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In this fully revised and updated in-depth analysis of the war in Ukraine, Paul D’Anieri explores the dynamics within Ukraine, between Ukraine and Russia, and between Russia and the West that emerged with the collapse of the Soviet Union and eventually resulted in Russia’s invasion in 2022. Proceeding chronologically, this book shows how Ukraine’s separation from Russia in 1991, at the time called a “civilized divorce,” led to Europe’s most violent conflict since World War II. It argues the conflict came about because of three underlying factors – the security dilemma, the impact of democratization on geopolitics, and the incompatible goals of a post-Cold War Europe. Rather than a peaceful situation that was squandered, D’Anieri argues that these were deep-seated, preexisting disagreements that could not be bridged, with concerning implications for the prospects of resolution of the Ukraine conflict.
Paul D’Anieri is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside. He is author of Understanding Ukrainian Politics (2007) and Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian–Russian Relations (1999), as well as a widely-used textbook on international politics.
Ukraine and Russia
From Civilized Divorce to Uncivil War
Second Edition
Paul D’Anieri
University of California, Riverside
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0.1 Ukraine, showing areas occupied by Russia as of January 2022 page xii
7.1 Central Kyiv, November 2013–February 2014 207
7.2 Line of control, Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, February 2015–February 2022 240
9.1 Russian attacks, February–March, 2022 287
9.2 Line of Control, August 2022 294
5.1
5.2
Preface
The first edition of this book, published in 2019, aimed to explain Russia’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014. When Russia massively escalated its invasion in February 2022, readers turned to the book to understand the background for the conflict. I have been very gratified by the response. However, that narrative stopped in early 2015, and the question on everyone’s mind was why did Russia launch the much larger invasion of 2022. The need for a new edition, updated to cover the developments leading up to this new invasion, was self-evident.
Two practical problems arose in writing this revised edition. The first comes with writing about a war that is still raging. The narrative stops roughly in August 2022, when a great deal remained to be determined. While this is not satisfying, the goal of the book is primarily to account for how Ukraine and Russia came to all-out war, not to predict how it might end. The new Chapter 8 covers the period from 2015 to 2021, which sets the stage for the attack of 2022. It asks why Russia decided that maintaining the status quo was not a better strategy than going to war.
The new Chapter 9 begins in 2021 with the crisis that began when western intelligence agencies began reporting Russia’s preparations for war and continues through the first six months of the war. While I cannot foresee the future, there is plenty to discuss about the decision to launch the war, the initial course of it, and the reaction in Russia, Ukraine, the West, and around the world. Why did Putin choose war? Why did Ukraine prove so resilient?
The new conclusion (Chapter 10) reconsiders themes from the first edition concerning the long-term sources of the war, while also addressing of the implications of the escalation of 2022. While much will be determined by events on the battlefield, some consequences of the invasion are already clear and in need of analysis.
The second challenge in writing this edition is deciding how the invasions of 2014 and 2022 relate to one another. In many respects, they are part of the same war, but they represent two distinct invasions. Do they
fit a single historical arc such that a single explanation captures both events, or do they require distinct explanations? This comes up particularly in Chapter 9, when I consider the argument that the 2022 invasion was driven primarily by factors at the individual level, in the psychology of Vladimir Putin, or at the level of his closest advisors. This sort of explanation did not feature in the first edition.
The question of the locus and the rationality of Russia’s decision to enlarge the war in 2022 relates to another theme. In contrast to 2014, where there were identifiable events that triggered Russia’s invasion (which is not to say that it was justifiable), the war in 2022 was more clearly a war of choice. There was neither a clear opportunity nor an impending loss to explain the decision to go to war. That is why it surprised so many observers. Moreover, the scale of the aggression, the brutality of war crimes, and the viciousness of the rhetoric makes it much easier to attribute the war in 2022 simply to primordial Russian aggression, in contrast to the multi-causal account the first edition provided regarding 2014.
This leads to the question of whether one should read the current assessment of Russia’s aggression backward into the analysis of the preceding 30 years or read the earlier assessment, which focuses on multiple sources of the conflict, forward into 2022. I have chosen to do neither. While I have edited the first seven chapters of the book, largely for clarity and to make room for added material, I have not rewritten my analysis of the long-term dynamics of the relationship. Nor have I avoided attributing the war of 2022 to a clear decision by Russia to attack Ukraine with the goal of subjugating it. That means that the invasion of 2022 is explained slightly differently than that of 2014. Both were the results of long-term incompatibilities of goals and norms, exacerbated by the nature of international politics. But if Russia’s invasion of 2014 was based on a mixture of fear and opportunism, that of 2022 seems more based on a straightforward calculation, rational or not, that Russia could attain its goals by force and only by force. Thanks to the suggestions of reviewers, I have added a bibliography, while retaining page-by-page footnotes, which I believe are most useful to the reader. I have also added a list of major leaders, which should aid the nonspecialist reader with the many names in the book. I am grateful to Raymond Finch III and to Emily Channel-Justice and her students at the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute, who provided valuable feedback on the new chapters.
Acknowledgments
I could not have written this book without the support of generous institutions, colleagues, and friends.
In the fall of 2017, I was fortunate to hold the Eugene and Daymel Shklar Research Fellowship in Ukrainian Studies at Harvard University. I am grateful to the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute and its director, Serhii Plokhy, for providing an ideal environment in which to develop the project. Oleh Kotsyuba and George Grabowicz encouraged me to concentrate my thoughts in an article for Krytyka.
Early versions of the overall argument were presented at seminars at Harvard University, Syracuse University, Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, George Washington University, and at the Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt, Oslo. The discussions in these meetings were valuable as I refined my analysis. I thank Kristina Conroy, Audie Klotz, Pavlo Kutuev and Volodymyr Ishchenko, Peter Rollberg and Henry Hale, and Tor Bukkvoll for arranging these visits.
For many years, Taras Kuzio has been generous in sharing his views and helping me make contacts in Kyiv. Eugene Fishel, Serhiy Kudelia, Henry Hale, and Volodymyr Ischenko, as well as two anonymous reviewers, read drafts of the first edition manuscript and provided insightful comments. Their detailed suggestions have helped me sharpen the argument in some places, to add nuance in others, and to avoid some factual errors. Perhaps unwisely, I have not taken all of their advice, and I am solely to blame for the shortcomings that remain.
The University of California, Riverside, provided research funding as well as a release from administrative and teaching duties.
I am especially grateful to a great group of friends who supported me through a difficult time. Over many sets of tennis, countless meals, and adventures in Europe, they have brought me immeasurable joy and wisdom, and I dedicate this book to them. Grateful Eight, this is for you!
xii Acknowledgments
Above all, I have to recognize the inspiration I receive from my wife, Laura. She cannot have imagined when we met that twenty-five years later, I would still be writing and talking about Ukraine and Russia. If she is tired of it, she hides it well. Her encouragement has sustained me at every stage of this project.
Territory controlled by Russia as of January 2019
Black Se a
Map 0.1 Ukraine, showing areas occupied by Russia as of January 2022
Lviv
Kyiv
Odesa
Crimea
Kerch
Sea of Azov
Sevastopol
Donetsk
Luhansk
Dnipro Kherson
Kharkiv
Mariupol
Key People
Akhmetov, Rinat – Ukrainian oligarch identified with the Party of Regions.
Aksyonov, Sergei – separatist leader of Crimea.
Azarov, Nikolai – Prime Minister of Ukraine, 2010–2014; Minister of Finance 2002–2005.
Chernomyrdin, Viktor – Prime Minister of Russia, 1992–1998; Ambassador to Ukraine, 2001–2008.
Glazyev, Sergei – Head of Russia’s Customs Union Commission; advisor to Putin on Ukraine.
Gorbachev, Mikhail – General Secretary, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1985–1991.
Karaganov, Sergei – Russian political scientist, Head of Council on Foreign and Defense Policy.
Klitschko, Vitaliy – Ukrainian opposition party leader, Mayor of Kyiv, former boxing champion.
Kolomoisky, Ihor – Ukrainian oligarch; governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, 2014–2016.
Kozyrev, Andrei – Foreign Minister of Russia, 1992–1996.
Kravchuk, Leonid – President of Ukraine, 1991–1994.
Kuchma, Leonid – President of Ukraine, 1994–2004; Prime Minister of Ukraine, 1992–1993.
Kwaśniewski, Aleksander – President of Poland, 1995–2005; EU envoy on Ukraine, 2012–2013.
Lavrov, Sergei – Foreign Minister of Russia, 2004–; Russian Ambassador to the UN, 1994–2004.
Lukyanov, Fyodor – Chairman, Russian Council for Foreign and Defense Policy.
Macron, Emmanuel – President of France, 2017–.
Medvedchuk, Viktor – Ukrainian pro-Russian oligarch; confidant of Vladimir Putin.
Medvedev, Dmitry – President of Russia 2008–2012; Prime Minister of Russia, 2012–2020.
xiv List of Key People
Merkel, Angela – Chancellor of Germany, 2005–2021. Migranyan, Andranik – advisor to Boris Yeltsin.
Moroz, Oleksandr – leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine; Chair, Verkhovna Rada, 2006–2007.
Navalny, Alexei – Russian anti-corruption activist; imprisoned since 2021.
Poroshenko, Petro – President of Ukraine, 2014–2019.
Primakov, Yevgeniy – Prime Minister of Russia, 1998–1999; Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1996–1998.
Putin, Vladimir – President of Russia, 2000–2008; 2012–; Prime Minister 1999, 2008–2012.
Scholz, Olaf – Chancellor of Germany, 2021–.
Schröder, Gerhard – Chancellor of Germany, 1998–2005; Head of Nord Stream Board, 2006–.
Tihipko, Serhiy – Ukrainian politician, Vice Prime Minister, 2010–2012.
Turchynov, Oleksandr – Acting President of Ukraine, 2014.
Tymoshenko, Yuliya – Prime Minister of Ukraine, 2005, 2007–2010.
Yanukovych, Viktor – President of Ukraine 2010–2014; Prime Minister 2002–2005, 2006–2007.
Yatseniuk, Arseniy – Prime Minister of Ukraine, 2014–2016.
Yeltsin, Boris – President of Russia, 1990–1999.
Yushchenko, Viktor – President of Ukraine, 2005–2010; Prime Minister, 1999–2001.
Zakharchenko, Alexander – separatist leader of Donetsk People’s Republic, 2014–2018.
Zelenskyy, Volodymyr – President of Ukraine, 2019–.
Zhirinovsky, Vladimir – Head of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia.
Zlenko, Anatoliy – Foreign Minister of Ukraine, 1991–1994, 2000–2003.
1 The Sources of Conflict over Ukraine
But our idea is that the wolves should be fed and the sheep kept safe. Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
In the early morning of February 24, 2022, Russia attacked Ukraine along four axes with over 150,000 soldiers backed by aircraft, missiles, drones, artillery, and armor. While press around the world said that Russia had “invaded” Ukraine, Ukrainians and their supporters stressed that the invasion had actually begun eight years earlier, in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and attacked Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, a war which killed over 13,000 people. By the autumn of 2022, despite thousands of casualties on both sides, the war showed no signs of abating. Instead, informed observers were girding for a long war.
What started as a “civilized divorce”1 when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 became the largest war in Europe since 1945, with consequences that ricocheted around the world. Ukraine’s independence in 1991 took place without bloodshed. The East–West tensions that defined the Cold War had fallen away. For years, Russian leaders stressed that Russians and Ukrainians were one people. Yet in 2014, Russia invaded, seizing Ukrainian territory and bringing Russia and the West to what many saw as a new Cold War. And in 2022, Russia escalated the war dramatically, targeting civilians and calling for the destruction of the Ukrainian state and nation.
How did this happen, and why? How did two states as deeply connected as Ukraine and Russia come to war? How did their relationship come to drive the West’s conflict with Russia? How we answer these questions will determine in large part how actors on all sides approach the choices yet to come, including how to find peace between Ukraine and Russia and how to rebuild post-war relations between Russia, its
1 The term “civilized divorce” was used to describe the dissolution of the Soviet Union even prior to its collapse, and was used repeatedly throughout the early post-Soviet period.
neighbors, and the West. There is a great deal at stake in how we understand this conflict, but prevailing understandings are deeply at odds with one another: one school sees the conflict as being caused by Russian revanchism; another attributes it to Putin’s need to bolster his autocratic rule; and another blames western expansionism and Ukrainian nationalism. The first two views point to a western strategy of waiting for Putin to leave the scene, while containing Russia in the meantime. The third points to accommodating Russia’s claimed security needs by acquiescing to its desire to control Ukraine.
This book will show why neither of those strategies is likely to work in the short term. The roots of the conflict are deeper than is commonly understood and therefore will resist a simple change in policy or leadership. War between Russia and Ukraine, and between Russia and the West, was the result of deep “tectonic” forces as well as short-term triggers. Conflict between Ukraine and Russia is based on structural factors inherent to international politics as well as profound normative disagreements. While we can blame leaders for many of the decisions they have made, their mistakes did not cause the underlying conflicts, which were evident even in the 1990s, when post-Cold War mutual trust was at its highest.
Therefore, simply waiting for Putin to depart the stage in Russia, or for a more accommodating policy from the European Union or the United States, will not bring reconciliation. A return to peace and security would require agreement on a new architecture for security in Europe. Such an architecture could not be negotiated even when the Cold War ended and Russia was democratizing. With an increasingly autocratic Russia, deep East–West antagonism, and a brutal war over Ukraine, a new security architecture is even less attainable now than it was a few years ago. Only profound changes, such as a new democratization in Russia or an abandonment of the post-Word War II norms of the West, will improve prospects. The border between Russia and Ukraine, and by extension between free and unfree Europe, will be determined on the battlefield. Even when the current war ends, confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, and between Russia and the West, will remain. Whether anyone likes it or not, Ukraine and the West are destined to be in conflict with Russia for many years to come.
This book has two connected goals. The first is to explain how and why this conflict came about. The second is to provide an account of the relationship between Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and the United States from the end of the Cold War in 1989 until the war of 2022. The chronology is a goal in its own right, for no such overview of Ukraine–Russia relations exists. It is also essential for understanding the conflict, since
one of the primary contentions of this book is that the problems that led to war in 2014 and 2022 emerged at the beginning of the post-Cold War period and became increasingly salient over time. The decisions to go to war in 2014 and again in 2022 rested with Vladimir Putin, but the underlying causes of conflict were much deeper. This book focuses on the underlying causes, not because they made the war inevitable, but because they show why Putin and the Russian leadership found that they could not achieve their goals without war.
Competing Visions and Interests after the Cold War
To boil down the argument to its simplest version: the end of the Cold War set in motion two forces that were necessarily in tension: democratization in eastern Europe and Russia’s quest to regain its “great power” status and its domination over its neighborhood. Ukraine was the place where democracy and independence most challenged Russia’s conception of its national interests. It was not inevitable that this conflict would lead to violence, but neither was it likely to resolve itself.2
While Russia was determined to remain a great power and a regional hegemon, Ukraine was committed to independence. Even those Ukrainian leaders who pursued close economic ties with Russia staunchly defended Ukraine’s sovereignty. As long as Russia’s definition of its great power status included controlling Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine would be at odds. That was true in 1991 and has not changed fundamentally since.
Two broader dynamics – one a traditional problem in international politics, the other new to the post-Cold War era – connected the Russia–Ukraine conflict to broader European affairs in ways that made both harder to deal with. First, the security dilemma, an enduring problem in international relations, meant that the steps that each state took to protect its security were inevitably seen as threatening by others, spurring a cycle of action and reaction. Russia’s “peacekeeping” in Moldova and Georgia was one example. The eastward enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was another.
Second, the spread of democracy fed the security dilemma, making states in the West feel more secure but undermining Russia’s perceived national interest. Because they believed in the importance of democracy, and because they believed that democracy strengthened security, western leaders promoted the extension of democracy and the institutions
2 On conflicts of interest between Russia and the West, see William C. Wohlforth and Vladislav Zubok, “An Abiding Antagonism: Realism, Idealism, and the Mirage of Western–Russian Partnership after the Cold War,” International Politics 54, 4 (2017): 405–419.
that supported it. While Russia did not appear to oppose democracy itself, it felt threatened as new democracies sought to join the principal institutions of European democracy, NATO and the European Union. The further this process went, the more resentful Russia became, and Ukraine was more important to Russia’s perception of its interests, to its national identity, and to Putin’s regime, than any other state. Fyodor Lukyanov wrote that “[I]n their [Russians’] view, Russia’s subordinate position is the illegitimate result of a never-ending U.S. campaign to keep Russia down and prevent it from regaining its proper status.”3
This merger of democracy and geopolitics was new, but it had an effect that looked familiar. To the extent that Russia turned away from liberal democracy while Europe embraced it, it was inevitable that there would be some border between democratic and nondemocratic Europe. In an earlier era, this had been called the “iron curtain.” Would a new dividing line be Russia’s border with Ukraine, Ukraine’s border with Poland, or somewhere else? Could a zone of neutrals provide a “buffer” between Europe’s democratic and nondemocratic regions? Perhaps, but no one wanted to be in that zone, and the idea of it clashed with European norms. A new division of Europe could be avoided only if Russia consolidated democracy and gave up its great power aspirations. The first of these failed and the second was rejected. It has been Ukraine’s bad luck to have the conflict played out on its territory, as has so often been the case throughout history.
Debating the Causes of the War
Since the outbreak of conflict in 2014, a great deal of literature has emerged on it, which has three defining characteristics. First, much of it focuses on assigning blame. Second, much of it focuses on events beginning in 2013, and examines earlier developments only selectively. Third, it tends to focus either on the international or domestic sources of behavior, rather than investigating how they interact.
While much of the work published in the West takes it for granted that Russia is responsible for the conflict, a strident minority takes a position, closer to that of the Russian government, that the West and Ukraine forced Russia into a corner where it had no choice but to act.4
3 Fyodor Lukyanov, “Putin’s Foreign Policy: The Quest to Restore Russia’s Rightful Place,” Foreign Affairs 95, 3 (May/June 2016): 30–37.
4 The tendency to focus on blame is discussed in Paul D’Anieri, “Ukraine, Russia, and the West: The Battle over Blame,” The Russian Review 75 (July 2016): 498–503. For other reviews of the literature, see Peter Rutland, “Geopolitics and the Roots of Putin’s
Debating
While assigning blame is irresistible, work that focuses on prosecuting one side or another tends to choose facts and assemble them selectively in ways that are at best one-sided and at worst misleading. Even excellent scholars have resorted to simplistic renderings of blame: John Mearsheimer stated that “the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” while Andrew Wilson wrote that “the Russians went ape.”5
Assigning blame leads us to attribute considerable freedom of choice to leaders, minimizing the constraints they faced. Even those works that are more balanced in assigning blame tend to stress the ability of leaders to shape events and to underestimate the international and domestic political constraints on their policy choices. Some authors criticize the West for what it did, others for not doing more,6 the common assumption being that leaders had a great deal of latitude to choose. Examination of the debates at the time makes clear that leaders frequently did not see the situation that way themselves. Policy makers often felt tightly constrained. The explanation developed here explores those constraints, which include the security dilemma, the impact of democratization, and domestic politics.
Second, much of the scholarship on the conflict has been incomplete temporally. Much of it has focused, quite reasonably, either on the
Foreign Policy,” Russian History 43, 3–4 (2016): 425–436 and Michael E. Aleprete, Jr., “Minimizing Loss: Explaining Russian Policy: Choices during the Ukrainian Crisis,” Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 44 (2017): 53–75. Among those blaming the West and Ukrainian nationalists are two very prominent scholars of Russian politics, Richard Sakwa and Stephen Cohen, and two prominent scholars of international security, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, as well as the scholar of Russian foreign policy Andrei Tsygankov. See Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I. B. Tauris, 2014); Katrina Vanden Heuvel and Stephen F. Cohen, “Cold War against Russia – Without Debate,” The Nation, May 19, 2014; John Mearsheimer, “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin,” Foreign Affairs 93, 5 (September/October 2014): 77–89; Stephen M. Walt, “What Would a Realist World Have Looked Like,” ForeignPolicy.com, January 8, 2016; and Andrei Tsygankov, “Vladimir Putin’s Last Stand: The Sources of Russia’s Ukraine Policy,” PostSoviet Affairs 31, 4 (2015): 279–303. For those who put the blame on Russia, see Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis: What It Means for the West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014); Taras Kuzio, Putin’s War against Ukraine: Revolution, Nationalism, and Crime (Toronto: Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto); Charles Clover, Black Wind, White Snow: The Rise of Russia’s New Nationalism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016); and Michael McFaul, From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), especially chapter 23. For a work that assigns blame more evenly, see Samuel Charap and Timothy Colton, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia (London: Routledge, 2017).
5 Mearsheimer, “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault,” 1; Wilson, Ukraine Crisis, vii.
6 See Kathryn Stoner and Michael McFaul, “Who Lost Russia (This Time)? Vladimir Putin,” The Washington Quarterly 38, 2 (2015): 167–187.
period from November 2013 through spring 2014 or the outbreak of war in 2022 (about which scholarship is just beginning to emerge). Daniel Treisman zeroed in on Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Crimea, identifying four schools of thought: “Putin the defender,” responding to the potential for Ukraine to join NATO; “Putin the imperialist,” seizing Crimea as part of a broader project to recreate the Soviet Union; “Putin the populist,” using the annexation of Crimea to build public support in the face of economic decline; and “Putin the improviser,” seizing a fantastic opportunity.7 Exploring that decision is crucial, but it does not explain how we got to that point, or why Putin then pursued a much wider conflict in 2022.
The conflict of 2014 was not caused simply by the overthrow of the Yanukovych government any more than World War I was caused only by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In both cases, deep mutual fears that the status quo in eastern Europe might change irreversibly prompted leaders to be more risk acceptant than they normally would be (the crucial difference was that in 2014, unlike in 1914, the other European powers did not rush to join the war). Similarly, the much larger war of 2022 was not caused by the crisis that emerged in late 2021, or even by events since 2014, but by dynamics that emerged when the Cold War ended.
Because the long-term antecedents of the invasion are crucial to our overall understanding of the conflict, this book chronicles the evolution of Ukrainian–Russian relations since 1991, showing that while violence was never inevitable, conflict over Ukraine’s status emerged prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union and never receded. Similarly, while the collapse of communism ended the Cold War, it did not create a shared understanding of Russia’s role relative to the West in post-Cold War Europe. While it seemed reasonable to believe that these disagreements would be resolved over time, the opposite happened, and we need to understand the forces that widened differences rather than narrowing them.
Third, the complexity of the relationships involved has been neglected, because it is difficult to focus at the same time on internal affairs in Ukraine and Russia, on their relationship with each other, and their relationships with the West. However, doing so is essential, because by
7 Daniel Treisman, The New Autocracy: Information, Politics, and Policy in Putin’s Russia (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2018), chapter 11. Treisman finds problems with all four explanations, and ends up arguing that the primary goal was preventing the loss of the naval base at Sevastopol. He points out that while the military part of the operation seemed well prepared and ran very smoothly, the political arrangements, including who would be in charge in Crimea and whether Crimea would seek autonomy or to join Russia, seemed chaotic and improvised.
the time of the Orange Revolution in 2004, Ukraine’s domestic battle between pluralism and authoritarianism was tightly connected both to its battle for greater autonomy from Russia and to Russia’s burgeoning conflict with the West. This conflict is neither simply a domestic Ukrainian conflict that became internationalized nor a great power conflict fought over Ukraine. It is first and foremost a conflict between Ukraine and Russia, but is connected to domestic politics in both countries and to both countries’ relationships with Europe and the US.
Locating the Sources of International Conflict
Few of the existing works make use of the large literature on international conflict. Using that literature, we can reframe the question in terms of where we look for sources.8 One set of works locates its explanation inside of the Russian government, in the nature of the Putin regime itself. A common argument is that Putin’s need to bolster his autocracy was a driving force in the decision to go to war. In this view, Putin has a great deal of agency.9
Two other schools of thought see Russia responding to external rather than internal factors. One of these sees Russia as seeking expansion, but for international rather than domestic reasons. Another sees Russia as reacting against western expansion. While these approaches put the blame on different actors, they both fit into the school known as “defensive realism,” which posits that states can usually manage the challenges inherent in the anarchic international system, absent an aggressive “rogue state.” The assumption that conflict depends on aggression leads these authors to identify one side or the other as taking actions to undermine the region’s security.10
The school of “offensive realism” is more pessimistic, in that it sees the international system as bringing even nonaggressive states into conflict, as states that seek only security unintentionally cause security threats to others. In this view, one does not need to identify an aggressor to explain conflict. This book takes that perspective seriously. Russia chose to attack Ukraine, both in 2014 and in 2022, but it did not do so in a
8 This categorization follows loosely that of Gideon Rose, “Neoclassical Realism and Theories of Foreign Policy,” World Politics 51 (October 1998): 144–172.
9 Wilson, Ukraine Crisis, and Stoner and McFaul, “Who Lost Russia,” share this perspective. A deeper discussion of this perspective is in Chapter 9.
10 Not all the authors who advance these arguments have always been identified with defensive realism. Mearsheimer’s extensive scholarship generally falls into the school of “offensive” realism, but his argument that the misguided West provoked the war in Ukraine is consistent with “defensive” realism.
vacuum. While Russia, Ukraine, and the West can all be criticized for the policies they chose, there were, I contend, dynamics in post-Cold War Europe that resisted resolution. While Russia was at fault for resorting to force, it is important to recognize that it perceived security challenges that caused considerable concern. One does not need to see Russia’s desire to control Ukraine as a “legitimate interest,” as some authors do, to acknowledge that Russia considered the loss of Ukraine to be intolerable. Similarly, even if one considers NATO enlargement to have been a mistake, it was a response to a security problem that did not have another easy solution.
The focus on international and domestic sources need not be mutually exclusive. It seems likely that invading Ukraine advanced both international and domestic goals for Putin and may have been especially attractive because it did. Therefore, this book seeks to analyze how international and domestic factors interacted. Among the key themes are the way that the state of democracy in Ukraine interacted with its international orientation, and the fact that the Ukrainian state was always weak, and then nearly collapsed in 2014. The Russian state, after going through a period of decay in the 1990s, gradually strengthened such that by 2014 it could deploy a highly effective “hybrid” war in Ukraine and by 2022 it could launch a massive invasion.
Overall, then, the approach here is consistent with the school of thought known as “neoclassical realism,” which finds that the security dilemma conditions international politics, but that internal factors influence how states respond to it. This approach differs from prevailing interpretations by acknowledging that the various leaders saw themselves as being constrained by both international factors and domestic politics, such that they had less freedom of maneuver than many analyses have attributed to them. We should be more cautious in charging aggression or stupidity. In order to understand these constraints, we need to examine both the security dilemma that existed in Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the domestic politics of the various countries involved, especially Ukraine. In particular, we need to understand the ways in which democratization became merged with geopolitics, repeatedly disrupting the status quo and putting a core value of the West at odds with Russia’s sense of its security.
The Approach: Historical and Analytical
This book combines historical and social science approaches. The questions of what happened and why are tightly linked. Therefore, we combine a chronological narrative with a set of social science concepts that
help reveal the dynamics and patterns that connect events over more than thirty years. The book is not, strictly speaking, a work of history, as it is not based primarily on archival sources. But considerable attention is given to describing what happened, and to looking at how the actors at the time explained what they were doing. Their views are gleaned from the statements they made at the time, as well as later accounts and interviews conducted in Ukraine.
The narrative account, which traces the evolution of Ukraine–Russia and Russia–West relations since 1989, is structured by a set of analytical themes that identify the underlying dynamics of the conflict, and that show the connections between this case and broader patterns in world politics. This approach requires a theoretical eclecticism that brings multiple theories to bear on the problem rather than insisting on fitting the complexities of the case into a single perspective.11
Analytical Themes
The conflict that turned violent in 2014 and escalated in 2022 was rooted in deep disagreements about what the post-Cold War world should look like. Those differences emerged with the end of the Cold War and have endured. They constitute each side’s perception of what the status quo was or should be. Actors were willing to take heightened risks when it appeared their conception of the status quo was under threat. Three dynamics explain why those conflicts of interest could not be mitigated despite the presumably benign environment after the end of the Cold War. First, the security dilemma, a common phenomenon in international politics, meant that actions that each state took to preserve its security created problems for others and induced fears about actors’ intentions. Second, the spread of democracy complicated matters considerably. Because new democracies sought to join Europe’s democratic international institutions, the European Union and NATO, democratization took on geopolitical consequences that the West saw as benign and that Russia saw as threatening. With Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution the merger of democratization and geopolitics became nearly complete. Moreover, the progress – and the backsliding – of democratization in the region meant that the status quo was repeatedly disrupted, raising new fears and new conflicts. Third, regardless of the level of democracy in the various states, domestic politics repeatedly undermined cooperation
11 Rudra Sil and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Analytic Eclecticism in the Study of World Politics: Reconfiguring Problems and Mechanisms across Research Traditions,” Perspectives on Politics 8, 2 (2010): 411–431.
and concessions. In the United States, in Russia, and in Ukraine there was almost always more to lose and less to gain domestically from taking a conciliatory policy than from taking a harder line. Moreover, the fact that Russia rebuilt a strong state after 2000, while Ukraine’s remained weak and divided, made it increasingly possible for Russia to see a military solution as viable.
In sum, while the end of the Cold War resolved some questions, it created several more, including the status of Russia and Ukraine in relation to each other and to Europe more generally. Traditional security challenges such as the security dilemma remained, and a new one – the merger of democratization with geopolitics – emerged. Oddly, the end of the Cold War did not make conciliatory policies popular with voters or elites in the United States, Ukraine, or Russia. Taken together, the recipe was corrosive: conflicts of interest were reinforced and where strong, skilled leadership might have reduced conflict, leaders repeatedly faced countervailing domestic pressures.
These dynamics have been largely ignored in accounts of relations between Ukraine, Russia, and the West, but if we take them seriously, we need to look much less hard for someone to blame for the fact that Russia’s goals collided with those of Ukraine and the West. The actors were impelled to step on each other’s toes whether they wanted to or not. This did not make war inevitable or justifiable, but it did guarantee a certain amount of friction, and it meant that unusual leadership would be required to manage the conflicts of interest and hard feelings that resulted.
Competing Goals and Incompatible Perceptions of the Status Quo
As the Cold War ended in 1989–1991, leaders in Russia, Europe, and the United States perceived a dramatic reduction in tension and an increasing harmony of interests and values. But Russia and Ukraine held vastly different expectations about whether their relationship would be based on sovereign equality or on traditional Russian hegemony. Similarly, while the West believed that the end of the Cold War meant that Russia was becoming a “normal” European country, Russia strongly believed that it would retain its traditional role as a great power, with privileges like a sphere of influence and a veto over security arrangements.
The actors had very different understandings of what the status quo was, and therefore which changes were “legitimate” or “illegitimate,” which were benign or harmful, and which were signs of bad faith or aggressive intent on the part of others. While most Russians welcomed the end of
Goals and Perceptions of the Status Quo
communism and the end of the Cold War, they did not accept the loss of Ukraine. In 1992, Joseph Brodsky, the Russian émigré poet, Nobel Prize winner and, at the time, the Poet Laureate of the US, performed a poem bitterly condemning Ukrainian independence and disparaging Ukrainians.12 In the 1990s, even one of the leading liberals in Russia, Boris Nemtsov, advocated regaining Sevastopol by having Russian firms buy assets there: “Historical justice should be restored through capitalist methods.”13 In Nemtsov’s view, increasing Russian control of Crimea would be a restoration, not a new gain for Russia. In 2014, Alexei Navalny, who became Russia’s leading pro-democracy political prisoner, said “I don’t see any difference at all between Russians and Ukrainians.”14
Russia’s inability to reconcile itself to the loss of Ukraine is unsurprising. The belief that Ukraine is part of Russia is rooted in a Russian foundation myth which sees the origins of today’s Russia in medieval Kyiv, in the hundreds of years in which much of Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, and in the important role played by people from Ukraine – the writers Nikolai Gogol and Mikhail Bulgakov, the revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky and the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev among many others – in Russian/Soviet culture and politics. The sense of something important being lost was profound.15 Vladimir Putin invoked this history to justify the seizure of Crimea in 2014.16 Gerard Toal applies the concept of “thick geopolitics” and Elizabeth Wood refers to “imagined geography” to show how Russia’s perception of its geopolitical situation shaped Russian policy in its “near abroad.”17
12 Joseph Brodsky, “Na nezavisimost’ Ukrainy” (1992), www.culture.ru/poems/30468/ na-nezavisimost-ukrainy. For a discussion, see Keith Gessen, “A Note on Brodsky and Ukraine,” The New Yorker, August 21, 2011.
13 OMRI Daily Digest Part I, February 19, 1997, as cited in Paul D’Anieri, Economic Interdependence in Ukrainian–Russian Relations (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), p. 211.
14 Anna Dolgov, “Navalny Wouldn’t Return Crimea, Considers Immigration Bigger Issue than Ukraine,” Moscow Times, October 16, 2014. See also Marlene Laruelle, “Alexei Navalny and Challenges in Reconciling ‘Nationalism’ and ‘Liberalism’,” Post-Soviet Affairs 30, 4 (2014): 276–297.
15 See Peter J. Potichnyj, Marc Raeff, Jaroslaw Pelenski, and Gleb N. Zekulin., eds., Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1982).
16 “Address by President of the Russian Federation,” March 18, 2014, President of Russia website.
17 Gerard Toal, Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). Toal deliberately takes an “empathetic” approach to understanding Russia’s perception of its role in the region. Elizabeth A. Wood, “Introduction,” in Elizabeth A. Wood, William E. Pomeranz, E. Wayne Merry, and Maxim Trudolyubov, Roots of Russia’s War in Ukraine (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2016), pp. 3–6.
“Status quo bias,” or “loss aversion,” the study of which earned Daniel Kahneman a Nobel Prize, is a phenomenon widely studied in psychology and behavioral economics. As Kahneman and Amos Tversky put it succinctly, “losses loom larger than gains.”18 Actors are willing to take disproportionate risks to avoid a perceived loss. Applied to international relations, states will try very hard to preserve the status quo or to restore it when they perceive it has been disrupted for the worse. Henry Kissinger, relying on history rather than behavioral economics, similarly argued that whether great powers accepted the status quo was crucial to the maintenance of stability.19 After 1991, Ukraine, Russia, and the West had different understandings of the new status quo. Therefore, each saw itself as defending the status quo, and saw others’ efforts to overturn it as signs of malicious intent.
It is tempting to see Russia’s determination to control Ukraine as the only explanation needed for this war. Absent this factor, it is hard to see how the conflict emerges, let alone results in war. However, such a view is incomplete, because it fails to account for Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s goals, for the West’s increasing interest in supporting Ukraine’s independence, and for the merger of Russia’s conflict with Ukraine into a much larger conflict between Russia and the West. It is a truism that war takes at least two parties: If one side capitulates, there is no need for war. Focusing only on Russian aggression ignores Ukraine’s agency, which not only was central in the demise of the Soviet Union but also meant that Russia’s strategy of peaceful coercion could not work. Without Ukraine’s determination to remain separate, Ukraine’s independence after 1991 might have been fleeting, as it was after World War I. Without the West’s willingness to support Ukraine, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine would likely have turned out very differently.
While Ukraine and the West saw Russia trying to overturn the postCold War status quo, Russia saw the West trying to overturn it by expanding NATO eastward and by promoting “colored revolutions” against governments that Russia supported. In 2005, Andrei Zagorsky lamented that “Russia acts as a status quo power that is no longer
18 Daniel S. Kahneman and Amos Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica 47, 2 (March 1979): 279. On the application of prospect theory to international politics, see Jack S. Levy, “Prospect Theory and International Relations: Theoretical Approaches and Analytical Problems,” Political Psychology 13, 2 (1992): 283–310; and Jonathan Mercer, “Prospect Theory and Political Science,” Annual Review of Political Science 8 (2005): 1–21.
19 Kissinger divided great powers into “status quo” powers, which were satisfied with the status quo and defended it, and revolutionary powers, which were dissatisfied with the status quo and sought to overturn it. See Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace, 1812‒22 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).
able to prevent or resist the rise of change.”20 Kahneman and Tversky stressed that this sense of having lost something is especially dangerous: “[A] person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would be unacceptable to him otherwise.”21 As Kissinger argued, in a situation where the status quo is not mutually agreed upon, states see each other as acting in bad faith, as unreasonable, and as subverting the established order.22 That increasingly characterized diplomacy over Ukraine.23
The Security Dilemma
The underlying dynamics of international politics were stubborn, and the measures that each state took to improve its security naturally looked threatening to others, even if they were not intended that way. The result was a self-reinforcing cycle. With Russia making claims on Ukrainian territory, Ukraine considered keeping nuclear weapons on its territory. This was seen as threatening not only by Russia, but by the United States. Similarly, central European states, after decades of occupation, sought to join NATO, which Russia feared. Russia’s own actions reinforced the belief that it might again become a threat to its neighbors, and so on. In a letter to voters before his first election as president in 2000, Vladimir Putin stated: “It is unreasonable to fear a strong Russia, but she must be reckoned with. To offend us would cost anyone dearly.”24 Many of Russia’s neighbors, based on recent history, felt that there was a lot to fear from a strong Russia, and the statement that offending Russia “would cost anyone dearly” was likely read as a threat against which precautions would be advisable.
To scholars of international politics, this vicious circle, known as the “security dilemma,” recurs throughout history, and is hard or even impossible to escape.25 In this view, even peaceful states, as they
20 Andrei Zagorski, “Russia and the Shared Neighborhood,” in Dov Lynch, ed., What Russia Sees, Chaillot Paper No. 74, Institute for Security Studies, January 2005, p. 69.
21 Kahneman and Tversky, “Prospect Theory,” p. 287. Levy (“Prospect Theory and International Relations,” p. 286) applies this point to international politics: “A state which perceives itself to be in a deteriorating situation might be willing to take excessively risky actions in order to maintain the status quo.”
22 Kissinger, A World Restored, p. 2.
23 The theory of loss aversion is applied specifically to the conflicts in Crimea and eastern Ukraine by Aleprete, “Minimizing Loss.”
24 “Putin’s Foreign Policy Riddle,” BBC News Online, March 28, 2000, http://news.bbc .co.uk/2/hi/europe/693526.stm.
25 There is an enormous literature on the security dilemma, its consequences, and the potential to resolve it. For a good short treatment, see Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30, 2 (January 1978): 167–214.
pursue security, unintentionally create threats to others. Some recognized that the end of the Cold War did not solve this problem. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, John Mearsheimer predicted that if the United States withdrew from Europe, security fears would prompt Germany to acquire nuclear weapons.26 That prediction was one reason why the United States did not depart and why NATO did not disband, but many worried that it was unclear where NATO expansion would stop or how far it could go “before the West more or less permanently alienates Russia.”27 The essence of the security dilemma is that either pursuing new security measures or not doing so can leave one feeling vulnerable. In this perspective it is the situation, or the system, which is to blame, not the individual actors, who find themselves trapped in this dynamic.
Escaping the security dilemma would have required one side or the other – or both – to abandon its understanding of what was acceptable as the status quo after the Cold War. Either the West and Ukraine would have to give up on the idea that in the new Europe democracy was the norm and democratic institutions were free to grow, or Russia would have to give up on its claims over Ukraine. Along the way, both sides had the opportunity to make smaller concessions. Whether one places the blame for the eventual conflict on Russia, Ukraine, or the West depends largely on which state one thinks should have revised its expectations, and by extension on whose vision for post-Cold War Europe was more just.
Democracy and Power Politics
The end of the Cold War represented a massive geopolitical shift driven by mostly peaceful democratic revolutions in eastern Europe. Leaders in the West learned that democratization – something that people in the West fervently believed in – also brought important security gains. However, democratization repeatedly undid the status quo, each time with geopolitical consequences that Russia feared. Initially, new democracies sought to join NATO. Then “colored revolutions” overturned pro-Russian governments in Serbia, Georgia, and Ukraine. “The emergence of the European Union as an economic superpower harnessed to a NATO alliance and steadily marching eastward confronted the new Russia with a prospect that has in the past represented the ultimate security
26 John J. Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War,” International Security 15, 1 (Summer 1990): 5–56.
27 Robert J. Art, “Creating a Disaster: NATO’s Open Door Policy,” Political Science Quarterly 113, 3 (1998): 383.
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lodging at the same time, and, if far from home, might be in a helpless and dangerous position. The girl in a company hostel was “under the firm’s forewoman by day and the firm’s matron by night, and all the time under the firm’s welfare supervision.” The official rejoinder to these criticisms, as illustrated by the attitude of the welfare department of the Ministry of Munitions, was that hostels were regarded “as a temporary war expedient and as a means of keeping up efficiency and output because they provide proper housing and feeding of the workers. Hostels are in no sense regarded as a permanent solution of the housing problem.” But it was believed that because they provided better accommodations than many of the workers had previously enjoyed, they might serve permanently to improve their standard of living.
The Billeting of Civilians Bill, which went into effect May 24, 1917, represented still another effort to solve the housing problem in the crowded munition centers. Civilians engaged in war work of national importance, might, at the request of the government department concerned, be billeted like soldiers[216] with householders in the vicinity. Local committees were organized to administer the law and fix the scale of payments. But up to April, 1918, no use had been made of the power of compulsory billeting. “It is doubtful how far it is workable in practice,” said the Health of Munition Workers Committee.[217]
Other interesting points in the work of the Ministry of Munitions for “welfare” among women workers outside the factory included provision for recreation and for day nurseries. Especially in the hostels attention was given to recreation. The long hours and hard work did not leave much energy for classes, but modern books were in great demand and gardening was popular. A Hindu prince, the Maharajah Sandia of Gwalior provided a fund of £6,000 for the development of recreation schemes. Lectures and concerts, library books, lantern slides and a holiday camp for boys were among the items provided out of this fund. At a few of the large establishments, such as Woolwich Arsenal, clubs were organized and recreation grounds were arranged.
The Ministry of Munitions established the policy of aiding the opening of day nurseries for the children of women munition workers. In 1916 the Ministry decided to make special grants to such institutions to the amount of 75 per cent of the cost of initial equipment and 7d. (14 cents) for each child daily. The Board of Education was to be responsible for the supervision of the nurseries, thirty-one of which had been opened up to April, 1918. The majority were open by night as well as by day. This entire movement was severely criticised by certain groups. “I have said nothing of the risk of planting crèches near explosive work nor of risks to the babies’ health in carrying them on crowded trains at nightfall or dawn,” said Dr. Marion Phillips, a well known representative of labor. “This whole method means a very forcible breaking up of the family life of the community.” In France many crèches for the children of working mothers were established, but in England the movement was not popular and gained but little headway.
Whatever may be the verdict concerning the desirability of the various welfare measures outside the factory as a permanent policy, the greater appreciation of the need of good working conditions within the shop, and the actual improvements made, are noteworthy progressive steps in the history of British working women during the war.
CHAPTER XIII
Effects of the War on the Employment of Children
In addition to the great increase in the number of employed adult women, war conditions led also to a large growth in the number of employed young boys and girls. The demands of industry, economic necessity and patriotic motives undoubtedly all played a part in the movement. During the unemployment crisis of the autumn of 1914 it was, for a few months, difficult to find places for young workers. In the month ending September 11, 1914, 22,000 boys and 23,000 girls registered at the employment exchanges as against 14,500 boys and 12,700 girls in the corresponding month of 1913. The problem was serious enough in London to cause the establishment of recreation clubs, workrooms and classes for unemployed boys and girls. Children who had recently left school were urged to return.
But on account of the acute need for labor as more and more men were taken into military service, a strong demand for boys and girls at rising wages soon succeeded the depression. By December, 1914, the number of boys registering at the employment exchanges was lower than before the war, and in the first six months of 1915 there were more vacancies than applicants. The increase in the employment of boys was not as steady as that of women, however. Coincident with the spread of substitution by women from 1917 on, the rate of increase fell off, especially in the metal trades, where there was an actual decline of 9,000 between April and October, 1917. The check to employment was so serious as to come to the attention of the Ministry of Munitions, which asked dilution officers to bring to the attention of the Juvenile Employment Committees cases where considerable numbers of boys were to be discharged. Beginning with October, 1917, the Royal Air Force relieved the
situation to some extent by using boys from fifteen to eighteen years of age as mechanics, hiring about 5,000 up to April, 1918.
On the whole juvenile employment increased during the war As was the case with many married women, the rising cost of living and the inadequate separation allowances received by soldiers’ families frequently made it imperative for boys and girls to seek gainful occupation at the earliest possible opportunity. Notably on munitions work patriotic motives proved a strong incentive to attract many young people. Moreover, the natural desire of not a few children to be through with school restraints and to enter adult life was reinforced by the excitement of war time and by the taking over of numerous school buildings for military purposes.
The only set of statistics covering the increase in juvenile workers, comparable with the quarterly reports on the increase in the employment of women, was published by the Ministry of Reconstruction’s committee on “Juvenile Employment during the War and After” and compared October, 1917, and January, 1918, with conditions in July, 1914.[218] It showed that between July, 1914, and January, 1918, in the various occupations outside domestic service the number of working boys and girls under eighteen had risen from 1,936,000 to 2,278,000, or 17.6 per cent. The number of boys increased by 94,000, or 7.4 per cent, and of girls 248,000, or 36.6 per cent, the greater increase in the number of girls being ascribed to the large numbers who turned from domestic service or home duties to the munition factory. It is interesting to note that in contrast to the steady increase in the number of women workers throughout the war, the total number of working boys and girls declined by 9,000 between October, 1917, and January, 1918.
Analyzing the movement of boys and girls between various occupations, among the various kinds of manufacturing by far the largest increase for both sexes was found in the metal trades, that is to say, munitions. Ten thousand boys were employed in Woolwich Arsenal alone before the end of the war. The number of boys in the building trades, wood trades and miscellaneous trades decreased, as well as the number of both sexes in the nonwar industries of textiles, clothing and paper and printing. The increase over the whole
group of “industries,” was not, especially with girls, as large as in nonindustrial occupations. In the latter, boys moved away from “finance and commerce,” “agriculture” and “postoffice” into “transport” and “government establishment,” while the increase in the number of girls, though occurring in every occupation, was especially large in “finance and commerce.”
Unfortunately the statistics fail to separate the three classes of juvenile employment which should be considered. These are employment which would have been permitted previous to the war, that involving the relaxation of child labor and compulsory education laws and that which remained entirely illegal. In all three classes, the war apparently produced an increase in numbers.
With regard to the first class, boys and girls legally entitled to work under ordinary circumstances, the British Board of Education estimated that in 1915 the number of children leaving the elementary schools at the age of fourteen or thereabouts was increased by about 10 per cent, or 45,000. For 1916, Mrs. Sidney Webb put the increase in the number leaving in this way at 50,000 to 60,000.[219] On the other hand, Mr. Herbert Fisher, president of the Board of Education, stated in the House of Commons in April, 1917, that, with the greater prosperity of the working classes since the war, the enrolment in secondary schools had increased.[220]
The Chief Medical Officer of the Board of Education also noted a large increase in the number of children employed outside school hours. In June, 1916, twenty “Juvenile Advisory Committees” on vocational guidance for boys and girls leaving school reported an increase in the number of employed school children and only one a decrease. In November, 1917, forty-five out of fifty-seven committees reported an increase. “With a few exceptions,” it was said, “those in close touch with the children express the opinion that the consequences to their health and education have been wholly bad.”[221] In one town 9 per cent, in another 19 per cent and in another 40 per cent of the schoolboys were working outside school hours. The number of “half times,” or children over twelve who
alternated between school and work, rose from 69,555 in 1914-1915 to 73,596 in 1916-1917.
Relaxation of Child Labor and Compulsory Education Laws
Although definite totals are not obtainable, a deplorable increase seems to have taken place during the war in the number of working children between eleven and fourteen who, prior to the war, would have been protected by child labor and compulsory school laws. “The growth in the number of children obtaining complete exemption before fourteen cannot be stated with equal precision,” said the Committee on Juvenile Employment during the War and After, “but evidence drawn from various sources shows that with the increase in the entrants for Labour Certificate Examinations and the general relaxation of local by-laws it has been considerable.”
In 1911, according to official figures, only 148,000 children under fourteen were employed in all Great Britain. In August, 1917, Mr. Fisher said in the House of Commons that “in three years of war some 600,000 children have been withdrawn prematurely from school and become immersed in industry. They are working on munitions, in the fields, and in the mines.”[222] But in October, 1917, the Industrial (War Inquiries) Branch of the Board of Trade, stated that 90,000 boys under fourteen had left school during the war, a figure serious enough, but much smaller than Mr. Fisher’s.
Probably the great majority of the exemptions were for agricultural work. “In this district we are again producing a race of illiterates,” reported one rural area. The exemptions were largely the result of the activity of the farmers’ associations, which had always opposed compulsory education for the children of their farm laborers and which in most cases controlled the local school boards.[223] Farmers of North Wilts recommended that eleven year old children be released from school for work for which women “were not strong enough.” Though probably extra-legal, the exemptions were sanctioned under specified conditions in a circular of the Board of
Education to local authorities issued in March, 1915.[224] Children of school age were to be exempted for “light” and “suitable” agricultural employment in cases of special emergency, when no other labor was available. There was to be no general relaxation of standards, and exemptions were to be made in individual cases and for limited periods only.
Even before the publication of this circular, between September 1, 1914, and January 31, 1915, 1,413 children under fourteen, some of them as young as eleven years, were released from school for farm work. Between February 1 and April 30, 1915, 3,811 children were exempted for this purpose. The number holding excuses on January 31. 1916, was 8,026; on May 31 was 15,753, and on October 31 was 14,915. These figures, moreover, showed only the number of children formally excused by special exemption, not the number actually at work. About half the counties made special bylaws lowering the standard of compulsory attendance required before the war. In Wiltshire, for instance, all children of eleven who had reached the fourth standard were not required to attend school, and only those below that grade who were specially excused appeared in the official lists.[225] Then, too, in some places schools were closed at noon or altogether at times of special stress, and in others headmasters were directed to let children of eleven and over leave without record when needed for farm work.[226]
It is noteworthy that the policy of granting exemptions was not uniformly followed throughout the country, since some local authorities refused to relax the attendance laws. Twenty-five county councils reported that no children had been excused between February 1 and April 30, 1915. The policy of exemption was strongly opposed by the agricultural laborers’ union, and by the whole labor party which brought the matter up in the House of Commons in the spring of 1915, but to little effect. It was charged that the farmers were making use of child labor in order to keep down wages, and that the supply of adult labor would be sufficient if proper wages were paid.
The Board of Agriculture advocated relieving the situation by an increased use of women instead of children. “The Board of Agriculture have expressed the opinion that if the women of the country districts and of England generally took the part they might take in agriculture, it would be unnecessary to sacrifice the children under twelve.”[227]
In the spring of 1916 the Board of Education itself admitted that in some areas exemptions had “been granted too freely and without sufficiently careful ascertainment that the conditions ... prescribed by the government ... were fulfilled.”[228] A circular of February 29, 1916, laid down additional restrictions on excusing children from school.[229]
An interesting clause of the circular “suggested that the urgency of the need for the labor of school children may, to a certain extent, be tested by the amount of wages offered, and as a general rule it may be taken that if the labor of a boy of school age is not worth at least six shillings a week to the farmer, the benefit derived from the boy’s employment is not sufficient to compensate for the loss involved by the interruption of the boy’s education.” In an earlier report the board had noted that only one of the twenty school children reported engaged in farm work by one county was receiving as much as 6s. ($1.44) weekly.[230]
However, the board had no direct power over the local authorities except to reduce its money grants when the number of children in attendance decreased. The number of children excused, according to the statistics just quoted, reached its highest point in May, 1916, which would indicate that the circular had little influence with local officials in reducing the number of country children deprived of schooling to work on the farms.
In 1917 the board again became more favorable to a modification of school requirements. On February 2, in answer to a question in the House of Commons, the president of the Board of Education stated that “greater elasticity” was to be allowed in the school vacations, so that boys over twelve might engage in farm work. For this purpose the Board of Education would give money grants for
320 school sessions annually instead of 400, as usual, provided vacation classes for the younger children were organized.
Fewer children seem to have been released from school for industry or miscellaneous work than for agriculture. Between September, 1914, and February, 1915, only thirty-one children were officially reported excused from school attendance for factory work and 147 for miscellaneous occupations. None of these was less than twelve years old. On account of the small numbers excused the Board of Education did not repeat the inquiry.
Efforts were made, indeed, as early as 1915 to secure exemptions for factory work similar to those in agriculture. Employers’ associations urged that children of twelve and thirteen be excused from school. The cotton spinners’ and employers’ associations sent a joint petition to the Home Secretary asking that children be allowed to begin work in the cotton mills at thirteen instead of fourteen years. The spinners’ union preferred such a lowering of child labor standards to allowing women to become “piecers.” Certain government contractors also asked the local education authorities for permission to employ boys of thirteen.
But at the time the official attitude was much less encouraging in regard to exemptions for factory work than for agriculture. The Home Office refused to consent to any relaxation unless the Admiralty or War Office certified that the observance of child labor laws was delaying work necessary to the war.[231] The annual report of the factory inspectors for 1915 mentioned an important prosecution for illegal child labor. The Board of Education was a little more lenient, allowing the local authorities to excuse boys of thirteen under certain prescribed conditions, which included the restriction that the work must be within the boys’ physical capacity.[232] But during at least the earlier months of war “generally in urban areas, the information furnished appears to show that there has been no great variation from the usual practice in the matter. At all times children have been granted exemption in very special circumstances, and the only effect of the war has been that such special circumstances have arisen a little more frequently than they did in normal times.”[233] The
statements as to increases in the number of children under fourteen leaving school would suggest, however, that these comparatively rigid standards were not maintained in the later months of the war.
In addition, it is probable that there has been more than the usual amount of illegal child labor. A note in The Woman Worker of January, 1917,[234] said that the “attention of the Secretary of State has been directed to the prevalence of illegal employment, in factories ... of children under 12 ... and children who have not obtained exemption from school attendance.... It is not countenanced by any of the departments concerned, nor can it be justified by any pretext of war emergency.” It was stated that official action against these conditions had been secured. In several cases penalties had already been imposed. “The inspectors of factories are instructed to take rigorous action in respect of any similar offences in future, and without further warning.”
Changes in Occupations of Boys and Girls
Certain effects of the war on boys’ work were noted very early. By the end of 1914 it was observed that in factories strong boys, who had been apprentices or helpers, were being pushed ahead to the work of skilled men, while women and girls were taking their places. Such “indirect” substitution continued frequently to be the first change made when women were introduced into new lines of work. [235] The Ministry of Munitions made some effort to keep boys away from shell and fuse making and other forms of purely repetitive work, and to encourage them to take up lines which would make them skilled artisans.[236] But on the whole the number of boys entering skilled trades and starting apprenticeships greatly declined, for unskilled work at high wages was offered by munitions plants and other forms of war equipment, and many parents, under the unsettled conditions of war, were unwilling to have their sons bind themselves for a term of years.
Girls, like adult women, entered many new lines of work for the first time during the war, and there are but few facts to distinguish between the two groups of workers. The girls were used in boys’ places for running errands, on wagons and other forms of delivery work—which had been much complained of as a “blind alley” for boys—in banks, and in retail shops. The tendency to transfer boys to men’s work and girls to boys’ work was also noted in textile mills, boot and shoe and tobacco factories, iron foundries and some parts of the engineering trade. In nearly every instance such employment was uneducative. There appeared to be also a greatly increased demand for girls in some cities in clerical work. In the new openings on munitions work and other forms of army equipment their work has not been clearly marked off from that done by adult women. Complaints were made in March, 1917, that it was difficult to induce young girls to enter anything but the munitions industry.[237] The glamor and excitement of direct assistance to the war undoubtedly made its strongest appeal to girls of this impressionable age.
A feature almost unknown previous to the war was the movement of boys and girls under seventeen years of age from their homes to work at a distance. The Labour Gazette stated of the movement:
It has, to a limited extent, been found desirable to draft boys and girls from areas where their services are not much in demand to districts where there is a scanty supply of labor for essential industries or where opportunities for training in skilled employments are available. Where such migration has been carried out through the exchanges special arrangements have been made to secure the welfare of the boys and girls in their new sphere.[238]
Supervision of the boys and girls thus removed from home care and training, naturally a most serious responsibility, was carried out mainly by the advisory committees on juvenile employment, which had been formed in connection with many exchanges before the war for the vocational guidance of young workers. In the case of young
girls the work also came under the duties of the local committees on “women’s war employment.” As “welfare supervision” was developed by the Ministry of Munitions, the supervisors, and later the “outside welfare officers,” were likewise instructed to give attention to the matter.
Wages
According to information from several sources the rise in wages during the war was perhaps more marked among boys and girls under eighteen than among any other class of workers. Boys and girls in munitions factories in certain parts of the country were often able to earn from £1 ($4.80) to £2 ($9.60) a week—the latter as much as many skilled men received previous to the war.[239]
The Ministry of Reconstruction’s Committee on Juvenile Employment reported that competition for workers drove boys’ wages up 50 per cent within a few months after the beginning of the war, and at the end of a year the rise was 75 to 100 per cent. At the repetition piece work with automatic machinery, common in munition factories, “many of the boys earned amounts that previously were associated with the earnings of men, while here and there cases could be found where their earnings were equivalent to, or even more than, those of the skilled foremen who supervised their work. Rumor naturally exaggerated the real position, but there was plenty of evidence available to justify many of the stories that were current as to boys’ earnings.” It was noted that “boys do not seem to mind monotonous work if they are well paid for it,” and rates for the older boys were at times actually higher for unskilled and semi-skilled than for skilled occupations. In one typical munitions district their wages averaged somewhat as follows:[240]
Age Unskilled Semi-skilled Skilled
14 3-3½d. an Hr. 4-4½d. 4-4½d.
15 4½d. 5-6d.
16 6d. 6d. 5d.
17 7d. 7d. 6d.
The rates fixed by the Ministry of Munitions for girls under eighteen indicated the high level reached in their wages also. For girls under sixteen they were roughly equivalent to the minima fixed by the trade boards for adult women, and were somewhat higher for girls between sixteen and eighteen. The increases granted up to the end of the war made the standard weekly time rate on “men’s work” 23s. 9d. ($5.70) for girls under sixteen, 25s. 9d. ($6.18) for girls of sixteen, and 27s. 9d. ($6.66) for those of seventeen. On piece work 30 per cent for girls under sixteen, 20 per cent at sixteen, and 10 per cent at seventeen was deducted from the rates of adult women.
Hours
Along with the relaxation of hour limitations on women’s work, the similar restrictions on “protected persons” under eighteen were modified. The result of the relaxation of standards was thus described by the Health of Munition Workers Committee:
The weekly hours have frequently been extended to sixty-seven, and in some instances even longer hours have been worked. The daily hours of employment have been extended to 14, and occasionally even to 15 hours; night work has been common; Sunday work has also been allowed, though latterly it has been largely discontinued.[241]
Working hours for boys under eighteen were given more specifically in an “inquiry into the health of male munition workers,” made for the committee between February and August, 1916. The investigation followed the same lines as its companion study on the health of female workers, including an examination of over 1,500 boys under eighteen and their working conditions. It was found that “large numbers of boys,” many of them just over fourteen, were “working a net average of sixty-eight and one-half hours per week.” In some cases boys under fourteen had a forty-eight hour week, “but in others boys of eighteen were found to be working an average of over eighty hours per week and it was ascertained that they had worked ninety and even a hundred hours per week.”[242] It is not
surprising that the investigator concluded that “hours tend to be too long for the proper preservation of health and efficiency.”
In most cases the Home Office claimed that it had allowed Sunday work only under rather strict conditions. “The Home Office, as a rule, only authorizes Sunday work on condition that each boy or girl employed on Sunday shall be given a day in the same week, or as part of a system of 8 hour shifts in which provision is made for weekly or fortnightly periods of rest. Apart from this, permission for boys over 16 to be employed periodically on Sunday was on July 1 last [1916] only allowed in seven cases, and in three cases for boys under 16. In only one instance are boys employed every Sunday, but this is limited to boys over 16, and the total weekly hours are only about 56. In only one case are girls employed periodically on Sunday, and there the concession is confined to girls over 16.”[243] The employment of girls under 16 at night had been permitted only “in one or two cases through exceptional circumstances.” In March, 1916, it was stated that the cases were “under review with the object of arranging for the discontinuance of such employment at the earliest possible moment.”
The recommendations of the Health of Munition Workers Committee called for a considerable improvement in these standards. “The hours prescribed by the factory act [sixty] are to be regarded as the maximum ordinarily justifiable, and even exceed materially what many experienced employers regard as the longest period for which boys and girls can usefully be employed from the point of view of either health or output.” Nevertheless, “in view of the extent to which boys are employed to assist adult male workers and of limitation of supply, the committee, though with great hesitation, recommend that boys should be allowed to be employed on overtime up to the maximum suggested for men, but every effort should be made not to work boys under 16 more than sixty hours per week. Where overtime is allowed substantial relief should be insisted upon at the week ends, and should be so arranged as to permit of some outdoor recreation on Saturday afternoon.” But for girls “similar difficulties did not often arise,” and the committee advised weekly hours of sixty or less and brought forward the claims of the eight
hour, three shift system. Under the exceptional circumstances existing, the committee believed that overtime might be continued on not more than three days a week for both boys and girls, provided the specified weekly total of hours was not exceeded.
The absolute discontinuance of Sunday work was strongly advised. “The arguments in favor of a weekly period of rest ... apply with special force in the case of boys and girls; they are less fitted to resist the strain of unrelieved toil, and are more quickly affected by monotony of work.... It is greatly to be hoped that all Sunday work will shortly be completely stopped.”
In regard to night work, an earlier report of the committee,[244] published in January, 1916, held that girls under eighteen should not be employed on a night shift “unless the need is urgent and the supply of women workers is insufficient. In such cases the employment should be restricted to girls over 16 years of age, carefully selected for the work.” But for boys, “it does not seem practical to suggest any change of system, but the committee hope that care will be taken to watch the effect of night work on individual boys and to limit it as far as possible to those over 16.” In the subsequent memorandum on “Juvenile Employment,” the committee “remained of the opinion that girls under eighteen and boys under sixteen should only be employed at night if other labor can not be obtained. Wherever possible it should be stopped.”
The interdepartmental committee on hours of labor, organized late in 1915, which based its action on the recommendations of the Health of Munition Workers Committee, was instrumental in securing improved regulations for protected persons in munition factories as well as for women. The general order of September 9, 1916, made special arrangements for boys and girls over and under sixteen, respectively. Sunday work was abolished for each of these classes of workers. The maximum working week for girls was to be sixty hours, as before the war. But girls between sixteen and eighteen, like adult women, might work overtime on three days a week, provided the weekly maximum was not exceeded. Boys over sixteen were permitted to work as much as sixty-five hours a week, on three days a week as long as twelve hours and a quarter, and twelve hours on
other week days. Under this scheme work on Saturday must stop not later than 2 p.m. In “cases where the work was of a specially urgent character,” the twelve hour day and sixty-five hour week, but not the overtime, might be worked by boys of fourteen.[245] The committee had already forbidden the employment of girls under sixteen at night. The prohibition was extended by the general order to boys under fourteen and girls under eighteen, and boys under sixteen were allowed to do night work only in “urgent” cases.
Long as these hours seem according to American standards, they undoubtedly represented a considerable reduction from the hours worked by many munition plants during the early months of the war. But it is doubtful if these standards were completely reached even in the latter part of the struggle. An official report published shortly after the armistice admits that “boys and girls of fourteen and fifteen have been working for as much as twelve hours a day, sometimes more, and have been employed for considerable periods on night work.”[246] The Health of Munition Workers Committee, in its final report dated April, 1918, was still obliged to recommend the discontinuance of night work by girls between sixteen and eighteen and urged that it was “undesirable” for boys under sixteen, though in both cases it was decreasing. “Special concessions” allowing girls under sixteen to work at night had by that time been withdrawn.
Safety, Health and Comfort
The action of the Ministry of Munitions looking to the betterment of working conditions for women and girl munition workers, and the “welfare” movement which followed in other industrial occupations were described in the section on women workers.
The Ministry of Munitions urged the extension of “welfare supervision,” on which it laid much stress, to boys as well as to women and girls. Such action was among the recommendations of the Health of Munition Workers Committee:
In the past the need for the welfare supervision of boys has not been so widely recognized as in the
case of women and girls; present conditions have, however, served to call attention to its urgency and it is receiving the attention of an increasing number of employers. Boys fresh from the discipline of a well-ordered school need help and friendly supervision in the unfamiliar turmoil of their new surroundings. They are not men and can not be treated as such. On the other hand, high wages and the absence of the father have frequently tended to relax home control. Long hours of work prevent attendance at clubs; healthy and organized recreation is seldom available. As might be anticipated under these circumstances, complaint is often made of boys leaving their work after a few days or playing truant; this may be the result of slackness and discontent, or the cause may be found in fatigue, sickness or perhaps home troubles. If smooth working is to be secured, the real causes of such discontent and trouble must be ascertained and appreciated. Experience, however, shows that the problems involved are outside and distinct from those of ordinary factory discipline, and they are likely to remain unsolved unless someone is specially deputed for the purpose.[247]
The Ministry’s instructions to the “investigating officers,” who visited munition plants for the labor regulation department, also drew attention to the need for “welfare supervision” of boys. “Since it is recognized on all hands that there is a danger of deterioration in the working boy between the ages of 14 and 18, it is of urgent national importance that the boy should be brought under careful supervision during these critical years of his life.” The duties of such a supervisor as outlined in this and other official circulars, were similar to those of the “welfare workers” for women and girls, with perhaps more emphasis on training and advancement. A “welfare supervisor of boys” or “boy visitor” should attend to their hiring, discipline, and dismissal, and should watch their progress and recommend for
promotion, arrange opportunities for recreation, technical education and saving, and take charge of the health arrangements.
In its final report, in April, 1918, the Health of Munition Workers Committee stated that about 150 supervisors had been appointed during the previous year from a panel established by the Ministry of Munitions. Most of them were wounded army officers who had been discharged from active service. In many cases until they were appointed proper use was not made of the health and comfort facilities installed at the suggestion of the Ministry’s “Welfare Section.”
Following the advice of these inspectors, employers often installed canteens, washing facilities, first aid arrangements and other improvements in the factory. However, these usually remained unused. Canteens were generally deserted, since boys preferred to carry their food from home; wash rooms were abused rather than used, for crumpled towels made excellent footballs and soap a convenient missile; while few boys would bother going to the first aid kit for what they regarded as a mere cut.
In spite, therefore, of the apparent opening for welfare supervision of working boys, it developed but slowly. The lack of suitable candidates, owing to the demands of military service, was a serious handicap, though at the time of its report the committee thought it had been “started on sound lines.”
The need for the welfare supervision of boys has not been so readily appreciated as in the case of women and girls, and time has been required for obtaining the support of the foremen and the local trades unions as well as of the employer. These initial difficulties have, however, not been without their advantages in preventing hasty or illconsidered schemes.
Other indications of the growth of the movement were the formation of a “Boys’ Welfare Association” by leading engineering firms, and of a “Royal Ordnance Factories Trade Lads’ Association” composed of the boys themselves, which drew its members principally from Woolwich Arsenal. To coordinate the various clubs, cadet corps and other organizations started by philanthropists, the Home Office established a “Juvenile Organizations Committee” in the latter part of 1916, to affiliate and coordinate all such clubs, and in some cases to arrange financial aid. The committee took steps to have local committees formed in all the larger cities. Some criticism was made of the action by the Home Office on the ground that the matter was within the province of the Board of Education. The latter body issued a circular in December, 1916, inviting the local authorities to allow the use of unoccupied schools in the evening for recreation purposes. In August, 1917, it allowed grants for evening play centers.
Effects of War Work on Boys
and Girls
Nevertheless, in spite of the various “welfare” efforts evidence comes from many sources that war work had some most unfortunate effects on both the health and the character of a considerable number of boys and girls. “The view of those best competent to judge is that in the generation which entered industry between 1914 and 1918 vitality has been lowered, morale undermined and training neglected,” said the Committee on Juvenile Employment.
The high wages for unskilled work, absence of fathers in the army and of mothers in munitions work, excessive hours of labor and greater pressure of work, interruption of club and other recreational and educational provisions, the darkened streets and the general excitement of war time were among the principal factors blamed for the change.
A vivid summary of the situation was made in March, 1917, in the Final Report of the Departmental Committee on Juvenile Education
with Special Reference to Employment after the War, which gave a depressing picture of the effect of the war on working boys and girls.
Upon this educational and industrial chaos has come the war to aggravate conditions that could hardly be made graver, and to emphasize a problem that needed no emphasis. Many children have been withdrawn at an even earlier age than usual from day schools, and the attendances at those evening schools which have not been closed show a lamentable shrinkage. We are not prepared to say that much of the work which is now being done by juveniles in munition factories and elsewhere is in itself inferior to the work which most of them would have been doing in normal times, but there can be no doubt that many of the tendencies adversely affecting the development of character and efficiency have incidentally been accentuated.... Parental control, so far as it formerly existed, has been relaxed, largely through the absence of fathers of families from their homes. Wages have been exceptionally high, and although this has led to an improved standard of living, it has also, in illregulated households, induced habits of foolish and mischievous extravagance. Even the ordinary discipline of the workshop has in varying degrees given way; while the withdrawal of influences making for the social improvement of boys and girls has in many districts been followed by noticeable deterioration in behavior and morality. Gambling has increased. Excessive hours of strenuous labor have overtaxed the powers of young people; while many have taken advantage of the extraordinary demand for juvenile labor to change even more rapidly than usual from one blind alley employment to another.
Among boy and girl munition workers evidences of a breakdown in health were perhaps not general, but in a good many cases
