To say our history with Ukraine is spotted is and understatement. At the end of the Cold War, Ukraine was a huge missile suppository for hardened Russian Missile silos and tracked vehicles. The United States didn’t want this so we agreed to seen a few billion bucks to Ukraine to help them disarm. Mission accomplished. Good deal. After that, Ukraine faded into the background. Then Russia invaded and conquered Crimea, is there any other word for it? Then went on to invade Ukraine. In essence, Obama did little but jawbone the action and the Russia - Ukraine war began. Again much jawboning and some modest non-lethal aid by the Obama Administration. A bad idea by today’s standards but we were trying to “hit the rest button” with Russia, Never a good idea in my opinion. So usher in the Trump administration. In the interim, Ukraine manage to get some advanced antitank weapons. If anyone was expecting a clear international policy from the new administration they were sorely disappointed. By any measure, a mess ensued. The mishandling of Ukrainian policy earned Trump an impeachment. Where that goes is debatable. There is one glaring question about all of this, in my opinion — Is Ukraine an ally of the United States? The politicians say so. If so, that’s news to me. At one point the U.S. thought about making the Ukraine part of NATO. We might as well have set off an A-bomb under the Kremlin on that one. So here we are, the co-creators of a gigantic FUBAR situation. Clearly, Putin’s driving goal in life is to re-establish the Russian empire and the USSR. So do we have a coherent foreign policy on that eventuality or non-eventuality? If we have, I am unaware of it. The only “policy” of which I am aware is to retreat from just about everything. I am anything but comfortable with that policy if we want to remain a global superpower.
Given the Ukrainians I've met, Id say no, they're not our enemy. However, given the political establishment that our social engineers funded to power there roundabouts 2014, I'd say we're Ukraines enemy.
Ukraine is a democratic bullwork against Putin's Russia. Putin absorbing Ukraine would be a big step in reconstituting the Soviet Empire. That is NOT something that would be in our interest. And then there's the fact that we talked Ukraine into giving up their nukes with the promise of supporting them.
The third president of an independent Ukraine, Victor Yushchenko, was a strong proponent of NATO membership for Ukraine. Ukraine under Yushchenko was very much an ally of the US. Yushchenko' wife ( second wife) was an American citizen. During his time in office there was a too large for comfort stealth group of pro Russian scum minority in parliament. Yushchenko strove for NATO membership but the US and the EU were too afraid of Russia to include Ukraine in NATO though. Next Yanukovych became president and he was increasingly pro Russian and did not push for NATO membership nor EU membership and he like Putin just like Trump does. Yanukovych became outwardly more and more pro Russian and wanted Ukraine to join the Russian economic space. He was convinced to leave office and run away go Russia were his and Trump's. Aster, Putin, lives. Next Porosheko the oligarch reigned and he tried to join NATO and EU but he never got control of the corruption or the corrupt oligarchs. Poroshenko was a friend to the US. The prosecutor Shokin who failed to prosecute Burisma is the God father of one of Poroshenko's daughters. So the lack of going after corruption with Burisma has nothing to do with Hunter Biden. It has to do with corruption. Period. Except for the diminished number of pro Russian scum minority Ukrainians are allies of the US. Guiliani found the few pro Russian Scum in Ukraine who those two Guiliani criminals have contact with. You must understand that Russia and Trump's friend Putin have done much to poison the US opinion against Ukraine.
That is exactly what thoughts of offering Ukraine membership in NATO was doing - and everybody (meaning all the leaders of these Nations) knew it. We can go back to the various agreements - where NATO agreed not to infringe further into Eastern Europe - then as Russia dismantled bases - NATO came in and built bases. So we poked the Bear - but the Bear did not wake up - but obviously this did not go unnoticed. The port in Crimea has been a Russian strategic interest for over 400 years. When we floated the idea of turning that into a NATO port - by allowing Ukraine into NATO - the Bear woke up. Putin drew a clear red line in the sand and told NATO this in no uncertain terms. What did NATO do ? Poked the Bear again. This time the Bear responded - as it said it would. All the leaders then were twirling around feigning ignorance "What did we do - why did Russia do this terrible thing" ... it was yet another clown show of preposterously disingenuous behavior. I agree that Putin's goal is the re-establishment of the Russian Empire - not so much in the way of territorial gains though. Mess with Russia's current strategic interests and you will get a reaction - just as we would react if some nation messed with our strategic interests. Russia is not following the stupid path of nation building - they realize that the strongest piece on the geopolitical Chessboard is "economy" and not "Military" - China does as well. We are still living in some pre nuclear era mentality - where the military was the strongest piece on the board - as it had been for all of human history - where if your economy went south you could just attack your neighbor and take their stuff. The advent of nukes changed this equation - you can't just attack your neighbor if they are a nuclear superpower - without risking self annihilation. The return on investment is way too negative. While we build massive floating cities of metal - and sail these things around the world - Russia and China (and numerous other nations) are ramping up their economies to compete in the 3rd millennium. In 2000 - Total Military Spending was 300 Billion (5 times more than what is required to secure the homeland but - it is what it is). That's all in - VA, Homeland Security (which didn't exist in its current form at the time but still existed) all military and military/defense related spending. After 8 years of Bush this total exceeded 900 Billion - and topped 1 Trillion under Obama. Had we maintained 2000 levels spending (increasing with inflation) we could have diverted 500 billion/yr x 16 yrs = 8 Trillion dollars - to infrastructure, technology, ramping up our economy to compete in the 3rd millennium. Instead ? we threw this money down the toilet fighting useless wars with no (and in fact negative) return on investment. We did this because of living in this fantasy that Military is still the strongest piece on the geopolitical chessboard. There is no massive enemy massing on our nations borders .. it simply doesn't exist - YET - there is a war going on - an economic war - and because we do not realize the value of the pieces in this game - we are making big blunders on the geopolitical chess board - blunders that are squandering our economic security and economic future.
With the loss of Crimea and eastern regions, the population of which were strongly pro-Russian, the rest of Ukraine finally heavily tipped towards the West. In a way, by taking away Crimea and starting the war in the East Pootin made sure Ukraine will never be pro-Russian again. So, Ukraine is definitely not a foe and definitely views the US as a friend. And current Trump scandal is pretty sad because Ukraine has never been so pro-USA. While the country is actively going through growing pains, it attempts to fight corruption. Compared to what mess it was in the 90s (that’s when I lived there), the country made huge progress. As a Ukrainian American I believe the US should be a friend of Ukraine and it should actively help it fight Russia (at least because of Budapest Memorandum). At the same time, an American in me, wants to caution everyone - Ukraine is still a pretty corrupt country and any help extended must be done with clear mechanisms where Ukraine can be held accountable for whatever it receives from us. So, I think we should help Ukraine as much as reasonable, I’d even give them all fighter jets that are being replaced by new F-35s and F-22s, but I’d extend that help only with written agreement from Ukraine of our right for audit to make sure nothing went to the wrong hands. And that audit must be done at least annually. This would give us a piece of mind and would get Ukraine into a habit of guarding its assets against corruption schemes.
