Ukrainian question in the US policy during the Cold War

Volodymyr Holovchenko, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Institute of International Relations, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine.

Abstract

Based on the published documentary sources of Western origin, article spotlights the issue of Ukrainian question in the Cold War era US foreign strategies. It was found that at the state level is situationally raised only in political and ideological terms, mainly by members of Congress, but it lacks the expressive intentions and actions. This internal contradiction generated by disbelief in the possibility of the Soviet Union peaceful collapse, largely explains the lack of preparedness of US politicians to accept Ukraine as a great European power after the declaration of its independence. In their Soviet policy most US top leaders after 1917 took into account the inevitability of chaos is extremely undesirable and global destabilization as a consequence of the USSR disintegration.

National problems in the Soviet Union from practically political and not ideological point of view considered in the West mainly as an internal prerogative of official Moscow. Moreover, generally believed that attempts to break the status-quo in the territory of the USSR could cause irreparable damage to security interests of Western democracies, causing local or even global armed conflict.

It should also be noted that the Congress was probably better than the presidential administration prepared to understand the aspirations of freedom-loving Ukrainians. First, for many of congressmen support of ethnic communities has traditionally been important. Secondly, many members of Congress in 1970-80 participated in actions to protect human rights in Ukraine. The campaign united Liberal Democrats and hard anticommunists-Republicans, that relatively well focused on the internal political situation in the Ukrainian SSR, knew of many former political prisoners and most importantly – do not have stereotypes about these people that were sketched by propaganda from the Kremlin.

Keywords
cold war, international relations, policy, Ukrainian question

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DOI http://doi.org/10.17721/2521-1706.2016.01.40-49