The Strain over Kosovo

However, the Kosovo crisis, particularly the way it is resolved, will be a severe test not only of the US-Ukrainian relationship, but of the European security system itself. It will also be a test of Ukraine's own sense of itself as a European country and of its ability to deal with a rising disagreement with the West without scuttling the western orientation of its foreign policy. These tests cannot be avoided, but like any other such challenge in school or life, they are best handled by those who are prepared for them. To that end, I offer my comments.

THE USE OF FORCE
AND EUROPEAN SECURITY

The test of the European security system is the most obvious. It failed to resolve the Kosovo crisis short of war. Both supporters and opponents of the bombing would have preferred a negotiated settlement, yet the two sides split over whether the crisis or the use of force to resolve it was the greater evil. There is of course no guarantee that the use of force will bring the Kosovo crisis to a satisfactory conclusion. NATO has in fact put its prestige and future effectiveness on the line on behalf of the Kosovars. Yet the alternative was simply to wait and watch as Slobodan Milosevic carried out the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. There is no doubt that, after the bombing began, Serbia accelerated its attacks upon the Albanian population, but preparations for the operation began last year. It was the massing of Serbian forces in and around Kosovo that precipitated NATO's decision to use force.

Milosevic's purpose is hardly in doubt. He has responded to NATO attacks - not by countering NATO air attacks - but by driving more than a million Kosovars from their homes, sending more than half a million into neighboring Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro. Serbian forces have not simply let the Albanians leave. They have killed thousands of adult males, confiscated property, and destroyed passports and other documents to prevent an easy postwar return. These actions are crimes and have regional and continental implications that cannot be ignored. They threaten to destabilize the entire Balkan region. They make a mockery of the notion of a collective European security system.

While those who support the use of force must face the heavy burden of the damage even the most precise strikes can inflict on innocent civilians, those who argue that force is unnecessary must explain how to address the unspeakable horrors inflicted upon the Kosovars. A security system that cannot act against an atrocity on this scale is not much of a system at all, especially for countries like Ukraine who stand outside the direct protection of an alliance like NATO. Indeed, such a toothless system would merely widen the gap between Europe's haves and have-nots.

Of course, a special Ukrainian concern is that the use of force in Kosovo establishes a precedent in favor of big power intervention. Ukraine has its own ethnic minorities, including a long-running dispute with the Crimea. Ukrainians naturally fear the use to which such a precedent could be put by a future generation of nationalist Russian politicians, seeking to meddle in Crimea. Yet the precedent in Kosovo is something very different. It is an intervention by NATO as a whole, not a single great power. This intervention is taking place, not at the whim and will of Washington, but through the collective efforts of NATO. As an American used to US coaxing and pushing reluctant allies toward consensus, I find the Kosovo intervention remarkable for the strategic initiative and energy coming from Europe, from Tony Blair and Jacque Chirac. Absurd claims that Washington is flexing its muscles or sending some sort of signal to Russia and the rest of Europe do not stand up in light of the facts.

In addition, the precedent of Kosovo is not that the outside world can interfere in every aspect of a state's policies toward its minorities. There is no comparison between the war of decrees between Kyiv and Simferopol and the atrocities committed against the Albanian minority in Kosovo. The precedent Ukraine should be worried about in fact is the one that would be set by NATO's failure, by the de-legitimization of the use of force in response to massive atrocities or aggression. However, if NATO's intervention brings a settlement, the precedent set will be that US and European interests in human rights, stability, and regional security extend beyond the borders of NATO and the European Union proper. Surely, this is an important outcome for a state like Ukraine.

The postwar resolution of Kosovo is of crucial importance to Ukraine. Kyiv must play a constructive role in supporting a lasting settlement. It needs to participate in the implementation force. Kyiv also needs to be a leading advocate of Western policies that would address the root causes of instability well in advance of their turning into serious crises. Yet Ukraine and other states that oppose the bombing in Kosovo also have to face up to the continued need for force both as an aid to diplomacy and as a tool of last resort to meet challenges like Kosovo. Surely this very question is key to the future of its own relations with its neighbors and its own role in a group such as GUUAM.

UKRAINE'S
SELF-DEFINITION

The second test is of Ukraine itself. Many Ukrainian politicians, particularly on the Left, want to use the Kosovo crisis to turn public opposition to US and NATO bombing in Yugoslavia into widespread opposition to Ukrainian cooperation with the West. These politicians see Ukraine's future outside Europe, in partnership with Russia and perhaps even Belarus. They are right only in one aspect: real differences now divide Ukraine from Europe and make its integration into the wider European structures a long-term and painful process. Ukraine's stagnant economy and largely ineffective political system is very different from the Western norm. Yet the issue for Ukraine is not whether these differences exist, but what to do about them. Should this gap between Ukraine and Europe become permanent? Or should Ukraine's domestic and foreign policies aim at closing the gap and as full a participation in Europe as is possible?

The answers to these questions are, I believe, easy, though the policies needed to support these answers are not. There are politicians within Ukraine and in Europe who do not want to see the gap between Ukraine and Europe narrowed. The Ukrainian Left wants to steer the country toward greater integration with Russia and other former Soviet republics. They fear the economic and political changes reform would bring. They are more comfortable belonging to a region defined by the political and economic horizons of Lukashenka, Primakov, Luzhkov and, yes, Milosevic than one defined by Chirac, Clinton, or Blair.

There are also many in Europe who are content for Ukraine to remain on the periphery, who welcome Ukraine's current troubles because it relieves them of the responsibility of thinking seriously about Ukraine's role in Europe. These two groups of politicians hope to create a vicious circle in which Ukraine's continued stagnation would justify Europe's continued neglect.

Yet Ukraine does not belong on Europe's periphery. Its people are talented and smart enough to master both the market economy and democracy. Ukrainian culture is a part of wider European culture. Ukraine's approach toward its own minorities puts it squarely within the European mainstream and contrasts sharply with Milosevic's approach to Kosovo or even Yeltsin's to Chechnya. It will of course not be easy for Ukraine to integrate into Europe's key institutions. Yet to drift away from them is to consign the country permanently to corrupt politics, economic stagnation, and despair - to Lukashenka's Europe. The Kuchma government has its flaws, but it has worked hard to bring Ukraine closer to Western institutions. It has made a strong case that Ukraine is a European state and needs to be taken seriously by its European neighbors. Disagreement with the West over Kosovo is legitimate, but it is reckless to use that disagreement to undermine the links between Ukraine and the West that now exist.

STRENGTHENING
US-UKRAINIAN RELATIONS

The third test will be of the US-Ukrainian relationship. It is likely to be more difficult than many believe. US-Ukrainian relations are already under strain because of continuing disputes outside the Kosovo issue. Some in Ukraine are asking what Ukraine gets from the strategic partnership. They want tangible aid and direct investment. Some in the US have forgotten Ukraine's contributions to regional stability, ethnic tolerance, and nuclear disarmament, focusing instead on corruption and the difficulties encountered by US businesses in Ukraine. For these people, a disagreement on Kosovo is a welcome last straw. They want a weak and floundering partnership.

Yet this outcome is neither in US or Ukrainian interests. Ukraine is the major stabilizing force in East Central Europe. It has shown it is possible to create a tolerant, multiethnic state and still revive the majority language and culture. It has shown that presidents and parliaments can be changed without gunfire. Its continued internal troubles are serious, but they are not unique to Ukraine. Nor could they be confined to Ukraine alone, for long-term Ukrainian stagnation or instability would weigh heavily on Poland, Hungary, and Romania. An internal Ukrainian crisis would have all-European implications. Such a crisis would be the clearest demonstration that Europe could easily be divided again along economic and political lines, but that these two camps could not be truly separated. No new wall can be erected that would confine Ukraine's internal failings to Ukraine alone. Instability on one side of the line would spill over onto the other. This is the great truth of the new Europe. It is the truth that is also motivating NATO's intervention in Kosovo.

None of what I have written is intended to make light of those Ukrainians who oppose the bombing in Yugoslavia. Force is always a blunt instrument, and those who wield it must be constantly aware of its effects on the innocent. A Ukrainian friend of mine in Washington stated simply that she was sickened by the bombing because she can imagine what it is like to be bombed. She heard of it directly from her parents and grandparents, who - like all Ukrainians - suffered greatly during the last war. Surely those exposed directly to war's violence can be forgiven if they see little difference between the bombs of one side and the bullets of the other. But there is a difference. The Europe-to-come will be a very different place if it is defined by Milosevic's bullets. Such a Europe cannot possibly resemble that long-cherished dream of the Ukrainian poet who wished for a "renewed world, where there would be no more tyrants, but sons and mothers and people on earth..." It would instead, at least in the regions adjacent to Ukraine, be a repressive, stagnant, and unstable place. Whatever the differences that now exist over Kosovo, thoughtful Ukrainians, Americans, and other Europeans recognize a common interest in preventing the emergence of this "other Europe." Both now and after the Kosovo crisis, they need to rise to meet this common strategic challenge.