Category: Politics, Power, and Governance

“US HAS AN ECONOMIC INTEREST IN UKRAINE?”

A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE: I had minor involvement in UA, pre and post-Maydan, and my understanding of the US and NATO’s interests was (and remains) rather obvious – and only indirectly in the USA’s self-interest. Everyone I worked with from State, Intel, DoD on both sides, the UA judiciary, the entrepreneurs, the people, every reporter, and every think tank, the main militias of Praavy Secktor and Azov, even the two “good” oligarchs I one person away from, was interested in improving the condition of the UA people and gradually preparing the ground for their participation in the EU so that they could follow their neighbors the Poles into prosperity – and hopefully, eventually, and deterministically encourage the integration of RU, so that the USA could exit the strategic burden and cost of Europe.

Why? Ukraine lacked a Putin and his FSB to shut down the oligarchs and organized crime on one hand, and end the capture of the institutions by them. We even offered to pay for the entire judiciary just so we could produce rule of law – the UA constitution is fine. But every person in the government is underpaid, so must be corrupt even if it’s just doing favors, and without the independence of the courts, and rule of law, a civil society is impossible. I don’t know how many times I went on television there and said “You need the judiciary to convict, and the sheriffs who enforce their judgments, to end corruption – politicians are the wrong emphasis. You’re playing the wrong game.”

In other words, economic interests are information that tell you whether what you’re doing makes sense. But that’s not the objective of the USA and certainly not the postwar order: end the empires to end world wars, by fostering free trade and nation-states: self-determination by self-determined means.)