Is the Threat Real?

Since the Russian invasion of Georgia there have been many articles running the same argument about renewed imperial ambition of Russia. Here is one such example by noted Ukraine scholar Taras Kuzio in the Kyiv Post.

Russia's imperialism in Georgia will also return support levels in Ukraine for NATO membership to their pre-Iraqi invasion levels when a third of Ukraine's population backed membership. Obtaining 51 percent in a referendum is easier to accomplish when your starting base is 33 percent, rather than 20 percent. Any attempt at repeating the Putin Doctrine in the Crimea would increase support in Ukraine for NATO membership to over a third.
However, former Ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter told Radio Free Europe that there is no chance of military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. According to the ambassador, 

 I think there is political pressure from Russia. I think there would be economic pressure -- that is, efforts by the Russians to try to keep Ukraine from trying to build its ties to the West. But at the moment I see zero Russian military threat against Ukraine. The Russians would have to be insane in terms of their own self-interest if they were to do that.
I think people are watching the Georgia situation because it was attacked by the Russians. Most people here in the United States are not paying attention to Ukraine at all -- except in the context of the support here for countries in Central Europe who are democratizing and want to be part of Western institutions. If indeed the Russians were to do anything toward Ukraine, then the interest in it would rise instantly. But right now, from Ukraine's perspective, not being a center of American attention is probably a good sign.  

 With Crimea being seen as the next battleground by most pundits one has to ask, what's the status of Ukraine's military? One answer comes from the Kyiv Post which claims that,

Unlike Georgia, whose air force numbers less than a dozen planes, Ukraine has a significantly larger air force and anti­aircraft systems which experts said could help defend its airspace and inflict considerable damage on its opponent.

The defense forces of Poland, Romania and Hungary, for comparison, do not have any surface­to­air missile systems comparable to Ukraine’s, said Alexander Khramchishin, an analyst at the Russian Institute of Military and Political Analysis.

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Almost all its weapons are inherited from the Soviet army, and are therefore outdated. Georgia in recent years spent some $2 billion to purchase new arms, from Ukraine, the U.S. and Israel. Of Ukraine’s roughly 800 tanks, the few operational ones are modernized models of tanks first produced in 1964. The planes were made in 1970-­1980s.

“While we use second and third­generation tanks, [NATO members] use tanks and aviation of the fourth and fifth generation,” said Victor Chumak, a security expert at the Kyiv­based International Center for Policy Studies.

While Ukraine’s armed forces are badly in need of upgrades, the country ­ paradoxically ­ has in recent years ranked as one of the top ten arms exporters worldwide, with about two percent of the global market. And its domestic defense spending is only a fraction of NATO standards.


at Tuesday, August 26, 2008

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