There is much in a name.\u00a0 Ukraine means borderland.<\/i><\/p>\n
The position of the extreme West–like US neocons–is clear: get all into NATO, encircling, containing, defeating Russia.\u00a0 Some in Ukraine and Georgia share that goal.\u00a0 The less extreme West would focus on EU membership, both being European countries.\u00a0 Some of them, in turn, might focus on loans as there is much money to be made. Thus, Bosnia-Hercegovina had $9 billion debt before the EU take-over as “high authority”; now $107 billion.\u00a0 “Austerity” around the corner.<\/p>\n
The position of Russia as expressed by Putin and Lavrov: no way<\/i>. Crimea will revert to Russia after it was given to Ukraine in 1954 by Khrushchev–himself born in Kalinovka, Ukraine in 1894, his wife a Ukrainian–possibly mainly for economic reasons as his son at Brown University R.I., USA argues.<\/p>\n
However, Ukraine is not only a borderland but also two countries between Poland and Russia.\u00a0 The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth of 1569 and the Austria-Hungarian Empire once covered most of Ukraine; so did czarist Russia and Soviet Union in their heydays.\u00a0 More importantly, the dividing line of the Roman Empire from 395, confirmed by the schism between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity in 1054, is reflected in Ukraine’s extremely complex history.\u00a0 The result is unmistakable: moving east the Catholic attachment yield to the Orthodox and Ukrainian to Russian.\u00a0 When Poland became a member of EU and even of NATO, the handwriting for Ukraine was on the wall; bringing to mind Polish First Marshal Pilsudski’s Odessa-Black Sea ambitions after WW-I.<\/p>\n
Odessa is in the West, Donets in the East, Ukrainian in the West, more Russian in the East.\u00a0 And Kiev–origin of Russia, Rus<\/i>–the capital, in the middle.\u00a0 No doubt there is also a Ukraine uniting the two, a land, not only a border; also united in popular revolt against corruption all over. One split in two, two united in one: both true<\/i>.<\/p>\n
But watch out: one thing is the corruption-inequality pandemic all over the world hitting Ukraine; another is centuries of history leaving lasting impacts.\u00a0 Imagine corruption-inequality subsiding, and the fault lines will come up, even with a vengeance.<\/p>\n
So much for diagnosis.\u00a0 Prognosis<\/i>:\u00a0 Crimea reverts to Russia; Ukraine under Washington-Brussels hegemony; civil war threatening.\u00a0 Anti-semitism, islamism.\u00a0 But not escalating to a world war: NATO is strong; even stronger is SCO-Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Russia-China+.\u00a0 However, balance of terror is not peace, so what is the possible therapy?<\/p>\n
But first Georgia, also deeply divided with Russian-speaking Orthodox South Ossetia and Abkhazia within 1921 borders where Stalin–a Georgian, Dzhugashvili–played a key role (Gamsakhardia, independent president in 1991, re-asserted Georgian hegemony; now more disputed).<\/p>\n
The Soviet power center was in Moscow, but they showered the non-Russians with gifts of various kinds, even land. The two stories are similar, with Russian troops in Abkhazia-South Ossetia and military encounters. Thus, Georgia attacked South Ossetia in 2008, evidently hoping to provoke Russia to provoke NATO– but the plot was revealed (by BBC-4 among others: the Russian T72 tanks were made of cardboard).<\/p>\n
Georgia 2003-Ukraine 2004 had rose-orange “color revolutions”; now USA uses more forceful demonstrations also helped by OTPOR!-\u041e\u0442\u043f\u043e\u0440<\/i>! Resistance!, the Beograd student group fighting Milosevic–to install governments.\u00a0 Europe is more sensitive to conflicts between nations, making a NATO consensus unlikely (State Department Victoria Nuland: “Fuck the EU<\/i>“).<\/p>\n
Europe had the Cold War experience that a neutral-nonaligned belt between West and East is useful; the roles of Finland and Sweden, Austria and Switzerland, Yugoslavia.\u00a0 To Washington they were half-way traitors, “equalizing” West and East, to be won over, even coerced.\u00a0 But, a non-aligned borderland between today’s NATO Poland-Lithuania and Russia and NATO Turkey and Russia, could also one day be useful.<\/p>\n
The choice for Ukraine is not between one unitary state ruled from Kiev, and two states run from, say, Odessa and Donets.\u00a0 There are three in-betweens.<\/p>\n
First, there is devolution<\/i>, decentralization, already working, with regional parliaments reflecting the deep differences.\u00a0 But they are weak relative to Kiev, let alone relative to Washington-Moscow.<\/p>\n
Second, federation<\/i>; the Federal Republic of Ukraine<\/i>, with high level of autonomy for the two parts to express their character, yet sharing foreign, security (neutral!), finance and logistics policies.<\/p>\n
Third, confederation<\/i>, the Ukrainian Community<\/i>, two independent countries each other’s major partners economically and politically.<\/p>\n
Examples of the three: United Kingdom, Belgium, the Nordics; with similarities and differences.\u00a0 Thus, the UK is now loosening, possibly breaking up in spite of shared language and history.\u00a0 How Belgium will turn out, history will show.\u00a0 The Nordics work well with even more differences than there is inside Ukraine and are not even contiguous.<\/p>\n
The West and Russia compete with economic offers, but identity is probably more important.\u00a0 Ukraine West feels West, Ukraine East feels Russian; united historically, divided culturally.\u00a0 Could one be in EU and the other in the Russian federation, both enjoying the carrots offered?–in a Ukrainian Community with open borders?\u00a0 Too divisive.<\/p>\n
None of the three is perfect, but the federation may be the best way out.\u00a0 There is unity and diversity.\u00a0 Ukraine, a founding member of the United Nations, is still a country, yet the different identities are fully respected.\u00a0 Be smart, could that federation even be both an associate member of the EU and the Russian federation?<\/p>\n
For Georgia, a federation is much overdue as a way out; also for Adjar, the Muslim enclave.\u00a0 Encased in a Caucasian Community, all three with strong EU ties as Europeans.\u00a0 But keep NATO and SCO out.<\/p>\n
Prediction: within 5 years we have both federations\u2014and the crisis is over.<\/p>\n
________________________________<\/p>\n
Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including \u2018<\/i>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\u2019 published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, is included. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The dividing line of the Roman Empire from 395, confirmed by the schism between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity in 1054, is reflected in Ukraine’s extremely complex history. Odessa is in the West, Donets in the East, Ukrainian in the West, more Russian in the East. And Kiev–origin of Russia, Rus–the capital, in the middle. One split in two, two united in one: both true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}