News Journal: Even Putin faces ire of unintended consequences

I wrote a column some time ago about the law of unintended consequences and how it is nearly always a part of major legislation. When Congress eliminated earmarks, for instance, it had the best of intentions – to end a practice that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars a year. But, because leadership no longer had the power to reward or threaten members by granting or withholding money for their districts, the unintended consequence of an earmark-free Congress was a breakdown in party discipline and a weakening of effective legislative leadership.

When there were earmarks for individual members, the annual transportation bill passed easily. Without earmarks, passing a transportation bill stirs up one of the nastiest fights you’ll see in Congress.

The history of international relations is also littered with instances of the law of unintended consequences coming into play. In the first decade of this century, the United States invaded Iraq. Our objective was to destroy weapons of mass destruction and remove Saddam Hussein. There were no weapons of mass destruction, but we did remove Saddam. Then the people of Iraq elected a Shiite government that decided Iran was not an adversary (as it had been when Saddam’s Sunni-led government went to war with Iran in the 1980s) but an ally. The major unintended consequence for the United States was the creation of a vacuum that Sunni jihadists filled to create the ISIS monster.

Now, in this century’s second decade, it is clear that Vladimir Putin’s adventure in Ukraine has already led to many ugly unintended consequences for Russia.

Putin calculated that neither Europe, heavily dependent on Russia for oil and gas, or the United States, worn out by its Middle East wars, would offer much resistance when he annexed Crimea and infiltrated Eastern Ukraine with Russian Special Forces. His most probable goals were to prevent the establishment of a pro-Western democracy, and no doubt ultimately to make much of eastern Ukraine part of a greater Russia.

At the same time, he believed his trumped-up charges against Ukraine would stir up patriotism in Russia and take the spotlight away from dissidents who had been gaining popularity by pointing out the mass corruption of his oligarchs in conjunction with the Sochi winter Olympics.

I am sure Putin expected some mild sanctions from a divided European Union, some degree of capital flight from Russia, and the cancellation of some multinational corporation projects. All of those happened, and all were much more severe than he had anticipated. But I am also sure he was not at all prepared for the unintended consequence of a suddenly reinvigorated and active NATO.

Before his foray into Ukraine, NATO was falling apart. “Until the Ukraine crisis arose,” Foreign Policy Magazine reported, “NATO looked like a nearly extinct dodo that had somehow managed to last into the 21st century.” NATO’s performance in Libya and Afghanistan had been disappointing. Many members were not delivering on their defense budget commitments of 2 percent of GDP for their military forces. Some were spending less than one percent.

The Financial Times summed up Putin’s unintended consequence by reporting, “In a sign of just how dramatically the geopolitical landscape of Europe has shifted since the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, NATO is cranking up military machinery that has been largely dormant since the collapse of the Soviet Union.”

NATO has greatly increased its joint military exercises including live fire exercises in Bulgaria, Estonia and Lithuania. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter traveled to Europe last week and announced the United States would pre-position weapons in the states along Russia’s western border.

In a sign of how much Russia actions in Ukraine have alienated them from their neighbors, Sweden – a country that has had a policy of neutrality since the 18th century – is considering joining NATO. Just last month, Finland’s new government announced that it may join NATO at any time over the next four years.

According to Russia’s public relations machine, the U.S. and Europe are reneging on promises not to encircle Russia as part of the terms of the ending of the Cold War. The fact is, of course, that a resurgent NATO would never have happened had Putin not made his reckless moves into the Ukraine.

In the United States, we have healthy open debates about the unintended consequences of our past policies and actions. That doesn’t happen in public in Russia, but as the country’s economy sinks deeper into recession you have to believe ordinary Russians are privately assessing what Putin has cost them.

Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. Senator from Delaware.