It was rumored for months, if not years, but now it's official—the Biden administration is backing plans to seize frozen Russian assets that are being held in U.S. financial institutions, as a down payment on Ukraine's eventual postwar reconstruction costs. There are several reasons why I think this is a terrible idea. But first, let us hear the case for the other side.
The moral argument for expropriating Russian assets for this purpose is simple: Putin's government is responsible for starting this war in the first place. His invasion has caused untold suffering and economic damage to the people of Ukraine. And plainly, the aggressor—the guilty party—should be the one to foot the bill for these costs.
This is close to being logically impeccable—but it founders on the rock of experience. For this was the same argument the Allied Powers used to justify imposing reparations on Germany after World War I. What was the result? Economic ruin, devastating inflation, and a generational sense of trauma and national dishonor that surely played its part in causing World War II.
The United States, Ukraine, and our other allies will not benefit from imposing this fate—which John Maynard Keynes aptly dubbed a "Carthaginian Peace," in his polemics against the Versailles settlement—on a postwar Russia. In the long run, a prosperous Russia is better for global peace than a ruined one, no matter the short-term advantage that may be gained from seizing assets now.
But surely Ukraine shouldn't be asked to bear single-handedly the costs of a war it did not start—a war in which it was the victim of cruel aggression. And if Russia shouldn't be forced to pay, who should? I submit—we should; the United States. Not because we have to, according to any legal argument. But simply because it is the right thing to do.
This, after all, is what we did in the wake of World War II. After that conflict, surely there was an even stronger prima facie argument for forcing Germany to pay reparations. Hitler was an even more blatant and megalomaniacal aggressor than the Kaiser had been in violating Belgian neutrality. But instead of insisting on this point, the Allies paid the costs of post-war reconstruction.
Why? Because their bitter experience after World War I had taught them that the interests of global peace are not served by driving the economy of a defeated foe into the ground. And what was the result of their revised policy? The Marshall plan delivered decades of peace and stability to Western Europe, plus an alliance with Germany that has lasted to the present.
We need not over-romanticize the Allies' postwar occupation. The new support to Germany's economy came alongside forced population transfers of Europe's German-speaking minorities that many would now characterize as atrocities—possibly amounting to ethnic cleansing. But the results of choosing to invest money in, rather than expropriate it from, postwar Germany were clearly a net positive.
Of course, some may say—U.S. taxpayers will never agree to foot the bill for Ukraine's reconstruction. We are having enough trouble getting Congress to pass a much smaller amount of Ukraine military aid, thanks to the growing MAGA wing of the Republican Party and its disgusting so-called "America First" ideology. Bigger economic aid after the war would be an even harder sell.
I'm not saying my alternative policy proposal is better politics, therefore. But in case anyone is interested in what is actually the right thing to do, regardless of how easy it will be to wedge it through a Trumpy Congress, I offer it here: Morally and pragmatically, the better policy is to invest U.S. funds in Ukraine's reconstruction, not siphon the money away from Russia.
History teaches us that such an approach would be in our own enlightened long-term interest as much as it would be in that of Russia. A defeated Russia, nursing grievances and a sense of national dishonor, will start the next war too. It will also be one that Putin finds it easier to rule indefinitely. A prosperous Russia, by contrast, might become a U.S. ally, achieve democracy, and stop invading its neighbors.
Against my proposed policy, though, there are some who will still allege that it smacks of injustice. Why should an innocent party pay for the costs of the invasion, when the aggressor has funds lying there ready for the taking? With those frozen assets at our finger tips, is it not perfectly legitimate to seize them for the benefit of the wronged party—Ukraine? Such appears to be the administration's thinking.
Such an argument would make sense in a conventional lawsuit. But the problem here is that Russia is not an individual tortfeasor. It is a nation, comprising many millions of people, most of whom are not Vladimir Putin and have no culpability for his crimes. They are ordinary people, many of them children. And they are the ones who would suffer most from Russia's economic ruination.
Expropriating assets and willfully setting back Russia's prosperity for generations to come would be to punish the innocent—including Russian children and their children in turn—for the actions of a guilty few. And, as Thomas Hardy once wrote, "though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature[.]"
It may be argued in protest, at last, that all this discussion is premature. The war is still raging. I agree, and that is why Congress needs to approve the long-stalled military aid bill so that Putin does not simply flatten Ukraine and render this whole issue moot. Heaven forbid Putin actually wins. But the asset-seizure is not being promoted as a tactic for winning the war; rather as a settlement for a hypothetical peace.
We know this because seizing the assets could have no immediate effect on the war effort. They are already frozen; it's not like Putin can use them as it currently stands to finance his invasion. The issue of what to do with them permanently, therefore, is entirely a matter of the postwar settlement. The administration's declared policy of trying to expropriate them is a proposal not for the war, but for the peace.
And as such, my point is, I think it is woefully misguided. It is wrong on both moral first principles and as judged by the practical experience of nations. Destroying Russia's economy after the war, as a form of collective punishment, will not make for a lasting peace; and it will harm most of all the people who were least responsible for Putin's invasion.
If we must give some thought, therefore, to what the peace will be after the war, let us at least ensure that it will not be a Carthaginian Peace. Though I agree that the first issue, before we even get to that issue, is whether Ukraine will even win and expel the invasion. For if it does not—Putin will certainly impose a Carthaginian Peace of his own on Ukraine, and salt its earth for generations to come.
So the first priority must still be to fund the Ukrainian defense, for as long as it takes to prevail. But it should be the U.S. that pays for it, as we should pay for the postwar reconstruction of Ukraine. The Marshall Plan is an imperfect analogy, for certainly we should not envision ever occupying Russia. But it points to the right principle: we should help, not despoil, a defeated foe—even a justly defeated one.
No comments:
Post a Comment