Buffer (pronounced buhf-er)
(1) A
static apparatus at the end of a railroad car, railroad track etc, for
absorbing shock during coupling, collisions etc with the contact section made
usually from spring-loaded steel pads or (in areas of low-speed activity such
as shunting yards) timber.
(2) Any
device, material, or apparatus used as a shield, cushion, or bumper, especially
on machinery.
(3) Any
intermediate or intervening shield or device reducing the danger of interaction
between two machines, chemicals, electronic components etc.
(4) A
person or thing that shields and protects against annoyance, harm, hostile
forces etc, or that lessens the impact of a shock or reversal.
(5) Any
reserve moneys, negotiable securities, legal procedures, etc., that protect a
person, organization, or country against financial ruin.
(6) In
ecology, as buffer state, an animal population that becomes the prey of a predator
that usually feeds on a different species.
(7) In
computing, a storage device for temporarily holding data until the device is
ready to receive or process the data, as when a receiving unit has an operating
speed lower (eg a printer) than that of the unit (eg a computer) feeding data
to it.
(8) In
electronics, a circuit with a single output activated by one or more of several
inputs.
(9) In
chemistry, any substance or mixture of compounds that, added to a solution, is
capable of neutralizing both acids and bases without appreciably changing the
original acidity or alkalinity of the solution; also called a buffer solution;
any solution containing such a substance.
(10) To
treat with a buffer.
(11) To
cushion, shield, or protect; to lessen the adverse effect of; ease:
(12) In
computing, temporarily to save data before actively accessing it so it may be
loaded at a rapid or uniform rate.
(13) A
device for polishing or buffing, as a buff stick or buff wheel, often in the
form “floor buffer” for polishing floors; a worker who uses such a device.
(14) In
admiralty slang, the senior non-commissioned officer serving on a ship or boat.
(15) In
(mostly UK) colloquial use, a good-humored, slow-witted fellow, usually an
elderly man, thus often as “old buffer” (archaic).
(16) In
medicine, a preparation designed to decrease acidity in the stomach.
(17) In
geopolitics, as buffer state, a country the land mass of which physically separates
two opposing potentially powers and the existence of which is intended to prevent
conflict or permit an attacked state a greater time to organize its defense.
(18) In
geopolitics as buffer zone, a region separating two areas, often demilitarized,
to segregate antagonistic populations: based usually on regional, ethnic or religious
lines.
1835:
The noun buffer in the sense of "something that absorbs a blow, apparatus
for deadening the concussion between a moving body and that against which it
strikes" was an agent noun from the obsolete verb buff (make a dull sound
when struck), from the mid-sixteenth century Old French buffe & bufe (a blow,
slap, punch). The figurative sense of
"anything that prevents impact or neutralizes the shock of impact of
opposing forces" is from 1858 and was adopted universally by the railroad
industry. The sense of “one who or that
which polishes by buffing” dates from 1854, an agent noun from the verb. The verb use extended to “lessen the impact
of” by 1886. The use in chemistry began
in the mid-nineteenth century, borrowed by analogy from the railroads although
the meaning in science was soon extended and was adopted in electrical engineering. In geopolitics the term wasn’t used until the
mid-nineteenth century, the word again picked up from the general use inspired
by railroads. However, the concept had
been well-understood for centuries. The
Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) created the United Kingdom of the Netherlands
(modern day Belgium & the Netherlands) to remove the means of conflict
between the UK, France & Prussia and although it lasted only until the
separation of Belgian in 1830, the defined land-mass continued to fulfil the same
function.
The
derived forms include buffering, buffered & bufferize; the noun plural is buffers. In the nineteenth century, a number of
languages picked up buffer directly from English, including Danish, Dutch,
Italian, Portuguese & Romansch, spread apparently by the international growth
in railroad construction.
Europe
1945-1989.The deployment of ten-odd Russian army divisions on the border with Ukraine’s
revived interest in the old squabble about whether, in the last days of the USSR,
politicians from the West made promises or at least provided assurances to
Moscow that NATO would not expand eastwards.
The archivists have for decades been looking for any document which
might clarify at least what was at the time discussed but nothing emerged until
some material was declassified in 2017. The
conclusion is that the USSR was never offered any formal guarantee about NATO membership
but the interpretations of what happened after 1990 vary, the view from the West
that the enlargement of NATO was undertaken honorably and in accordance with
the rights international law accords to sovereign states whereas Moscow’s narrative
is one of Western deception and duplicity.
Most scholars of the Cold War seem to agree the story begins in February 1990 when James Baker
(b 1930; US secretary of state 1989-1992), secretary of state under George HW
Bush (1924–2018; US president 1989-1993 (George XLI)) met with Soviet leader Mikhail
Gorbachev (b 1931; leader of the USSR 1985-1991) in Moscow. Only three months after the fall of the
Berlin Wall, the matter of immediate interest was whether Germany, divided since
1945 into east and west, would be reunified, something that was most feared,
though for different reasons, in the Kremlin and Downing Street. London’s concern was its traditional fear to
the emergence of an overwhelmingly strong Germany; Moscow feared the specter of
NATO’s missiles being stationed in the GDR (East Germany).
What both
Russian and US transcripts of the meeting reveal was that the US position was
it was in everyone’s interest that a unified Germany existed within NATO's
political and military structure but at no point did either side discuss any of
the nations aligned with the Warsaw Pact joining NATO. That was not on the agenda because the
thought of the imminent collapse of the USSR had not then occurred to many,
none of whom were prominent in the US administration. Orthodox political thought in the US, across
most of the political spectrum, was that the Soviet empire probably was doomed
but it’s life was expected to extend for at least decades. A similar spirit animated the discussion Gorbachev
had the next day with the FRG’s (West Germany) Chancellor Helmut Kohl
(1930–2017; Chancellor of FRG or Germany 1982 to 1998), most taken up with the matter
of German unification, NATO enlargement not even mentioned. What was agreed was that the US, France, the
UK and Germany, agreed not to deploy non-German NATO forces in the former East
Germany.
However,
in the great geopolitical event of the second half of the twentieth century, the
USSR did in 1991 collapse, ending the perhaps unhappy but essentially stable
post-war arrangement whereby east and west were separated by an array of buffer
states, the cordon sanitaire which was built by Comrade Stalin (1878–1953;
leader of the USSR, 1924-1953), which constituted the line of the Iron Curtain
from “…Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste
in the Adriatic…”. They were
difficult years for the post-Soviet buffer states but, in 1999, NATO welcomed as
members, three nations of the former Warsaw Pact: Hungary, Poland & the
Czech Republic. That sounds now like an
event of great significance and of course it was but with all the social and
economic disruption happening in Russia, it evoked surprisingly few complaints,
the political faction in Moscow which tilted towards Europe and saw their
country’s future there, much more influential than today. Some did however dwell on things. A decade after the first NATO expansion, Gorbachev
complained that the West had tricked Moscow, claiming he’d been assured NATO
would not be moving “one centimeter
further east."
Gorbachev
later retreated from that, in 2014 admitting that in all the discussions which
followed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification Germany, the topic
of “NATO expansion” was never raised by either side, adding that not a single
Eastern European country brought up the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact
had been dissolved 1991. Equally
sanguine seems to have been the first Russian president, Boris Yeltsin
(1931–2007; president of the Russian Federation 1991-1999). Although hardly enthusiastic about NATO
expansion, he raised no objection but did urge caution on the West, warning it
was important to take into account public opinion in Russia. In that he may have had some misplaced faith
in realism of those he viewed as his new Western partners, writing later that "the spirit of the treaty on the final
settlement...precludes the option of
expanding the NATO zone into the East." None of that was in writing of course, the
generous interpretation being inferences were drawn where no implications were
intended. Either that or, in Washington,
views changed in the post Cold-War world.
Still,
for a time, tensions seemed not great and cooperative structures were created
including NATO-Russia Founding Act, a kind of statement of peaceful co-existence
and in 2002, a joint consultative council was established as a framework in
which differences could be resolved; rather wishy-washy in detail, it was regarded
by most as ineffectual but at least harmless.
The real crossing of the Rubicon came in 2004 when NATO undertook its largest
expansion, admitting seven more Eastern European countries including,
critically, the Baltic states Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia, Latvia, all of
which had been republics, unhappily, of the USSR. It was the closest NATO’s divisions & missiles
had ever been to Moscow.
By 2007
with the oil price high and the Russian economy thus buoyant, if rather
distorted by its reliance on energy exports, the new Russian president, Vladimir
Putin (b 1952; Russian president or prime-minister since 1999) made the
official Russian position explicit, accusing NATO (ie the US) of duplicity and threatening
Russia: “I think it is obvious that NATO expansion has no relation with the
modernization of the alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On
the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of
mutual trust.” “What happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the
dissolution of the Warsaw Pact? Where are those declarations today?" There being no documents, it seems Mr Putin
might be relying on Mr Yeltsin’s evocation of the “spirit” of the discussions which
both he and Mr Gorbachev had earlier confirmed contained no discussion of NATO
expansion. Still, some sense of realism
was on display at a summit in Bucharest in 2008 when NATO declined to offer
Georgia and Ukraine a fast-track path to membership but assured both they would
eventually join the alliance. No date
was mentioned and it seemed a quiet triumph of Realpolitik for the Kremlin.
However,
four months later, Russia invaded Georgia, crushing its armed forces and occupying
two regions that had already had near complete autonomy. Then, in 2014, after seizing and then
annexing the Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, Moscow equipped, financed, and
provided military support to separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine, stoking the
war that continues to this day, the death toll some fourteen-thousand. NATO and the Kremlin no longer have active
anything but emergency channels of communications.
Mr
Putin is quite emphatic that assurances were provided NATO would never expand
beyond what was necessitated by the unification of Germany and the last US
ambassador to the USSR did insist, in his testimony to a congressional enquiry,
that Mr Gorbachev had received assurances that if Germany united and remained
in NATO, the borders of NATO would not move eastward and declassified documents
released in 2017 do suggest Mr Baker may well have said “not one inch eastward” (source or Mr Gorbachev’s “one centimetre”) but that this was subsequently
vetoed by Mr Bush who had a different vision of a “new world order”. In the West, over the years, many seemed to
treat all this as hearsay evidence and prefer to cite the 1990 treaty (the 2+4
Treaty) which created the framework by which German unification would be
achieved. There was no mention of NATO
enlargement. Beyond that, also invoked in
the West is an argument apparently based on the doctrine of “acceptance by acquiescence”
from contract law: Russia accepted enlargement, with detailed conditions, and
in writing, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was agreed. One can see what they’re getting at but to use
an analogy with domestic contract law seems a bit of a stretch but NATO expansion
anyway didn’t happen in isolation. The first
expansion, in 1999, came around the time of the NATO’s bombing campaigns in the
Balkans, a traditional Russian sphere of influence and aimed at their
traditional allies the Serbs. While
sympathetic to the US operation in Afghanistan, the 2003 invasion of Iraq raised
Moscow's ire.
Mr
Putin’s position has since hardened. The
massing of infantry and cavalry divisions on the border has a nineteenth
century feel but the economic and cyber warfare is already being waged and what’s
already being called the Ukrainian crisis has attracted speculation from
military and political theorists. All
agree (1) Mr Putin wants his buffer states back, (2) this is the first time in history the timing of military action must await the end of the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics and (3), the Kremlin learned certain lessons about the nature of the Biden administration from the scuttle from Afghanistan. There the consensus seems to end but Mr Putin's ambition, no less than a re-configuration of the architecture of European security arrangements back to the 1992 lines on the map, is breathtaking. This is not however 1941 and the world isn't (yet) quite holding it's breath. Mr Putin has gambled before and won and if he can emerge from this round with something tangible, like a land bridge to the Crimea, he'd take it. He plans anyway to still be Tsar when all the Western leaders facing him are gone and believes Russia's position in the future will only strengthen.
