For 25 years, Ukraine has been the pupil
and Europe the teacher. Now, the roles have reversed, and it’s time for Europe
to learn from Ukraine.
Photo: unian.ua
These are tough
times for Europe. The United Kingdom has separated, and several other countries
may soon join it. The Eurozone is a mess, and the economies of many EU states
remain sluggish. Political violence is becoming almost quotidian, corruption is
on the rise, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia is flexing its muscles, rattling
sabers, and threatening to use its nuclear weapons.
These are all
threats that Ukraine has experienced, and coped with, in the last three years.
Indeed, since 2014’s Euromaidan Revolution, which swept the corrupt Yanukovych
regime from power, Ukraine has had to deal with several simultaneous crises —
war with Russia, separatism in the eastern Donbas and Crimea, economic
contraction of about 25 percent, and persistent corruption.
Despite these
enormous challenges, Ukraine has more than survived. It continues to make
steady progress toward stability, security, democracy, economic prosperity, and
rule of law. Its army has managed to fight Russia to a standstill — a well-nigh
miraculous achievement in light of the 6,000 battle-ready troops Ukraine had
when Russia attacked it in the spring of 2014. And, while staving off Russian
aggression and Russian-fueled separatism, Ukraine has managed to adopt genuine
systemic reforms and embark on economic growth. As the EU recently put it,
Ukraine is carrying out intense and unprecedented reforms across its economy
and political system, while its democratic institutions have been further
revitalised. To be sure, Ukraine still has a long way to go before it becomes
Switzerland, but it’s fully abandoned the Soviet totalitarian past and the
Russian imperial present and is set to move, irreversibly, toward the West.
The moral for
Europe is clear: its problems, challenges, and crises are not intrinsically
insurmountable. If Ukraine could survive against all odds, then so, too, can
the far more stable, far richer, and far more secure European Union.
Recent talk of
the inevitable end of Europe or the end of the European Union — especially as a
result of Donald Trump’s likely indifference to the EU and NATO — is, thus,
wrong to conclude that overwhelming problems necessarily lead to collapse. They
could, and often do, but only if the entities concerned are incapable of fixing
them. The Soviet Union collapsed after Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost
and perestroika, not because free discussion and structural change are
intrinsically deadly, but because the ossified Soviet
Russian
totalitarian empire was incapable of progressive systemic change.
Putin’s authoritarian Russia, with its hierarchical structure topped by his personal dictatorship and a cult of personality, is as ossified as the USSR: the longer Putin remains the linchpin of the system, the more brittle it will become, and the less prone it will be to evolutionary change.
Putin’s authoritarian Russia, with its hierarchical structure topped by his personal dictatorship and a cult of personality, is as ossified as the USSR: the longer Putin remains the linchpin of the system, the more brittle it will become, and the less prone it will be to evolutionary change.
Both the USSR
and Putin Russia demonstrate that collapse is most likely within systems that
are rigid and incapable of adaptation to changing domestic and foreign
circumstances. In a word, the more nimble the system, the better its odds of
survival — with the United States, and its free-wheeling style of economics and
politics — being a case in point.
America may be plagued with inequality, but there is no denying its remarkable capacity to adapt.
America may be plagued with inequality, but there is no denying its remarkable capacity to adapt.
The Soviet and
Russian cases demonstrate that three factors are crucial to a country’s ability
to adapt: adaptable elites, an adaptable population, and adaptable
institutions. The USSR lacked flexible elites and institutions, while
possessing a change-oriented population. Putin’s Russia lacks all three.
In contrast,
independent Ukraine currently has all three. Its political and economic elites
were mostly interested in self-enrichment until 2014 — when the revolution and
the Russian invasion of Crimea and the eastern Donbas put the fear of God in
them. Since then, Ukrainian elites have been moving, mostly fitfully, sometimes
boldly, toward reform.
Ordinary
Ukrainians, on the other hand, have been resolutely committed to change since
the late 1980s, having participated in several impressive manifestations of
“people power”, the two most recent ones being the Orange Revolution of 2004
and the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014.
Ukraine’s
inchoate post-Soviet institutions have been both a curse and a blessing: a
curse, since they were sufficiently strong to put a drag on reform; a blessing,
since they were sufficiently weak to permit reform.
These three
factors — elites mobilized by Russia, an active civil society, and malleable
institutions — have enabled Ukraine to progress, even as the vast majority of
post-Soviet states have become mired in authoritarianism and economic
backwardness.
Like Ukraine,
Europe possesses elites that can be mobilized in defense of Europe by external
threats — be they Trump’s indifference or Putin’s aggression. Europe also
possesses large numbers of committed Europeans in all its member states. Thus
far, many of them have been outflanked by EU opponents, but there is no reason
that the pro-EU forces cannot rally to save Europe, just as Ukrainians have
consistently rallied to save Ukraine. While sorely in need of reform, the
European Union’s institutions are far from being ossified, if only because
they’ve existed for barely 15 years.
Ukraine’s most
important lesson for Europe is that political will matters. But not so much the
political will of the elites as the political will of the people. Ukrainians
have wanted to live in an independent, democratic Ukraine, and they have been
willing to pay the highest of prices for it. Their desire for what they call
“normalcy” and their willingness to bear the ultimate sacrifice largely derive
from an intense hatred, and fear, of a return to Soviet totalitarianism and the
rise of Russian imperialism.
The Ukrainian
case demonstrates that hatred, and fear, of evil can be a powerful force
driving people to strive for good things that appear to be out of their reach.
The question before Europe and Europeans is simple.
Do they hate and
fear authoritarian populism and Putin’s imperialism more than they love the
fleeting pleasures offered by fine wine and good food?
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