For a full generation, Ukraine, despite its huge human and material wealth, has been the longest-suffering and unhappiest nation in Europe. This must be fixed after the war.
Kyiv Post
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At the cinema, we have all seen runaway trains and airplanes hijacked by robbers or terrorists. As long as qualified railroad engineers and pilots are in control, travel is smooth and safe, passengers know exactly where they are headed and when they will arrive. And they comply with staff guidance. But as soon as unqualified hijackers take over the controls, there is chaos and great loss.
Ukraine’s political system, unfortunately, has produced a surplus of self-serving hijackers eager to take control, while shunting aside those better qualified and intentioned. I refer to this as the hijacking of the nation.
Thirty-five years (one generation) ago, Ukraine emerged from the constraining Soviet/Russian box into (what was then) an unknown world. The world they knew had ground to a halt, while Ukrainians were forced to get by as best they could in the new one. Both private and public treasuries were empty. The nation was divided by language, economic and political ideologies, ethnic and regional loyalties, and residual attachment to the old, familiar world.
Unlike their neighbors to the west, who were quickly welcomed into the European Union and NATO, Ukrainians were met with indifference. None of Ukraine’s western neighbors had experienced the intensity and duration of repressions of language, traditions, culture, religion, education, and information – all measures intended to uproot Ukraine from its historical place in European civilization, and absorb it into an authoritarian, colonialist, or debased Asian model.
Easter’s themes of suffering followed by renewal, and darkness giving way to light, are as pertinent to Ukrainians today as they were to Britons in the 1940s.
Those were hard years when hyperinflation exceeded 10,000%; there was no national currency; supply chains across former Soviet republics had broken down; state assets were sold off at a pittance of their value to anyone offering Western currency; trash was left unattended, and – throughout it all – mostly gangsters, KGB hold-overs, and those controlling marketable state assets prospered.
Communist and socialist factions urged Ukrainians to return to the relative security and familiarity of state ownership and control. While newly converted enthusiasts of the “free market” unreflectively adopted the promises of “privatization,” “globalism,” “libertarianism” and “liberal democracy,” as espoused by well-meaning but somewhat naïve Western advisers. What was missing in this toxic mix of chaos, crisis, poverty, aspirations, and distrust was a political and economic class of competent, trustworthy and reflective professionals, and a state-building strategy that would transform a formerly vassal state with a centralized economy and a highly repressive political system into an independent, sovereign, and democratic state with a private, free-market economy and a deep commitment to rule-of-law and civil liberties.
In the early years of independence, most Western experts, including the United States’ CIA, concluded that, among the post-Soviet republics, Ukraine had the greatest chance of becoming a strong, prosperous, and democratic nation because all the state-building ingredients and tools were in place.
When it became independent, it was the most educationally, scientifically, technically, and industrially developed republic of the former USSR, and one of the 20 most industrially developed countries in the world. Ukrainians were at the forefront of Soviet and world science, space, medicine, agriculture, etc., and their 50 million citizens had the skills needed to succeed in a full range of occupations and industries, from mining to space exploration and everything in between.
As the largest country in Europe, blessed with an unmatched richness of natural resources and mineral assets, including nearly every major mineral category used in modern industry from metals to chemicals to construction materials; with 25% of the world’s richest black earth; a very extensive and highly developed infrastructure; and an abundance of nuclear power, gas, and coal, all that Ukraine needed to become the next economic and military powerhouse of Europe was a government that maximized and unleased its potential… one with a state-building strategy, capable of leading, protecting, investing, and prioritizing various sectors of the economy.
What ruined the nation and encouraged Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was simply the election of a succession of power-hungry, self-serving, disinterested “public servants.”
In light of all these advantages, one may wonder what happened and where the professional political elite had been during the 30 years from 1991, the year of Ukraine’s independence, until the start of Russia’s invasion, when it was ranked as the poorest in Europe. Those were years during which Russia, ever resentful over losing Ukraine, kept a close watch on its neighbor and meddled in its elections, bribed Ukrainian politicians and influencers, assassinated and intimidated Ukraine’s patriotic civic activists, pumped out its propaganda, and looked for every opportunity to weaken and discredit Ukraine and burden its every move towards integration with the Western world. Those were also years when the professional political elite joined the hundreds of thousands in Kyiv twice in the freezing winter to protest those who had so badly failed in their state-building responsibilities.
All that, however, could have been tolerated and controlled. What ruined the nation and may even have encouraged Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was simply the election of a succession of power-hungry, self-serving, disinterested “public servants” whose priority was to enrich themselves by corruption or wholesale theft of whatever state assets were within their reach. Even those who did not personally abuse the public’s trust frequently appointed relatives or friends who did, or were unqualified for the positions to which they were appointed. Even worse, competent and honest civil servants and experts may have been pushed aside to make room for those depending on political patronage.
Those were years when Ukraine did not need shallow slogans of “globalism,” “libertarianism” or “liberal democracy” but rather state regulation, control, and accounting for both civilian and military strategic assets, subsidies and loans for its critical sectors and aging factories, favorable tax policies for small and mid-sized businesses, and protectionism of domestic industry from foreign competition. Of special importance would have been the enactment of a tax credit for industries investing, at least in part, in the additional manufacturing processes needed to fabricate raw materials (such as titanium ore) into finished commercial products (such as dental implants or bicycle frames).
Diplomatic intervention was needed to ensure reciprocal access to markets abroad. Notwithstanding the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine’s military-industrial complex required close state scrutiny and accounting of its huge assets and stockpiles to ensure that only surplus or clearly obsolete equipment was to be sold or destroyed, while its domestic producers were to be supported in development of more advanced and diverse military materiel, both for export and domestic use.
Ukraine is now at a crossroads. When peace is finally restored, its citizens can no longer allow or afford the return of the tarnished, unprofessional political “elite.” They must ensure that, through the reconstruction of war-torn Ukraine, it will shed its old, discredited skin and face the future with a new, professional, political, and economic elite of patriotic, competent, and honest Ukrainians, with a strategy and a passion to see Ukraine reach its full potential. We must accept a level of state involvement that would preclude corruption, ban political patronage, reward professionalism, disallow oligarchic influence in politics, restore an honest judiciary, and provide a level of protectionism and support to industry that would favor small and mid-sized businesses and the rapid growth of the middle class.
In particular, there must be acceptance that both the public and private sectors have indispensable roles to play. Democracy, security, and prosperity can be achieved only through the proper balancing of public and private interests.
The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post
