The
Ukraine could push
us back towards the Cold War
By
Jonathan
Power
TFF Associate
since 1991
Comments to JonatPower@aol.com
December 2, 2004
LONDON - The upheavals in the
Ukraine have many roots but one of them undoubtedly is
the lack of a well thought out long term attitude by the
Western powers to post Cold War Russia. Since the days of
Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet
Union, both Europe and the U.S. have failed to be clear
either to themselves or to the outside world what exactly
they wanted beyond an end to communism.
Although Gorbachev was much lauded
in the West as a great reformer there was little offered
in the way of economic help so that he would be strong
enough at home to preside over a more carefully measured
transition than the one that in fact occurred under the
impetuous Boris Yeltsin who rode the break up of the
Soviet Union on his way to power. Then in 1992, at the
time of Yeltsin's first government of Prime Minister
Yegor Gaider that was earnestly serious and clean about
economic reform, President George Bush sat on his hands,
more concerned about the repayment of the old debts of
the Soviet Union than anything else.
When President Bill Clinton- in a
desperate search for votes from the East European
Diaspora in America's mid West - set in motion the
extension of NATO right up to the borders of Russia it
provided all the ammunition that was needed to those in
the Russian establishment who had never been happy about
a too close relationship with the West. George Kennan,
the grand old man of Russian diplomacy, described it as
"the most fateful error of the entire post Cold War
era".
The Europeans compounded the error
by refusing to engage in what Gorbachev termed the
construction of "a European house" and President Vladimir
Putin's musings on the same theme.
The issue of whether Russia is or
isn't part of Europe goes back at least half a
millennium. Norman Davies in his monumental "Europe- a
History" writes, "For more than 500 years the cardinal
problem in defining Europe has been centered on the
inclusion or exclusion of Russia."
Empress Catherine the Great
categorically announced in 1767 that Russia was a
European state. Russophiles recalled that Muscovy had
been an integral part of Christendom since the 10th
century. Russia's claim to be part of Europe was
reinforced later by Russia's role in the defeat of
Napoleon and by the magnificent flowering of Russian
culture of Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Chekov. Dostoevsky
used the occasion of the unveiling of a statue to
Pushkin, Russia's most adored poet, to gush forth a
eulogy to Europe. "Peoples of Europe", he declared,
"don't know how dear to us they are." Lenin too foresaw
the day when the victorious communists would join up with
the revolutionaries of Western Europe.
But there has always been a counter
trend in Russia. In his influential book "Russia and
Europe", written in the mid 19th century, Nikolay
Danilevskiy argued that Russia possessed a distinctive
Slavic civilization of its own, midway between Europe and
Asia. And in the days before the revolution of 1917 the
anti-reds denounced the Marxists as a Western implant
dominated by Jews.
Today in the Ukraine the latest act
of this long drama unfolds. A poll recount or new
election will hardly help resolve the situation now that
passions are so high. The long series of Western rebuffs
to Moscow from the time of Gorbachev on have breathed
life into the Slavic chauvinist impulse. The eastern
Ukraine- and the heartland of its economy- has been
identified with Russia for centuries. It was never on the
cards that this part of the Ukraine would slip its
moorings and go West.
This could only happen if Russia
itself had decided to unequivocally become part of Europe
but this the European Union countries, both by going
along happily with NATO expansion and by their coolness
to Russia, have made impossible.
The West's post Cold War Russia
policy now reaches a denouement of sorts, one that the
more astute observers like Kennan, have seen coming for a
decade or more. Whilst few in the West will excuse the
rigging of Ukraine's election, using it as a reason to go
to eye-to-eye with Moscow would be quite
counterproductive.
The Ukrainians must work it out for
themselves, which means finding a way of resolving this
crisis in a way that Russia can accept.
The West for its part needs to
re-think its whole post Cold War policy towards Russia.
The U.S. should put a stop to its aggressive
geo-political strategy of challenging Russian interests
in the "near abroad" and Europe must use the lure of
European membership for both countries to keep Russian
and Ukrainian democracy and behavior on the straight and
narrow.
Otherwise a return to the
hostilities of the Cold War cannot be ruled out, and it
will be as much the West's fault as Russia's.
Copyright © 2004 By
JONATHAN POWER
I can be reached by
phone +44 7785 351172 and e-mail: JonatPower@aol.com
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