Steven PIFER: “It does not serve Ukraine’s interests when political infighting carries over into the foreign policy arena”
Steven Pifer has held various diplomatic posts, including the office of US Ambassador to Ukraine. He left the diplomatic service in 2004 and is now Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. In the US State Department Pifer was responsible for US policy in the European region, particularly Ukraine. He continues to deal with these questions and obviously can speak more openly about this sphere than currently serving diplomats can allow themselves to say.
How does the US view relations between Washington and Ukraine and prospects for their development? How does it assess the current conflict between the president and the prime minister of Ukraine? Will the anticrisis coalition last long? Does Ukraine have a prospect of joining the NATO membership action plan? The answers to these questions are contained in the American analyst’s interview in The Day .
Because of the recent elections in the US, the problems that your country has in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Iran’s nuclear agenda, there is a feeling in Ukraine that Washington is forgetting about it and even ready to give Kyiv away to Russia in exchange for Russian support in the fight against terrorism and help in preventing Iran from becoming fully nuclear. Now the election is over and Democrats prevail in both Houses. What place does Ukraine now have on the US foreign policy agenda or will have in the near future? How can Ukraine influence this agenda?
The White House today is preoccupied with Iraq. After Iraq, other priority issues are Afghanistan, the overall war on terror, the Arab-Israeli peace process, and how to deal with the nuclear weapons ambitions of Iran and North Korea. Unfortunately, this foreign policy agenda leaves little time for Ukraine. It would be a mistake, however, to think that Washington will sacrifice Ukraine’s interests in return for securing Russian support on other questions — there is no evidence to support that. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress are positively inclined toward Ukraine; to the extent that Ukraine pursues coherent policies aimed at becoming a modern European state, it can command greater attention on Washington’s foreign policy agenda, as was the case in early 2005.
Usually, experts see Ukrainian-American relations as a Moscow- Kyiv-Washington triangle. Now that Yanukovych is in power, does this triangle have even sides? What should be done to achieve balanced relations between these three countries?
I do not believe that a Moscow-Kyiv-Washington prism is the best way to view Ukrainian-American relations. That usually implies that Ukraine can be an object of US-Russian maneuvering. Since the early 1990s, US policy has sought to develop strong bilateral relations with Kyiv, regardless of the state of US-Russian relations. For its part, Ukraine should aim to have good relations with the United States and to integrate more closely into Euro-Atlantic institutions, while at the same time maintaining good relations with Russia. These objectives are not, and should not be seen to be, mutually exclusive.
Is there any possibility to institutionalize a strategic dialogue between the US and Ukraine by creating a commission as an analogue to the Yushchenko-Putin Commission or restoring a kind of Gore- Kuchma Commission?
When it came into office in 2001, the Bush Administration chose to end the high-level commissions that Vice-President Gore had co-chaired in the 1990s (these included the Gore-Kuchma and Gore-Chernomyrdin Commissions). However, the bilateral working committees established under the Gore-Kuchma Commission on foreign policy, defense, and economic issues continued to meet. By most accounts, Vice-President Cheney is interested in Ukraine, but I doubt that a formal high-level commission will be established; it is not the practice of this Administration.
What are the chances that the new bill on energy diplomacy and security will be enacted during the first 100 days after the first session of Congress? Will this bill give any firm guarantees for Ukraine’s integrity and sovereignty?
The Energy Diplomacy and Security Act was first introduced by Senator Richard Lugar in March 2006. The first few months of the new Congress will focus on domestic issues and, on the foreign policy side, Iraq. So it is unlikely that this bill will be acted on soon. The Act is primarily a policy statement aimed at getting the State Department and the US government to devote more attention to energy security issues in general. It does not call for specific actions regarding Ukraine.
Publications in the Ukrainian mass media indicate that you preferred the creation in Ukraine of a broad coalition of White- Blue and Orange. This has not happened. Do you think the current anticrisis coalition will be vital, stable, and lasting?
My preference does not count. Ukrainians made their views clear in a free and fair election last March, and the subsequent coalition formation process produced the current majority coalition. The process took longer than people would have liked and was perhaps a bit messy, but it was not undemocratic. As for the longevity of the coalition, that will depend on the legislation it passes. If the legislation is good and advances Ukraine’s national interests and prosperity, that should increase the durability of the coalition.
How do you and official Washington assess the cooperation between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych and especially the latter’s desire to get rid of Minister of Foreign Affairs Tarasiuk? How does all this and the president and prime minister’s differences concerning certain foreign policy matters influence relations between the US and Ukraine? Do you see Ukraine as a predictable country?
Some maneuvering between President Yushchenko and Prime Minister Yanukovych was expected; that is the nature of politics. But it does not serve Ukraine’s interests when political infighting carries over into the foreign policy arena. There is confusion, for example, in NATO capitals over how far and how fast Ukraine wishes to go in its relationship with the alliance. It appears that the president has one policy, while the prime minister has another. As for Mr. Tarasiuk, what signal does it send other capitals when the president says he is the foreign minister, and the Cabinet says he is not? These kinds of confusion make it harder for the United States and other countries to deal with Ukraine, and Ukraine risks not being taken seriously by its international partners. The president and the prime minister need to find a way to work together, in a spirit of compromise and cooperation, so that Kyiv has a single, coherent foreign policy.
Many experts say that last year Ukraine lost the chance to get the MAP. How has this [Yanukovych’s statement in Brussels on Sept. 14 to slow down integration into NATO] affected Ukraine’s security and image? In your opinion, when will Ukraine get another chance?
In early 2006, the expectation in Washington was that a membership action plan for Ukraine was possible at the November NATO summit in Riga. It became clear in September, however, that there was no unified view between the president and the prime minister regarding a membership action plan. The alliance does not press countries toward membership faster than they are prepared to go, so the Riga opportunity was lost. At the same time, NATO has made clear that the door remains open and that it is interested in close cooperation with Ukraine. If the Ukrainian government wants to revive the prospect of a membership action plan, it needs to make clear that that is the policy of the prime minister as well as the president.
Did you and other American officials get any assurances from Yanukovych [in Washington] that Ukraine will definitely join NATO? Did you see that he has a clear-cut strategy of integration into NATO?
The prime minister has stated several times that he supports deepening cooperation between Ukraine and NATO, but there is some ambiguity regarding his position on NATO membership. When he visited Washington in early December and spoke at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mr. Yanukovych indicated that he has no strategic differences with President Yushchenko on foreign policy issues, just differences regarding tactics. One could interpret this to mean that the prime minister agrees that Ukraine ultimately should be in NATO, though he does not regard now as the time to move in that direction. But Mr. Yanukovych has not said that explicitly.
Some Ukrainian experts and officials say that Ukraine’s accession to NATO depends on a consensus between the political elites, which together may lead Ukraine to membership in this alliance. Do you believe that Yanukovych can or will convince the eastern part of the country that Ukraine should become a member of NATO?
The first thing that has to happen is for there to be consensus within Ukraine’s executive branch, that is, between the prime minister and the president. Then there needs to be broader support in the Rada and among the Ukrainian public. Most opinion polls show that a majority of Ukrainians oppose membership in NATO. My sense is that much of that opposition is due to a lack of understanding about what NATO is today and the advantages of NATO membership. The prime minister has indicated that he would support a public information campaign on NATO. I hope there is a serious effort to explain NATO, as befits such a serious question. I believe NATO membership is in Ukraine’s interest and that, with a better understanding of the alliance, support for membership will grow. But this is a decision for Ukrainians to make. Whether the Ukrainian people decide that NATO membership is in their interest or not, that decision should be based on a good understanding of NATO, not on outdated Cold War stereotypes about the alliance.
One Russian expert, Dmitrii Trenin, has said that Ukrainian accession to NATO would be different from Poland’s. It would not be based on fear towards Russia. Do you believe that Ukraine can convince Russia not to be afraid of Ukraine’s membership in NATO and accept this fact? How this can be done?
Russia today appears ambivalent about NATO. Moscow seems to understand that NATO is not a military danger, and the Russians cooperate with the alliance on some issues, but at other times they suggest that any enlargement poses a threat to Russian security interests. Seeking NATO membership is not and does not have to be an anti-Russian move. Countries can have good relations with and even join NATO while at the same time having stable, positive relations with Russia, and Kyiv should be making this point to Moscow. It will take some work, as many in Moscow continue to view Ukraine and NATO in zero-sum terms, that is, if Ukraine moves closer to Europe, this somehow is a loss for Russia. That kind of thinking is outdated, but we have to understand that it is still there.
Perhaps you heard the statement by Russia’s foreign minister that NATO’s expansion to the east would be a mistake and that there is no need for NATO because new challenges may be met by other organizations. Recently I read an article by a Slovakian parliamentarian, who proposes to dissolve NATO and instead create a new security organization that would include Russia. What do you think about such statements and this article? Can such a thing as the dissolution of NATO happen; and if so, under what conditions?
I do not expect NATO to be dissolved any time soon. NATO has developed considerable experience over the past 50 years. It still plays a valuable role in strengthening Euro-Atlantic security, for example, through Operation Active Endeavor, which works to limit the proliferation of materials related to weapons of mass destruction. NATO has particular expertise in assembling and commanding multilateral military activities, including peacekeeping and stabilization operations in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Finally, there are the habits of political and security cooperation, which develop naturally within an organization in which consensus is the rule. No other international organization has the alliance’s capabilities and characteristics. Rather than dissolving NATO, it would be better to draw Russia closer and deepen existing cooperative links between the alliance and Russia.
