Jim Hoagland
By Jim Hoagland
Round Two of the strategic tug-of-war between the European Union and Russia over Ukraine has gone to the Kremlin. But the political struggle at Europe’s eastern gates is not over. Europe must renew its support for Ukraine’s democratic forces not only for their sake but also to revitalise the European Union’s own flagging sense of purpose.
The 28-nation union has been on a high-speed roller coaster, plunging from a peak of self-congratulatory smugness over its successful political integration into a trough of economic turmoil and disunity. Political leaders and economists at a high-level conference here last weekend agreed that Europe is emerging from the worst of the financial turmoil, with the euro surprisingly strong. But, they acknowledged, the recovery is moving at an agonisingly slow, uneven pace. This uncertainty accounts in part for the caution that European capitals have shown toward the popular uprising against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his decision to defer closer links to the EU in favour of accepting greater cooperation with (and a $15bn subsidy from) Russia. The White House, intent on pursuing arms control and other deals with Russia, has also been careful not to cross the Kremlin on Ukraine.
No such inhibitions trouble Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sees Ukraine as the last existential battle of the Cold War. As he did in 2004, when the Orange Revolution seemed on the verge of bringing a Western-style democracy to power in Kiev, Putin has fought in Ukraine to secure the survival of his own counterrevolutionary regime in Moscow. Four decades after the domino theory was discredited for Americans in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia, it is alive and well at the Kremlin. Ukrainians themselves are split over the sacrifices involved in giving up Russian markets and financial aid to gamble on moving into the European Union’s modern economic superstate. But the protesters who have braved freezing weather and police intimidation in Kiev and elsewhere understand that theirs is, above all, a struggle about moral authority. For all of their problems, the rules-based EU societies are a magnet for Ukrainians disgusted with the corruption and lawlessness of their leaders and Russia’s. Formal association with Europe would help establish the rule of law and limit the government’s power to abuse and neglect its own citizens.
No wonder Putin does not want to see a functioning, European-style democracy on his western frontier. Conversely, European and American leaders must entrench this moral authority in their support of Ukrainian people power and do nothing to diminish it by seeming to condone or ignore Putin’s meddling. Helping Ukraine escape the clutches of its own and neighbouring despots is a big challenge, one worthy of the creative spirit that European leaders demonstrated in founding their union half a century ago. They were given essential support in that task by wise American leaders who did not see US leadership in global affairs as a glass half-empty, as it seems this White House often does. WP-BLOOMBERG
By Jim Hoagland
Round Two of the strategic tug-of-war between the European Union and Russia over Ukraine has gone to the Kremlin. But the political struggle at Europe’s eastern gates is not over. Europe must renew its support for Ukraine’s democratic forces not only for their sake but also to revitalise the European Union’s own flagging sense of purpose.
The 28-nation union has been on a high-speed roller coaster, plunging from a peak of self-congratulatory smugness over its successful political integration into a trough of economic turmoil and disunity. Political leaders and economists at a high-level conference here last weekend agreed that Europe is emerging from the worst of the financial turmoil, with the euro surprisingly strong. But, they acknowledged, the recovery is moving at an agonisingly slow, uneven pace. This uncertainty accounts in part for the caution that European capitals have shown toward the popular uprising against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his decision to defer closer links to the EU in favour of accepting greater cooperation with (and a $15bn subsidy from) Russia. The White House, intent on pursuing arms control and other deals with Russia, has also been careful not to cross the Kremlin on Ukraine.
No such inhibitions trouble Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sees Ukraine as the last existential battle of the Cold War. As he did in 2004, when the Orange Revolution seemed on the verge of bringing a Western-style democracy to power in Kiev, Putin has fought in Ukraine to secure the survival of his own counterrevolutionary regime in Moscow. Four decades after the domino theory was discredited for Americans in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia, it is alive and well at the Kremlin. Ukrainians themselves are split over the sacrifices involved in giving up Russian markets and financial aid to gamble on moving into the European Union’s modern economic superstate. But the protesters who have braved freezing weather and police intimidation in Kiev and elsewhere understand that theirs is, above all, a struggle about moral authority. For all of their problems, the rules-based EU societies are a magnet for Ukrainians disgusted with the corruption and lawlessness of their leaders and Russia’s. Formal association with Europe would help establish the rule of law and limit the government’s power to abuse and neglect its own citizens.
No wonder Putin does not want to see a functioning, European-style democracy on his western frontier. Conversely, European and American leaders must entrench this moral authority in their support of Ukrainian people power and do nothing to diminish it by seeming to condone or ignore Putin’s meddling. Helping Ukraine escape the clutches of its own and neighbouring despots is a big challenge, one worthy of the creative spirit that European leaders demonstrated in founding their union half a century ago. They were given essential support in that task by wise American leaders who did not see US leadership in global affairs as a glass half-empty, as it seems this White House often does. WP-BLOOMBERG
