Several rhetorical question and answers in
the article are its main content, with implication if not contention that
Ukraine is not much more than a lost cause. But ironically, the first move to
prove the point derails itself. Asking “Is Ukraine a priority for anyone other
than itself?” and saying “The answer is a resounding NO!” is indicative of nothing.
The answer is the same if the country name Turkey or Russia is used instead of
Ukraine.
More pointed is the question in this phrase:
“Look where you are compared with Poland, the Baltic states, Czech Republic,
the Balkans after 23 years of freedom from the USSR. What is your excuse?” Let’s see. We don’t usually ask for an excuse
from a survivor of the Soviet collective gulag.
None of the countries mentioned above have
been oppressed for 300 years by the same foreign power with its poisonous teeth
of ethnocide. Don’t expect apologies
from Ukraine, guys, even if something rubs you the wrong way.
Incidentally, some may find the tone of the
narrative blaming Ukraine as quarrelsome and not typical for academia.
There is more: “What is Ukraine’s value proposition
to anyone?” Answer: “You definitely don’t offer any value in military or
counter-terrorism efforts in your current condition”. This answer is as
credible as the Russian president’s peace initiative in Donbas. Apparently the
war with Russia for several months now doesn’t count and is having no effect on
Ukraine’s “condition” after a bloody revolution.
It so happens that Ukraine alone is
fighting Russia, with casualties in the thousands on both sides, while
onlookers in the West are pondering about value vacuum of its military effort,
after years of disarmament under corrupt
anti-Ukrainian regime fashioned by a fifth column with Russia’s connivance.
The right question to start with might be:
What does the central-eastern Europe (without Ukraine) offer geopolitically to
the USA and western Europe? It provides a line of defense against Russia. If
that line is breached by Russian incursions, the western Europe is in a dire
danger — as long as the US has its
priorities in other parts of world map. Germany, Britain and France would
hardly be able to form an effective alliance without US participation and leadership.
20th century history shows them capable of shooting at each other
and cozying up to Russia. Check with Gerhard Schroeder, predecessor of
Chancellor Angela Merkel. With Washington in a state of confusion as it is
today, it is not clear that it can switch its priorities to Europe.
This means that central-eastern Europe is really
important as the main line of defense, and not merely a pink region depending
on NATO’s Section 5 semantics. Russia’s president has already all but spoon-fed
all in the chicken-coop that he doesn’t take it seriously.
How
effective is that line of defense without Ukraine’s participation? U.S. President Barck Obama should put that question to Poland and the Baltic states, if he has not
done so already. It is no secret what
the answer would be, even if Obama may not want to hear it.
Asserting that Ukraine offers no military
value for the West sounds exactly like tutelage coming from the Kremlin. It is
not surprising when it also comes from some western citadels of political
science “soft on Russia”. Ukraine has
been almost uniformly marginalized by western literati and in managed history
texts throughout the 20th century, with a few notable exceptions such
as “The Harvest of Sorrow” by Robert Conquest in 1986, describing how Stalin
crushed several million Ukrainian peasants in a man-made famine, the Holodomor,
in 1932/33.
During and after the events at EuroMaidan
this year, Ukrainians have been proving something not quite expected in the
West. What Poland and the Baltic states
see in Ukraine as vitally important for their own security is still not quite digested
by foreign policy insiders and academia in all climates. But progress is unavoidable.
Ukraine only needs to prove to itself that
the achievements of the EuroMaidan Revolution will stand. It will also be moving
forward with the cleanup of its imbedded hierarchies.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.
