Russia faces the power of embarrassment: Column

For months, the United States and the West have been searching for a way to drive a wedge between the Ukrainian separatist rebels and Russia. Even as recently as this week, the main effort has been the use of economic sanctions, which have had little effect. Russia's behavior is vulnerable to pressure, particularly as a result of the tragic downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The politics of embarrassment, not economic sanctions, are the best avenue to achieve our most important goal in Ukraine, a state free from Russian domination.

It was naïve to think that economic sanctions were going to change Russia's behavior toward Ukraine. In general, economic sanctions have little independent usefulness for the pursuit of non-economic goals, failing 95% of the time when important national security interests are at stake. Sanctions did little to reverse Saddam Hussein's conquest of Kuwait in 1990 or Slobodan Milosevic's thrusts into Bosnia and Kosovo, North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons, and in numerous other serious international disputes against small states. The idea that economic sanctions are going to generate leverage over a major regional power like Russia is even more preposterous, since it has more resources and counter-strategies at its disposal.

If, as now seems likely, Russian-supported Ukrainian separatists used a surface-to-air missile to shoot down a civilian airliner killing nearly 300 innocent people, Washington now has a major opportunity to achieve what sanctions could not — namely, compelling Putin to distance Russia from the separatists in Ukraine.

The strategy is 'the politics of embarrassment,' which is as simple as it is powerful. For months U.S. intelligence has been using all varieties of satellites and other means to monitor eastern Ukraine. Over the next week, the United States should release the detailed information it surely collected about the missile that shot down the airliner, the command structure of the missile system, and links to both the Ukrainian rebels and Russia itself. This would put Putin in the embarrassing position of choosing to support an ally who committed mass murder or distance himself and Russia from that atrocity.

There is good reason to think that the politics of embarrassment would change Russia's behavior. Last summer, Syria used poison gas against its own people. Rather than bomb, the United States pursed a public diplomacy campaign based on the release of detailed information connecting the gas attack to the government of Assad and embarrassing Assad's main military ally, Russia. Indeed, Russia ultimately joined the United States and other Western countries in support of an international effort to eradicate chemical weapons in Syria, which did more to punish Assad than any contemplated bombing campaign.

The politics of embarrassment should be the main response toward Russia following the airliner disaster. Much like gaining Russian support for removing chemical weapons from Syria following the gas attack last summer, the goal should be to compel Russia to support an international effort to eradicate surface-to-air missiles in eastern Ukraine. This would greatly reduce the odds of a similar airliner tragedy in the future, achieving what matters most, a safer and less violent Ukraine.

Robert A. Pape is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST).Follow CPOST on Twitter@CPOST_UChicago.

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