As Russian troops gather on Ukraine’s borders, the outstanding question is whether Russian President Putin is prepared to bear the domestic and international costs of a full-scale invasion or if he’ll stop at pressuring NATO and the West for political concessions. Steven Pifer explains why a military incursion in 2022 will not be as easy for Russia as annexing Crimea in 2014, and where there are avenues for dialogue to defuse the brewing confrontation.

Read the rest at Brookings

Click the link for a transcript of "Why Right Matters to Democracy Here and Abroad."

Upholding Democracy At Home
 

It's really kind of quizzical how an immigrant refugee kid from Kyiv ends up in the White House working on Russia and Ukraine policy. And that’s what my book is really about; it talks about some of the key moments from my background and my family's background that I drew on in making those fateful decisions that I did on January 25, and how they carried me through my congressional testimony.

I made that report without any hesitation, because I thought there was an opportunity to right the course of events. I didn't really think that these things were going to enter the public view. I just did what I thought was right, and then when I was called to testify about making these reports, I followed through. Even there, it was not a hard decision about what the right thing to do was. I was not going to put my interests ahead of U.S. interests.

Supporting Democracy Abroad
 

When we see everything that’s happening in the world right now, I can understand why people look at someplace like Ukraine and think, “Why should we care about what happens there?”

But Ukraine makes a really compelling normative case for where Russia could end up, which I think everyone would agree is important. I think about the example of West Germany making East Germany unviable in the Cold War. Both countries started at the same place: decimated. But West Germany, being democratic and prosperous and enjoying basic human rights, thriving economy, made East Germany unviable and demonstrated Germany as a failure.

In much the same way, Ukraine could do the same thing for Russia. As we both know, Putin believes that Ukraine and Russia are the same people separated by an artificial boundary; the share roots and have a shared identity. Now, that's a vast oversimplification. That's not entirely true. But that's what he believes. And that's what he's convinced this population of. So, how would he explain 20 years from now, or in 2036, when he's done with his latest term in office, and there's somebody else that's looking to step in: How can another authoritarian leader step in and say, “We’re going to continue the course with managed democracy,” when Ukraine is prosperous?

It makes a really compelling case for a path that Russia could take on a path that would take it towards democracy. That would be a difficult road, but it's a viable path, because Ukraine is the example. And that's important not just because of our strategic aspirations for Russia, but also because it has an impact on China also. You've heard me talk about this notion that all of Russia's national security threats are from a belligerent rising, coercive China; they're not from the West.

The West is held out as a boogeyman at the moment, because it's useful to the regime. It's important to the regime to fight against the West as the aggressor and to couch the West as a failure and decadent for regime stability purposes. But from a national security perspective, I think any reasonable assessment would indicate that those threats are really not emanating from the West, but from the East. So supporting Ukraine also empowers our competition with China. That's why I think that the Biden administration should be unconstrained in its support of Ukraine.

More from Alexander Vindman
 

Watch the book talk FSI hosted with Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman (Ret.) for Here, Right Matters.

As prime minister, Mr. Honcharuk introduced important policy initiatives in Ukraine including the institution of business privatization processes, efforts to combat black markets, and the launch of the Anti-Raider Office to respond to cases of illegal property seizures.

“I want to thank Ambassador McFaul for the invitation to be a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute, as well as my other colleagues – Kathryn Stoner, Larry Diamond, and Francis Fukuyama – for a very warm welcome.

“Stanford is the best place to rethink Ukraine's past and plan the future, and that's why I am especially happy to be here and add my expertise and experience to this important process.”

Prior to serving as prime minister, Honcharuk was deputy head of the Presidential Office of Ukraine and was a member of the National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine.

As a visiting fellow at FSI, Honcharuk will also work closely with scholars in the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), which runs practitioner training programs for democracy activists in Ukraine, such as the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program.

"I am delighted to welcome Mr. Honcharuk to Stanford,” shared Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of CDDRL. “His appointment as the Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow continues a long tradition of FSI's and CDDRL's engagement in Ukraine. We are fortunate to have a visiting fellow who brings such a breadth of experience and expertise to our campus community and our growing network of Ukrainian leaders."

Please join us on Tuesday, November 16, at 4:00 pm for a lecture given by former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at FSI. Learn More & Register

Senior Ukrainian officials have voiced concern that NATO has provided no clarity regarding Ukraine’s membership prospects.  Specifically, when might Kyiv receive a membership action plan, known as MAP?

Ukraine has already waited a long time. It will have to wait longer. That is unfair, but that is the reality.

Speaking in New York on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly meetings, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba complained that the MAP process “has been dragging on for an indecently long time…there can be no endless integration.  Everything must have its certainty and its clarity.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed similar concerns earlier in the summer:  “If we are talking about NATO and MAP, I would really like to get specifics – yes or no.”

Kuleba and Zelensky’s frustrations are entirely understandable.  However, they will remain disappointed.

Over the past three decades, Ukraine’s interest in NATO has steadily grown.  In 1994, it was among the first to join NATO’s Partnership for Peace.  In 1997, NATO and Ukraine established a “distinctive partnership” aimed at deepening Kyiv’s relationship with the alliance.

In 2002, Ukraine announced that it would seek to join NATO, but Kyiv did little to prepare itself or follow up.  After the 2004 Orange Revolution, which led to the election of Viktor Yushchenko as president, the new Ukrainian government adopted a more serious approach. In the first half of 2006, it appeared headed for a MAP. Moscow did not express strong opposition, and many assumed that NATO leaders would approve a MAP at their November summit.  However, Yushchenko’s appointment of Victor Yanukovych as prime minister derailed things, especially in September when Yanukovych said he had no interest in a MAP.

Yushchenko asked again for a MAP in January 2008, with support from Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. This time, the Kremlin made its opposition loud and clear. President George W. Bush nevertheless supported the request.  However, Washington curiously did no lobbying with other NATO members on Kyiv’s behalf.  Only when alliance leaders gathered in Bucharest in April did Bush urge his counterparts to approve a MAP for Ukraine, but having heard nothing from Washington, positions had set against the idea in key European capitals, including Berlin and Paris. Ukraine did not get a MAP, though NATO leaders stated “NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.  We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO.”

The language about “becoming” members seemed a concession to Bush, who failed in his MAP goal since, 13 years later, Ukraine continues to wait.

NATO has no fixed checklist of what countries must do to qualify for a MAP, that is, an aspirant for a MAP cannot present a fully checked scorecard and automatically claim one.  The decision to bestow one ultimately is a political call by alliance members. What is unfair is that Ukraine today arguably has made as much progress toward meeting the criteria for membership as had other countries when they received their MAPs, for example, Bulgaria and Romania in 1999 or Albania in 2007.  Indeed, Ukraine has probably done more.

The reason why Ukraine waits is also unfair. NATO’s 1995 enlargement study said, “No country outside the alliance should be given a veto or droit de regard over the process and decisions.”  Yet the Kremlin has, in effect, exercised such a veto. Allies appear unenthusiastic about a MAP now, particularly because there is no good answer to the question “if Ukraine joins NATO tomorrow, does the alliance then find itself at war with Russia?”

Unfortunately, life sometimes is not fair. That is the reality for Ukraine.  If the alliance could not reach a consensus on giving Kyiv a MAP in 2008, it will not do so now, when Ukraine remains mired in the low-intensity military conflict that Russia inflicted has inflicted on it since 2014.  Indeed, one reason why the Kremlin keeps that conflict simmering undoubtedly is to obstruct Ukraine’s efforts to forge stronger links with the West.

There should be candor between NATO and Ukrainian officials about the state of play with MAP, as there should be on Washington’s part.  True, corruption remains a problem that Ukrainians must deal more effectively with, but it does not block a MAP.

What should Kyiv do?  Here are three recommendations.

First, stop asking for a MAP, especially in public. In the current circumstances, the answer will either be silence or no. Neither helps NATO-Ukraine relations.

Second, load up Ukraine’s annual national program with the substance of a MAP – U.S., British, Polish, Lithuanian and Canadian diplomats at NATO can advise on this – but, critically, do not call it a MAP.  By all appearances, the negative reactions—both from Moscow and from within the alliance—are to the title, not the contents.

Third, having agreed a program with NATO, implement, implement and implement more.  Implementation has not always been Kyiv’s strong suit.  The more Ukraine does to strengthen interoperability with NATO military forces, meet alliance standards, and complete democratic, economic, military and security sector reforms, the better it will prepare itself for membership.

That should be Kyiv’s goal now.  It should seek, without a formal MAP, to do everything it can so that Ukraine is ready, when the political circumstances change, to take advantage and advance its membership bid.

Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry Fellow at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. 

Originally for Kyviv Post

Now in its fourth year, the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program hosted at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University is delighted to welcome three leading reformers and activists to campus for the 2021-2022 academic year.

Yulia Bezvershenko, Denis Gutenko, and Nariman Ustaiev will join the growing network of Ukrainian leaders to participate in the program. While at Stanford, they will work on projects to improve Ukraine’s education and innovation sectors, reform the civil service, and strengthen the self-governing institutions for the Crimean Tatars.

The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program (UELP) is a 10-month academic training fellowship hosted at Stanford University. The program was founded in 2016 by the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute together with Oleksandr and Kateryna Akymenko (Stanford John S. Knight fellows) as an initiative to address development challenges in Ukraine and across the broader region.

UELP provides a unique opportunity to three mid-career practitioners working actively as policy-makers, legal professionals, entrepreneurs, and leaders of civil society organizations in Ukraine to visit one of the world’s leading research universities for an academic year. The objective of the program is to strengthen fellows’ leadership skills and bolster their academic foundation and is supported by a committee of leading Stanford faculty at FSI. The program is designed to facilitate capacity building for fellows through faculty mentorship, community engagement, courses, events, and site visits to Silicon Valley technology firms.

UELP has been funded with generous support from Astem.Foundation (Rustem Umerov), Believe in Yourself Foundation (Victor and Iryna Ivanchyk), Dragon Capital (Tomas Fiala), MacPaw (Oleksandr Kosovan), Luminate, Liudy Maybutnoho (Svyatoslav Vakarchuk), and the Western NIS Enterprise Fund.

Join us for a conversation about the UELP fellows' work and political development in Ukraine on Tuesday, October 26, at 12:00 pm. Learn More

Yulia Bezvershenko, Ministry of Education and Science
 

Yulia Bezvershenko is Director General of Directorate for Science and Innovation at the Ministry of Education and Science. The Directorate was created for policy development and implementation in the research, development and innovation sector.

Since the Revolution of Dignity, Bezvershenko has been deeply involved in the reform of science development and implementation process. Her mission is to build knowledge-based Ukraine as an economy and society based on knowledge, science, and innovation. She has contributed to the Law on Science, which was adopted by Parliament in 2015. In cooperation with scientists and reformers she developed and actively participated in the creation of two new institutions, the National Council on Science and Technology and the National Science Fund. Bezvershenko currently works on both the implementation of the aforementioned law and its future iterations.

Bezvershenko holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics (National Academy of Science of Ukraine) and a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Governance from the Kyiv School of Economics. She has diverse experience in the research and development sector, having worked as a researcher at the Bogolyubov Institute as well as a senior lecturer on quantum theory at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Until 2019, Yulia was a Deputy Head of Young Scientists Council of National Academy of Science of Ukraine and Vice-President of NGO "Unia Scientifica" aimed to promote science and to advocate reform of science in Ukraine.

Denis Gutenko, State Fiscal Service/Ministry of Economy
 

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Before joining the State Fiscal Service, Gutenko had worked in the Ministry of Economy since 2015. Gutenko promoted deregulation and improvement of business climate agenda. He initiated and successfully lobbied Parliament to adopt laws on the liberalization of international trade and currency, the transparency of scrap metal exports, and the reform of a corrupt ecological tax policy. Gutenko also led the removal of administrative barriers and outdated currency restrictions, resulting in the increased flow of services and payments for Ukrainian freelancers and small and medium enterprises.

Prior to this Gutenko began his career in the private sector as a banker, auditor, and agribusiness manager, experiences that sparked his interest in improving the Ukrainian state bureaucracy and fighting widespread corruption.

Gutenko’s focus while at CDDRL will be on good governance and public administration reform, both of which remain significant opportunities and challenges for Ukraine. He looks forward to being an active member of the Leadership Network for Change, and to continuing to challenge himself while at Stanford.

Nariman Ustaiev, Gasprinski Institute
 

Nariman Ustaiev is co-founder and Director at Gasprinski Institute for Geostrategy. He is also an external advisor for the Committee on Human Rights, Deoccupation and Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories in Donetsk, Luhansk Regions and the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, National Minorities and Interethnic Relations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. 

His work explores the multiple dimensions of Ukraine’s foreign and security policy and their intersection with good governance based on human rights. His areas of expertise are foreign policy; political and security challenges in the Black Sea Region; and human rights and Crimean Tatar issues. 

Prior to this Nariman had worked for governmental institutions responsible for Ukraine’s security policy, namely the National Security and Defense Council, the Secretariat of the Cabinet Ministers, and the State Service for the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol for many years. 

Nariman graduated from the Diplomatic Academy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Academy for Foreign Trade, and Kyiv-Mohyla Business School.