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| Publication | Foreign Affairs | |
| Title | A Jittery Ukraine | |
| Author | Bohdan Skrobach | |
| Published | May / June 1994 |
|
Ted Galen Carpenter ("Closing the Nuclear Umbrella," March/April 1994)
describes as "worrisome" the widespread public sentiment in Ukraine for
retaining nuclear weapons. The overwhelming opinion in the West is
that becoming nonnuclear is in Ukraine's best security interest.
Why then does a nuclear sentiment persist in Ukraine?
The last time Ukraine declared independence - in 1918 - Moscow invaded it. Today concerns over a revival of the past have been heightened. As the articles by Zbigniew Brzezinski ("The Premature Partnership") and Yuri N. Afanasyev ("Russian Reform Is Dead") indicated, "central planning" in Russian domestic policy and a "military influence" in its foreign policy have returned. This retrenchment is a historical trait of the Soviet Union, which has consistently alternated between liberalization and authoritarianism. In the 1920s, when the Soviet Union was forming, liberal programs such as the New Economic Policy were introduced to increase farm and industrial production. In Soviet Ukraine, the Ukrainian language and culture were promoted after czarist regimes had suppressed them. When Joseph Stalin took power all these activities were silenced. Through a forced famine, which caused the death of over seven million people in Ukraine in 1932-33, the Kremlin sought to liquidate the Ukrainian identity. Stalin's death brought Nikita Khrushchev to power, and attempts at reform and internal liberalization replaced rule by an iron hand. The overthrow of Khrushchev brought a return of complete authoritarianism with Leonid Brezhnev. In 1982, 18 years of stagnant Brezhnev rule gave way to the perestroika and glasnost of Mikhail Gorbachev. Today an independent Ukraine looks at Moscow from the outside and sees the political pendulum swinging again. This creates a natural nervous reaction that expresses itself in pronuclear sentiment. |