First, we recommend that America should meaningfully
recognize its obligations to Ukraine under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.
In this agreement, Russia, the United States and
the United Kingdom committed to support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity in exchange for Ukraine’s relinquishment of the Soviet nuclear
weapons in its territory. The cause of nuclear nonproliferation will suffer
throughout the world if American security assurances, which were offered in
exchange for a country giving up nuclear weapons, are subsequently found
worthless when the country faces aggression. We want the world to see that
Ukraine’s peaceful surrender of nuclear weapons has earned it access to conventional
weapons when it truly needs them to defend its borders.
America should make clear that its assistance
under the Budapest Memorandum involves delivery of defensive weapons because
Ukraine’s borders were violated and further aggression is looming. Such
assistance would be provided immediately and could include anti-armor,
anti-aircraft, anti-missile and intelligence-gathering equipment. Such
assistance would raise the price of a possible grab by the Kremlin or its
surrogates for the port city of Mariupol or for additional territory in the
Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts. Mr. Putin is very vulnerable here. Polls by
Moscow’s Levada Center over the past few months show that over two-thirds of the Russian people do not want
Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine. The United States should inform Moscow that
the flow of such equipment would stop once Russia fully implements its
commitments under the Minsk process: withdraws Russian fighters (regular
soldiers and “volunteers”) and military equipment from Ukraine; and respects
Kyiv’s full control of the Donbass, including its side of the Russia-Ukraine
border.
Second, to ensure alliance solidarity and to further encourage Mr. Putin to
cease his aggression, America should make a strong conditional offer that, once
the Kremlin has fully implemented its Minsk commitments and Ukraine has
complete control of the Donbass, the United States would pledge not to support
Ukraine’s membership in NATO. This condition would require a Kremlin
understanding in some form that Ukraine has the right to establish any
non-military relationship with the European Union that the two sides may find
acceptable, and ongoing Russian respect for Ukraine’s sovereign choices and
territorial integrity.
This offer would directly address Russian security concerns about NATO
expansion. But by demanding Russia’s basic respect for Ukraine’s borders, it
would enhance Ukrainian security quickly in ways that the theoretical prospect
of NATO membership cannot. We can understand that Moscow would strongly object
to NATO advancing on its borders, but this proposal should reassure Moscow in a
way that does not guarantee Russia’s security at the expense of its neighbors’
insecurity.
The most important force for the defense of Ukraine is the patriotic valor
of its people who have faith that they can be better served by a sovereign
independent Ukraine. Political reforms that strengthen their faith can do more
for the future of Ukrainian independence than military hardware.
Thus, our third recommendation is that the United States should encourage
Ukraine’s leaders to fully implement the reforms that they promised in their
election manifestos, and give the people of Ukraine a more accountable
government that will serve them better in the future.
It is disturbing that there has been so little progress toward reform, even
after a commanding majority voted for fundamental reform in Ukraine’s recent
parliamentary elections. The United States and its European partners should
remind President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk that our support for
Ukraine’s stressed economy will be contingent on their implementing a fast and
effective reform program.
VoxUkraine exclusively for the Kyiv Post
Roger Myerson is the Glen Lloyd Distinguished Service
Professor at the University of Chicago and was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize
in Economic Sciences in 2007.
John Herbst is director of the Dinu Patriciu Eurasia
Center at the Atlantic Council and served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from
2003 to 2006.
