AHC: Have Ukraine become as successful as Poland by 2017

Get rid of the oligarchs and you're half way there.

I don't know much about Ukraine, so I need to ask this. How bad the oligarchs problem in Ukraine is compared to Russia (as we know, in Russia they completely trashed the economy there)
 
10, have Ukraine want a more balanced government, this doesn't have to be PRO western, it could be simply natural that invites investement from both east and west and not a walk the line government that is for sale to the highest bidder. they went through the years of struggle like everyone else. you need rule of law, rule of financial law and a lot less corruption. so yes, less oligarch control, make them pay their share. education, and invest in the nation.

2. goto 10
 
Which ever works best.
Fuck it, execute the traitors.

The key, is to have Kravchuk lose in 1991. Basically they just have to call in the legitimate government come in instead. The government of the UNR, maybe brought about by pro western army officers, though that is unlikely.

Ukraine should be more prosperous than Poland assuming the first government is not incompetent or treasonous. Poland's 'shock therapy' reforms should be mimicked. Privatization should take place slowly to ensure a stable economy however. One good idea, is to get the Russians out of Sevastopol, for obvious reasons. They can keep most of the Black Sea fleet if they want but they should base it out of their own damn country.

About the nukes, we only need like 50. From the get go the government should ask for economic aid in a trade for getting rid of the nukes. But 50 should be kept permanently. From the beginning the EU should be a goal.

About Transdnistria, once shit starts to go down the government should offer a 'compromise' and annex everything on the Transdnistirian side of the border. This would keep both Moldova and Transdnistria out of the Russian sphere.

The main goal is a slower privatization where once the economy is stabilized then the process can begin. This should avoid all the chaos of they nineties. With that we should have a lot more resources to start the new millennia.
 
Fuck it, execute the traitors.
That's one way of going about it; though Ukraine's reputation is going to take a hit in Europe if it starts putting people against the wall.
The key, is to have Kravchuk lose in 1991. Basically they just have to call in the legitimate government come in instead. The government of the UNR, maybe brought about by pro western army officers, though that is unlikely.
A legitimate government effectively unsupported and unheard of in Ukraine. A coup (which 'brought about by pro western officers' implies) would be ruinous for Ukraine; and I don't know that the UNR can contest elections so soon after being allowed access to the country. Would rukh suffice? I don't know much about it other than that going from wiki Chornovil sounds promising for what you have in mind.
Privatization should take place slowly to ensure a stable economy however. One good idea, is to get the Russians out of Sevastopol, for obvious reasons. They can keep most of the Black Sea fleet if they want but they should base it out of their own damn country.
For the sake of security this is definitely true, though it doesn't help economically. Honestly if you want a consistently pro-western Ukraine your best bet is to just give Russia Crimea.
About the nukes, we only need like 50. From the get go the government should ask for economic aid in a trade for getting rid of the nukes. But 50 should be kept permanently. From the beginning the EU should be a goal.
They did ask for such aid, iirc. Western countries had an annoying tendency to focus on the nuclear nonproliferation over the economic recovery. Keeping nuclear weapons is a guarantee of security-and given some of the other things you're proposing (kicking the Russians out, annexing Transdnisteria, perhaps even for joining the EU) Ukraine will need that. It can be done, I think, though having this arsenal would be a financial loss for the Ukrainian government, and go against the wishes of pretty much every other country as well as a decent portion of the Ukrainian population.
About Transdnistria, once shit starts to go down the government should offer a 'compromise' and annex everything on the Transdnistirian side of the border. This would keep both Moldova and Transdnistria out of the Russian sphere.
Ukraine annexing Transdnistria unilaterally (I doubt Moldova would approve of this) is a good way to annoy both Russia and the western states Ukraine is supposed to be courting. Coupled with the insistence on nuclear weapons and you're dangerously close to rogue state territory.
The main goal is a slower privatization where once the economy is stabilized then the process can begin. This should avoid all the chaos of they nineties. With that we should have a lot more resources to start the new millennia.
This sounds better, though no state fully avoided the chaos of the 1990s. Poland started that decade poorer than Ukraine, but Ukraine is much more tied economically to the rest of the FSU. Sink or swim, Ukraine was tied to Russia (see what happened in 1998). Breaking these ties outright might help long term, but it would be crippling in the 1990s. I'm sure there's a societal dynamic as well. Poland had its share of trouble breaking with the communist era, and that's with a near universal association with oppression and foreign occupation. Associations that were simply not as strong in Ukraine. There was simply less push, and it's difficult in a democratic society to generate that overnight. There are things that might help Ukraine-a more thorough lustration is tempting; as is a slightly more emphatic Ukrainization policy (though obviously pushing too hard risks being very counterproductive). As much as it pains me to say, allowing more foreign participation in privatization might also be beneficial, especially if European integration is the goal-said companies will consistently push for that direction, as opposed to the tug of war with the domestic oligarchs.
 

trurle

Banned
With a PoD of 1992 or later, have Ukraine become as successful as Poland by 2017.
The success would require to suppress the "wild nineties" criminal re-distribution wave. As late as in middle 1992, the breakdown of order was widespread, but not yet catastrophic (it reached catastrophic proportions in 1994), so martial law introduction may help. It mean likely some sort of dictatorship, and a difficult transition period lasting at least ten years.
The people looking on the history in retrospective may think what few oligarchs have ruined the nation. It is incorrect - these oligarchs were just the lucky "winners" of the re-distribution wave, when suddenly large fraction of the irresponsible (due flaws in Soviet education system) young men have discovered what "playing dirty" is no longer punishable as the Soviet Union central authority has collapsed.
 
Exactly, almost all of Ukraine's problems originate from the Soviet occupation. The chaos of the nineties is no exception. Strong handed economic policies might be the only thing to stop IT's collapse.

Perhaps one way to get a pro western government is to have the hardliners in Moscow try and suppress separatist movements with force before they can be overthrown. This would certainly lead to a more radicalized and pro western government. In response to this, I think we would have seen these kinds of reforms.
 
The solution to this is to cripple Russia so Ukraine can join the west without being scared of retaliation.
 
So... in a thread where the OP requests for a scenario where Ukraine is as 'successful' as Poland the answers thus far ranged from 1) tanking the Ukrainian economy even more than OTL (sinking money into nukes, kicking the Russian fleet out of Crimea and loosing the cash-flow and gas price discounts Russia gave in exchange for basing rights, even breaking all economic ties with the Russian Federation) 2) turning Ukraine into a pariah state (instituting a coup, perusing nuclear armament, annexing Transdnistiria as a 'favor' for Moldova) 3) going to war with Russia ... for some reason and 4) having Ukraine join the E.U. despite points 1) through 3).

And here I thought it was impossible to make Ukraine suck even harder than it does OTL. :p

Has anyone considered the fact that Poland has something like 1/3 of Ukraine's population and has been receiving significant financial subsidies from the European Union for years? Gee, might that have played a role in the average Pol being better off than your average Ukrainian?
Wouldn't it be more beneficial to peruse closer cooperation with your biggest trading partner (and the #1 destination for your migrant workers that send needed cash flow back to the homeland) rather than cutting off your own nose to spite your face?
Hey, how about rather than getting nukes and demanding to be let into the E.U. instead focus on not having Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko embezzle $200 million from the nation between 1996 and 1997 (as a reference, that's about 1/3 of Ukraine's entire GDP for the year 2000!)? Also fun fact for those of you saying Ukraine's troubles are tied to Russia: Lazarenko in his tenure had close business dealings with Yulia Tymoshenko, the famous pro-Western hero of the Orange & Maidan revolutions, and when the heat got too much for him in Ukraine he tried to seek asylum in US of A ;)
The solution to this is to cripple Russia so Ukraine can join the west without being scared of retaliation.
It's funny -- writers like Anatoly Karin keep arguing that "pro-EU/pro-Western" views in Ukraine have turned into a Cargo Cult. "If we join or even 'move closer' to the E.U. all our troubles will go away!". Sometimes I think this view is more true of Westerners than Ukrainians.

fjihr, you're aware that Russia is/was Ukraine's biggest trading partner? That the 1998 Russian financial crisis was a gut-punch for the Ukrainian economy? So naturally, "crippling" Russia is a sure way to make Ukraine better! Why I'm sure the E.U. will be happy to accept a Ukraine that even more of an economic basket-case than OTL into its fold. :rolleyes:
The West isn't going to want Ukraine as long as it will remain a corrupt hellhole, though.
Not to worry -- as we've established up-thread, having Ukraine turn into a dictatorship is the best way for the nation to fight corruption & demonstrate it's commitment to "common European values" :D

Heck, this has been suggested OTL by multiple sources post-Maidan:

(17/02/2014)
"We need someone like Pinochet for about one year to clean up the situation. If a new president is elected it will be the same story, and none of the current politicians will be punished for their corruption. Someone like Pinochet for a year, then we’ll have elections."
-- "Igor", former Afghan vet and a (then current) member of the Euromaidan Self-Defense Force

(23/07/2016)
"In order to change presidential powers, to restructure the country, to reinvigorate the law so that it once again serves the people, to fight corruption - to do all that you need a dictator, who holds everything in his hands. You need that in order to return the power to the people and to make it so that it's never again taken away from them... I used to say that 'I don't want to [be president] but I could'. Now I'm saying I must [become president]"
-- Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian national war-hero-turned-politician

(05/10/2016)
"[Ukraine's ideal president] must be a dictator. Democratic mechanisms are unable to save the state since they are distorted by corruption."
-- George Tuka, Ukraine's "Deputy Minister for the temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons"
 

Deleted member 1487

Ukraine is in a really weird position that Poland wasn't, Poland had a history of self governance, even under Soviet occupation, while Ukraine was governed from Moscow and was not ethnically homogenous, plus it is far away from the West, while Poland is integrated with Germany and much of the rest of Europe, while Ukraine is linked to Russia economically as much as the West. So not only did Ukraine have to form a government from scratch without any history of self governance on a national level, they were also caught in the economic gravity of Russia as well, without any recent history of non-Soviet government (Poland had been non-Communist and independent as recent as the late 1930s, while Ukraine had been always part of a larger empire and stuck with what Russia wanted one way or another). I don't think Ukraine was capable of doing what Poland did just due to it's history and institutional knowledge.
 
Ukraine is in a really weird position that Poland wasn't, Poland had a history of self governance, even under Soviet occupation, while Ukraine was governed from Moscow and was not ethnically homogenous, plus it is far away from the West, while Poland is integrated with Germany and much of the rest of Europe, while Ukraine is linked to Russia economically as much as the West. So not only did Ukraine have to form a government from scratch without any history of self governance on a national level, they were also caught in the economic gravity of Russia as well, without any recent history of non-Soviet government (Poland had been non-Communist and independent as recent as the late 1930s, while Ukraine had been always part of a larger empire and stuck with what Russia wanted one way or another). I don't think Ukraine was capable of doing what Poland did just due to it's history and institutional knowledge.
Ukraine wasn't "governed from Moscow" (at least not in the sense you're implying). For example, one of the main arguments* used by the current Kiev administration as to why Crimea belongs to Ukraine is that it was the government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and not the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic or the pan-Union government that payed for & was in charge of the post-WW2 reconstruction of the peninsula. Poland's post-1989 government was derived from the pre-1989 one just like Ukraine's post-communist government was derived from the government of the Ukrainian SSR; claiming that Poland has a "history of self governance" while Ukraine doesn't because of the interwar period is incredibly silly since 1) Poland was part of the Russian Empire for centuries just like Ukraine was & 2) the inter-war Polish government you talk about had fled to London during the war, stayed there for several decades, than simply acknowledged that the Warsaw government is "real" Polish government post-1989.

And as I outlined in the last post, the idea that one needs to "break" with the "economic gravity of Russia" to be "successful" is straight-up asinine.

* - I make no veracity on how true this argument is however.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
So... in a thread where the OP requests for a scenario where Ukraine is as 'successful' as Poland the answers thus far ranged from 1) tanking the Ukrainian economy even more than OTL (sinking money into nukes, kicking the Russian fleet out of Crimea and loosing the cash-flow and gas price discounts Russia gave in exchange for basing rights, even breaking all economic ties with the Russian Federation) 2) turning Ukraine into a pariah state (instituting a coup, perusing nuclear armament, annexing Transdnistiria as a 'favor' for Moldova) 3) going to war with Russia ... for some reason and 4) having Ukraine join the E.U. despite points 1) through 3).

And here I thought it was impossible to make Ukraine suck even harder than it does OTL. :p

Has anyone considered the fact that Poland has something like 1/3 of Ukraine's population and has been receiving significant financial subsidies from the European Union for years? Gee, might that have played a role in the average Pol being better off than your average Ukrainian?
Wouldn't it be more beneficial to peruse closer cooperation with your biggest trading partner (and the #1 destination for your migrant workers that send needed cash flow back to the homeland) rather than cutting off your own nose to spite your face?
Hey, how about rather than getting nukes and demanding to be let into the E.U. instead focus on not having Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko embezzle $200 million from the nation between 1996 and 1997 (as a reference, that's about 1/3 of Ukraine's entire GDP for the year 2000!)? Also fun fact for those of you saying Ukraine's troubles are tied to Russia: Lazarenko in his tenure had close business dealings with Yulia Tymoshenko, the famous pro-Western hero of the Orange & Maidan revolutions, and when the heat got too much for him in Ukraine he tried to seek asylum in US of A ;)It's funny -- writers like Anatoly Karin keep arguing that "pro-EU/pro-Western" views in Ukraine have turned into a Cargo Cult. "If we join or even 'move closer' to the E.U. all our troubles will go away!". Sometimes I think this view is more true of Westerners than Ukrainians.

fjihr, you're aware that Russia is/was Ukraine's biggest trading partner? That the 1998 Russian financial crisis was a gut-punch for the Ukrainian economy? So naturally, "crippling" Russia is a sure way to make Ukraine better! Why I'm sure the E.U. will be happy to accept a Ukraine that even more of an economic basket-case than OTL into its fold. :rolleyes:

Not to worry -- as we've established up-thread, having Ukraine turn into a dictatorship is the best way for the nation to fight corruption & demonstrate it's commitment to "common European values" :D

Heck, this has been suggested OTL by multiple sources post-Maidan:

(17/02/2014)
"We need someone like Pinochet for about one year to clean up the situation. If a new president is elected it will be the same story, and none of the current politicians will be punished for their corruption. Someone like Pinochet for a year, then we’ll have elections."
-- "Igor", former Afghan vet and a (then current) member of the Euromaidan Self-Defense Force

(23/07/2016)
"In order to change presidential powers, to restructure the country, to reinvigorate the law so that it once again serves the people, to fight corruption - to do all that you need a dictator, who holds everything in his hands. You need that in order to return the power to the people and to make it so that it's never again taken away from them... I used to say that 'I don't want to [be president] but I could'. Now I'm saying I must [become president]"
-- Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian national war-hero-turned-politician

(05/10/2016)
"[Ukraine's ideal president] must be a dictator. Democratic mechanisms are unable to save the state since they are distorted by corruption."
-- George Tuka, Ukraine's "Deputy Minister for the temporarily occupied territories and internally displaced persons"
In regards to dictatorship, if Ukraine's economic situation isn't going to improve over the years ahead, then I certainly wouldn't exclude the rise of a Ukrainian version of Putin (but a pro-Western one).
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Ukraine is in a really weird position that Poland wasn't, Poland had a history of self governance, even under Soviet occupation, while Ukraine was governed from Moscow and was not ethnically homogenous, plus it is far away from the West, while Poland is integrated with Germany and much of the rest of Europe, while Ukraine is linked to Russia economically as much as the West. So not only did Ukraine have to form a government from scratch without any history of self governance on a national level, they were also caught in the economic gravity of Russia as well, without any recent history of non-Soviet government (Poland had been non-Communist and independent as recent as the late 1930s, while Ukraine had been always part of a larger empire and stuck with what Russia wanted one way or another). I don't think Ukraine was capable of doing what Poland did just due to it's history and institutional knowledge.
All of these are very fair points, actually. :)
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Ukraine wasn't "governed from Moscow" (at least not in the sense you're implying). For example, one of the main arguments* used by the current Kiev administration as to why Crimea belongs to Ukraine is that it was the government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and not the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic or the pan-Union government that payed for & was in charge of the post-WW2 reconstruction of the peninsula. Poland's post-1989 government was derived from the pre-1989 one just like Ukraine's post-communist government was derived from the government of the Ukrainian SSR; claiming that Poland has a "history of self governance" while Ukraine doesn't because of the interwar period is incredibly silly since 1) Poland was part of the Russian Empire for centuries just like Ukraine was & 2) the inter-war Polish government you talk about had fled to London during the war, stayed there for several decades, than simply acknowledged that the Warsaw government is "real" Polish government post-1989.

And as I outlined in the last post, the idea that one needs to "break" with the "economic gravity of Russia" to be "successful" is straight-up asinine.

* - I make no veracity on how true this argument is however.
I agree that cutting economic ties with Russia is suicidal for Ukraine; indeed, this appears to have been one of the mistakes of Ukraine's post-Maidan government(s).

Also, though, in terms of territory, Ukraine is the successor of the Ukrainian SSR; however, all of the SSR leaders were essentially Moscow's puppets until at least the late 1980s.
 

Deleted member 1487

Ukraine wasn't "governed from Moscow" (at least not in the sense you're implying). For example, one of the main arguments* used by the current Kiev administration as to why Crimea belongs to Ukraine is that it was the government of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and not the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic or the pan-Union government that payed for & was in charge of the post-WW2 reconstruction of the peninsula. Poland's post-1989 government was derived from the pre-1989 one just like Ukraine's post-communist government was derived from the government of the Ukrainian SSR; claiming that Poland has a "history of self governance" while Ukraine doesn't because of the interwar period is incredibly silly since 1) Poland was part of the Russian Empire for centuries just like Ukraine was & 2) the inter-war Polish government you talk about had fled to London during the war, stayed there for several decades, than simply acknowledged that the Warsaw government is "real" Polish government post-1989.
Yes there was local management, but policy was largely set in Moscow for the Soviet SSRs. The history of institutional bureaucracy and independence from Moscow was larger in Poland than Ukraine. Also not all of the Polish government fled, there was plenty of locals with institutional knowledge of governance that stayed and either joined the Home Army or were involved in the German administration on a local level and got coopted into the post-WW2 Communist government. Poland was part of Russia since about the 1795 and had some local governance and greater economic integration with the West/Central Europe than most of Eastern Europe. Really geography was probably one of the biggest factors in helping Poland, as it's politics 'democratized/capitalized' quickly after the fall of the communist government and economically it was more developed and just closer to the richer western markets. Ukraine was relatively underdeveloped in a lot of areas and western businesses didn't want to work there due to the shitty governance.

And as I outlined in the last post, the idea that one needs to "break" with the "economic gravity of Russia" to be "successful" is straight-up asinine.
Russian money is as good as anyone else's and trading with neighbors is great, but Russian money comes with Russian influenced in politics and the economy, which kept Ukraine out of NATO and the EU, which would have helped diversify them and help create less of a dependence on placating Russia.
 
I have a question? What did Ukraine get in exchange for giving back the Russian Nukes? Could they have gotten economic assistance in exchange or am I not thinking things through?

I know Poland went through a period of Shock Therapy Economics before bouncing back by the mid 90's, would it be possible for Ukraine to do the same if they got rid of some of the more egregious corruption?
 
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