lends itself to ethnic cleansing, although I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.
I don’t think both words are accurate here. Crimea was illegally annexed, and ‘invasion’ to me means entering another country’s territory.
My fundamental belief here is that the norms on a countries borders should be decided by referendum, and then respected (i.e. not invaded).
The 2014 referendum was one month after Russia invaded Crimea. I wouldn’t trust the results of it (a 96% result to join Russia is implausible), or really any referendum since, while Russia is still in control. So, I would think the latest and most authoritative piece of evidence would be the 1991 referendum.
I think you’re overstating the badness of the word ‘imported’ here, although I accept it’s not usually used for people. My point is that Russia has used various methods to bring immigrants in—I’m reading for example, one-off payments of $30,000, and that up to 1,000,000 people may have emigrated to Crimea since 2014. It seems implausible that that amount of people would move without significant incentives or coercion from Russia, which is a war crime according to the Geneva convention, Article 49 - “the transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
I’m not gonna reply further to this thread, it’s an emotional issue for with the suffering the Ukrainian people have, and are experiencing during the war. This also has zero decision relevance to me (and probably most people reading this).
If you think borders should be decided by referendum then you should endorse a substantive right to having a referendum in the first place. That implies that Crimea should be able to hold a referendum even if Kyiv refuses to allow it.
See the link I provided to my other post discussing public opinion in Crimea. The result is plausible when considering that most pro-Ukraine Crimeans boycotted the vote (so true support was ~80%), but more importantly, ignoring Russia’s untrustworthy referendum, polling data shows majority support for annexation. I have no doubt that in 1991 a slim majority of Crimeans wanted Ukraine to leave the USSR, but it’s far from the best evidence we have about how Crimeans in 2014 felt about leaving Ukraine to join Russia.
Thanks for this post.
It seems that what you should signal you want to happen is very different from what you actually want to happen, so I’d be unsure about pushing too far against pro-retaking rhetoric (and thus devaluing Ukraine’s bargaining chip) in more public media spaces.
No need to worry, Ukraine and NATO governments will largely desire an invasion of Crimea even if the entire EA community agrees with me and lobbies as hard as possible. There is more of the opposite problem—that Ukrainians are too fixed on total victory to allow for a peace deal, making all of their bargaining chips pointless.
@kbog
The first and the greatest reason for a possibility of military and nuclear escalation is Putin and his dictatorship, not Ukraine, NATO or EU. Conceding anything to Putin and his collaborators at this point will only give them reasons to believe their tactics work and so, nuclear and military threats will never end. All the relevant arguments—political, historical, humanitarian, legal etc. are on the Ukrainian side. (In your own words: “The idea of Ukrainian sovereignty over Crimea is supported by international law”). With or without Crimea Putin will try to interfere and destroy Ukraine as long as he is in power, so you are wrong with the assumption that Putin will stop with Crimea in his hands (he very clearly didn’t thus far) and Ukraine will be free of burden. Any utility calculations beyond point are futile, because these arguments give a good enough heuristic to follow and they already point to the highest value decisions.
Also, the main argument, that people living in Crimea want to join Russian Federation is just plain and simply, wrong. The very source you point to in 2021 forum post (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Crimean_status_referendum) points out a number of methodological issues with the referendum and also—in plain terms—it was done while the area was controlled by the Russian military, so exactly zero faith should be put into these results. Also, before the referendum there were a number of factors influencing the earlier poll results, so that we should not call these “the will of the people”.
Therefore, the entirety of your argument is just plain wrong, sorry. Calling anybody to spread a message contrarian to very obvious points I’ve made above is just bad for everyone—EA, Ukraine, Russia, Europe etc. etc. It only benefits Putin and his lackeys.
Welcome to the forum.
Nuclear and military threats will never end no matter what we do because there is no world government to stop them.
Invading Crimea will show that Russia’s scheme to seize Crimea in 2014 was a failure. It will also show that Ukraine’s scheme to seize Crimea in 2023 is successful. No matter who wins in a war, one side provides an example of military threats working and another side provides an example of military threats failing.
Indeed it’s true that invading Crimea will hurt Russia and reduce the likelihood of them in particular taking further actions around the world, as I discuss in the section “invading Crimea would weaken Russia”, but as I argue there, this is a rather weak reason in favor of executing the operation.
I never made that assumption. I do say there could be a peace treaty.
The fact that Minsk II fell apart doesn’t show that a stable compromise is impossible—Minsk II failed, I think, because it did not remove tension of areas having de facto seceded while being de jure Ukrainian, and Putin wanted (among many other things) to ensure the long term security of Crimea and DPR/LPR.
Any peace treaty where de facto control and de jure sovereignty coincide—such as, for instance, one where Russia recognizes Ukrainian sovereignty over the entirety of the Donbas but Ukraine recognizes Russian sovereignty over Crimea—will be much more stable.
From that 2021 forum post: “Because of … the many irregularities with the execution of the referendum suggesting the pro-Russian side could have been artificially exaggerated … this is not a good indicator for Crimean public opinion.” So I don’t know why you’d bother to say this.
I went on to look at opinion polls, which mostly show majority Crimean support for annexation.
Nuclear and military threats will never end no matter what we do because there is no world government to stop them.
Wrong. Even without world government, other governments can punish those which make threats (economically, politically etc.) to the point of making threats a bad deal for those that make them. And not dishing out such punishment (i.e. letting things slide for Putin) will only make threats more common. Putin started a war in 2022 because he thought he will get away with it again, and luckily this didn’t happen.
No matter who wins in a war, one side provides an example of military threats working and another side provides an example of military threats failing.
Wrong. This is symmetrism at its finest. Ukraine is not making any threats, it’s the same case as with a person who got robbed and wants their stuff back - they’re not making threats either. The only one making threats here for many years now is Putin and his mafia-state. There is a fundamental difference between a country not violating the borders of its neighbours (Ukraine) and a bully (Russia) who stirs up problems. The only blame lies squarely on Putin and his gangsters.
I never made that assumption. I do say there could be a peace treaty.
But I made that assumption, because your assumption of Putin respecting any peace treaty ever again is plain wrong. That’s not what the guy does nor will do at this point. He played his hand and its either military defeat or victory, now or in the future, as long as he stays in power.
remove tension of areas having de facto seceded
Seceded with what? Opinion polls? There was no secession to speak of before Putin rolled in with his military disguised as local rebels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Crimea_by_the_Russian_Federation
and Putin wanted (among many other things) to ensure the long term security of Crimea and DPR/LPR.
Oh, poor Putin :( He only wanted to play nice :( He could have just not started the war in 2014. Or 2022. Or 2008 with Georgia.
So I don’t know why you’d bother to say this.
Because you literally back up your main argument with a link to the post, and the linked fragment starts with “Crimea’s 2014 status referendum provides one indicator of public opinion.”—no it does not, now by your own admission. However, the impression your writing makes is that the referendum is a solid data point. Again—it is not. Nor are the earlier polls. “Will of the people” in such important matters as statehood cannot be simply inferred from polls with a sample size of 1000-2000. Also, analysing many polls side-by-side shows, that their results are at best inconclusive.
If there ever was a solid case for secession there were plenty of avenues to pursue it, without Russia starting wars in 2014 and 2022. They knew there was not, hence the wars. And now that they did start them, they blew it forever. Any discussions now should be made remembering, that a terrorist state (Russia) attacked Ukraine in an act of unjust, total war—and this overrides any concern for any Russian interests and claims they might have ever had. Putin just ousted himself from being considered a civilized leader and cannot be treated as such, nor anyone can give any credence to his claims or claims of his supporters.
Sure, if all the governments around the world agree to punish all other countries which make threats. But the governments around the world have not agreed to do this, nor will they. For example, China routinely threatens Taiwan and never gets punished for it at all. North Korea does not get punished for threatening South Korea. Serbia does not get punished for threatening Kosovo. Azerbaijan does not get punished for threatening Armenia. America did not get punished for threatening Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. Iran does not get punished for threatening just about everybody. And so on.
No different from not punishing Ukraine for threatening to invade Crimea. In every war there are two sides making threats. When you try to stop a practice by doing more of it, your effort is quixotic. Better to focus on making the world better here and now—end the current wars, and draw up peace deals that satisfy the people currently alive. Do that enough and you’ll see the world get meaningfully closer to world peace.
Someone who gets robbed and says they will use violence to get their stuff back is, in fact, making a threat. Whether it’s morally justified or not. You are letting your moral views interfere with the definition of the word “threat”.
No, morally speaking, a share of blame lies with Ukraine for not allowing a democratic referendum on the status of Crimea in 2014. In the aftermath of the revolution it would have been both morally decent and pragmatically smart to recognize that not all of the country was going to accept the new direction and that political status would have to be altered accordingly. And Ukrainian refusal to accept Crimean secession may have played a role in motivating the 2022 invasion.
If you want to judge whether a peace treaty is going to fail, you will need to consider the full context of factors that make it rational or irrational for either side to violate the treaty. An armchair judgment of Putin’s character does not suffice.
For example, if Russia is militarily crippled and Ukraine is backed by NATO states then it will not be feasible for Russia to attack Ukraine. Moreover, if Ukraine accedes to NATO then it will not be in Russia’s interest to attack Ukraine.
Also, Putin may die, or may be ousted from office during or not long after the war, in which case your prediction on the basis of Putin’s character will become completely irrelevant.
This is not a real answer to my point.
You are being obtuse. I expect a higher standard of comment here, if you don’t do it then I will use moderator powers. On this forum the author of a post can moderate the discussion.
The margin of error on a poll of 1000 people is well below what it would take to overturn the result of >70% of Crimeans favoring secession. That said, I agree that statehood is too important to be left merely to polls, that’s why it should be judged with an internationally observed binding referendum. Unfortunately Ukraine attempted to forcibly prevent any such referendum. In the absence of a proper referendum, we can only infer things from the available evidence. The available evidence suggests with high probability that the majority of Crimeans circa 2014 wanted to secede from Ukraine.
?
Regarding 2014 - no there were not. Look at the track record of secessionist movements elsewhere in the world, especially elsewhere in the former USSR, and see how they go.
No it does not. In international law, the protections which states and their citizens have under various treaties and customs do not get invalidated in such a manner. And in ethics, this is not the correct way of doing things. We do not use bad actions by the other side as an excuse to commit bad actions of our own.