For sure, “First, do no harm” is not a principle that sits well with the twenty-first-century American zeitgeist. Don’t just stand there, do something—we are being taught. Operate immediately, spike up the meds, be aggressive in treatment, can’t you see that we are losing him/her (Libya/Ukraine)? Yet Obama’s philosophy of non-maleficence did get endorsed by a number of renowned experts. David Remnick of The New Yorker approvingly commented: “When your aim is to conduct a responsive and responsible foreign policy, the avoidance of stupid things is often the avoidance of bloodshed and unforeseen strife. History suggests that it is not a mantra to be derided or dismissed.”[36]
Future historians of the American presidency will, no doubt, uncover the reasons for and the ways in which Obama’s principle of non-maleficence got hijacked in 2011–2014, but no matter their origins, the consequences of the follies in countries like Libya or Ukraine will be now felt for generations.
“Organizing principle” is an attractive expression, and when applied to foreign policy makes it sound as if the chaos of international relations could be scientifically controlled, like nuclear synthesis or tomato growing. It seems that for the interventionist the method is never to visit a developing country empty-handed, that is without non-negotiable gifts—business models, progressive mores, societal structures, political institutions, or “freedom” and “justice.”
In the course of The Atlantic interview, Clinton blamed Obama for the emergence of ISIS, quoting his “failure” to help Syrian anti-Assad rebels as resolutely as she had helped the anti-Gaddafi rebels in Libya in 2011. But her critics may point out that it was the interventionist policy of blanket endorsement of the “Arab Spring,” culminating in the NATO bombing of Libya, that made ISIS possible.
Taking out dictatorial regimes in North Africa and the Middle East created a structural void, where warlordism and lawlessness thrived. Libya is now a failed state in a key geopolitical location, and it is unclear whether the damage done to the nation is even repairable. Civil war rages, jihadism soars, and on the Libyan coast swarms of migrants fight for a place on a boat to cross the sea to Europe, the continent stupefied by the hundreds of thousands of refugees who have already arrived.
Compared with the brazen use of force in Libya, U.S. interference in Ukraine in 2013–2014 had been “soft.” Yet its underlying principle was the same—impose a gift of “freedom” on a divided nation, and take it from there—again, in the spirit of the infamous Napoleonic motto On s’engage, et puis on voit.
“Do no harm” and “organize”: the balance between the two in U.S. foreign policy will determine the fate of the unsettled parts of Eastern Europe, but also America’s gains and losses on that gigantic isthmus stretching between the Baltic and the Black seas.
Index
Abkhazia, 30, 165
Akhmatova, Anna, 108
Aksyonov, Vasily, The Island of Crimea, 150–151
Albright, Madeleine, 24–25, 28, 166
Alexander II (emperor of Russia), 104, 107
Alma Ata Protocols (1991), 154
Amanpour, Christiane, 54–55
Anderson, Benedict, 40, 76
Andreotti, Giulio, 23
“Arab Spring,” 170
archeology, marine, 3–4
Armenians in Crimea, 5, 66, 81, 82, 88, 90, 151
Ascherson, Neal, 3, 6
Assad, Bashar al-, 137
Azov, Sea of, 4, 37, 40, 68, 99, 110, 121, 129, 140
Azov Battalion, 130, 133
Baker, James A., 23
Bakhchisaray, 71–72
Barak, Ehud, 47
Bashmet, Yury, 122
Bastion missile system, 121
Belorussia (Belarus), 40, 43
Belovezh Accords (1991), 154
Billington, James H., 75
Black Death, 69–70
Black Sea, 6, 16, 37, 83
archeology of, 3–4
balance of power in, 136–140
Convention on the Law of the Sea, 136, 140
environmental degradation of, 145
gas reserves in, 140–141
Montreux Convention (1936), 138, 139
naval bases, 45–46, 64
in Ottoman era, 71
and Russian Crimea myth, 98–100. See also Sevastopol
Black Sea Fleet, 109–110, 136, 137, 139
Blue Stream gas pipeline, 162
Bohlen, Charles E., 90
Breedlove, Philip, 136
Brezhnev, Leonid I., 43, 91
Brodsky, Joseph, 74, 94, 96, 100, 111
“Homage to Yalta,” 101
Brooks, David, 154
Budapest Memorandum (1994), 154–155
Bulgakov, Mikhail, Flight, 102–103
Bulgaria, 137, 138
Bulgarians in Crimea, 5, 66, 81, 82, 88, 90, 151
Bush, George H. W., 21, 23, 166
Bush, George W., 30, 166
Byelorussians in Crimea, 5
Byzantine Greeks in Crimea, 67, 70
Cameron, David, 165
Camus, Albert, 130
Caspian Sea, 71
Catherine II, the Great (empress of Russia), 5, 77–79, 82, 106
Chabot, Steve, 165
Charles XII (king of Sweden), 19
Chekhov, Anton, 9, 111
“The Lady with the Dog,” 94–95, 105–106
Three Sisters, 93–94
Chervonnaya, Svetlana, 117
China, 28, 137, 156
Chirac, Jacques, 25
Churchill, Winston S., 5, 90
Clark, Wesley, 29
Clinton, Bill, 21, 32, 47, 113, 166
and Kosovo intervention, 28
and NATO expansion, 24–25, 27
Clinton, Hillary, 64, 169–170
Cohen, Stephen F., 60
Cohen, Steve, 165
Connolly, Gerry, 165
Constantinople, fall of, 75, 76
Convention on the Law of the Sea, 136, 140
Cossacks, 39, 41, 120
Craven, Elizabeth, 150
Crimea: cultural and ethnic diversity, 5, 6–9, 66, 80–82, 85–86, 88, 151
ethnic minorities deported from, 90
geography of, 1–4, 65–66
historical remains in, 4–5, 67, 68
history of colonization, 6, 66–69
Khanate of, 39, 40, 70, 71–74, 77–78, 114
modernization in, 85–86
Mongol conquest of, 38, 69–70
Nazi occupation of, 88–90
organized crime in, 11–12
Ottoman control of, 70–71
Romanov conquest and occupation of, 74, 77, 78–86
Russian civil war in, 87, 102–103
Russian naval bases in, 45–46, 64
Russian revolution in, 86–88
Slavic settlers in, 85, 90–91
Soviet republic, 88
Tatar minority in (see Tatars, Crimean); Ukrainian rule of, 43, 46, 64, 91–92, 112–114, 116–117, 144
—Russian annexation of (2014), 18, 22
economic consequences of, 143–147, 151–152
European response to, 162–166
Kosovo precedent for, 119
militarization as consequence of, 136–137
preparations for, 117–119
Russians’ support for, 122–123
strategic consequences of, 136–140
and Tatars, 147–150
treaty of ascension, 123
U.N. resolution on, 127
U.S. response to, 127–128, 129, 157
Crimean Mountains, 2–3, 88, 101
Crimean War (1853–1856), 83–84, 138
siege of Sevastopol, 84, 107, 110–111
Czech Republic: NATO membership, 24, 27
and Ukraine crisis, 164
Donbass region, 8, 37