Essay

My Essay on The Daily Beast: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/06/caught-between-empires-ukraine-can-t-rely-on-the-west-for-its-independence.html

A peculiar aspect of Ukrainian identity has been the perceived need to prove our own existence. I vaguely remember some sort of heritage day in grade school at PS 229 in New York City. The teacher corrected me when I described myself as Ukrainian — I was Soviet, she said, or Russian. That was fine with me at the time, though I also remember a look of horror on my mother’s face when I relayed the episode.

Looking back at the history of Ukraine, a country whose name is usually translated as “border land,” one finds instances of Poles referring to Ukrainians as “Eastern Poles” and Russians referring to them as “Little Russians.” I’m grateful that as of about a week ago, I will forever be alleviated of the long-standing need to prove Ukrainians exist.

Since the Mongols sacked Kyiv in 1241, the territory of today’s Ukraine has been the border between the agrarian civilization of the west, and the nomadic cultures of the steppe. Its aristocracy vanquished, Ukraine became largely a peasantry, and home to a very complex and evolving “Cossack” culture, which represented different things to different people–from an alternative and viable social order to, a Medieval feudal arrangement, to an unpredictable menace. The Cossacks remain very much part of Ukraine’s national myth.

At different times in history, Cossacks allied with Tartars to sack Moscow, allied with Poles to fight an invading Turkish Army, and made a treaty with Moscow to enable a rebellion against the Polish monarchy. Ukraine was a battleground on the border of empires, and seemingly remains so.

Understandably, most coverage of Ukraine’s ongoing crisis focuses on the geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West. The Ukrainian diaspora among whom I was raised are entirely on the side of the West.

Having grown up among these refugees who narrowly escaped forced repatriation into the hands of Stalin (see Operation Keelhaul for a dark and little known chapter of WWII history), I understand the resentment of Russia, the terror, humiliation, and the long shadow of the artificial famine 1932-1933 which killed millions of Ukrainians. I inherited this history. It still lives in my family and others like us. So I understand why I’m getting emails from old acquaintances urging me to contact my elected representative and demand Western intervention. But they’re making a mistake. Forceful intervention by the West is not what’s best for Ukraine

Ukraine’s Ethnic Mix

1) The Ukrainian immigrant community that left the country in the 1940s and 50s is made up mostly of western Ukrainians. The reason? After WWII, western Ukrainian refugees were able to claim Polish birth, thus avoiding forced repatriation into the hands of Stalin (again, see Operation Keelhaul). So the immigrant community as a whole often doesn’t appreciate the ethnic gradient of Eastern Ukraine. The country’s ethnic mix is not a black and white issue, or one defined only by hostilities. The fact that so many Ukrainian citizens are Russian or of mixed heritage is already pacifying this conflict. There have been gestures of peace and kinship from both sides.

Relying on Western help in response to every Russian aggression leaves Ukraine in a position of permanent dependence on allies who may be understandably hesitant to venture so far east.

When Has the West Not Forgotten Ukraine?

2) The Ukrainian-Russian border is 2,295 kilometers long. However this conflict is resolved, Ukrainians and Russians will continue to be neighbors. Relying on Western help in response to every Russian aggression leaves Ukraine in a position of permanent dependence on allies who may be understandably hesitant to venture so far east. Ukraine, whether through diplomacy, threat of force, or force itself must find its own solution to this conflict. In the words of Lord Byron, “he who would be free must himself strike the first blow.”

If my fellow Ukrainians accuse me of suggesting the impossible, I would tell them that they are expecting the impossible. When has the West not forgotten Ukraine? After WWI, how eager were the western powers to stand up for Versailles’s “self-determination” in the borderland. Few non-Ukrainians remember the Western Ukrainian state which formed in 1918 — not surprising given that it lasted for all of three months. The Ukrainian People’s Republic which formed that same year in Kyiv was similarly successful. And Operation Keelhaul is all anyone needs to know to understand the extent of Western “help” after WWII. Asking the West for support invites Western powers into a confrontation that (arguably) is against their self-interest, and against historic precedent. Unfortunately, there are no easy roads in the borderland.

Putin’s Reasonableness

3) Russian President Vladimir Putin, for all his barbarity, is completely reasonable to want a buffer in between himself and the Armies of NATO. Reliance on foreign militaries for its own integrity changes the status of Ukraine from a buffer to an antagonist. The more neutral Ukraine remains, the better it retains sovereignty.

The Economic Solution

4) The long battle is an economic one. If Abkhazia (the territory disputed by Russian and Georgia) is any indication, the corrupting influence of Russian kleptocracy leads to economic morass. If Ukraine’s new government focuses on fighting corruption and dismantling their outrageously corrupt, bloated, ineffective, hyper-centralized bureaucracies, it will create a foundation for economic success. A stark contrast in quality of life would pull disputed territories back into Ukraine’s sphere of influence, this is particularly true of Crimea which relies on mainland Ukraine for food and electricity.

Successfully forging an alternative to Russian kleptocracy would not only have the most lasting effects in terms of national security and quality of life, it would also be the fulfillment of Ukraine’s national myth. In his wonderful book The Cossacks, Shane O’Rourke writes:

“The symbolic importance of Cossack culture cannot be overestimated for the oppressed masses of Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy. To see or even hear about a boyar or great lord treated with contempt by a Cossack demonstrated to those masses that an alternative and viable social order did indeed exist. This was to prove far more threatening to Poland-Lithuania, Muscovy and the Russian Empire than Cossack swords and muskets on their own could ever be.”

Ukraine needs to embrace its historic role, not to mention its strategic reality, as a borderland. Within that narrative, it needs to find a way to build a free and prosperous society, which will serve as a powerful example for its neighbors and any territories that may remain disputed in the years to come.

My friend Peter Brimelow, a former Forbes editor, invited me share my analysis of Ukraine and the coverage it has received in the libertarian media. Peter is perhaps best known for being called a racist.

The Enemy Of Ukraine’s Protesters Is Not Necessarily The American Right’s Friend

I am a Ukrainian-descended American software developer, based for the last two years here in Lviv, in western Ukraine, about 300 miles from the capital, Kyiv, where the worst of the recent civil unrest has taken place.

My lead developer travels to Kyiv every time violence flares up. He, like many Ukrainians, considered it his duty. Two days ago, when the latest and most intense fighting flared up, I texted him: “Should I wish you a safe journey?” He texted me back: “You’re late. I’m already on Maidan.”

I pay him well, though he could probably earn even more elsewhere. His enthusiasm for Bitcoin keeps him with me. (I’m particularly interested in Bitcoin — see here and here).

He’s part of Ukraine’s miniscule middle class. He owns an SUV and a three-story home where he lives with his wife and two children. We go skiing together. He is not the type of person who’d be motivate by the thirty Euros a day which Paul Craig Roberts (alas!) claims was sustaining the protests. [US and EU Are Paying Ukrainian Rioters and Protesters, February 17, 2014]

Nor was Yuriy Verbytsky, a seismologist from the Geophysical Institute in Lviv and mountain climber who, after being injured in the protests and hospitalized, was kidnapped from the hospital, severely beaten, and left in the woods where he froze to death. Nor was Bohdan Solchanyk, a university lecturer killed on February 20th.

Today (Friday February 21) reports have been circulating of a deal negotiated between the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and the Ukrainian opposition parties. The deal would include immediate presidential elections, plus a roll back of presidential powers. (Fluctuating presidential powers are a sign of the volatility of Ukrainian democracy: In 2004, when the Orange Revolution brought Victor Yushchenko to power, the Rada [congress)] limited presidential powers, but in 2010, when Victor Yanukovych, the Russian-backed villain of the Orange Revolution, returned to office, they were restored.)

Chances are that the protesters in the streets will allow the opposition politicians to speak for them, though they’ve scorned them in the past. (But there are also reports that the protestors are resisting, and even a rumor that Yanukovych has fled to his power base in the Eastern and proclaimed a separate state).

Personally, I believe the best thing for Ukrainians would be a dismantling of the hyper-centralized, corrupt, ineffective government bureaucracies and the development of local or private solutions. (I am skeptical of the European Union, which I don’t think Ukraine needs, and regret so many Ukrainian nationalists have persuaded themselves that it offers protection against Russia). But both sets of politicians contending for influence want the bureaucracy to remain intact so that they can simply affect the leader.

In this regard, the peace deal could be a lost opportunity. But, on the positive side, the people have shown their strength. The fact that they were able to overthrow a corrupt government will be a restraint on all future regimes and, because of Ukraine’s vertical power structures, there’s going to be a lot of change.

There seems to be unusual awareness in the US Main Stream Media that Ukraine has deep demographic divisions and that the Russian-speaking Donbas in the East, and possibly the Crimea, could secede. (Unusual because the American Establishment and MSM has a bias against secession at home and abroad — remember George Bush’s notorious 1991 “Chicken Kiev” speech urging Ukraine not to leave the Soviet Union).

This map is from Is It Time for Ukraine to Split Up?, by Brian Whitmore, theatlantic.com, February 20, 2014 It’s an interview with Rutgers University’s Professor Alexander Motyl, concluding that, while Ukraine probably won’t split up, Western Ukraine’overwhelmingly Ukrainian-speaking’would be better off if it did. I agree’it’s a good and insightful analysis.

Note that this map includes Ukrainian- and Russian-speakers’and also ethnic Ukrainians who speak Russian. This may be a hard concept to grasp. It was strange for me. As the child of Western Ukrainian exiles’my mother’s family fled when the area was seized by the Soviet Union after World War II and a Jewish neighbor warned them of an imminent Communist purge’I had the typical Western Ukrainian prejudice that Russian speakers are the enemy, and everything east of Borispol Airport had been lost to the Muscovites. But after all, many Irish nationalists speak only English.

It’s another reason I would steer readers away from one common misconception’this hasn’t been a simple struggle between “Ukrainians” and “Russians”. It’s a struggle between Ukrainians and their corrupt government with a mixture of sympathy, apathy and skepticism from the Russian parts of Ukraine.

(In one recent amusing incident, Russian television abruptly cut off an interview with a Russian-speaking Crimean politician when he downplayed the protests but started to say Yanukovych’s Party of Regions government had stolen prime real estate in the Black Sea resort province and were afraid of retribution.)

I consider myself a libertarian. (Click here to see me speaking at Hans-Herman Hoppe’s Property And Freedom Society conference on June 3, 2011). But in the last two months, I have become painfully aware of the gap between reality and the perception of American libertarian and conservative writers, no doubt reacting out of years spent attempting to limit the power of their own US government. The embarrassing fact is that some MSM reporting has been better.

The enemy of your enemy is not (necessarily) your friend. Ayn Rand’s very reasonable hatred of the Soviet Union led her to make ridiculous claims, like the United States being the “only moral country in the history of the world.” I feel a similar bias has afflicted much of the Alternative media for whom I felt so grateful until just recently.

After Snowden and Syria, Vladimir Putin’s credibility reached a high water mark (which perhaps receded only slightly when Russia become the only country in the world to outlaw Bitcoin). I think many conservatives remain inspired by the Russian President’s embracing Christian identity and declarations of family values. From the comfort of the West, they assume Russia to be a place with Western-style property rights and rule of law’plus a leader championing neglected conservative causes.

But Russia as a symbol in the West is very different from Russia up close and personal. What these commentators, like Pat Buchanan who authored Is Putin One Of Us?, fail to realize is that, in Russia and its satellites, people have a leader who offers conservative rhetoric in exchange for property rights and rule of law.

No, Pat. He’s not one of us.

Paul Craig Roberts describes the protesters as “pawns” who would “place their country in the hands of the IMF so that it can be looted like Latvia.” [Is Ukraine Drifting Toward Civil War And Great Power Confrontation? February 20, 2014.]

Does Roberts not realize how dramatically higher the standard of living is in Latvia than in Ukraine? Compare any post-Soviet EU nation (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), to any post-Soviet non-EU nation (Ukraine, Belarus) and the story is the same. (Remember, I speak here as a critic of Ukraine’s joining the EU).

I have no illusions that some protesters weren’t getting paid and that Western intelligence agencies aren’t trying to affect the outcome of this civil unrest. (In fact, late Friday there were reports that Israelis had been among the protestors. Arguably, weakening Russia, which has discouraged the US from war in Syria, is an Israeli foreign policy objective.)

(While we’re on the subject, I hated the suspiciously slick “I Am A Ukrainian” viral video, because I think Ukrainians should finding their own solutions rather than appealing for outside help, and I wonder what its creator, the American filmmaker Ben Moses, was doing in Kyiv.

http://vdare.com/articles/the-enemy-of-ukraine-s-protesters-is-not-necessarily-the-american-right-s-friend

On January 22 three Ukrainian protesters were killed by riot police, two by gunshot. It happened, strangely enough, on Unity Day. The holiday marks a proclamation of unity made in 1919 between the short-lived Western Ukrainian government, who was then battling Polish forces for control of Eastern Galicia, and the similarly short-lived government in Kyiv, which was soon overrun by Bolshevik forces. Tragedy has been the hallmark of Ukrainian history since the Mongols sacked Kyiv in 1240.

So we now have the blood of good people, but what exactly has it baptized? This remains up for grabs.

More: http://dailyanarchist.com/2014/01/23/civil-unrest-in-ukraine/