Whether the West protects Ukraine depends on China’s attack on Taiwan: Fukuyama
The possibility of a new Russian invasion of Ukraine and what the West’s reaction should be, this challenge and the result for the whole world were discussed at Stanford University at the conference “Democracy in Ukraine – 30 years after the collapse of the USSR.” The main theses of the participants’ speeches Voice of America reports.
Francis Fukuyama (Francis Fukuyama, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University) Senior Research Fellow, Stanford University’s Freeman Spogle Institute for International Studies:
- Sometimes you hear: they say that the United States – also introduced troops in another country. Yes, the United States has led the military to other countries, but this has never happened with the use of annexation of foreign territory.
Since 1945, there has been a fairly strict rule in the world against the use of large military powers with an increase in their territory. This rule persisted until 2014, when Putin seized Crimea and then found himself in the Donbas.
- I would like that to be untrue, but I think that we are moving in a world where open use of military force is likely. And the next serious problem could be China’s aggression against Taiwan – with its capture.
Ukraine and Taiwan are connected. That is why the Chinese are watching very closely how the Western world will react to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
- In an article he published a few months ago, Putin abandoned Ukraine’s national identity, which is precisely Russia’s.
I want to emphasize: national identity is not what is originally given by this biology. Nationalists believe that it is related to ethnicity, but this is not the case.
National identity is socially constructed, it is formed by a society that thinks about its own history and narrative. It is the building of democracy that is seen today as a component of national identity. “
- On the contrary, the identity that Putin sees is inseparable from dominance over neighbors. Putin himself believes that the Russian people believe in a centralized government, in a traditional culture, and that they are protecting the world from being infected by Western liberalism, pop culture, and so on.
- Ukraine has proved that it is possible to be a Slavic people and at the same time base their identity on democracy, use their native language, enjoy their national customs and traditions, but a tyrannical government is not part of their identity for Ukrainians.
Steven Pifer (Steven Pifer, William J. Perry, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University) Former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Research Fellow, William Perry Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University:
- A key factor in democracy is a change of government through fair elections.
Since the restoration of independence in 1991, Ukraine has held six presidential elections. In these six elections, the incumbent president ran four times for re-election and lost three times. There is no such record anywhere else in the post-Soviet space, except in the Baltic countries.
Catherine Stoner, (Catherine Stoner, Mosbacher, Director of Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law) Director of Stanford University’s Center for Democracy, Development and Law:
- If in Russian civil society it is completely subordinated to the state, then Ukraine has developed differently. I’m not sure where it came from in Ukraine, but it’s not a 30-year project! Rather, it was 130 years of Ukraine’s journey.
Serhiy Plohiy, (Serhiy Plohiy, Harvard University) Professor of History at Harvard University:
- 30-35 years ago, I had no doubt that the region would be better off in terms of democracy without the Soviet Union. So today we have one of the most beautiful and brightest democracies in the post-Soviet space. Neighboring Belarus in 1991 was even ahead of Ukraine in some respects in terms of democracy. And the departure from democracy that took place there has not been studied at all.
According to US intelligence estimates, Russia may increase its military to 175,000 by the end of January. This is one of the largest movements of Russian troops in Ukraine in recent years, in addition to regularly scheduled and announced exercises, and one of the events that led to a video call on December 7 between US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Maxar Technologies, a satellite company, has published photos showing the training of Russian troops. Reports that Maxar provides 90 percent of the geospatial base used by the US government.