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First off I want to make clear that just as Hitler and the fascists were solely guilty of the crime of WW2 ,(even though many other states and governments failed to act in ways that may have prevented it) I recognize that Putin alone bears guilt for the military action deaths in Ukraine since late 2013 and especially in 2022.
That said, I think too little attention has been paid to the many enormous mistakes that made Putin's actions in Ukraine vastly more likely.
I am especially alarmed that so little attention has been paid to Putin's apparent desire to ensure that any instances of Western disregard of international law and norms should allow for similar violations to serve Russian interests as well. How often has Putin cited NATO intervention in Serbia and NATO support and direct military intervention to ensure a weak separatist movement became a defacto independent new state at Serbia's expense? Most importantly, how can the West act in a manner that clearly involved external promotion of and external military intervention to ensure independence in Kosovo without also completely abandoning any international proscriptions against doing so?
If the West had not split Kosovo off of Serbia, especially after a massive air campaign to destroy the Serbian infrastructure and economy, how much less tempted would Putin have been to risk doing the same and how much easier would it be to broaden the participation in sanctions for Putin or anybody else doing so? It looks like hypocrisy because it is, and functional international law abhors hypocrisy.
Putin has also repeatedly invoked the increased danger and threat of NATO expansion resulting from NATO aggression as justification for his actions. NATO members attempt to refute this by pointing out that NATO is a purely defensive bloc. How much less credible is that claim now that NATO has waged large scale offensive operations in Serbia *and* multiple countries of the southern Mediterranean coast without so much of a token invocation of article 5?
Furthermore, when Bush invaded Iraq with his coalition of the willing, with no direct immediate threat by Iraq to any country and not even evidence of an Iraqi post-war WMD test, let alone a nuclear test, for an anti proliferation argument how much easier did it become for Putin to do the same to Ukraine based on flimsy defence concerns relating to NATO expansion?
It should be obvious that the West needs to take the bull by the horns and disavow these past actions to have the slightest hope of reviving broad respect for the now dead letter of international law with respect to aggression without a UN mandate. Is there any realistic way this could be accomplished? Perhaps an amendment to the NATO charter and a US domestic law setting a higher bar in line with international norms to reign in war-monger presidents?
If nothing can be done, the world should prepare itself not only for these crimes becoming far more common but also for total absence of consensus in sanctions and other responses by actors outside of directly interested bloc to such crimes.
That said, I think too little attention has been paid to the many enormous mistakes that made Putin's actions in Ukraine vastly more likely.
I am especially alarmed that so little attention has been paid to Putin's apparent desire to ensure that any instances of Western disregard of international law and norms should allow for similar violations to serve Russian interests as well. How often has Putin cited NATO intervention in Serbia and NATO support and direct military intervention to ensure a weak separatist movement became a defacto independent new state at Serbia's expense? Most importantly, how can the West act in a manner that clearly involved external promotion of and external military intervention to ensure independence in Kosovo without also completely abandoning any international proscriptions against doing so?
If the West had not split Kosovo off of Serbia, especially after a massive air campaign to destroy the Serbian infrastructure and economy, how much less tempted would Putin have been to risk doing the same and how much easier would it be to broaden the participation in sanctions for Putin or anybody else doing so? It looks like hypocrisy because it is, and functional international law abhors hypocrisy.
Putin has also repeatedly invoked the increased danger and threat of NATO expansion resulting from NATO aggression as justification for his actions. NATO members attempt to refute this by pointing out that NATO is a purely defensive bloc. How much less credible is that claim now that NATO has waged large scale offensive operations in Serbia *and* multiple countries of the southern Mediterranean coast without so much of a token invocation of article 5?
Furthermore, when Bush invaded Iraq with his coalition of the willing, with no direct immediate threat by Iraq to any country and not even evidence of an Iraqi post-war WMD test, let alone a nuclear test, for an anti proliferation argument how much easier did it become for Putin to do the same to Ukraine based on flimsy defence concerns relating to NATO expansion?
It should be obvious that the West needs to take the bull by the horns and disavow these past actions to have the slightest hope of reviving broad respect for the now dead letter of international law with respect to aggression without a UN mandate. Is there any realistic way this could be accomplished? Perhaps an amendment to the NATO charter and a US domestic law setting a higher bar in line with international norms to reign in war-monger presidents?
If nothing can be done, the world should prepare itself not only for these crimes becoming far more common but also for total absence of consensus in sanctions and other responses by actors outside of directly interested bloc to such crimes.
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