tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37737266316836648862024-03-05T22:32:03.596-05:00Lands Far Away...Thoughts on Central and Eastern Europe from an historian of the regionvhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.comBlogger59125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-87112791124415480702023-01-24T14:54:00.000-05:002023-01-24T14:54:00.479-05:00A Few Thoughts about my lengthy absence, following the war, and the Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams Tanks<p>Had you asked me a year ago if Russia invading Ukraine would send me back to regular commentaries, I suspect I would have said yes, and yet, it is almost 11 months since my last post about Putin's problematic conception of Russian identity The thing is I found I had little to say. I am interested in providing thoughtful analysis where I can, but I am no expert on military affairs, nor on Russia, and that is a big part of understanding this war. So. convinced as I was that Ukrainians would fight for their independence, I had no reason to believe the many experts who said that Russia's overwhelming force would meet its initial objectives, and expected instead that initial success would be followed by a nasty and brutal guerrilla war that drag out and lead to even more refugees than we have seen. Yes it turned out differently, but I did not have the necessary knowledge, so I have read other people's blogs and twitter threads without feeling I could add much value.</p><p>For those who have not already found ready sources, may recommend <a href="https://phillipspobrien.substack.com" target="_blank">Phillips Newsletter</a> by the military studies scholar Phillips P. O'Brien's weekly reflections. I heartily recommend his book <i>How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II</i>, which gave taught this expert on Eastern Europe a great deal about the strategic realities of World War II. I follow some folks on Twitter, as well, but most of the time day-to-day events on the ground tell us little. That said, let me also tip my hat to Markos Moulitsas and Mark Sumner over at <a href="https://www.dailykos.com" target="_blank">the Daily Kos</a>, who provide excellent close to daily coverage that is worth reading no matter what you think of everything else at that site.</p><p>While I have been at my computer this today word has gone out Biden is set to announce that the US will deliver some M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine and Germany will be sending Leopard 2. For those who want to see this war over sooner rather than later, this is a good thing, though from what I read the M1 Tank is not the best fit for Ukraine --it is the kind of fighting machine that the most well funded army in the world than for a country faced can use to great advantage, but is not so well suited to an underdog that needs to be careful with its resources. In particular the Abrams Tank it is far thirstier than the Leopard Tank, and that could be a problem for Ukraine, which until recently was heavily dependent on Russia for petroleum products. Still, having the Americans in on the game is important as a trust building measure, and the Ukrainians trained on it will be a formidable force. Above all I see this as about restoring trust between the US and its European allies. We should not forget that the US ignored several of its best established European allies when it decided to go to war in Iraq, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan likewise sent shockwaves of concern among our NATO allies. Further, however unlikely it may seem right now, a pro-Russian Republican returning to the White House in 2025 is within the realm of possibility, and sending tanks will make it harder, though not impossible, for the US to walk away should Putin in desperation escalate in the hope of breaking the coalition supporting Ukraine in two along a Europe/US fault line. Indeed, the Netherlands will also end Leopard 2s in addition to the ones Poland and Finland were ready to send, and we may hear about others soon.</p><p>Readers of outlets that are highly supportive of Ukraine will likely be told that this shows Germany reluctantly getting in line, with Chancellor Scholz the perennial latecomer to the party to support Ukraine. It is an easy narrative to push for given history, when more than once Germany has been happy to prioritize relations with Russia over the smaller states between Russia and Germany. There are also a number of players happy to play up this line for their own purposes. In Poland, where an election campaign is looming, the PiS has a long history of demagoguery against Germany, and this fit that bill. Meanwhile, France has been the least generous major Western power, and so it suits Macron and the French establishment to make Germany the lightning rod. Just as importantly, for all the hubbub around "freeing the Leopards" in the run up to the Ramstein meeting last Friday, the notion that Germany alone was holding things back was well off the mark. Before the meeting only Finland had expressed willingness to join the coalition of countries willing to send Leopold 2s to Ukraine that Poland had been calling for. Why was this? I'm not plugged in to the policy makers in relevant countries, so I can't give a firm issue, but that situation speaks loudly against the notion that Germany was the problem. Perhaps if this helps put the worst of this war behind us sooner rather than later, and the US avoids a second dip into authoritarian populism, the Ramstein meeting will become seen as the moment when NATO finally got beyond the rift caused by George W. Bush's my way or the high way approach to Iraq.</p><p><br /></p>vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-41217175664447538412022-03-05T14:42:00.004-05:002022-03-05T14:42:42.289-05:00 Putin’s Vision of Russian National Identity is the Problem<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The Yale-based historian Timothy Snyder has called people’s attention to a document prepared by the Russian ministry of information prepared before the invasion. Apparently, it was to be read over the airwaves as the invasion of Ukraine proceeded apace as Ukrainians saw Russian soldiers, recognized their brothers and joined the march on Kyiv to celebrate the deposing of the Jewish President Zelenskyy in an anti-Nazi reverie. According to Snyder similar documents were prepared, but were quickly trashed as it became clear that the happy ending they imagined was delayed but this one is survived. I don’t feel comfortable enough reading Russian to go through in detail, but according to Snyder it is a dark document envisioning that following the Ukraine’s speedy capitulation would lead complete destruction of distinct Ukrainian and Belarusian identities the emergence of single Slavic state triumphing over the decadent west.</span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"> </span></p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>This is scary stuff: an unapologetic celebration of genocide in the terms laid out by Rafael Lemkin, who first defined the term. Many already have died in the Putin’s effort to create that reality, and Ukraine’s cultural heritage has also been hit. One of the early casualties of the war was a museum of the work of a Ukrainian folk artist, Maria Prymachenko, where 25 of her paintings were destroyed. There are also legitimate concerns that Russians will seek to destroy the State archives where records relating to Soviet rule in Ukraine, including the Holodomor, are found, and that is just the start of the horrors we can imagine. Still without suggesting all is going to be okay, it is important to remember that the underlying idea of Putin’s plans are completely unrealistic. Yes, it is possible to imagine that under other circumstances a single Russian national identity that truly united Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Russians might have been forged, just as we should not assume that Belarusian and Ukrainian identities, as we know them, were inevitable. At this point rendering over 150 years of thought, cultural, and political activities moot as a result of Brutal actions in the twentieth-first centuries is absurd, This would have been true even if the cakewalk Putin imagined the Ukraine campaign would be had come to pass. </p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The ostensible unity Putin sells this war on is grounded in a dream grounded in essentialist thinking about identity that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny in even the most culturally homogenous cultures. The history of Russian imperial culture, however, is closely related to the multiplicity of cultures encountered in the Russian state-building project. As Putin himself acknowledged just recently in a speech, in which he claimed to be a number of different nationalities, save conspicuously Ukrainian. Yet, the notion that Ukraine and Ukrainians all be absorbed in ways these other peoples have not been is a pipe-dream. At best, a client Ukrainian state will emerge, not direct rule from Moscow, and ordinary Ukrainians willingness to challenge Russian occupation in towns hardly bodes well for anyone thinking being appointed client president of Ukraine will be anything more than a gigantic headache.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>To be sure, Putin’s essentialism is pretty common in the post-Soviet world, especially on those who grew up in the Soviet Union. Indeed, the intensity of the language issue in Ukraine, which Putin draws on to make claims about the discrimination faced by Russian speakers in Ukraine, derives largely from a belief than all Ukrainians must be Ukrainians in the exact same way, by speaking Ukrainian, loving Ukrainian literature etc. rather than participating in Ukraine’s political life from their personal perspectives. Admittedly. the way the Ukrainian language was at best siloed and and at worse actively discouraged in the Soviet Union makes language a touchy subject. Everyone wants to encourage Ukrainian, but language laws that emphasize Ukrainian as sole legal language as a way to get people to adopt Ukrainian is a mild version of Putin’s misunderstanding of modern political identities. Fortunately, the various versions of the language laws that have been in place since 1992 have been honored in the breech in ways that have rarely caused real harm. Pragmatism on the ground has invariably prevailed. Furthermore to a certain extent the laws have been made conceptually tolerable because even Russian-speakers in Ukraine share the same essentialism and agree that Ukrainian should be the language of state.</p>
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<p style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The real sadness is that Ukrainian pragmatism has been threatened by Putin’s Russian nationalist idealism. As Roman Szporluk pointed out over 30 years ago, despite the Azeri-Armenian conflict, and the crazed Georgian nationalism of Zviad Gamsakhurdia that had yet to come to pass, the most dangerous nationalism emerging as the Soviet Union collapsed was Russian nationalism. Linked to Russian dominance in the Soviet Union, the boundaries of Russian identity were far less defined than those of the various smaller nationalities. Russians Empire and their special position in the Soviet Union they had to decide what model of nation could opt to accept their new position as Russians in a Russian state, in which case the Commonwealth of Independent States might well have blossomed into a large community of independent but friendly nations. More ominously they could become exercised about their ostensibly lost empire and build a politics around protecting the rights of Russians in other territories. Many Russians may well have preferred the first alternative, but for reasons that may have little to do with concern for Russians abroad or the loss of Empire they chose Putin, and once having chosen Putin, he made the choice for them. As this war drags on becoming a disaster that Putin may not be able to live down, Russians will get a do-over. If indeed anger at Putin brings about the end of his rule, perhaps this time, Russians will be more comfortable with the possibilities opened up by taking a more narrow view of Russian identity.</p>vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-17749053360492765212022-02-21T23:56:00.004-05:002022-02-22T17:26:31.389-05:00The Donbas Republics Were Always Going to Go to the Loser<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">The situation in Donbas is fluid. No one knows what Putin will decide to do. Reports are that military is still gathering on the borders, and the joint maneuvers with Belarus have been extended. That said, there is reason to think that US alarmist rhetoric boxed Putin in. If he doesn’t move farther into Ukraine, we will have to wonder if he ever really planned to move on Ukraine in the first place, but hoped to shake down Ukraine and the west to the point where he could force Ukraine to implement the Minsk 2 agreement according to Russian wishes, permanently crippling Ukraine. By raising the warnings of an invasion to fever pitch the US forced Putin to acknowledge that he can’t credibly do more than threaten an invasion of Ukraine, and recognizing the Luhansk People’s Republic and Donetsk People’s Republic was a way to save face, something that according to the exceedingly well connected and judicious Russia expert Mark Galeotti many in the Russian political class had been urging.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span> </span>We will know in the coming days and weeks if this truly was an off ramp for Putin. It would ring true with the Putin analysts like Galeotti are accustomed to, one who is pragmatic and a rational actor if viewed on his own terms. Seen in that light, both the staged meeting of his security council and the looney speech he gave later justifying his actions are best understood as the grudging and angry recognition that the US and just as importantly Ukraine’s Zelenskiy had out-foxed him. The fact that Ze, a former comedian, has managed to hold Ukraine together must be especially irksome to a man like Putin, who thinks of statesmen as anointed great men.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span> </span>To add insult to injury Putin now finds himself in charge of cleaning up the mess he made in Donbas eight years ago. He didn’t want that. Forcing Ukraine to keep Donbas was a way to weaken Ukraine, and that was why Putin hoped to get the west to go along with his plans to force Ukraine to accept Minsk 2 on his terms, formally creating a pocket veto on Ukraine’s efforts to move towards the west. But even without Minsk being implemented the Donbas was a drain on Ukraine. The limited but moderate intensity warfare with no resolution cost money and lives. Ukraine was also paying the pensions of people who were not living in territory controlled by Ukraine, an expense that was necessary for Ukrainian dignity, but of little good for its economy. Even implementing the Minsk agreement according to Ukrainian terms would have been costly and time consuming. Rebuilding the state and institutions systematically destroyed by the combination of Russian military operatives and organized crime gangs that ran the city would have been difficult, and the investment necessary to revive the Donbas’s mining-based economy in Donbas cost effective would have been huge. Modernization would not lead to employment for most miners — just look at the situation in West Virginia, Southeastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania and Eastern Kentucky. In times other businesses would develop, but with huge social costs. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";"><span> </span>Ever since the insurgencies of Spring 2014 the dirty secret of the conflict has been that whoever ends up with Donbas will be the loser of the war. Today, Putin took that honor and was forced to pretend that this was a good thing. Putin will now have to fix it; although whether he can do that is another question. Of course, Putin can break more. He can use the claims of the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics to the whole administrative regions to justify pushing Ukrainian forces out there. He can move to create the so-called land bridge to Crimea that has been talked about since 2014, but that should not be confused with victory. That will be a drain on the Russian economy and cost lives that many Russians will resent, Ukrainians won’t like it much either but they will be fighting for their country and that will make a big difference.</span></p>vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-22536694996611178912015-09-12T20:02:00.001-04:002015-09-12T20:02:16.944-04:00Remembering Dondi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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People of a certain age will recognize the face above as Dondi. I never followed the comic strip, in part because the <i>New York Times</i> was the paper of the house, but I think if I had I would have found it annoyingly cute, but after seeing the picture of little Aylan Kurdy lifeless on a beach a couple of weeks ago I've had a hard time getting Dondi out of my head.</div>
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Most of what I ever know about Dondi came from watching one of the movies made about him in the 1950s, an orphan with no one to tend him to GIs adopt him. According to Wikipedia, he was Italian, but in a sense he was the cute face of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people — after all the comic was inspired by a trip to Korea, where there were plenty of such similar kids walking around. For their part, his benefactors,Ted Willis and Whitey McGowan, stood in for an America that recognized its good fortune and believed it had responsibility to help people in worse situations get on their feet, and if necessary give them a new home. As I think about America’s recent and uncharacteristically woeful record on taking in refugees I see is a loss of American values, </div>
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where greed and fear have replaced a basic principle of generosity. Yes, lots have changed since the 1950s, but if we wish to have a future where the fear of terrorism does not cripple us, perhaps the answer is not worrying first and foremost about letting in terrorists, but rather showing the world our hearts and our readiness to help the less fortunate. With that in mind, perhaps it is time for someone to revive the Dondi comic.</div>
vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-10618226210716572822015-07-04T12:47:00.001-04:002015-07-04T14:20:38.467-04:00Syriza, the Wrong Ally in the Left's War Against Neo-Liberalism<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 11px;">
Ever since the election of Syriza government in Greece in January, prime minister Alexis Tsipras and its main interlocutor with the Troika (The European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF), finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, have become heroes of the anti-austerity left. Small wonder, enamored with austerity, the EU and IMF have managed the Greek catastrophe terribly, perhaps not so terribly as American politicians managed the bailout of Wall Street, while doing little for Main Street and borrowers — at least the EU forced a 50% haircut on the holders of some of Greece’s debt. The austerity program imposed on Greece only weakened Greece’s economy further and has rightly made Greece the poster child for proponents of a revival of Keynesian economics, and the rejection of the neo-liberal belief that austerity is always economically judicious. Syriza’s election seemed to signal the long awaited revolt against austerity that many of the left have long hoped for, and so support among the left in Europe and America has remained strong as the Syriza government’s showdown with the EU troika has come to a head. Yet recognizing that further concessions to the Greek people are necessary should not be seen as a vindication of Syriza’s tactics. For if their rhetoric has been right, Tsipras and Varoufakis have been the worst representatives of the anti-austerity movement imaginable, and in the end it will not just be Greece that will pay the price but the whole left, which has struggled to find a new purpose since the collapse of Communism.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For almost three decades now the post-1989 left lived in a dreamworld unable to offer justification for their critiques of the Washington consensus other than saying “its not fair,” and as such they have been unable to offer a real vision, leaving the “neo-liberals” looking like the only adults in the room. Syriza's management of the crisis and their negotiating strategy has been almost a parody of that problem. Rather than show some recognition of the broader political realities, i.e. that any further haircut the EU makes will effect millions of people, who are not terribly sympathic towards Greece, the Syriza leadership has just complained louder and louder about the unfairness of it all.<br />
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If that had worked in the intervening months this blog would not be written. What we have seen, however, is that the Troika has dug in. Meanwhile, people on the left continue to assume that it is the Troika that must budge first, as if the other EU governments are not beholden to their own people. Given Greece’s recent history with the EU, it ought to be clear that the EU countries have quite good reasons for demanding Greece commit to structural reforms before making further concessions to insure that the EU never has to rescue Greece again. For this story begins with the dodgy accounting and especially a big currency swap set up by Goldman Sachs Greece used to get into the Euro. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now the EU shares some blame in as much everyone knew that had not historically managed to meet the deficit and debt limits required of entrants into the Eurozone, but it is also true that Greece went well beyond the fudging other countries did. The miracle of Greece making the Eurozone requirements already began to unravel in 2004, but the EU did not kick Greece out then. Then the discovery of the Goldman Sachs currency swap when the Greek debt crisis began in earnest only damaged Greece’s credibility further with among fellow Europeans, and understandably so for it showed the Greek government was willing to partner with a private investment bank to cover up the truth that ultimately affected all members of the Eurozone. Then came the decision by the Greek constitutional court to declare pension reforms made in 2010 has left other European governments wondering how they can ask their constituents to support more aid when Greeks have not brought their pension systems in line with other European states, so that Greeks can continue to retire earlier than anywhere else in the EU and often at extraordinary percentages of work salaries that would be unheard of elsewhere. That lack of sympathy is especially strong in East Central Europe where peoples all went through their own austerity programs just to get into the EU. Thus, Syriza’s decision not to accept concessions should not be seen just as standing up against neoliberalism as their supporters believe, but as a disregard for the principals that a united Europe which Greece has benefited from considerably. Rather Tsipras and Varoufakis have shown themselves to be stuck in the old mode of politics where national interest trumps all else. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Now that is not to say that the EU has been right not to signal in some way that further haircut of Greek bonds should be on the table pending reforms, but it is remarkable that Tsipras and Varoufakis have shown little open appreciation for the political difficulties such a haircut poses for other European governments absent irreversible concessions. (It is telling that it was the IMF, whose leadership does not have to worry about getting re-elected that leaked the need for a further haircut of Greek debt.) Worse since coming to power Tsipras and Varoufakis have never been honest with the Greek people. They won election by telling Greeks they could keep the Euro without paying the price that the other EU governments say it must. Perhaps we should not chastise them for that, after all politics is about winning elections. Unlike many great politicians who have come into office and then changed their tune, however, Syriza have continued to promise what they could not and still deny the reality that they are not the masters of Greece’s fate. So among the justifications for a no vote is the disingenuous proposition that because keeping the Euro is not in the wording of the referendum proposal that a No vote will not mean Greeks will have to abandon the Euro as seen in bullet points 5 and 6 from Varoufakis’s justification for a No vote:</div>
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<a href="http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/01/why-we-recommend-a-no-in-the-referendum-in-6-short-bullet-points/"><b>Why we recommend a NO in the referendum – in 6 short bullet points</b></a></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(102, 102, 102); color: #666666; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light';">Posted on <a href="http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/07/01/why-we-recommend-a-no-in-the-referendum-in-6-short-bullet-points/"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(35, 35, 35); color: #232323; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><b>July 1, 2015</b></span></a> by <a href="http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/author/yanisv/"><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(35, 35, 35); color: #232323; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue';"><b>yanisv</b></span></a></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>5<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Greece will stay in the euro. Deposits in Greece’s banks are safe. Creditors have chosen the <br />
strategy of blackmail based on bank closures. The current impasse is due to this choice by the <br />
creditors and not by the Greek government discontinuing the negotiations or any Greek thoughts<br />
of Grexit and devaluation. Greece’s place in the Eurozone and in the European Union is non-<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>6<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The future demands a proud Greece within the Eurozone and at the heart of Europe. This future<br />
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power vested upon us by that NO, we renegotiate Greece’s public debt as well as the distribution<br />
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>All this falls under Einstein’s definition of insanity — doing the same thing and expecting different results. Since coming into office they have acted as if the Troika is not the ultimate arbiter of what will be acceptable, and apparently even being kicked out of the council of ministers last week after announcing the referendum has not brought that truth home. Syriza was supposed to represent a new start in Greek politics, but has instead been a continuation of the same politics of wishful thinking that got Greece in this mess in the first place. If Greeks fall for that as they did 6 months ago, it will cease to be shame on Syriza, and become shame on the Greeks for continuing to believe something that is too good to be true.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Worse, for all of Varoufakis’s vaunted knowledge of game theory, he has shown little evidence that he has the same grasp of it in practice as he may have academically. The Syriza government’s brinksmanship over the past six months has been premised on the notion that the rest of the EU does not want to risk having Greece leave the Euro, setting the stage for destabilizing the Euro. For that to be credible, shouldn’t Syriza have been doing something to make Greece’s readiness to leave the Euro look serious? Despite getting moral support for leaving the Eurozone from leading economists, including Paul Krugman, Jeffrey Sachs, and Joseph Stiglitz, and guardedly even Martin Wolf, Varoufakis has apparently done nothing to make the threat look real. They have not educated voters on the advantages of leaving the Euro, and so as the bullet points above indicate, Syriza must retain the support of the majority of Greeks who wish to stay in the Euro to win the referendum. In so doing Tsipras an Varoufakis are risking not just their own political lives, but Greece’s political stability, while the rest of the Eurozone has by all accounts prepared for the contingency that Greece must abandon the Euro.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So what happens under the two possible outcomes of Sunday’s referendum? Let’s start with the no vote Syriza wants. It certainly looks most likely that Europe will begin to close the books on Greece as part of the Euro. As such Syriza is suddenly going to be very unpopular among the majority of Greeks who see staying in the Euro as their goal, and likely all the more because they have done so little to plan for this contingency. Under those circumstances, maybe Syriza will come into its own, but a popular revolt against a party that confidently promised so much without gaining anything seems a reasonable fear. For many, the result will be that the Greek crisis becomes seen not as the rebirth of a new left, but a wooden stake in the heart of an inherently economically reckless left. A victory for Yes doesn’t look much better for Syriza and the left; although, it will likely be better for the majority of Greeks who see keeping the Euro as a priority. The Syriza government will resign, there will be new elections, probably won by the center right, which will make the left look impotent against the “realities of economics;” although not without Syriza and the left winning enough votes on the claim that their failure was <b>all</b> the fault of a great neoliberal plot, thereby threatening the new government’s stability.</div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>What might Syriza have done differently beyond being more honest about the possibility of leaving the Euro? Brutal as it may be, the key would have been to commit at the outset to implement the pension reforms that Europe has so clearly demanded as a means to demonstrate Greeks’ readiness to put themselves in line with the rest of Europe. In so doing, they would have committed to a vision of European unity in which the left can and must play an important part. Indeed, they could have used the need to adopt European norms on pensions to promote a parallel commitment to improve Greece’s notoriously stingy unemployment insurance system, so that old age pensions will no longer become the default safety net as is happening now, and which Syriza has used as its main justification for not reforming the pension system. </div>
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<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Above all accepting that Greece is beholden to its creditors six months ago would have ended the uncertainty that has unquestionably helped perpetuate Greece’s depression. Further, it would have finally removed the obstacle that has prevented the Troika from being more forthcoming, because the need for debt relief and Greeks desire to stay in the Euro has been its only leverage to insure reforms actually get done. In short, Syriza squandered six months during which the mercy it has demanded might have been negotiated. Now all that sounds more neo-liberal than most on the left would like, but this is the reality of the modern left. Progress no longer naturally leads to a socialist paradise. Complaining about unfairness is not enough, it is incumbent on the left to show vision and compassion in a more complicated world than Marx allowed for.</div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-8427723320975941432014-11-26T12:02:00.001-05:002014-11-26T12:02:10.282-05:00My Piece on American press coverage for the online journal LogosThere are a number of reasons I have not posted here recently, but a major one was being commissioned by the people at the online journal Logos to write the article I am providing a link to <a href="http://logosjournal.com/2014/lane/">here</a>.<br />
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I will not offer any major additional insights here for now, beyond restating a belief I have held for some time that we should not allow the anxiety about troop movements from Russia naturally inspire among Ukrainians to lead to an overestimation of what Putin is capable of taking and holding in Ukraine beyond what he has taken. Indeed, while I have seen no additional confirmation of this, there was even a report of a possible small mutiny among Russian regular army soldiers, who did not want to continue fighting in Ukraine. At the same time all our eyes should be focused how Ukraine moves forward on the massive task of economic reform and anti-corruption measures.vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-6844840506394582132014-08-16T13:49:00.000-04:002014-08-16T22:37:43.420-04:00What is Putin up to?<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Churchill famously called Russia “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” That comment was prompted by the Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland in 1939. This week Vladimir Putin has lived up to that characterization; although, this time it is Russia’s actions towards Ukraine that has left heads people scratching heads. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span mce_style="white-space: pre;" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In as much as questions about Putin’s intentions have loomed over events in Ukraine since the beginning of the crisis there, I have been tempted several times to write a piece about Putin's role in events. These efforts have always foundered because I am not really a Russian specialist and more to the point even the best informed analysts cannot get into Putin’s head. This weeks news, however, offers a useful lesson about how Putin manipulates us even as it seems clear that that he has failed to foment civil war in Ukraine and that he is unlikely to succeed in creating a frozen conflict in the Donbas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span mce_style="white-space: pre;" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>From the moment of the bombings attributed to Chechen terrorists shortly after being named Prime Minister in 1999, Putin has demonstrated a deep appreciation for how the propaganda of fear can be used to manipulate events and the political atmosphere. This week’s announcement that Russia was sending a humanitarian aid convoy to the besieged Donbas city of Luhansk has been a textbook example of that tactic. From the high diplomatic level where Russian claims that the convoy had the approval of the International Red Cross when it did not to the origination of the convoy’s journey from a town with a special forces base and the refusal to let independent journalists get a look at the cargo being loaded all was calculated to maximize anxiety that Putin had decided to go to war in Ukraine. Almost immediately the phrase “Trojan horse” was on even casual observers’ lips; although, the notion that the trucks would be used to stage a provocation that would provide the justification for a full-fledged war seemed even more plausible. In a climate created in the previous week by analysts of solid reputation saying we were reaching the moment when Putin would have to make a decision and that war was a very real possibility these seemed plausible concerns and even the idea that Putin might attempt a multi-pronged invasion could not be entirely dismissed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span mce_style="white-space: pre;" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Of course, almost all informed experts knew such a move would be disaster and would bring little good to Russia, as the past several months have made it eminently clear there far too many Ukrainians committed to their independence to make long-term occupation successful even in the unlikely event that blitzkrieg tactics would succeed at first. Most of those same people also knew that opinion polls showed the majority of Russians did not want an open war with Ukraine. Moreover, there were even signs that the Kremlin was not particularly interested in changing that. While a crowd of about 1,000 people gathered in Moscow to support war with Ukraine at 2 August, anyone familiar with “managed democracy” knows that number could have been much higher if that is what the Kremlin had wanted, especially since the demonstration had a permit for 10,000 people. Yet, with all eyes focused on those more than 260 trucks and word that Putin was going to make an important speech when he visited Crimea on 15 August those things did not matter and we willingly allowed Putin to appear once again to be master of events. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span mce_style="white-space: pre;" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>That must have felt great for the man who has spent his political career, and no doubt his KGB career before that, making himself appear in command. The game continued with a Russian incursion early Friday that was verified by the presence of a Western journalist, although the Ukrainian military claims they substantially destroyed, the crucial fact was that the vehicles involved had not been unloaded from trucks from the convoy. Indeed, so much materiel was already massed near the Ukrainian border that no massive convoy was needed, and when western journalists finally got access to the convoy they found the trucks were half empty. Then, there was the curious matter of Putin’s speech in Crimea that same day. During the week it had been billed as a major policy speech that would be broadcast nationally, but then at the last minute it was not, nor has a full transcript been published. So we do not know what if any important policies Putin announced during his visit; although, quite clearly it was not a declaration of war on Ukraine.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span mce_style="white-space: pre;" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No doubt, Putin has ideas about how he and his minions will use the convoy and other events this week to preserve the aura of mastery over Russia and its relations with the world. Yet, the past week have done little to change the perception beyond Russia that Putin’s policy towards Ukraine has been a colossal mistake that Russians and Russia will be dealing with for years, and the question remains what other than fear were this weeks’ games supposed to achieve? My guess, and it is only a guess; although I think it makes good sense of what otherwise quite confusing information, is the fear was used to obscure Putin’s decision to begin the recalibration of his Ukraine policy, and that his immediate aims may well have been quite successful. By the end of the week, the most visible Russian face in the leadership of the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic, Ihor Girkin aka Strelkov had resigned, as had the leader of the Luhansk Peoples’ Republic Valery Bolotov. Remarkably, reports suggest they were both injured within hours of each other, which raises suspicions. Perhaps their injuries are real, and the timing is a coincidence. Anyone following what the Ukrainian government calls the Anti-Terrorist Operation knows that the noose is tightening and were these men rallying their troops in the wrong place at the wrong time they could well have been seriously wounded. Alternatively, and more likely, given that Girkin and Bolotov have totally disappeared from public eye, even though a picture of either men would cheer nationalists in Russia, something bigger is up. </span><br /><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><br /></span><span mce_style="letter-spacing: 0px;" style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Girkin and Bolotov are hard men committed to the the idea of a greater Russia and ideally the destruction of Ukraine. As such. if Putin has decided to let their project rot on the vine, they must be removed in a way that does not rile other Russian nationalists. With that in mind Putin's actions last week make good sense. For while Ukrainians and the outside world were worrying, Girkin and Bolotov would have been cheering the signs that Putin was finally ready to commit to their side. They may even have been advised as much and told that the time had come for them to step aside and let the Russian military command take over with a promise of laurels as Russian heroes back in Moscow. Wherever they are now, the two are likely dismayed to see that the full-bore invasion Russian Nationalists had hoped for has not materialized.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /> Extricating Girkin and Bolotov could only happen if both were convinced that Putin was at last committed to a full-scale invasion of the Donbas, if not all of Ukraine. At the same time, neither was born yesterday, and their previous careers have made them familiar enough with the ways of the double-cross that hard proof might well have been necessary. In that case, how better to allay their concerns than letting a western journalist witness a Russian incursion and for supplies and reinforcements to continue cross the border along with continued shelling from the Russian side of the border? To be sure, the chronology is a bit off. Girkin and Bolotov both resigned before the incursion occurred, or was at least reported, but maybe their egos got the better of them and they were more easily convinced than expected. Ultimately, from Putin's perspective the key was getting the two militants out of the way, and that was achieved.<br /><br /> Meanwhile, the war goes on and Putin may have conceded to himself that Novorossija will not be redeemed, but he does not see turning his back on pro-Russian fighters as acceptable either so fighters and equipment keep coming. On 16 August the head of the Donetsk Peoples’ Republic claimed they have received 1,400 reinforcement fresh from training in Russia. This remains unconfirmed but we would be wise not to attribute too much meaning to it even if it is true; although, it may also provide an indication of what else was in the half-empty trucks before they reached the Ukrainian border. Still, this is beginning to be reminiscent of Nixon’s escalated bombing and Vietnamization circa 1970 with the twist that if these new troops are Russian and not Ukrainian, shipping these boys off to Ukraine with minimal training is an easy way to get rid of the kind of people who might cause problems at home if Putin starts appearing insufficiently committed to <span class="Apple-style-span" mce_name="em" mce_style="font-style: italic;" style="font-style: italic;">Ruskyi Mir. A</span>bove all, it shows that Putin has little qualms asking some men to be the last to die for a mistake. That is not exactly news, but it should help keep this story in perspective even as we mourn for those who because of Kremlin’s whims will die in what may well be the closing weeks of this phase of Ukraine’s move to real independence</span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-77656726267580769932014-07-17T11:37:00.000-04:002014-12-29T07:08:09.228-05:00Distractions<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It has been some time since I have been able to post about Ukraine. Much of that had to do with distractions from the end of semester responsibilities and then some family matters that could not be put off, but the transformation of the Maidan revolution into a military conflict in the Donbas has hindered the ability of armchair experts to offer insightful comment. While I am glad not to have spent time as a prisoner of pro-Russian fighters, I envy Simon Ostrovsky a bit, and hope his VICE reports get him bigger notice. Yet for all their immediacy and journalistic value, such reports cannot answer the big questions that everyone is asking: 1) Can the Ukrainian military manage to regain control of the region without exacerbating relations with the already disaffected citizens of Donbas? 2) How long can the paramilitaries in the Donbas hold out? 3) How much is Putin willing to do to support them? More importantly, nor can I or any expert. For tempting as it is to answer that last question and arguably most pressing question, no one is able to get in Putin’s head, and the truth is we will not know what Putin has decided until it is too late and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine is underway, or we wake up one day and we realize Ukraine has ceased to be at the top of his agenda. In the meantime, the only thing we need to remember is that Russian intervention in Ukraine is intended as a distractraction and buy time both in Russia and in Ukraine.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>On Putin’s home front there are some warning signs. A study released last week shows about two thirds of Russians do not like the idea of a war with Ukraine, a fact that would set a limit for how far Putin can go; although, having drawn heavily on Russophile pan--Slavs for support, he now has to worry about a backlash if he backs down. So open but never quite acknowledged support continues for the fighters in Donbas, as do faints to suggest he is ready and willing to invade. On Monday, 14 July Dmytro Tymchuk, Ukraine’s best connected journalist on military affairs put out a statement stating that Russian special forces would enter Ukraine on 15 July, and it is now the 16. Better safe than sorry of course, but at this point one can only surmise that the Russian communications traffic that Tymchuk reported had repeatedly referenced 15 July as an invasion date was itself an effort to deceive and distract. Coming as it did just days before NATO and European countries are set to decide on introducing further sanctions to Russia, attempting to make the Ukrainian government look alarmist could well play well in some important quarters, like Germany and France so that the next phase of sanctions remain mild. If that was the intent, the tactic has not worked, and so we shall see what Putin will do next.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The saddest part is that people are dying and suffering in multiple ways because Putin would rather distract than deal with the cul de sac that is his vision for Russia and Ukraine. He has made consistently poor choices in respect to Ukraine since 2004, because for him there can only be one outcome, one that Ukrainians are increasingly opposed to. That said, while ignoring it would be inhumane and irresponsible, let us remember the conflict also distracts from the real business of transforming Ukraine, which is what the Maidan revolution was about. Last week Ukraine’s Fifth channel reported that following difficulties passing reforms affecting Ukraine’s historically corrupt gas monopoly <i>Naftogaz </i>prime minister Arsenyi Yatseniuk drafted a letter of resignation and left it with the President of the Ukrainian parliament. Around the same time, Ukrainska Pravda reported the new mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klischko has named a Kyiv real estate tycoon Ihor Nikonov as his chief advisor. Nikonov happens to be a partner of the natural gas oligarch Dmitriy Firtash, who is currently in Vienna fighting extradition to the U.S. on corruption charges and would of course like to see as little change possible to the gas market in Ukraine. Klitschko’s connections to Firtash are not new, nor are Poroshenko’s, so one has to wonder can the current distraction provide the opportunity for the oligarchs to hijack the Maidan revolution the same way as happened with the Orange Revolution in 2004.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>So far the oligarchs do not seem to be closing ranks or systematically sabotaging reforms, at least not yet. <i>Ukrainska Pravda</i> has since reported that all signs are Yatseniuk will remain prime minister for the foreseeable future, which we can hope is a sign that Poroshenko understands the costs of sabotaging Yatseniuk. Meanwhile the oligarchs who profited most from Yanukovych’s misrule that their most have been the most wrong-footed by Yanukovych’s downfall. Akhmetov has played his hand so poorly, hedging his bets until he had lost credibility with the Donbas people so that it is increasingly unlikely that the government will need to court him as they retake the Donbas. Firtash is also on the defensive, and is likely doing all he can to get the new government to convince the U.S. to drop the charges against him. He has just offered to forgive a loan to the government of 100 billion hryvna (roughly 100 million dollars) no doubt hoping for some favors, but that does not seem to be in the cards. Two days ago Kolomoisky, who is the governor of Dnipropetrovsk region and has great standing in the new government and the people thanks to his success in preventing pro-Russian movements from taking hold in his bailiwick, stated that the companies both Akhmetov and Firtash bought during privatizations conducted by the Yanukovych government should be renationalized. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The oligarchs, however, are themselves a distraction, because their ability to influence the system is dependent on collaborators, and the fact is the continuing war is serving such people quite well. While some of the millions of people who supported the Maidan have volunteered to serve in the fight to recover the Donbas, and many others are pledging money, the focus on the war has provided an excuse to postpone parliamentary elections. Without a new parliament, the existing parliament is itself becoming a kind of frozen zone. The Communists will likely never be represented again, and the same fate may await many Party of Regions, unless they can join a forge a new party of power and patronage. Cooperating with the new government fits perfectly with that aim, and the longer the war goes on allowing the elections to be postponed the easier it will be for them to succeed in that goal. Supporting the government’s anti-terrorist action is understandable and necessary, but it should not distract from the remaking of society that was at the heart of the Maidan. With Yanukovych gone and Ukraine’s relationship with Russia clearer than ever, the time is ripe for a new political spectrum to emerge, but that can only happen if Ukrainians keep their eyes on the prize, and don’t let the war in the East, whether won or lost, distract them.</span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-83741362876993967422014-05-13T13:02:00.000-04:002014-05-13T13:02:08.298-04:00America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Inconvenience of Ukraine <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If I were Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, I would not be looking forward to my next few visits to Washington. Of course, there will be smiles at the photo ops and talk of cooperation, and maybe some pleasant times with friends of his American wife Anne Appelbaum, but it is quite clear that America’s foreign policy establishment is quite upset with Sikorski, even if they are too diplomatic to say so directly. In separate Charlie Rose interviews broadcast on Friday 2 both Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia both agreed that it had been a terrible mistake to put Ukraine in a position where it had to choose between East and West, and they of course are not alone. Since the idea of drawing Ukraine closer to Europe through an Association Agreement was Sikorski’s baby, this is clearly about him.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That ire is understandable. Foreign policy is above all about maintaining stability and getting along, and one thing that can be said of the last six months is that Eastern Europe is far less stable, and our relations with Russia have deteriorated significantly. Because of the heightened tensions, we have finally agreed to station troops in the frontline NATO states of Poland and the Baltic republics, something we have until now avoided. Nor does it help that many among the foreign policy elite likely feel that Sikorski is quietly regarding that last decision as a triumph. Nonetheless, such thinking only reflects the extent to which our foreign policy elite has failed to understand the significance of the past six months, and would like to avoid the awful truth that approach taken towards integrating Russia and the other Soviet successor states over the past 25 years has turned into a cul de sac. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the moment, the foreign policy elite continues to view the Ukraine crisis as a complication rather than an opportunity. This is nothing new. Ukraine has long been regarded an unwanted complication for the American foreign policy elite. Ukraine signaled the end of the Soviet Union when it declared independence just weeks after George Bush senior delivered a speech in Kiev aimed precisely at keeping the Soviet Union together and warning of suicidal nationalism. While the bloodbath many feared did not happen, Ukrainian independence raised the issue of Ukraine’s inheritance of the portion of the Soviet nuclear stockpile. That was resolved in 1994 with the Budapest Memorandum in which Ukraine voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons, but even then Ukraine did not fade into the background as a happily pliant Russian client state. Its generally free and fair elections revealed a country that could not quite make up its mind whether to lean East or West, leading to shifts in course foreign policy experts dislike, and then there were the crises, the Orange Revolution, the gas disputes with Russia, all before the Euromaidan crisis ostensibly brought on by the push to bring Ukraine closer into the European orbit.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">By contrast, Russia has been treated as stable and reliable. Of course, it had a head start as the legal successor state to the Soviet Union, and however shrunken its economic power, it remained the largest country on the map. Despite tense moments in 1993 and the 1996 elections, the leadership has generally been seen by experts as having predicable interests, which has included preserving the stability in its backyard. In the instance of the Budapest Memorandum, Russia could be seen as a force for good, but even when it did things the West did not like, such as play games with Ukraine over gas, Russia’s actions were always framed as understandable. Further, both Yeltsin and Putin have been eager to be seen as major players on the world stage, and brokers in affairs well beyond Russia’s immediate neighborhood, most notably in negotiations in the Middle East, most recently in Syria. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Of course, in 1994 no one foresaw that Russia might unilaterally abrogate the Memorandum, and the Memorandum was seen as great power politics done right. Indeed, there are likely few observers, who can honestly say that they were not optimistic about the long-term value of integrating Russia into world affairs and treating it as a potential “normal country,” which would have to go through some difficult times, but would be transformed by broader contacts with the West. Yet, what we have lived to see in our new globalized world is that our institutions are not the bulwarks of civil society and well regulated free market economy we thought them to be. They can be they can be tainted by corruption, and the biggest corrupting force is huge capital than can be used against the interests of the many. Significantly, this was not Russia’s doing, but the very fact that the west was becoming increasingly comfortable with huge income disparities meant that the bankers and other players found it easy to miss the fact that the oligarchs in the Soviet successor states had amassed their fortunes not through careful building of market share and introduction of new products in a free market, but through arbitrage that was only possible because of the lack of transparency in their economies. That wealth had to managed, and who could resist the temptation not to help these men and occasional women make use of their assets, and so we get Londynograd. Moreover, it was not difficult to assuage any guilt through the profits one made, and by telling ourselves that this wealth was an aberration resulting from the transition, but that these fortunes, like those of the American robber barons a century before would dissipate in time.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">That assumption rested on the notion that a new economic transparency would gradually take hold in the Soviet successor states. It has not, and if that has not stopped a new entrepreneurial class from emerging, it is also evident that Putin has little interest in nurturing and broadening the middle class in a way where it can become more become a player in its own right. For the denizens of the foreign policy elite, however, that has remained a minor matter, and this truth, as well as the effects Russian money was having on our allies, was ignored because other more pressing concerns elsewhere, particularly in the middle east were more pressing, and having Russia’s help was accepted as essential. So we have coddled Putin, and been slow to recognize the extent that world order Putin has been pursuing is one aimed at aggrandizing Russian and complicate our ability to confront his aggression. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">If convincing our European allies to confront Putin is difficult now, one can only imagine what it would have been five or ten years from now had the Ukraine crisis not cropped up. Now that the crisis has happened and it is clear that the assumptions made two decades ago have proven flawed, we should not run away from what we have discovered. Rather the time has come to reexamine our real goals are in the post-post-cold war era, and how we can use the challenges presented today to forge a new long-term stability. For to keep going and pretending that a shift has not taken place is actually likely to lead to an even greater disruption down the road. So angry as they may be now, in five to ten years, I predict the realists and the rest of America’s foreign policy elite will be thanking Sikorski for his Ukrainian policy. By pushing the association agreement with Ukraine, he has triggered events that have made it plain how false the post-cold war assumptions were. In the meantime, we may hope that Ukraine will finally be able to break the cycle of corrupt oligarchic rule that has crippled its development so far. If they succeed, we will not have helped the Ukrainians alone, Ukraine will become a model for Russians and Belarusians that there is a different way that will spread prosperity further, and that will only become more important as Putin and Belarus’s presidents get older and their infirmities cease to be the ones that can be managed with Botox, hair dye, and make-up.</span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-42106745928223231512014-04-12T11:41:00.001-04:002014-04-12T11:41:41.932-04:00The Ongoing Disorientation Brought on by the Anxiety about What Will Come Next<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This blog has fallen victim to the current state of uncertainty brought on by Russian meddling in eastern Ukraine and the ongoing question of whether Putin will intervene directly. On the face of it, that ought not to be a big issue for a blogger writing some 7000 miles from the scene, especially one who tries not to traffic too much in speculation. Yet, it is hard not to get away from how a sudden term of events gets in the way of the long-term. A week ago, after giving considerable thought I was on the verge of writing a piece on the way so much of Ukraine's future depended not on Ukraine but on Putin with a comparison of Putin's current mode of governing with that of Slobodan Milosevic. Then I came home Sunday afternoon to the alarming news about the seizures of buildings in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk. Suddenly that was more important and I was following every moment and the scarce time I had to bang out the planned Putin piece disappeared into thin air. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I write this not just to justify the long gap between now and my last post, but to illustrate the broader impact of Putin’s current efforts to destabilize Ukraine. For if a small time blogger far removed from the events is thrown of stride, it is not difficult to imagine how people and institutions in Ukraine are unsettled. In the aftermath of the Russian seizure of Crimea I have heard reports of shortages of basic items like sugar and flour, as people stock up in case of a disruption of supply networks should full-fledged war break out. The need to deal with the anti-government protests naturally also distracts the government as it attempts to implement changes that will reduce corruption and promote responsible economic development. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">More broadly, as instability lingers the perception that Ukraine cannot manage its affairs grows leading people in the west to thinking that supporting Ukraine may not be worth the effort. Indeed, Ruslana Lyzychko, the pop singer and effective moral leader of the Euromaidan, <a href="http://uacrisis.org/ruslana-2/">expressed that concern following her trip to the US this week,</a> and not without cause. On Tuesday Rachel Maddow used the brawl between Svoboda and the Communists in parliament as a punchline to a brief exposition of disfunctional government in a way as to suggest that maybe between that brawl and events in the East Ukraine cannot really manage its own affairs. She did not explain the context; however, like the fact that the Communists had a long codependent relationship with the corrupt Party of Regions party and will be luck to be represented after a new parliament is elected, and that that same fate may also await Svoboda. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In the great scheme of things losing Maddow for a day is not a huge thing. She may be MSNBC’s most popular presenter, but she is on cable, and so her audience is small. Still, she is an important voice on the American left, which as noted previously has to sadly been a weak link in the chain regarding support for Ukraine, largely because of a combination of Russia’s effective use of buzz words like fascism and right-wing extremism combined with a general and understandable desire not to get too involved in someone else’s business, as well as the prominence of well-known left-leaning commentators like Stephen Cohen who talk authoritatively about Ukraine, whether or not they really are. That means that were she to take the lead in promoting informed discussion about Ukraine she could provide a valuable service, and I am not talking just about propaganda here in the pejorative sense, I mean providing useful information that could help her audience honestly assess the current situation.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">A week or two ago, Maddow seemed on the verge of doing just that. In one of her thoughtful meanderings that are part of her program she specifically referenced Timothy Snyder’s <i>Bloodlands</i> as valuable for understanding the background. Yet, from my monitoring (and I must admit I cannot watch her everyday due to scheduling conflicts) she has not built on that by Snyder or other informed observers, leaving that to other less popular presenters like Lawrence McDonnell, although to my knowledge Snyder has yet to be brought on as a guest). PBS has been better, and that same evening provided a <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/episode/tuesday-april-8-2014/">much more thoughtful analysis</a>, but I fear as we look at this as an issue defined by identifying with Russia v. identifying with Ukraine we lose sight of the deeper sources of instability, which is the threat the new government poses to the networks that have long profited from the corrupt environment that successive Ukrainian governments have allowed to flourish in the East. As such a whole way of life is under threat, and while we who have been sympathetic to the Euromaidan see the new era as ushering in new long-term stability, the fact remains that those very advantages mean profound changes for how the economy in Eastern Ukraine works. </span></div>
vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-14207721737029524402014-03-25T11:51:00.001-04:002014-03-25T15:56:53.797-04:00The Twilight of Ethnonationalism?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For some reason, this took quite a while to get banged into shape, but as you can see, I have not ceased thinking about the situation in Ukraine. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ever since the Euromaidan began, Ukraine has been a giant social experiment, and for the most part results have been positive. We have seen a people cowed by an increasingly authoritarian and mercurial government rise up on the principle that they are collectively responsible for the kind of state they live in. Now thanks to Vladimir Putin, Ukraine has become ground zero for a new social experiment in which the relative effectiveness of two diametrically opposed conceptions of the nation are being tested: the völkisch ethno-nationalist vision Vladimir Putin has invoked to justify his decision to annex Crimea, which can easily be applied elsewhere, including Eastern Ukraine on the one hand, and the open, inclusive civic nationalism of symbolized by the the Maidan protests on the other. The stakes are huge. If Putin succeeds in dividing Ukrainians along ethnic and linguistic grounds, we will likely be in for years of misery, and a return to civil war on the European continent. Worse, it will destabilize the Baltic states, and Kazakhstan, and even perhaps Belarus, where Putin’s recent aggression has even begun to worry the Kremlin’s long-standing ally Aleksander Lukashenko. If Ukraine survives intact save Russia’s de facto control of Crimea, then we can truly begin to speak of putting the darkness of Europe’s twentieth century behind us.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Twentieth century history tends to make the first and more pessimistic scenario seem more likely. As conventional wisdom goes, the appeal to tribe is powerful and once unleashed inexorable. Throughout the twentieth centuries from population exchanges of Greeks and Turks after at the end of WWI to the ethnic cleansing that occurred in east central Europe during and after WWII and occurred again in Yugoslavia, we have seen how escalating ethnic tensions create a logic of their own that countervailing tendencies like mixed marriages, inter-ethnic friendships, and cooperation on a local level become unable to resist. This is the road to civil war, and unrest in the major eastern cities of Ukraine, like Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Luhansk it is all too plausible right now. Never mind that there is increasing evidence that pro-Russian demonstrations in those cities are dependent on Russian agitators crossing the border, because what matters is not how divisiveness takes hold, but whether or not it takes hold. If such provocations work, then they will have served their purpose and Putin will intervene. Sadly even if the provocations do not work, and for the moment they do not seem to be, except in the now alternate universe of the Russian media, Ukrainians will not be able to rest easy. For Putin and his media spin doctors have now created a worldview where the Russian soul can only be satisfied by redeeming Russians from foreign rule, which if repeated often enough in an environment where Putin has little option other than to attack Ukraine ostensibly to save Russians from fascists and divide the community after the fact as has happened in Crimea. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Bleak as that possible future is, however, we should not resign ourselves to the notion that history will repeat itself. Indeed, far from marking the descent into the ugly narrative we know so well from the past century, Putin’s recent aggression may mark the bitter twilight of an awful era of European history in which nations were understood defined first and foremost by ethnicity, rather than shared political interests grounded in living within the same state. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Nationalists think of nations as grounded in ancient ethnic bonds, but the reality is that our understanding of nations as political communities is modern, and the shape of nations determined more by states than ethnic ties. Indeed, if we look around the world today, the reality is that all nations are heterogeneous, and most quite openly so precisely because it is understood that above all nations function to bind a political community. While some nations feel compelled to sweep that diversity under the rug in the name of today national unity, the number of nations that are defined primarily by ethnicity is quite rare, otherwise, there would be thousands of them. Yet, the dirty secret is that while the rhetoric of shared language and culture is what generally attracts people’s attention, even those ethnic nations owe their positions to the actions of states, are often seen as reflecting a distinct ethnic heritage. This insight also explains the curious concentration of ethnically defined nations in central, eastern, and southeastern Europe. For in the nineteenth century when nations first began taking shape these regions were ruled by large empires, which were unable to establish cultural hegemony of the language of the state. In the Balkans this can be traced back to the millet system the Ottoman state used to govern peoples according to their religion, something that was complicated further by the Orthodox Church’s support of local vernaculars. Further north the key factor was the partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>We will never know whether if left to its own devices, the Commonwealth would have cultivated a modern national identity that would have incorporated all the peoples living in the Commonwealth, whose descendants we today identify as Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Lithuanians, and Jews. It certainly seems possible, as that is what their respective elites had already done. We do know, however, is that all the partitioning powers found incorporating the Polish-speaking elites problematic. As a linguistically largely homogenous state with a comparatively small number of Poles, Prussia and then Germany managed this reasonably well at least until the 1880s, but the Habsburg and Russian Empires both struggled to find a way to incorporate the Poles and bring them to accept the state language as their own. As a result they each followed the path of divide and rule, recognizing other lesser nationalities to offset the prominence of the Poles. In our modern world with its emphasis on diversity the path taken in Habsburg Austria were a multi-cultural society was emerging by fits and starts is particularly appealing and is destruction by World War I especially poignant. In Russia, divide and rule politics proved sufficient to preserve Russian dominance until the crisis brought on by World War I. Nonetheless, the old regime state provided enough nourishment to various nationalists that when the Bolsheviks took over Lenin too felt some kind of recognition was necessary. Stalin aborted that project and revived the imperial order albeit without formally discontinuing the Soviet Union’s nominal national federal structure of Soviet Republics, Autonomous Republics, and Autonomous regions that nonetheless affirmed the mystical importance of nationality. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No wonder that when that day came, there was grave concern that radical nationalists would be the great problem of post-Soviet space as they sought to assert control of ethnically diverse political communities in the name of titular nations. In the case of Ukraine, independence did not lead to significant bloodshed until this year, but by no means did this naturally lead to the kind of inclusive understanding of identity that has been the hallmark of the Euromaidan protests. The Soviet legacy was as engrained in Ukraine as any republic, perhaps more so given that the Ukrainian nationalist movements’ activities before and after WWII, and many of the problems still faced by Ukraine today, especially the sense of an east-west divide, can in part be traced back to the Soviet conception of nations first and foremost as cultural communities. Thus, as the Soviet Union collapsed it was simply understood that now all people living in Ukraine should participate in that community by speaking the language of the titular nationality. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Given that at the time of independence ethnic Ukrainians were by far the largest single ethnic group making up about 72% of the population while the ethnic Russian minority was circa 20%, not including Russian-speaking Ukrainians or other minorities, 20% at the time of independence and no other group made up more than 1%, the expectation that all people learn Ukrainian may not seem unreasonable. Nor was it perceived as such at the time of independence, whether out of naiveté or just out of shock. Still, that thinking almost immediately created a divide in the society between those, especially among the educated, who felt comfortable speaking Ukrainian and used it as their main language, and those who did not with a mild, though generally unspoken, aura of shame being associated with speaking Russian. As a result, the former group became identified with being less Soviet, and often with the best of intentions felt it was their duty to evangelize Ukrainian identity among those who used Russian. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>No one likes to feel ashamed, especially when one feels one had done nothing wrong. Nor did it help that the bulk of Ukrainian speakers came from the west of the country, which was seen as underdeveloped, and where the survival of Ukrainian was associated with deep-seeded resistance to the Soviet project, the very project people of the East attributed their economic status to. On that basis the very real differences between East and West solidified into the East-West political divide. By 1994, frustration over the law making Ukrainian the only legal language was already and an issue, and would remain so through the 2010 presidential election, creating a distraction that the oligarchs used seize control of Ukrainian business. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>For all the inequities and criminal activity that accompanied Ukraine’s privatization, however, there was an upside to the emergence of the East-West divide. Too big, and its economy too diversified for one group to seize control, but not so large that total control was impossible, Ukraine’s political culture remained pluralist to an extent no found in any other Soviet successor state outside of the Baltic states. That in turn nurtured a belief that elections should be free and fair, and that orderly transfers of power were possible, a point testified to by the 2004 Orange Revolution when outcry over rigged voting led to a rerun of the run-off election, and the subsequently smooth 2009-10 elections. This condition lasted long enough that a generation of people have grown up in the east, west, north and south of the country with a connection to the Ukrainian state and be shaped by its institutions. It also made the political systems people encountered when they went to Poland or countries in western Europe seem familiar, making comparisons between those countries and Ukraine’s progress seem more valid. Thus they had taken Yanukovych’s promise to lead Ukraine into Europe as a dividend for his corruption, and they felt a responsibility to keep Ukraine on that track when Yanukovych decided to back out of the association agreement with the EU in November. This sense of collective responsibility became even stronger following the government’s crackdown, and as has been noted time and again by commentators, the Euromaidan protests cut across lines that have so long been understood to divide Ukrainians. Russian-speakers and Ukrainian speakers, West and East (even if the former was more widely represented at Independence Square in Kyiv), Jews and Gentiles, and even Muslims, not to mention all branches of the Orthodox faith. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Putin, of course, seems to believe that this new unity of action can be sabotaged, and perhaps it can, but this suggests how little he understands what has been taking shape in Ukraine, even as he recognizes it poses a threat to his world. He certainly did not understand it this fall and winter as he insisted on Yanukovych cracking down, and the power of the Maidan and Ukrainians’ belief in themselves has only gotten stronger now that they have overthrown Yanukovych and begun to organize to defend their country. With the news in the south and east no longer run through the filter designed to promote Yanukovych and Putin the people are increasingly showing themselves to be ready and willing to firm for a united Ukraine. If Putin knows what is good for him, he will leave things as they are. If he does attack Ukraine, he will bring on a bloody miserable guerilla war with brother Slavs he claims to be saving. Then, the truth will slowly sink to undermine the lies of the official media, and bring him misery that will not be offset by the annexation of Crimea, or any other territories in Eastern Ukraine he might be able to bring under Russian control. For the moment, however, we must watch and wait, to see what happens. Perhaps a well placed bomb can create the discord Putin needs, but I am not betting on it, rather I’m betting on the power of shared political interest in a safe and open society reasonably free of corruption and Ukrainians’ will to work towards that.</span></span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-63887970947540214082014-03-04T10:56:00.001-05:002014-03-04T10:56:13.130-05:00Ukraine’s People and Military Model the Power of Resisting Violence <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The more tense things become and the quicker events unfold in Ukraine the harder I find to sort out what is the information that non-specialists need analyzed. This weekend saw me go from expecting a full-blown invasion after seemingly coordinated attacks on the regional government buildings in Kharkiv and Donetsk on Saturday following similar attacks in Crimea the day before, to breathing a sigh of relief that these events did not get the kind of support Putin may have expected. Sunday’s protests in Russia against intervention, and not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg, were also heartening, for though they were small and some were arrested, they were more in line with popular opinion than the pro-intervention counter-demonstrations. We know this because a poll released Monday indicated that 73% of Russians opposed intervention. Couple that with far less support for Russian protection coming from Ukrainians, and a more robust response from the rest of the world and Putin has been forced slow down and pretend that nothing bigger was in the works.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">My first inclination was to frame this information in a treatment of Putin, but others have done that well, and one more column describing how Putin has boxed himself in will not make it even more true than it already is. Instead, I think praise is in order to the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian military and the new Ukrainian military. Ukraine has no Gandhi or Martin Luther King, no prophet of civil disobedience and non-violence, and yet the strength of the Maidan was its peacefulness in the face of persistent provocation. Nonetheless, there was a recognition by people with limited training in such things that concerted non-violence had to be disciplined and was essential because resorting to violence would provide justification for a crackdown. Indeed, arguably the violence resistance that began on 19 January ultimately did provide justification for the crackdown that cost about 100 lives, although, I think it is clear that by 18 January Yanukovych would have used violence on regardless. Further, we should not that when some finally succumbed to the temptation of violence in January, it came at a time when Yanukovych had tacitly admitted his weakness by not carrying out an all out crackdown on the peaceful demonstration. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Throughout that struggle Ukrainian protestors had a largely unseen ally in the Ukrainian army, which consistently refused to side with Yanukovych and go against their own people. Perhaps that reflects training Ukrainian officers have received via the NATO sponsored Partners for Peace program, or perhaps it simply reflected the awareness that the army itself was a fragile institution, and the realization that even attempting to carry out Yanukovych’s orders would not just break the army, but insure a civil war as brigades split up under the strain of being asked to follow commands that not all were prepared to obey. In time, we may get more insight about what motivated the Ukrainian military command to act as they did, but in the meantime, they and their soldiers have garnered further reason for praise by remaining largely loyal to Ukraine. This cannot be easy. They know if fighting breaks out they will lose, and they are not well paid, indeed the one major defector, the newly appointed commander of the Ukrainian Black Sea fleet, allegedly appealed to his underlings to follow him on the basis that they would be paid better. Yet, they have chosen to stand firm prepared to die, and defend themselves and their country if Russia opens fire. At the same time, their awareness of the dangers of escalating events by firing the first shot is clear, and their discipline is to be lauded, as should the new Ukrainian government’s commitment to that strategy, and this is understood by the Ukrainian people as a whole. Strikingly, the Right Sektor military group who were at the forefront of violent resistance to the Yanukovych regime have declared that they will not go to Crimea, a sign that they fully recognize the danger their presence so near Russian troops might pose to their country. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At this point I think it is clear only Putin and his allies in the Kremlin really wants war. The question is whether he can create a reason to justify it. So far thanks to Ukrainian resolve, that has not yet happened, and woe to him if he manages to manufacture his justification. Still for now though we are on pins and needles, but for Ukrainians and the world Ukraine is definitely not dead yet. Mr. Putin you have been warned.</span></div>
vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-6460712975908734612014-02-24T10:24:00.000-05:002014-02-25T09:48:01.556-05:00Understanding the Real Revolution: Yulia Tymoshenko and the Future of Ukraine<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">People seem to breathing easier in Ukraine. While in some places like the Crimea and Kharkiv there is still some resistance to the new order, even die-hard supporters of the regime are now reasserting their commitment to the territorial integrity of the country. Yet in the eyes of many protestors, this revolution is only partly done. While the corrupt and murderous Yanukovych is gone, the entire political class that includes both the former supporters of Yanukovych in the Party of Regions and the opposition parties now need to come to terms with the fact that the people did not stage this revolution simply to replace one leader with another. The past three months have been and, likely for quite a while yet, will continue to be about Ukrainians demanding that they be treated as citizens rather than subjects. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It was the centrality of this change that frustrated specialists as they followed the limited coverage of the events and in the Western media with its focus on dramatic moments that were, at least until the past few days, of limited relevance to the key developments of the protests. Not that there weren’t images that did not reach the public consciousness. The piano player on the Maidan did get noticed, but that only caught a glimpse of what was going on, which was the breaking down of a post-Soviet mindset and the forging of civil society. In a certain respect this was also the rediscovery of ethical thinking and action, something that church leaders were quick to pick up on. It is not that Ukrainians were not religious before, but the religion as it was practiced in most cases took a rather atomized form, a legacy of decades of repression. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Admittedly such things are hard to capture in a soundbite, or even through an anecdotal reportage, because the extent of the attitudinal changes is not easily measured by one event or an interview or two. Pictures can do somewhat better. The pictures of the masses of people who converged more than once to the Maidan caught the fact that people cared about how the government’s use of violence to suppress dissent, as did the pictures of the fighters on Hrushevsky Street, but even these did not to mind convey the connection between people that has been developing. In that respect, the exception for me was a picture of people standing on the tracks in Dnipropetrovsk to prevent a train full of riot police and civilian thugs from moving. It is all the more meaningful because support for the Maidan came slowly in Dnipropetrovsk, and was only galvanized after the riot police and thugs in civilian dress attacked protestors in January. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The best evidence of this revolution in how Ukrainians think about their relationship between themselves and their government has been the response to the release of Yulia Tymoshenko. In the west Tymoshenko is known as the beautiful politician with the braids wrapped over the top of her head, who was the most visible force during the Orange Revolution almost ten years ago and since 2011 has been imprisoned following a conviction on corruption charges. While there is no doubt this was a highly selective prosecution, Tymoshenko is no Aung San Suu Kyi, and is probably better compared to the late Benazir Bhutto, who was likewise a talented populist whose reputation is sullied by corruption. In Tymoshenko's case that includes her close association with Ukraine’s former prime minister Pavlo Lazarenko, and her accumulation of a vast fortune while heading a gas monopoly using the same combination of connections and lack of transparency used by other oligarchs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ironically, a decade ago that past and her populist skills made her an appealing political figure. Then there was virtually no way to be politically consequential without being well connected to the business interests which had emerged as the old Soviet regime collapsed, and having been on the losing side of the battle between the so-called Dnipropetrovsk and the Donetsk clan, she not only had an axe to grind, but she had some ideas where the bodies lay, and understood the centrality to the secret deals in the gas industry to the rapid growth of oligarchs. Put that together with an unmatched talent to speak to the people that was on display during the Orange Revolution, and her popularity was understandable. What is more her 2009 deal with Russia, was actually transparent and helped expose the oligarch and Yanukovych backer Dmytryi Firtash as someone making money off the Ukrainian people. Yet, the situation is different now, and were Ukrainians to see Tymoshenko as their political saviour they would be taking a huge step back, because were Tymoshenko to return, so too would the ugly pattern of politics driven solely by elite interests and <i>kompromat, </i>the compromising material that all the political elites had access to and used to protect their interests and reshape political alliances. Further, Tymoshenko’s return would be the best way to confirm the Russian view that the past three months were all part of a plot orchestrated by the U.S. and the EU to replace Yanukovych with their own pawn. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Fortunately, the protestors of the Maidan saw this. They recognized the symbolic relevance of Tymoshenko’s release, but that was it. Crowds did not shout out calling for her to take the reigns of power. Rather, very quickly the talk was that people had not given their lives to install Yulia as president, and the clever poster-makers who have been an important part of the revolution were quick to make their contribution to spreading that word. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This skepticism, and its breadth among Ukrainians is true sign of the changes that have happened in Ukraine, and now after three months of persistently running behind the protestors at the Maidan, it is time for the established politicians do their part and recognize that they are no longer administrators of elite expectations they are observers of the people.</span></div>
vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-70918106944717216082014-02-20T23:34:00.000-05:002014-02-20T23:35:51.099-05:00The Pace Quickens and Desperation Appears on the Increase<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">With due respect to the more than 100 people who have been killed of the past seventy-two hours, the events in Ukraine have taken on the quality of a gangster film at the point where the gangster is on the run and tension builds as his options narrowing rapidly and his desperation increases. It will not be over until its over, but there are a few points that deserve note as we prepare for tomorrow. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Today’s extraordinary session of parliament was a landmark. In effect, as of today, Ukraine once again has something resembling a functioning parliament for the first time since 2010, even if nearly half its deputies were absent. The question is how Yanukovych and other sectors of government will react to this? Right now I place odds on the fact he will try to ignore them, and hopes that the army will finally see things his way. As I write, the deputy chief of staff has resigned upset at Yanukovych’s efforts to draw the military into the conflict. I applaud him for showing junior officers that they have an alternative to following illegal orders. (Incidentally, it is also worth noting that many of the officers have, thanks to the Partner for Peace program which emphasizes things like proper relations between the military and the civilian authorities and not following illegal orders.) So we shall see how they stand up to increasing pressure from Yanukovych, right now based on experience so far just as I would put odds on Yanukovych trying to get the army to attack the protestors, I would put odds on the military finding ways to avoid doing so.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If the big question remains whether Yanukovych can draw the army into the conflict, there are two things to look for to judge where he stands or thinks he stands. The first is who shows up to parliament tomorrow. It was in the interest of Yankovych loyalists in the Party of Regions and Communists not to show up today in the hopes that they could prevent a quorum from being reached. They failed, but if they come running back in large numbers tomorrow and try to reassert their authority, or to be more precise return toe parliament to irrelevance, then we know that Yanukovych still thinks he can shape events in the realm of conventional politics, which is not to suggest he would stop with that. If the PR and Communist deputies are back, it will also mean that the rumors about large numbers of deputies leaving the country are false. If, on the other hand, they do not return, it suggests that Yanukovych has lost his hold on them, and that in the way of criminals they are now busy saving their own skin. Given multiple reports from everyday people that people in Mercedes are at Kiev's secondary airport, I think the latter is more likely than the former.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Second, if snipers return to attacking the protestors, but nothing more drastic ensues, it likely means that Yanukovych is again trying to buy time and/or provoke the protestors into some kind of violence that he can claim represents terrorism, but has otherwise run out of ideas other than using terror himself, which, as we see, has not deterred the protestors. Regarding the snipers, one more point seems worth noting. The mayhem caused by them has been terrible, but the cost of human lives today is nowhere what it would be the internal forces deployed a machine gun or two. Some of my fellow experts disagree with me on this, but I see this as a sign that even among the ostensibly loyal internal forces there is a reluctance to use lethal force in the scale that could resolve the Maidan situation quickly. </span></span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-70032700035306845922014-02-18T11:44:00.003-05:002014-02-18T12:57:43.838-05:00Deja Vu All Over Again: The situation in Ukraine as of 7 pm (Ukrainian time) 18 February 2014<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">On Saturday news came that the protestors on the Maidan were ending their occupation of the Kyiv City Council building and that even Pravyi Sektor was dismantling some of their barricades such that Hrushevsky Street would be passable. All this was part of a deal that would lead to the release of activists who have been detained by the authorities since 30 November 2013. For this observer sitting some 5000 miles away, it was a hard to believe. On previous occasions when the opposition had brought back news that an amnesty had been arranged, they had been booed and the protestors on the Maidan had not gone along. Why had they gone along now? Was this part of a much larger back room deal being quietly brokered that would lead to more dramatic announcements in the days to come? Or was this just another just ploy to throw the protestors off guard, and were they just too tired to say no? </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We got our answer today, and all optimism that there were serious divisions in the Party of Regions, and that moderates would lead Ukraine out of its crisis by breaking entirely with Yanukovych has been dashed. Perhaps such people really do exist, although I am doubtful, but if they do they have been outmaneuvered by hardliners and Putin who created conditions that led to today’s violence. I am writing today before the dust has settled, and so I will not speculate on who escalated to violence first, but the reported deployment of snipers on the roofs of buildings in the government district does not fit with the spirit inherent in an amnesty agreement. At the same time, with the report today that Russia has agreed to release an additional 2 billion dollars of loans he had offered Yanukovych in December, we see who is the real provocateur in the Ukrainian crisis. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Were the negotiations that led to the amnesty agreement, a manipulation by Yanukovych, or were they real and was Putin just so overcome by his imperial ambitions that he decided to throw good money after bad? Only they know right now, and it really doesn’t matter. what does is that the traditional Ukrainian opposition, the U.S., and the EU all look stupid today. They, in the end will be forgiven, but the same cannot be said for Yanukovych or Putin. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Putin, of course, does not need to worry right now about being removed from power, but it is very hard to see this ending well for Yanukovych. If, as has happened on all previous occasions, the internal forces and Berkut are unable to clear the Maidan, the additional 2 Billion dollar loans will do little to restore his authority. The negotiations between the government and the opposition will continue tomorrow as scheduled, except Yanukovych will look weaker than ever, and his chances of getting yet another infusion of cash from Putin will be diminished further. If forces loyal to Yanukovych do succeed in clearing the Maidan, however, his future does not look much better. The more violent the clearing is, the worse he will look in the eyes of Ukrainians, and as such the violence will feed more demonstrations, even in the East. Moreover, clearing the Maidan is a very different thing from reasserting control of the country, especially in the West of the country where his authority has been totally rejected.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There has been increasing anxiety about a civil war, and today’s events have done nothing to allay the fear that Ukrainians see no other way out than the destructive all or nothing option of war. That said, there are reasons to believe that the clearing of the Maidan, if successful, will not push the country into civil war. Here we can all be thankful that the regular army has refused to take sides or given any sign that it would allow either side to gain access to its weapons. That, along with the the salient fact that people in Western Ukraine are not advocating separatism means that the comparisons with Yugoslavia circa 1990 are limited. Of course, there is no guarantee that the current situation will continue to obtain and prevent a civil war, especially if Yanukoych decides to reassert control of Western Ukraine, but he would be a fool or desperate to do so before he has a firmer grip on the rest of the country, and that seems unlikely in the short-term. The Euromaidan protestors have shown themselves to be amazingly creative in finding ways to carry on their protests, and damaging as the loss of the Maidan would be, new kinds of protests will appear that will keep Yanukovych scrambling. For now though, we will have to see how events unfold in Ukraine during the next few hours and days. </span></span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-58658389303420590092014-02-11T13:30:00.004-05:002014-02-11T14:21:04.116-05:00Where Things Stand as of 11 February 2014: The Significance of the Leak of Asst. Sec. Victoria Nuland’s Conversation <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It has been nearly two weeks since I have checked in here. Like everyone else I have been continuing to wait for something to happen, With no further progress on a negotiated solution the big question on people’s minds is what Putin will do after Sochi is over, and while I remain skeptical that Putin will intervene militarily, I see no need waste ink on more speculation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Thus, the most substantive event as far as the news cycle has been was the leak to Youtube of the private conversation between Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State, and the Geoffrey Pyatt, the American ambassador, where they were talking strategy. My initial impulse was not to comment on it, because, apart from the unwise wording regarding the EU, what I heard showed my tax dollars well spent. The assessments Nuland and Pyatt made about the main opposition figures was accurate and corresponded to informed opinion among Ukrainians. Nonetheless, the conversation has clearly raised alarm bells among people sincerely concerned that the U.S. is trying to manipulate events so some explanation seems appropriate.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">First, as for the posting of the conversation, it was clearly calculated to do two things: 1) drive a wedge between the US and the EU, and 2) provide evidence to those inclined to distrust US that the Euromaidan protests are illegitimate and essentially part of a western plot to upend the eternally friendly relations between Russia and Ukraine. Regarding the first point, the leak heartened me, because it suggested to me that, if as assumed Russia was behind the post, it suggested that Russian intentions in Ukraine were limited. After all, the FSB, Russia’s intelligence agency, is likely well aware that a direct invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces would quickly trump the anger generated by the leak, so its effectiveness as a vehicle to sow discord between the US and the EU depends on Russia not getting overtly involved in Ukraine’s affairs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Regarding the second, I doubt the leak has changed many minds in Ukraine or Russia. Based on how Russian media has portrayed events in Ukraine, the conversation simply confirmed what Russians already believed, and the same is true in Ukraine, except that most Ukrainians know enough not to believe that the Euromaidan is some kind of foreign intervention. Likewise, in the west the leak appears to have had the most impact among people who were already suspicious of American foreign policy, often for good reason. Certainly, hearing the strategizing about which opposition figure should enter a new government through roundtable talks does sound like Nuland and Pyatt are picking winners and losers, which they are, but not necessarily against the will of the Ukrainian people, assuming Ukrainians supporting the Euromaidan were to embrace a roundtable agreement. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So what does it mean when Nuland and Pyatt say that only Yatseniuk (called Yats in the conversation) should go into a government and that Klychko (called Klych in the conversation)? First, let us be clear this talk assumes that the new government would continue to operate with Yanukovych still in office as president, an arrangement that can only be accepted with a return to the Constitution of 2004 that limited the role of the president in order. It is not attempting to remove Klychko from the scene. Indeed having Yatseniuk as the only opposition leader in the transitional government would keep Klychko’s hands clean. This would put him in a position where he could run against Yatseniuk in the 2015 elections claiming that Yatseniuk had sold out by cooperating with Yanukovych. By contrast, insisting that Klychko take a position in any government would put him and Yatseniuk and a relatively even playing field. That might sound like the fairer thing to do, but it would also create conditions where the opposition vote would be more likely to split creating a means for Yanukovych, or his chosen Party of Regions successor to stage a comeback. Whether Tyahnybok is included in the transitional government is less important, since he does not have a sufficient base in the East to run and win.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So does Nuland and Pyatt’s strategizing run against the interests of the Ukrainian people? I think not. At the start of the protests, Yatseniuk and Klychko were arguably on a level playing field for credible leader of an all-Ukrainian opposition. Neither rose to the occasion in the way that Yulia Tymoshenko did during the Orange Revolution of 2004, however, but Yatseniuk has shown himself somewhat more tone-deaf to the mood of the Maidan than Klychko. So even though Yatseniuk’s stock has risen some in polls about a prospective raise between him and Yanukovych, which at this point show that even Tyahnybok could win against a match up with Yanukovych, Klychko would still do even better. Nonetheless, Yatseniuk has much more parliamentary experience and on that basis would likely be the more effective prime minister in the near term. Further, if the balance of power between the President and Prime Minister return to what they were according to 2004 an electoral agreement where Yatseniuk backed Klychko for president in exchange for carrying on in the office of prime minister would hardly write Yatseniuk out of political power. Whether the two men trust each other enough to do that is uncertain; although, current evidence suggests they do not.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If there is a weakness in Nuland and Pyatt’s thinking it is the failure to take the Euromaidan protestors into account. While most Euromaidan activists recognize the need for some kind of negotiated agreement, and recognize that they have to live with the political establishment they have, they have their own goals -- not just the change of government but moves towards making Ukraine “a normal country.,” i.e. one where oligarchs do not have so much power and corruption is greatly reduced. Sadly, when the Maidan chose representatives to meet with the government none of the leading activists several weeks ago, the opposition leadership managed to control the nominations in ways that excluded any of the Euromaidan’s leaders, of whom there were several possible candidates. That has meant that when negotiating with Yanukovych they do so without someone to remind them of the mood on the Maidan, something that helped contribute to the outbreake of violence on 19 January. If I were Nuland and Pyatt, I would be working on convincing the opposition to bring on one of the Euromaidan leaders, who could help smooth the way for a deal to be approved by the increasingly radicalized Euromaidan. The last thing we need is for a reasonable deal to be reached that militant elements on the Maidan, like Pravyi Sektor (Right Sector) which is at the forefront of the fighting on Hrushevskyi Street, reject with the support of other members of the Maidan. </span></span></div>
vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-36076409258072368822014-01-30T12:10:00.003-05:002014-01-30T12:10:32.363-05:00Breakdown of the Soviet System with a Capitalist Face in Ukraine <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Most people in the U.S. first became aware that something was going on when the statue of Lenin was torn down at Bessarabs`kyi Square. Sadly, journalists who covered that event did not answer the question that many Americans were probably wondering about as they heard the news: if Ukraine has been independent for more than twenty years and has already had one revolution, what was Lenin still doing up there anyway? I know journalism is about news, but really it is about answering people’s questions about current events, and since many of the journalists were probably wondering the same thing it would have been nice had they shared what they learned with viewers. I raise this not to snipe at journalists, even though coverage of Ukraine has been so lousy but because that question gets at the heart of the broader context that led to the Euromaidan revolution. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So to all who have been wondering about that Lenin statue’s survival until 2013, it lasted because bold as Ukraine’s declaration of independence in 1991 was, it was not a revolutionary act. Rather, it was driven by discontent with the major economic reform Gorbachev was then preparing to introduce, and national sovereignty was used as a justification by the Ukrainian Party elite to retain power. That path to independence has largely shaped Ukraine’s political and economic development since, and explains why the Orange Revolution brought so little change, for even as people sincerely lined up on different sides in 2004, the underlying issue was which faction of the post-Soviet elite would wield power. What became clear after the Orange Revolution, however, is that the interconnections with the elite where stronger than the will for reform. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Those, including the much of the Western media, who have chosen to view current events through the prism of the Orange Revolution are, however, sadly mistaken. From the beginning observers have noted that the Euromaidan demonstrations are not about exchanging one political elite for another, they are about a reshaping the relationship between the government and the governed. As such, it reflects a revolution that has taken place in Ukrainian society that began but did not end with the Orange Revolution. Moreover, the fact that the protests have remained strong despite repeated government efforts to bring Euromaidan to heel speaks for a new maturity of post-Soviet Ukrainian society, and shows that the Soviet system with a capitalist face that has prevailed in Ukraine for the past two decades appears to have lost its legitimacy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">To be sure, that change is most evident in the west where the Party of Regions, which for all intents and purposes is the functional, if not legal, successor of the Communist Party, has never been a political power. Yet, the coventional treament of the East-West divide misses the point that even in the east and south of the country the legitimacy of the Soviet system with a capitalist face has broken down under Yanukovych’s rule. Until recently seeing no credible alternative people there have accepted the leading role of the Party of Regions. During the 2004 Orange Revolution and again in 2010 and 2012, people there voted for Yanukovych expecting that he would deal with the considerable unemployment there, and encourage the oligarchs to modernize the heavy industry in their control in ways that would improve the economy and spread the wealth. Yet, Yanukovych did not do that, and Ukrainians in the East have seen their image of the local boy made good after a rough start completely sullied, as he has neglected them leaving their situations have remained unchanged, while his family has in the space of three years joined the oligarch class through legitimate source other than connections.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Of course, thanks to Yanukovych’s strong-arm tactics, people in the East still have no credible alternative to the Party of Regions, but contrary to the usual western portrayals they are not sheep. Last weekend spurred on by the sudden passage of laws restricting protests, significant numbers of protestors gathered in many eastern cities threatening to take over regional government offices, just as their fellow citizens had done in the West. Compared to the numbers active in the west their numbers were modest, but rather than demonstrate a sense of moderation on its own turf, the leadership showed its fear and its belief that it is as above the law. In Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhe, the Berkut riot police cooperated with hired thugs dressed in sport outfits, who used the Berkut lines to run hit and run attacks on the protestors. One commentator, has described this as affecting people in Dnipropetrovsk in a similar way that the original 30 November beatings at the Maidan in Kiev had on people in central and western Ukraine. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Of course, many of the protestors have been arrested, but the people will not forget this, and regional officials are clearly running scared. In Luhans`k, Mykolaiev, Kherson, Odessa, Kharkiv and Donets`k, the Party of Regions run administrations have barricaded themselves into their buildings in preparation for attacks from Banderists (a reference to the Ukrainian Insurgent leader, Stepan Bandera whose followers fought against the Soviet regime during and after World War II). Governments confident in the support of the people just do not do that, and it cannot help but spur a sense among more previously passive locals that the Party of Regions grip on power is far weaker than they had believed. That does not mean there is a credible alternative, but it may well embolden people to act and create one in the process.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We are nowhere near the end of the crisis in Ukraine, but anyone who wants to establish a long-term solution will have to do more than just restore order. They will have to offer a new political and economic ideas that will provide solutions to the problems that the cooperation between Ukraine’s post-Soviet elite and the oligarchs who have manifestly failed to resolve. </span></span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-30076418403637936122014-01-28T11:52:00.000-05:002014-01-28T11:52:20.633-05:00Why Yanukovych’s Concessions Will Not and Should Not Satisfy the Euromaidan Opposition <br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the West, we are taught that compromises are part of democracy. So when people hear about President Yanukovych’s recent concessions to the demonstrators, the first reaction of most will be it is time for the demonstrators to be conciliatory too, and the offer of being allowed to form a government sounds really good. Indeed, it was this path Poland travelled to democracy in 1989. So a brief explanation of the analogy with Poland in 1989 is limited and why Yanukovych’s offer remains unacceptable.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In late 1988, after strikes earlier that spring, the Polish government reached out to the old Solidarity leadership to negotiate the opposition’s way into politics. Poland was in an economic crisis, and the government knew it had to introduce radical measures ending the socialist economy but that it did not have the legitimacy to do that. The Solidarity opposition understood this and was very concerned that if they were given too much power. So the original deal was such that the Polish United Worker’s Party (PUWP) was supposed to be guaranteed to remain in power following free and fair elections. That arrangement fell through when the PUWP’s candidates lost so resoundingly in the June 1989 that they could not form a government, and it was only at that point that Adam Michnik suggested the way forward could be “your president, our prime minister.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That is not where Ukraine is now. Like Poland in 1989, Ukraine is not just in a political crisis it is in an economic crisis, and for precisely the same reason that the Polish Solidarity leadership was so reluctant to take power in 1989 the Ukrainian opposition has wisely rejected Yanukovych’s offer. Yet, unlike Poland in 1989, Yanukovych’s offer cannot provide the basis of a way forward. He does not have the same answer to Ukraine’s economic crisis that the opposition does, Yanukovych has shown himself quite happy to accept terms from Vladimir Putin that will end Ukraine’s economic and military independence, while the opposition supports association with Europe. Were the Ukrainian opposition to take Yanukovych’s offer, and even if Yanukovych were to allow the opposition to implement their plan, which will create short-term economic difficulties for many people, Yanukovych and his allies would adopt populist rhetoric to appeal to people hurt by the reforms expected by the European Union to curry favor for his policies that would end Ukraine’s independence. Further, Yanukovych has only been chastened by protests, not at the ballot box. He has not offered new elections, let alone significant changes in the electoral laws that would reverse rules passed in 2010 to give advantage to Yanukovych’s Party of Regions and make it much more difficult to engage in electoral fraud. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Finally, the Polish leader General Wojciech Jaruzelski was a Polish patriot eager to maintain as much Polish sovereignty as was possible given Soviet domination. Yanukovych is not. He is a hugely corrupt politician, who as said above is more concerned in his own well-being than he is in Ukrainian sovereignty. Anything short of his resignation will leave him room to attempt to manipulate the situation to his advantage, and will perpetuate what the current corrupt system, which might be described as the Soviet system with a capitalist face. That is not what the people at the Euromaidan want, they want real democratic change, and fortunately they are not so in awe of their allies in the political opposition that they would accept it were the opposition to compromise with Yanukovych.</span></span></div>
vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-60303911460609930912014-01-25T20:59:00.001-05:002014-01-26T13:14:42.386-05:00Yanukovych Admits Defeat. We Now Await the Terms of Surrender.<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Today Yanukovych expressed a willingness to disband the government of Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and create a new government with Arseniy Yatseniuk, leader of the Batkivshchyna Party, as Prime Minister. Vitaliy Klychko, the Leader of UDAR, would be made Deputy Prime Minister with a brief for Humanitarian Issues. There is no news the leader of Svoboda, Oleh Tyahnybok was offered a position in the government. [Ed Note -- this is how he spells his name in English, so I have adopted this over the Library of Congress transliteration used earlier.] </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Yanukovych’s offer was conditional and well below the minimum set by the Maidan, so he knew it would be rejected, as it was. Indeed, it was designed to put the opposition in the corner by suggesting that by rejecting the offer the opposition showed that it was unwilling to accept the responsibilities of governing. After turning in poor performances in their previous efforts to win support from the Maidan protestors, the opposition leaders finally found the right message tonight with the help of Petro Poroshenko, the only oligarch openly supportive of the Maidan. In his speech he confirmed their rejection of Yanukovych’s offer but declared that this did not reflect the opposition’s unwillingness to accept the responsibilities of governance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Yet, if the opposition is finally getting on track, today’s move really amounted to Yanukovych admitting of defeat. For the past two months Yanukovych has played at being conciliatory, but always in ways designed to belittle the opposition. At the first “round-table talks” arranged by the previous Ukrainian presidents in December, Yanukovych managed to include all sorts of supporters and seat the opposition well away from him. Even the talks earlier this week, when Yanukovych offered nothing substantial to the opposition, and then only if the protests disbanded first, was also insulting, something that further hurt the opposition’s reputation with the Maidan protestors when they did not immediately address this insult during their speeches. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Maybe the boos the folks on the Maidan gave the opposition finally convinced Yanukovych that the protestors were not in the pay of the West, or maybe it is it is the growing unrest even in what the Ukrainian East. Most likely though it was a meeting with the oligarchs who urged a peaceful solution that finally forced Yanukovych to offer something that on the face of it at least had to be considered. Yanukovych may not realize it himself yet. He has dug and is still playing games, but today he admitted that he cannot go forward without acknowledging that the Maidan has won. Having done that he cannot go back, because he has admitted weakness. If that was not enough, this evening Maidan protestors stormed Ukrainian Institute (once the Lenin Museum), which was right behind the Maidan but had been used as barracks for special forces and Internal Troops. They did not fight back, and more importantly, for the first time in a week the peaceful Maidan protestors regained center stage, when they formed a corridor to insure that the troops inside were able to leave the Ukrainian Institute unharassed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There will be many difficulties ahead. We can expect more trickery by Yanukovych, and those that have stuck with him have more reason to stick by him as the prospect of punishment for what they have already done becomes real. Still, in some ways the biggest obstacle has been overcome today, Yanukovych's denial that he is responsible to the Ukrainian people. Sadly there are several stages of grief left to go before acceptance.</span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">[Updated 26 January]</span></span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-2469520739181093952014-01-24T18:11:00.002-05:002014-01-24T18:11:31.852-05:00Where Is Russia in This? Or Why I Am Not Losing Sleep over a Russian Intervention in Ukraine, Yet<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Things are now moving very fast in Ukraine, and if things continue as they have been, it is hard to imagine Yanukovych will last another week. This raises the question of whether Russia will intervene? Smart observers like Professor Mychailo Wynnyckyj (Kiev Mohyla Academy) are assuming that even if things get really bad, Putin will wait until the end of February when the Olympics in Sochi are over. That seems right, but even though I have never looked Putin in the eye and seen his soul, I do not think Ukraine can expect a serious military intervention soon afterwards either.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As the highly knowledgeable analyst <a href="http://www.cepolicy.org/publications/ukraine-scenarios-and-central-europe">Edward Lucas</a> has reminded us this week, when Yanukovych and Putin reached the loan deal there was talk that Yanukovych would also have to put down the protests. While we cannot know for sure, that seems to have been the plan this week, which leads one to wonder again, what was the rush? As Lucas and others have noted the protests were again losing steam. Perhaps, it was just impatience on Yanukovych’s part, but another possibility is that Putin gave Yanukovych a deadline, presumably the date next week when the first influx of money is to reach Ukraine. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Now of course Putin wants to be sure he is not left holding bonds declared invalid by a new Ukrainian government, but really why would Putin insist that the clampdown happen at a time when Putin’s hands are tied during the run up to Sochi? The reason was that he wanted to test whether Yanukovych could actually handle the job, and Sochi has given Putin the perfect excuse not to do anything, at least not more than send some Special Forces to age in the dirty war that has been going on against activists. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It doesn’t look like Yanukovych is going to pass that test. So Putin will not waste the blood of Russian soldiers to put Yanukovych back in control. What is more, today’s events where even the rebellion is now taking place in key centers of the eastern half of the country will make it much more difficult to use civil war as an excuse to partition the country in the name of maintaining order. Indeed, if today’s trends continue, it would be painfully clear to all that he was fomenting civil war, not preventing it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Of course Putin will not give up on his plans to bring Ukraine back into the Russian fold. Among other things, the return to using Gazprom as weapon seems almost certain, but with Yanukovych gone and the Party of Regions discredited with him, Putin is going to have to cultivate a new ally, and that will take time. </span></span></div>
vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-46137648282760464942014-01-24T13:37:00.002-05:002014-12-29T06:44:52.754-05:00The Revolution Reaches the Next Stage<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Four days ago, it looked like it was just a matter of time before Yanukovych had crushed the fighting on Hrushevskyi Street. The Internal Force troops (something equivalent to our national guard) would then move on and clear protests at the Maidan a few blocks away using the actions of those on Hrushevsky Street to justify any violence, even though the protests at the maidan had remained resolutely committed to non-violence. That in turn would usher in a new phase of civil disobediance that would bring people out on the street in a week or two. That of course did not happen. The revolution proceeded to a new stage but because the fighting on Hrushevsky street carried on, giving the first indication of the soft support for Yanukovych among the Internal Forces. One only had to consider that if those troops were unwilling to use deadly force against people attacking them, they were even less likely to fire on the unarmed and peaceful protestors at the Maidan to realize how weak Yanukovych’s hand had become.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">That put Yanukovych in a bad position, that only looked worse the longer he was unable to bring things under control. When 2 people were killed on Wednesday, the first time Ukrainian forces have ever killed Ukrainian protests he had to do something, and by the end of the day a truce had been called with talks between the government and the three parliamentary opposition for Thursday 24 January. This proved to be a typical Yanukovych trick, however, as he offered no serious concessions, and instead seemed to be playing for time. Parliament would be reconvened, but not until 28 January, and those arrested would be released if the the protestors abandoned their positions on Hrushevsky Street. The opposition leaders dutifully brought that news back to the Maidan, and again disappointed by not immediately condemning these offers as unacceptable. The Maidan rejected the offer, and extended its occupation to a couple more blocks of the government district in Kyiv. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Meanwhile, people outside the capital, have seized the initiative. </span></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Predictably mass takeovers of regional governments started in the West where several regions are under complete control of the opposition forces, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">but as it has become clear just how weak Yanukovych is that kind of rebellion is spreading fast. The story is not over, and sadly that weakness has led his loyalists to increase disappearances and other shameful acts, but this does not look like a civil war, it looks like what we supporters had always hoped, the removal of a criminal regime that was willing to sell out the country for the price of some deaths and loan guarantees that would allow Yanukovych to continue to enrich himself.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">See the map below as of the evening of 24 January. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Crimson: Taken</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Red: Blockaded and under siege</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Pink: Anti-government meetings</span></span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-52454929792441737122014-01-20T13:42:00.000-05:002014-01-20T13:42:26.351-05:00Where Things Stand in Ukraine after More than 24 Hours of Violence in Kiev: The End of the Beginning<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When violence broke out in Kiev yesterday, the original instigators were identified as a radical right organization “Pravyi Sektor” the Right Sector.” Their involvement invariably leads to the question as to whether or not they were acting as provocateurs since they are a shadowy and small group whose base and funding are secret. If indeed Yanukovych and his allies cynically enlisted the radical right yesterday as provocateurs to discredit the Maidan protests, as they have been accused of doing before, the Yanukovych team blundered terribly. While the protests at the Maidan have remained peaceful, the “provocateurs” have become heroes. From her cell imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko has shown herself more in tune with many of her ostensible political allies who have spent time at the Maidan by declaring her support for those fighting government forces on Hrushevskyi street. The inability of the government forces to restore order within 24 hours and without the use of deadly force cannot help Yanukovych either, since it makes him look weak. That said, with reinforcements coming from Donetsk and with permission to use deadly force, it seems highly likely that government forces will eventually restore order, when they do a new stage in the revolution will begin. </span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-89819399926368262082014-01-19T23:01:00.000-05:002014-01-19T23:01:22.593-05:00A Primer on the Situation in Ukraine<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On 16 January the parliamentary majority in the Ukrainian parliament rushed through a number of provisions designed to curb the Euromaidan protests that have now gone on for two months. Today after a rally of roughly 100,000 people, radicals began attacking the police. Where this will lead is unclear, but it seems likely that events will finally attract the attention of western media sources that have until now shown only limited interest. To help people who are picking up the story now I have prepared the following primer that provides background information and about the general events and protests that will be helpful in assessing where things go from here.</span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Why are there protests in Ukraine?</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Since becoming president in 2010 Viktor Yanukovych has said he wanted to have closer relations with Europe. The fruit of the negotiations were an association agreement (not full membership but closer ties) that was to be signed at the EU summit in Vilnius at the end of November. A bit over a week before the summit, Yanukovych made known that he would not be signing an agreement. In response, a journalist called on people to come to Kiev to demonstrate in support of the agreement in the hope Yanukovych would change his mind. The protest gathered at the square in downtown Ukraine known as Independence Square or Maidan, hence the name Euromaidan for the protests. By the time of the summit over 100,000 people came to Kyiv and others protested in their home cities as well, but Yanukovych did not change his mind, and people began returning home. By the morning of November 30 only a few hundred people were still in downtown Kiev, and that would have been the end of it, but in an act of impatience or just plain stupidity the police attacked the remaining protestors and arrested some claiming they had been provoked despite video evidence to the contrary. Similar actions of aggression by the government just when the protests were losing steam have sustained the movement gathering as much as 1,000,000 people to the square at major rallies held every Sunday. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">That event shifted the focus away from the association agreement to a general rejection of the Yanukovych government, in favor of respect for “European Norms” which included the rule of law and a rejection of rampant corruption, which has long been a problem, but became particularly visible since Yanukovych’s election in 2010 with Yanukovych’s family becoming a major beneficiary. Further, having rejected Europe Yanukovych had to turn to Russia for financial aid, as the Ukrainian government is has a huge revenue shortfall that needs to be taken care of. Putin was more than willing to cooperate, but at a price that would seriously undermine Ukrainian sovereignty. In the short to medium term the debt obligation was structured such that Putin could use it to control of the gas pipelines that run through Ukraine, and other infrastructure. Under the agreement Ukraine would be required to join the customs union of former Soviet states that would be led from Moscow, which is widely understood as an attempt to rebuild the Soviet Empire and the end of an independent Ukraine</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Maidan and the Opposition</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The maidan protests were not called by the political opposition, and if one can speak of a single organizer or inspirational figure that got the ball rolling, it was a Mustafa Nayem, a journalist of Afghan heritage, who had been in the process of setting up an internet tv news channel along with some other journalists. They had planned to go on the air by the end of the year, but went live after Yanukovych first announced he was not signing the European association agreement. Hence there are comparisons with the occupy movement and this summer’s protests in Turkey. What is more, while the official opposition leadership has been quite visible at the maidan, much to frustration of the protestors they have not shown themselves to be particularly effective individually, or as a group. A number of what might be called moral authorities are present, some are members of the previous government, others have shown initiative in developing novel ways to protest.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Part of the problem has been that short of storming parliament and taking over the government the maidan protests have no mechanism to affect change. The parliament is controlled by Yanukovych’s supporters in the Party of Regions, and excepting a couple of delegates who broke with the Party of Regions after 30 November, Party of Regions delegates have found it easier to back Yanukovych than seek out a way to redeem themselves. As a result, the Party of Regions has increasingly been seen by the opposition not as a political organization but as a criminal organization. The political opposition is also divided. Svoboda for example supports the protests, and has generally adhered to the nonviolent ethic of the protests, but its philosophy is generally antithetical to that -- it is not a coincidence that the spontaneous acts of rebellion like the tearing down of the Lenin monument were initiated by Svoboda activists. Svoboda, however, is the smallest of the three opposition parties and its support is highly concentrated in the west of the country. Indeed, their activities are most likely to alienate people in the East. Further, because the maidan has emphasized non-violence, and until 19 January shown remarkable discipline, it has until recently focused on forcing Yanukovych to negotiate and work with them. In short, even as the opposition and most definitely many of the people supporting the Maidan protests, has regarded Yanukovych’s actions as illegitimate, they have been unwilling to act on that premise and proclaim themselves an alternative center of power. So until now there has been no one ready to seize power. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The East-West Factor</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">In talking about Ukraine the differences between East and West and their significance for contemporary events are invariably raised. Those differences are generally seen as dating back the the partition of Poland when all but the most westerly regions of what is now Ukraine came under Russian rule. While it is from this region that the name Ukraine, which translates to borderland, originates, the Russian Empire successfully limited the appeal of Ukrainian nationalism through a variety of punitive and coercive tactics. The Habsburg administration which controlled the extreme west by contrast adopted policies that encouraged the development of a distinct Ukrainian political identity. This included supporting the Greek Catholic Church, which was slowly suppressed in the Russian Empire as heretical. Those differences persisted after the the Russian and Habsburg Empires collapsed at the end of World War I, especially after Stalin reversed the encouragement of Ukrainian language culture that had been encouraged by the Bolsheviks in the 1920s. The famine of 1933 also killed millions of Ukrainian speaking peasants, and Russian became the language of progress. In interwar Poland, Polish was of course the dominant language but Ukrainians continued to promote their culture. World War II brought the two groups together when Stalin annexed Eastern Poland in 1939 and reasserted control of those regions again in 1944-1945. During the war though some Ukrainians in the West cooperated the Nazis and others supported the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, generally referred to by as the UPA (pronounce U-Pa), which sought to establish an independent Ukrainian state out of the chaos. Some members of the UPA also cooperated with the Nazis, but more importantly they fought the Soviets Army. This meant that many Ukrainians who joined the Great Patriotic War against Fascism were shot at by people from the UPA, while Soviet troops ultimately crushed the UPA after a guerilla campaign that carried on into the 1950s. How this divided memory of World War II should be dealt with has not yet been resolved, and as such remains a tool for demagoguery.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">As the Soviet Union collapsed, those historic differences worked in strange ways to push Ukraine towards independence. People in the west focused on reinstating Ukrainian language as the dominant language. In the east the driving concern was an economic decline, which the conservative party and management elite blamed on Moscow, imagining that freed of Moscow they could avoid major reforms. That of course did not happen, but as the historically richer part of the country, the South and East of the country has dominated questions of economic development, while at least until the 2010 election lip-service was paid to the expansion of Ukrainian in the public sphere. During the 2004 elections the East-West very much visible, and there were significant numbers of people in the East who were as ready to mobilize in support of Yanukovych, even if not quite in the same numbers as those who demonstrated in favor of Yushchenko, who ultimately won that election after his Orange Revolution supporters forced a rerun of the run-off elections due to evidence of voter fraud in the first run-off.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Today, the situation is more complex. While the majority of people who have joined the protests in Kiev come from the west or the center of the country, and the local maidan protests in the eastern cities are much more sparsely attended than those in cities, support for Yanukovych is weak. Although they may be sympathetic to the argument that the Association Agreement with Europe would have hurt their economic interests, many are aware that until mid-November Yanukovych had supported the Association Agreement too. They also are aware that he has done little to deal with the deep economic problems in the East, where the oligarchs have opted to exploit existing conditions and low wages rather than introduce capital investments. There is massive rural unemployment there, and it is worth noting that while the center and west is still the junior economic partner, that is where much of Ukraine’s profitable high tech sector is located. As such the East-West divide is still present, and is played up by Yanukovych and his supporters, it is not as large a cleavage as it was ten years ago. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Key Government Figures</i>:</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Viktor Yanukovych -- President and de facto leader of the Party of Regions Party. He is from the mining and industrial center Donetsk. As a young man he was convicted at different times for rape and theft, but managed to become a leading figure in Donetsk politics after the Soviet Union collapsed. In 2004 after massive voter fraud which led to the so-called Orange Revolution he lost the presidency to Viktor Yushchenko after a rerun of the elections. Since being elected in 2010 he has become increasingly dictatorial while his dentist son has become one of the richest men in Ukraine over the past 3 years. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Viktor Yushchenko-- president from 2005-2010 and leader of Our Ukraine coalition. As head of the Ukrainian national bank he oversaw the introduction of the Hryvna in 1996 and in 2004 was selected as the most viable opposition candidate to Yanukovych. Leonid Kuchma. In the run-up to the 2004 election he was poisoned which disfigured his skin. Having benefited from the Orange Revolution he found it difficult to work with the most visible leader of the Orange Revolution, Yulia Tymoshenko, and replaced her with Viktor Yanukovych. A move that many democrats resented. He has limited clout today, but may be enlisted as an elder statesmen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Leonid Kuchma -- President of Ukraine from 1994-2005. Initially responsible for major reforms like the introduction of the Hrivna currency and the final passage of the constitution in 1996. After 2000 he became increasingly authoritarian and is widely viewed as responsible for the beheading of the crusading anti-corruption journalist Hryhorii Gongadze in 2002. Although he picked Yanukovych as his preferred successor in 2004, he refused to crush the Orange Revolution to the great irritation of Yanukovych. He too may be enlisted as an elder statesman.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mykola Azarov -- Prime Minister of Yanukovych’’s government since 2010 and a close ally of Yanukovych.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Victor Medvedchuk -- close Putin ally and leading “political technologist” associated with the Party of Regions. [Political technologists are associated with what in Russia has been called “managed democracy” they specialize in what we would call astroturf and creating the illusion of democracy and pluralism but in ways that reinforce state power.] He is reputed to have urged Kuchma to crush the Orange Revolution protests. He is close to Yanukovych. At the moment of writing Medvedchuk does not hold an official government position, but there are rumors that he might get one with the reshuffle that began today, which saw moderates lose their positions</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Dmytro Tabachnyk -- Not a central player in the current controversy, but controversial for his dismissal of Ukrainian culture and his promotion of Russian. He has publicly stated that the people of Western Ukraine belong to a different culture than Ukrainians in the center and East, and so is rhetorically important for encouraging tensions between east and west.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Vitaly Zakharchenko -- Minister of the Interior. A former police official in Donetsk he was head of the State tax administration before he acquired this job. At the tax administration he happily engaged in selective prosecutions to further Yanukovych. He is seen as a hardliner who may have been behind the police engagement with the protestors on the night of December 10-11.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The Opposition Leaders</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Yulia Tymoshenko (Timoshenko when transliterated from Russian) -- Former president candidate who lost to Yanukovych in the 2010 elections. From Dnipropetrovsk she was closely involved with the natural gas industry and was connected with Pavlo Lazarenko, who was successfully prosecuted in the U.S.A. for money laundering related to massive embezzlement from the Ukrainian government. This association dogs her, and played a role in her losing to Yanukovych. An oligarch, i.e. a a person with huge wealth gained during the initial period of privatization, she nonetheless cultivated an image as person committed to real reform, which she further burnished as the most charismatic leader of the Orange Revolution. This allowed her to become prime minister after Yushchenko was acknowledged the winner of the 2004. As prime minister she re-privatized some major companies that were deemed to have been sold off well below market value. She also instituted the most transparent gas contracts with Russia harming the interests of oligarchs connected with Yanukovych, which many believe led to her dismissal. Thus despite her past and lingering suspicions about her motives, her short period as prime minister offered a glimpse of what real reform might look like in Ukraine. After Yanukovych was elected she was arrested and found guilty of abuse of her office. Although possibly an important figure, she is at this point a symbol of Yanukovych’s misrule.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Vitaly Klichko -- former world champion boxer is a newcomer to politics, but as is so often the case this along with his popularity as a Ukrainian boxing hero who has proven himself in a most macho way is much of his appeal. His party UDAR is committed to anti-corruption. Despite the goodwill, he has not stood out as an effective leader during the protests, although he has come the closest to condemning right-wing extremists involved in the protests.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Arsenyi Yatsenyuk -- from Chernivtsi in southwestern Ukraine and current leader of the Batkivschyna (fatherland) party faction in parliament that was originally founded by Tymoshenko. Not a natural ally of Tymoshenko, he got his first position at the national level in 2007 when he was made foreign minister in the Yanukovych cabinet under President Yushchenko. Several years ago Yatsenyik suggested that Tymoshenko’s predecessor party, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc, along with the Party of Regions made up a single party, but allied himself with Batkivshchyna in 2012. He has also disappointed as a voice of leadership during the protests.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Oleh Tyahnybok -- leader of Svoboda party who has been associated with the Ukrainian far-right since the 1990s. He has made anti-semitic and anti-Russian statements in public, most notably an incident in 2004 when he gave a speech at the gravesite of a commander of the WWII era Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In recent years, he has toned down the open anti-semitic rhetoric, which has helped him become a significant figure. While he supports the Euromaidan his politics make him an awkward supporter of closer ties with Europe. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Oligarchs</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Petro Poroshenko -- Arguably he is as much an opposition figure as an oligarch. Unlike other oligarchs, however, his primary investments are in consumer goods, which are not so dependent on cheap raw materials from Russia. (If you are in the right place, you can get his Roshen brand chocolate candies here in the states and they are excellent.) At the turn of the millennium he was supportive of Leonid Kuchma, but in 2001 he began to support Viktor Yushchenko and did so through the Orange Revolution. He served in the Tymoshenko cabinet as foreign minister, but it was his resignation among others that led Yushchenko to dismiss Tymoshenko. Among his holdings are the Channel 5 tv station which is the one most openly sympathetic to the current protests. Although not visible at the protests in the same way as the above three leaders, he is well positioned to become a compromise candidate for president if Yanukovych and his Party of Regions loses power in the coming weeks.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Rinat Akhmetov -- Ukraine’s richest man. His holdings are in metals and mining based in the Donbas in the southeast of the country. A long-time ally of Yanukovych. Like all other oligarchs he acquired his fortune by using Soviet era connections to buy companies well below market value.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Dmytro Firtash -- Leading Oligarch with investments in the energy and chemical sector and an ally of Yanukovych. He is co-owner of RosUkrEnergo which is involved in titanium, but more controversially was a beneficiary of the secretive natural gas contracts between Russian Gazprom and Ukraine. He owns the tv channel Inter which has covered the current protests more responsibly than some other channels including the state owned tv, but there is no sign that this reflects a readiness to abandon Yanukovych.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Victor Pinchuk -- Leading oligarch who profited from being the son-in-law of Leonid Kuchma. Of the oligarchs he is the most interested in portraying himself as a philanthropist. He has remained relatively neutral regarding the current protests, but there is no evidence he is eager to jettison Yanukovych.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Political Parties</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Party of Regions (PR) -- Party founded in 2001, although it has earlier precedents, as a party to support Kuchma. The idea behind the name is that it recognizes that Ukraine is made of diverse regions, but from the outset it has represented the interests of Eastern Ukraine where heavy industry predominates. It’s base is Donetsk. While there are some supporters in western Ukraine, especially in the far west Zakarpatia region and Bukovina, It has also been committed to breaking with the effort to make Ukraine the hegemonic language of the state and the media. In the 2012 parliamentary elections it won a total of 210 deputies (115 constituencies and 95 assigned through proportional representation). A very few deputies have left the party as a result of events since November. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Batkivshchyna -- Like the Party of Regions it has a pre-history, but what is important is that it is the successor to the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc coalition. Up until 2011 smaller political parties were allowed to coordinate and form voting blocks. It continues to promote Tymoshenko’s reform agenda, but misses here leadership. It has considerable support in central and western Ukraine among those interested in promoting change and the further development of a civil society. In the 2012 election it won a total of 101 seats (62 constituencies and 39 assigned through proportional representation). In the 2012 elections it began cooperating with both Svoboda and Udar by not running candidates against each other in many districts.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">UDAR -- Th Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform. The party grew out of an alliance of left of center parties, including the Ukrainian Social Democrats. Its central concern is rampant corruption. At has a wide-base of support, especially in central Ukraine. It has a total of 40 seats in parliament (6 constituencies and 36 assigned through proportional representation)</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Communist Party of Ukraine -- A hold over from the Soviet era, it has been gradually losing its support as its supporters age. Its politics can be rather quirky. For example, after the initial crisis brought on after protestors were beaten on the night of November 30, its leadership rejected the no confidence motion put forward by the other opposition, but then offered its own, which was not allowed for reasons of parliamentary procedure. Nonetheless, its members were apparently among those that supported the legislation allowing a crackdown on the current protests passed yesterday.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Svoboda -- Perhaps the most controversial of all Ukrainian parties. It stands on the far right of the political spectrum and grew out of organizations that emphasized ethno-nationalism. It sees itself as the direct successor of the interwar Organization of Ukrainian nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during World War II. Historically electoral support for these ideas has been weak. In the past several years, its leaders have toned down the rhetoric, which has made them seem more palatable to a larger group of voters, especially after Yanukovych’s election in 2012 after which laws privileging Ukrainian language throughout the country were reversed. Its support is strongest in the west. The vast majority of its voters live in three western oblasts. It runs the district council in the western city of Ternopil and gained 30% of the vote in local elections in 2010, and in the 2012 parliamentary elections it won 36 seats (all assigned through proportional representation). It has been very active in the protests and it controls the Kyiv City Hall building, which was occupied early in the protests. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Controversy: Its popular support worries many people, who see it as a classic fascist party which if it were to gain power would implement the xenophobic and radical nationalist agenda that it advocated until fairly recently. While there is good reason to believe that its relative success in the 2010 and 2012 elections was in part the result of tactical voting, this does not mean that after gaining power its leaders would feel any more restrained than Yanukovych has. Since the protests there has been significant debate about whether scattered acts of aggression, including the peaceful dismantling of the Lenin Statue in Kiev, were the acts of Svoboda radicals or provocateurs wearing Svoboda regalia. Both sides have mustered evidence to support their perspectives, but regardless of one’s conclusions, it is certain that the prominence of Svoboda, and especially the torchlight parade in honor of UPA hero Stepan Bandera on 1 January have been used by the Yanukovych regime to attempt to discredit the maidan.</span></span></div>
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vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-34915066518156189022014-01-19T22:29:00.001-05:002014-01-19T22:29:08.758-05:00Returning After an AbsenceFor the past several years I have been distracted by many things, but recent events in Ukraine compel me to bring this blog back to life. In the coming weeks, I will post thoughts here about the situation. While I am not on the ground there myself, I count people who are among my friends and believe my insights will be helpful to those who are unsatisfied with the information they are getting about the unrest in Ukraine they are getting in western media. I anticipate things will be unsettled in Ukraine for a while, so that should keep the posts coming at regular intervals for a while.vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3773726631683664886.post-48993172789683564212010-08-29T14:24:00.003-04:002010-08-29T15:30:16.656-04:00My absence and a few thoughtsI would like to thank anyone who has shown up here in recent months for their patience and dedication, and please forgive me for trying that patience by disappearing once again. For those not in the loop, since just before my last post I have been working as customer service representative for a major television provider. The stability of having a job allowed me to recognize that I basically could not move forward with any of my dreams and ambitions until my book on the emergence of Polish and Ukrainian nationalism in the Habsburg monarchy was completely revised. So I have dedicated my days off to that whenever possible and deliberately avoided thinking too much about something that would fit here. <div><br /></div><div>I have made considerable progress in that direction, enough so that I have decided to weigh in on the issue raised by Newsweek's new article <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/29/how=obama-got-roledl-by-wall-street.html">How Wall Street Rolled Obama</a>. While I don't think I have it documented, I have felt since the 2008 that despite hopes and expectations, Obama would find it difficult to do anything comparable to what FDR did to restore confidence in the economy. The fact of the matter is, the political and economic cycles did not coincide in the way necessary for radical rethinking of economics that is now evident to more and more people. FDR was elected president 3 years into the Depression and took power close to 3 1/2 years after the 1929 crash. By contrast, Obama was elected less than 2 months after the collapse of Lehman, which put an end to the notion that the mortgage backed security crisis could be ridden out. While the crash did upturn 20 years of dominance of market fundamentalism in the community of economists by reviving Keynesianism, the immediate solutions, ham-fisted as they were, were undertaken out an immediate panic rather than the long-term frustration and desperation that was leading Herbert Hoover to make suggestions to FDR during the interregnum that FDR would take full credit for during the 100 days. </div><div><br /></div><div>None of this means that Obama could not have been tougher or been a bit more ready to break with the economic establishment of Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner, but I am not so sure such a break would have been as politically feasible as some critics seem to believe. After all, if you the Republicans on Capital Hill can cynically maintain that the bailout was not necessary imagine what would have happened if Obama had chosen to nominate Paul Krugman or some other economist who is not tainted by the economic reforms that made this mess possible. The Republicans might even have blocked that person's nomination with even more heated rhetoric about how a socialist was now in the White House.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now three years on the Republicans will do what they can to make hay out of the continuing economic crisis, but they do not have a plan, and electoral success may well hurt them even more in the long-run because it won't take long for that to become apparent once the election campaign is over, although that may just mean the election campaign will just not end until after November 2012. I do hope not, because it is now clear as it was to anyone willing to look at the damage done by the mortgage-backed securities bolstered hosing bubble cannot be remedied quickly and will require new creative thinking that will both stabilize the country and reign in Wall Street in ways that people on Main Street will be able to see and appreciate.</div>vhlivhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014847502010321186noreply@blogger.com0