Prof. James Mace,
Consultant to The Day
The EBRD meeting is not going successfully for Ukraine. The bankers seem to have taken President Kuchma’s nomination of Boris Berezovsky, whom Forbes Magazine has portrayed as Russia’s сapo di tutti сapi, to the post of CIS Executive Secretary as indicating a strategic choice. Zbigniew Brzezinski has stated on more than one occasion that Ukraine has basically two strategic options: it can either join Europe or integrate into the CIS. I once described this as the Polish and Belarus options: either Ukraine can become a normal civilized European nation or fall back into dependence on “mother Russia,” its deformed economic model, and all that implies. Mr. Kuchma, basically elected President of Ukraine with Russian support by Ukraine’s Russian-speakers, then making his peace with Ukraine’s “Ukrainians,” now seems to have returned to his roots. Ukraine’s “multivector” (multidirectional) foreign policy, that is, of waffling to and fro, has again ended up in what is for Ukraine the worst of all possible worlds, a return to Eurasia and getting left off the train to Europe.
It is fairly obvious to one and all that a new dividing line is forming in Europe; the only question was whether it will run along Ukraine’s western or northeastern border, whether Poland and Hungary, which border on this country, will be Ukraine’s near or far abroad. For Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have firmly set their course toward the European Union, NATO, and the First World. The Second World - transformed, deideologized, and in some ways (like living standards) approaching the Third World - still exists and also has its attractions for some. The problem is where this country decides it finally belongs.






