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Moscows obsession with Ukraine is not new: Since the 17th century, Ukraine has been an integral part of how Russian rulers have thought about their realm of power, says Stanford historian Norman Naimark.

The more Ukraine continues to establish democratic freedom, rule of law and integration with the West, the more it becomes a threat to Putins sense of Russias mission, according to Stanford historian Norman Naimark. (Image credit: Getty Images)

For centuries, the two entities have had a complicated relationship: Russia sees Ukraine as integral to its empire, while Ukrainians frequently see themselves differently and independent from the common Eastern Slavic heritage they share, says Naimark. Putin wants Ukraine to be integrated into a larger Russian polity, not be an independent sovereign state with a functioning parliamentary system it has today. The more Ukraine, a thriving young democracy, continues to establish democratic freedom, rule of law and integration with the West, the more it becomes a threat to Putins sense of Russias mission.

Naimark, a scholar of Russian and East European history whose current research focuses on Soviet policies and actions in Europe after World War II and on genocide and ethnic cleansing in the 20th century, discusses some of the historical and geopolitical context around Putins fixation on restoring a Eurasian empire.

A number of historical comparisons about the invasion have been made: For example, Britains Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that in terms of scale, it could be the largest conflict Europe has experienced since 1945; others are likening to the start of a new Cold War. And while not quite historical, there are some people, including Representative Michael McCaul, who fear a WWIII. How useful are these comparisons? What historical parallels come to mind for you, if any?

Historical analogies are useful heuristic devices to give us perspective on contemporary events. To some extent, these references to past and future conflicts make sense. We have not seen this kind of major invasion of one country of another in Europe since World War II. Think about older Ukrainians who can remember the invasion of their country by the Nazis in 1941, but also the retaking of their lands by the Red Army in 1944 and the insurgent warfare by underground Ukrainian formations against the Soviets that went on in the west of the country until the late 1940s and early 1950s. This kind of bloody insurgency may emerge again if Ukraine loses this present war and is occupied by troops of the Russian Federation.

The Cold War question is a complicated one since the structured ideological struggle that was so central to the Cold War is not really part of this renewed bellicose hostility between Russia and the United States. That doesnt mean, though, that there arent serious differences between what we might call Putinism and Western values and norms. It is deeply troubling that the antagonisms between Putin and the West have reached such alarming proportions that nuclear strikes are threatened by Moscow and severe sanctions are imposed on the Russians that will clearly damage their economy and their ability to live a normal productive life. In my view, this is a pointless invasion on the part of Moscow, can only damage Russian interests and will sour U.S.-Russian relations for a very long time. Can World War III come from this situation? I really dont think so. Putin has reacted irrationally in moving into Ukraine, to be sure, but NATO has held firm and acted wisely and in concert to protect its eastern flank. I cant imagine Putin would challenge the combined forces of the U.S. and its Allies. He is interested in his Eurasian empire, not world hegemony. Still, there can be nuclear mistakes and miscalculations, and we have to be very careful, in conjunction with the Russians, to make sure that such accidental conflicts dont happen.

In Putins Feb. 22 address, he talked about the historical destiny of Russia. What in particular in Russias history might help people better understand Putin and his motivations and intentions?

There is no Russian empire, to which Putin aspires, without Ukraine. Since the 17th century, Ukraine has always been an integral part of how Russian rulers have thought about their realm of power. This is both conceptual and geostrategic. Stalin ostensibly worried about losing Ukraine in the 1930s to Pilsudskis Poland. Putin does not seek to reconstitute the Soviet Union, as so many commentators have suggested. In fact, he recently denounced Lenin and the Soviet government for having given Ukraine a sense of its statehood. He doesnt admit that Ukrainians have frequently thought of themselves differently than Russians and for many centuries have looked for autonomy within and independence from a larger Russian entity. But Putin simply refuses to recognize that. He is right that Russian and Ukrainian histories have been entangled, but not in the way he asserts.

Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been complicated since the turn of this century by the fact that Putins Russia has moved increasingly in the direction of autocracy, kleptocracy and control over domestic politics and society. Ukraine has become, with lots of bumps on the road and problems with corruption, a thriving young democracy. A Ukraine that is heading towards democratic freedom, the rule of law and integration with the West particularly galls Putin because Ukraine is ethnically Slavic and primarily Orthodox in religion, like Russia. It shares the Russians own Soviet and Imperial past and therefore should be complicit, in Putins view, in Moscows anti-democratic ideology. For Putin, its one thing if Estonia or Latvia has a well-functioning parliamentary democracy. These former Soviet republics that also share common borders with Russia did not have the same integral nexus with the Russia that Putin thinks Ukraine does. Ukrainian democracy is seen as threatening and undermines his sense of the larger Russian mission.

What aspect of Putins obsession with Russias past do you find the most troubling?

Putins version of Russian history is both distorted and pernicious. Alas, given heavy censorship its also the only version of history that is proffered in the Russian media. (Note the closing last December in Russia of the impressive civil society organization, Memorial, which was dedicated to accurately documenting and interpreting the Soviet past.) To be sure, since the late 19th century, there have been Russian nationalist thinkers who, like Putin, extoll the special role of the Russian people, the superior moral quality of Orthodoxy, the justifiable dominance of Russians in Eurasia and the unique place of the Russian collectivity in the world. But there are also plenty of reasonable Russians, who reject this kind of national chauvinism and would like to live normal lives in peace with their neighbors and in a democratic society. This war really hurts these good people. They live under a brutal autocrat, and there is not much they can do to change their countrys policies. They have had to experience Soviet dictatorship and now Putins with the accompanying historical distortions. This is another reason the Ukrainians are fighting so hard: They just dont want to go back to denying their national aspirations and giving up the ability to tell their own story because of Moscows dictates.

Naimark is the Robert & Florence McDonnell Professor of E. European Studies and of German Studies (by courtesy) in the School of Humanities and Sciences. He is also a senior fellow (by courtesy) at the Hoover Institution and at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI).

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Putin sees Ukrainian democracy as threat that undermines Russia's mission | Stanford News - Stanford University News

At least four basic responses from our leaders are needed, according to the polling making visible the work of career civil servants, distinguished from the political leadership; emphasizing the ways government works on behalf of all; continuing to reform government so it is most effective and efficient; and then telling those stories to break the negative cycle.

When people dont trust their government, they are more likely to opt out of voting and other types of civic participation. With less engagement, the public feels less empowered to influence government and, in turn, government hears their needs and preferences less. This creates a mistrust loop: Diminished trust in government leads to a disengaged public, resulting in inefficient, unresponsive or unaccountable institutions, and that leads to further deterioration of trust and national progress.

This dynamic can have life and death consequences. Almost half (46 percent) of the people in our poll who said they were vaccinated for the Covid-19 virus trusted the government compared with 29 percent of those who had not been vaccinated. A recent study published in the journal The Lancet found that countries with higher levels of government trust had lower infection and fatality rates during the pandemic.

Our recent polling shows that more than half of Americans do not believe the government helps people like them, and two-thirds believe the government is not transparent or does not listen to the public. These are issues that should be acknowledged by the president and dealt with by his administration in substantial ways to restore faith in our democracy.

For Biden, rebuilding public trust in government is a necessity for his presidency. Put trust and faith in our government to fulfill its most important function, which is protecting the American people no function more important, he said in a speech last year about combating the pandemic. We need to remember the government isnt some foreign force in a distant capital. No, its us. All of us.

Some of the public distrust over the years has been driven by controversial wars, policy blunders, mismanagement and political malfeasance, but a good deal is the result of a lack of information or an inability to differentiate the activities of elected political leaders from the critical services provided by federal agencies and the two million civil servants located across the country.

The publics expectations and trust are often shaped by personal experiences. People applying for financial aid for college, visiting a national park, seeking assistance after a hurricane or going through airport security may be the only lenses through which they may see our government in action.

The new polling shows that positive experiences build goodwill and trust, but even a single negative interaction can have a lasting impact on peoples faith in government and democratic institutions.

The data also tells us that the public either does not know about or overlooks significant work by our countrys civil servants the individuals who care for veterans and assist Americans in need, keep us safe, engage in cutting-edge scientific and medical research, and advance our national interest. Finding ways to communicate these stories can have a big impact on public perceptions.

There is no doubt that regaining trust is a long-term endeavor that will require across-the-board improvements not only in how government serves its people, but how it listens, communicates and effectively deals with big issues of consequence as well as everyday matters.

This is a tall order often complicated by political discord and major disruptions like the pandemic and foreign policy crises. But the bottom line is that a healthy democracy requires our government to be effective and also requires it to be worthy of trust and be trusted. Biden should make that clear in his State of the Union address and in his actions in the years ahead.

Read more from the original source:
Opinion | Why Democracy's in Such Trouble: A Crisis in Public Trust of Government - POLITICO

In 2010 I was approached on behalf of a Russian multimillionaire offering 30m. Id recently launched a philanthropic foundation to help grassroots charities cope with the aftermath of the financial crisis.

We attracted a lot of support from individuals with genuine motives, but soon we were being approached by professional philanthropy advisers a recently established money-making trade created by wealth managers and private offices. But on this occasion an adviser from a luxury concierge firm told us it had a Russian client willing to give us a huge sum to help us start up.

But there were strings attached. The client and his wife had to be invited to charity events attended by royalty, politicians, celebs and opinion formers. We would have to seek out big-brand arts and culture organisations, high-profile sports such as polo, and several named military charities, taking them on as trustees or board members. And they would have to have a say on the charities we funded, including charities in Belarus and Romania.

These demands rang alarm bells. The adviser boasted that he had helped this family to set up a charitable trust and other lucrative services that were earning his firm fat fees.

Even back then, questions were raised about the ability to move large sums of money out of Russia without permission from Vladimir Putin. There was a lot of good we could have done with such a vast sum, but it would have compromised all my principles.

The Conservative party and some of its MPs Boris Johnson and David Cameron among them have, of course, been less choosy. This is what makes it very difficult for the prime minister to talk with any credibility about making life tough for rich Russians: he has defended donations made to his party by close Putin associates. On this issue, he is only now keen to talk the talk but he still wont walk the walk: there are no timelines or details about enacting laws to clean up Londongrad, or indeed dirty money flowing in from numerous dubious sources around the world.

It is generally assumed that Russians often pump their roubles into our society because they crave social respectability. On the contrary, it has long been part of a systematic attempt to destabilise our institutions, most notably our parliament, press and democracy.

Johnson and consecutive Conservative governments have been well aware that the lack of transparency over this cash was a scandal waiting to be exposed. But they have been willing to turn a blind eye for as long as they could benefit.

The ecosystem of enablers includes wealth managers, banks, private equity houses, accountants, lawyers and the growing army of philanthropy advisers, lobbyists, and thinktanks who have been complicit in the infiltration by those close to Putin of not just our political infrastructure, but our property market, businesses, charities, public bodies, arts, culture, and sports.

I have crossed paths with many of these during my time vocally campaigning against dodgy practices in the City, and remember that many of us were shocked that in 2018, the British government allowed Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with links to companies that produce Russian military equipment, to raise an estimated 1bn on the London stock exchange.

US security services concluded that examples like this impacted on the governments ability to tackle important national security issues.

Nor should we ignore the impact of Russian money on the Brexit campaign. In a 2017 Guardian article, I wrote:

Think of Brexit as a matryoshka, or a Russian nesting doll, with voting to leave the EU as the outer doll Pulling off the outer doll reveals another doll that represents something much more worrying.

Today, the rot has been exposed, but words are not enough to restore the reputation and integrity of our institutions. What we need is a raft of robust cleaning-up laws, including more stringent checks and due diligence before new organisations can register with Companies House or the Charity Commission, greater scrutiny of trustees, and a register of funders of thinktanks. Professional services must use their expertise and insight to protect the stability and security of our country, and the wider western world they should not be facilitators of the kind of evil we are now seeing in Ukraine.

Johnsons government is at least now making some attempts to close loopholes that have for too long allowed dark money into London, making it the money laundering capital of the world. It is time for us to remember that there are some things that money must not be allowed to buy our morals and integrity.

Read more:
Dodgy Russian money has destabilised Britains democracy. We have to crack down on it - The Guardian

March 03, 2022

(Washington, DC) U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Europe and Regional Security Cooperation Chair and Ranking Member led a bipartisan group, including Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) on a resolution recognizing Bosnia and Herzegovinas 30th anniversary of independence, addressing the political situation and reaffirming U.S. support for the nations pro-democratic aspirations.

I appreciate the bipartisan support for this resolution, which not only celebrates Bosnia and Herzegovinas 30 years of independence, but reaffirms U.S. support for their pro-democratic aspirations. Bolstering democracy around the world has never been as critical as it is today as we watch the Ukrainian people in the fight of their lives for freedom and democracy, said Shaheen. This resolution sends a powerful message to our partners in Bosnia and Herzegovina that the U.S. is behind them as they work to uphold unity in their nation for the sake of a brighter and more prosperous future for their citizens.

I am happy to cosponsor this bipartisan resolution reaffirming U.S. support for Bosnia and Herzegovina on the 30th anniversary of its declaration of independence, said Johnson.

Im glad to join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in recognizing thirty years of Bosnia and Herzegovinas independence. While Putin simultaneously wages war on Ukraine and cheers on separatists in Bosnia and Herzegovina threatening 26 years of fragile peace in the Balkans the United States is committed to supporting the countrys pro-democratic and anti-corruption reforms, said Murphy.

The Bosnian people paid a terrible price in the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, said Durbin. After so much bloodshed and suffering, we must not let spoilers undermine the hard fought peace the U.S. and others helped broker. I join my colleagues in introducing a bipartisan resolution to celebrate 30 years of independence and reiterate U.S support for their democracy.

I congratulate the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the 30th anniversary of their independence, said Wicker. As we have all been reminded recently, freedom and democracy are blessings that must continually be protected. The United States stands by the security, stability, and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and we hope their leaders will continue to work for unity and to end corruption.

Im proud to stand with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to recognize this significant milestone in Bosnia and Herzegovinas history, said Peters. For thirty years now, Bosnians have pursued a path of freedom and democracy and its essential we remain steadfast in our support of their efforts particularly given Russian aggression in Europe. In this moment, we must reaffirm our commitment to the principles of the Dayton Accords and to working alongside pro-democracy nations that seek peace and prosperity including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and other Balkan nations.

In January, Shaheen and Johnson sent a letter to the State Department urging the Department to use all available measures to resolve the political crisis in Bosnia.

Text of the resolution is available here.

Here is the original post:
Shaheen-Johnson Lead Bipartisan Resolution Recognizing Bosnia and Herzegovina's 30 Years of Independence & Support for Pro-Democratic Aspirations...

Nye is the president and CEO of the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress and a former member of Congress from Virginia.

The American democracy is an incredible tradition that has been the envy of the world and remained resilient through two centuries. Though it has had to adapt to constantly reach for our ideals of equality and effectiveness, it has endured.

Yet the project is straining under the stresses of destructive factionalism our Founders warned us about at the outset of the republic, and it appears near the breaking point. The Economist Intelligence Units new Democracy Index 2021 has ranked the United States as 26th in the world and rated our country as a flawed democracy for the sixth year running. It is time for a serious reflection on the flaws plaguing our democracy and what we can do to fix them.

The EIU report cites extremely high levels of political polarization as a key problem. Our country is largely divided into political camps that define the other camp as an existential threat. Extreme competition for congressional majority compels politicians to ramp up practices like gerrymandering electoral districts for partisan advantage, which serves to destroy faith in politics and to further polarize the behavior of officials whose elections depend primarily on the sentiments of the most extreme party faithful. Closed primaries concentrate power on the fringes, as the primary is the only competitive election in most congressional districts.

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Lack of cooperation and resulting gridlock has rendered Congress largely dysfunctional, racked by increasingly common government shutdowns and an inability to complete sensible budgets on time or at all, while sectarianism prevents the basic cooperation our democracy requires to function. Political opponents are framed as such evil destructive forces that keeping them from power becomes more important than having a democracy at all. Discordant politicians have failed to come together even in the face of a concerted effort by a president to overturn a presidential election, an act which still defies a common assessment or response despite its attendant political violence. The cycle only seems to be spiraling further downward.

America is facing twin crises of dysfunctional politics and a lack of faith in our democracy. The bottom line is that our political system no longer provides incentive for elected officials to cooperate. Our electoral system is stacked in the favor of the most extreme voters, rewarding sectarian battling over cooperation, while our media is inclined to promote dramatic narratives and bombastic attention-grabbing personalities, further rewarding extremism.

If we fail to solve our fundamental incentive problem, we will remain unable to bridge the divides that tear at our country and leave us unable to rally to our greatest challenges at home and abroad.

In order to break this cycle, we must accomplish two things:

Partisan gerrymandering, closed primaries and winner-take-all systems are products of political party invention and not protected by the Constitution. They can be changed. Various states have already implemented fixes such as independent commissions or criteria for districting, open primaries, and ranked-choice selection methods, all of which incentivize candidates to appeal to a broader group of voters, thereby promoting greater cooperation. We should promote these in all states.

Federal legislation would also be ideal for systemic reforms that are most party-agnostic when implemented across all states simultaneously, such as gerrymandering reform, and for reforms that prevent racial discrimination, such as preclearance rules. But a federal legislative strategy that combines a large comprehensive set of reforms is difficult to explain to voters plainly, and unlikely to be successful.

A better strategy would entail a piecemeal approach, starting with reforms that enjoy broad support among voters of all stripes or that have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan backing, including preclearance rules and gerrymandering reforms, and devoting more debate time to these issues. Even though progress in Congress is difficult, a more robust public debate would serve to educate voters and move sentiment in favor of reasonable reforms.

American partisans, engaged in scorched earth warfare over voting methodology across numerous states, are poisoning the well for rational compromise on standards that could provide for easy, efficient, and secure voting.

The same malincentives that prevent cooperation over fundamental responsibilities like budgeting cause officials to pursue voting rules satisfying to the knee-jerk sentiments of partisan base voters but often connected to outdated or outright false perceptions or at worst specifically designed to discourage voting among groups that might be more likely to vote for the other team. A constant swing in rules defining absentee ballot usage, early voting opportunities or acceptable voter IDs all dependent on which party holds the majority in a state legislature is a sure-fire way to destroy faith in the process and intensify the heated partisan mistrust that derails opportunities to find common ground.

Fixing this would require the participation of trusted nonpartisan actors, such as respected private sector CEOs, who could broker a tension-reducing set of negotiations over voting rules using a data-driven process that eschews simplistic partisan talking points. A reduction in tensions across this front might blunt the destructive power of dramatic political personalities to constantly stoke sectarian tendencies.

It is also dangerous to allow partisan competitors to police the rules of electoral competition. This is akin to having the referees in a football game also be members of the opposing teams. The elimination of partisan secretaries of state would be a good start in returning the referees to neutral status and restoring faith that elections can be conducted without partisan leaning or undue influence.

The resolution of our dire polarization will take a concerted effort to change incentives and break the cycle of partisan warfare. Fortunately the solutions, however difficult, are known and proven at smaller scales. Though focusing on systemic reform and reducing tensions is not as sexy as the next campaign or charismatic personality, our country deserves our dedication to make this effort a national priority.

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