The White House’s Dilemma and Its Ukraine Strategy

The violent escalation in Ukraine made it clear that the economic sanctions imposed against Russia are not working. The failure, already anticipated by Clarín a few days ago, has created a great debate in Washington about what to do from here forward.

Military intervention was ruled out from the start. Not only are there the bad experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, but furthermore President Barack Obama thinks that his Russian colleague, Vladimir Putin, does not want a military conflict with the West. “They’re not interested in any kind of military confrontation with us, understanding that our conventional forces are significantly superior to the Russians,” he explained.

How is he to do that when Russia has 40,000 troops ready to invade Ukraine and Friday’s 47 dead in Odessa gave it a motive to do so? How is he to dissuade Putin from a greater intervention in Ukraine? Meanwhile, there are only two options being weighed: stronger economic sanctions and/or sending military aid to Kiev’s army. So far, the economic sanctions have been directed against politicians and businessmen close to Putin. In Washington, it is being said that there already was a flight of Russian capital of nearly $8 billion and that the Russian economic situation has deteriorated. But according to Goldman Sachs, by the time Obama announced the first sanctions, the ruble and the markets which were plummeting had already begun to stabilize.

There are those who now argue, however, that if in the coming days sanctions are imposed against the energy sector, the impact would be much stronger. The problem is that British Petroleum possesses 20 percent of Russia’s Rosneft and 6 percent of Exxon Mobil’s production comes from Russia. Additionally, Europe is one of the principal consumers of Russian gas. That is, the new sanctions would not only damage Russia but also the West.

It is also true that sanctions have not worked anywhere. The most flagrant examples are Cuba and North Korea. In fact, sanctions are always an intermediate step between diplomacy and war. There is also another step: sending arms and military teams to Ukraine’s army.

The Republicans are pressing in favor of this option. Obama is resisting. “Do people actually think that somehow us sending some additional arms into Ukraine could potentially deter the Russian army,” he asked, not long after having rejected sending Kiev night vision goggles for its soldiers. In fact, if Putin does not invade Ukraine it is because he does not want to pay the high political cost that it would entail. Meanwhile, he prefers to destabilize the situation with special forces, as he is doing now. But that could change at any moment.