Recently The Atlantic, an American magazine, published an extensive article headlined “The Obama Doctrine.” Based on his interviews with the president, as well as with high-positioned executive officers and legislators, the renowned American journalist Jeffrey Goldberg tried to formulate a general picture of America’s foreign policy under the 44th president. Some attention was also given to Russia, Ukraine, and assessment of the role played by Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Obama believes that Putin is cooperating with the US mainly in order to be seen as America’s peer, although he is not. “He’s not completely stupid. He understands that Russia’s overall position in the world is significantly diminished. And the fact that he invades Crimea or is trying to prop up Assad doesn’t suddenly make him a player,” according to President Obama.
For us, obviously, Obama’s assessment of Putin’s actions in Ukraine matters a lot, therefore we adduce completely a fragment of the article which concerns our country.
“Putin acted in Ukraine in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp. And he improvised in a way to hang on to his control there,” he said. “He’s done the exact same thing in Syria, at enormous cost to the well-being of his own country. And the notion that somehow Russia is in a stronger position now, in Syria or in Ukraine, than they were before they invaded Ukraine or before he had to deploy military forces to Syria is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of power in foreign affairs or in the world generally. Real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence. Russia was much more powerful when Ukraine looked like an independent country but was a kleptocracy that he could pull the strings on.
“Obama’s theory here is simple: Ukraine is a core Russian interest but not an American one, so Russia will always be able to maintain escalatory dominance there.
“The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do,” Obama said.
Meanwhile the US President remarked that his position on Ukraine is realistic: “But this is an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for.”
Brian Bonner, editor-in-chief of Kyiv Post, who voted twice for Obama, expressed disappointment at his policy and called his doctrine, published in The Atlantic, a wrong message.
“Obama will go down in history as the president who failed to defend American commitments to Ukrainian sovereignty. He should know better. As a junior senator from Illinois, he visited Ukraine in 2005 and pushed for legislation to destroy much of the nation’s conventional weaponry stockpiles, coming after Ukraine surrendered nuclear weapons under the terms of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum for which Ukraine received guarantees of sovereignty from the United States, Great Britain and Russia.
“This president has profoundly misjudged the situation, abdicating leadership to a Europe that he knows will not lead. Ukraine needed weapons and a Marshall Plan, billions of dollars in financial aid that would get spent under the strictest controls, since Ukraine’s political leaders cannot be trusted to spend money in the public interest on their own. Obama instead gave $500 million in aid and $2 billion in loan guarantees.
“When Russia deserved Iran-style sanctions, Obama and Europe delivered up soft ones that looked stronger because of the collapse in oil and natural gas prices, Russia’s main export. When Ukraine needed the strong moral support that only a visit by a US president can deliver, Obama sent US Vice President Joseph Biden, basically telling the world he doesn’t care because Ukraine is part of Russia’s sphere of influence.”
“OBAMA FAILED TO COMPLETELY GRASP THE ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF UKRAINE IN THE CONTEMPORARY GEOPOLITICAL PARADIGM”
Volodymyr OHRYZKO, former foreign minister of Ukraine:
It seems to me that the incumbent US President sadly failed to achieve what many of his predecessors had aspired and achieved, namely, the establishment of the US as a global leader. This certainly takes a political will, human courage, and motivation. Meanwhile, Obama (who is now preparing to close his second presidency) seems to have seen another role for the US: in particular, focusing on doubtlessly important problems, such as climate change or disarmament. But they are important when other security issues are under control or already settled.
“Given that they are far from settled, focus on important issues with long-term effects should not constitute the US president’s main task.
“So it is absolutely not incidental that security issues, absolutely urgent for the world of today, are given a secondary place in the Obama doctrine both concerning Ukraine and Syria, and also concerning Russia as a whole.
“It can be proven by the fact that he was relieved to refuse a military invasion in Syria after the criminal Assad regime had used chemical weapons against own people.
“At the same time, his statement that Ukraine would remain under Russia’s military dominance for a long time to come means that President Obama failed to completely grasp Ukraine’s role and significance in the contemporary geopolitical paradigm, or that he would not do it. Holding such a position means in reality provoking an aggressor, i.e., the Russian Federation. It seemed to me that leaders of such a caliber must be able to peek over the horizon and see how a secure world can be formed, on the one hand, and which mechanisms to this effect must be involved. In our case, on the one hand, it would have been the restraining of the aggressor, and on the other, providing Ukraine with all-round assistance and making it an Alliance member as soon as possible. In this doctrine we hear neither, so it only remains to hope that the new administration will see Ukraine through a more sober eye.
