Ukraine: Lebensraum Re-imagined

The WEF anticipates the plundering of Ukraine to support its vision of a Green and Inclusive European Superstate. Good luck with that.

I received New Year’s greetings from a contact in Kiev.  No context.  Just New Year’s greetings.

I had been planning on sending New Year’s greetings to this same person, but how should one frame such a thing without appearing flippant or (the other extreme) being too patronizing?

Yes, people are still functioning in Kiev.  Surely there have been some days, or even weeks, that have been more challenging than others.  Electricity supply has not been constant.  The building at the end of the block from my former apartment—the same place that hosted the gym I would use on weekends—had absorbed a missile at some point.  Situated just beyond that building are gas-fired, municipal steam heating facilities.  Perhaps those were a target?

Over the last year I contracted my friend in Kiev to do some translating.  We are awaiting a short manuscript from an older gentleman.  This older gentleman had been a judge in the Soviet-era legal system, and he and a cluster of other people had crafted the first competition law in Ukraine.  That would have been in the early 1990’s.

The antitrust mission back then was to deal with the fact that erstwhile “state-owned enterprises” had become privately-owned monopolies through the process of post-Soviet privatization.  Had no one anticipated such an outcome?  Was no accommodation made for the prospect of state-owned monopolies becoming privately-owned monopolies.

Having failed to break up state-owned enterprises into competing entities, the post-Soviet government adopted an “anti-monopoly” mission.  Hence the name of the (then) new antitrust authority, The Anti-monopoly Commission of Ukraine (AMCU).

More than twenty years later, the Federal Trade Commission of the United States (FTC) secured a contract from USAID to provide “technical assistance” to the AMCU.  Observers both within Ukraine and outside Ukraine were looking to a reinvigorated AMCU to “de-oligarchize” the economy.  Which would have entailed what?—arbitrarily infringing property rights just because the wrong people owned the right stuff?  Expropriating oligarchs might be satisfying and might make for good press, but it would amount to arbitrary rule in place of the rule of law. 

De-oligarchization really did not go anywhere, but by early 2022, the authorities, in consultation with their technical advisors, contemplated a new effort.  They would adopt methods that the antitrust authorities in Mexico had adopted for ostensibly dealing with their own former state-owned enterprises.

It was about this time last year that I had some discussion with the FTC about participating in this renewed effort.  I went in to the discussion expecting that I would decline any offer to participate.  At the very least, I remained skeptical that any effort would amount to anything much better than expropriation, but I was open to hearing more positive interpretations of what the project would entail. 

I surprised myself to find that I would have been agreeable to doing another tour of duty in Ukraine.  I remained skeptical about the prospects for the mission, but getting an inside perspective on the proceedings—and influencing those proceedings—did have some appeal.  But, then the kicker: both the Ukrainians and the US government would require that I get “vaccinated.”  I declined.  A week later, the Russians invaded.  De-oligarchization would have to wait.

I am now getting messages about how the US/EU bloc is anticipating the reconstruction of Ukraine.  One American contact sent me a link to a piece from The New York Times titled “Away From the Spotlight, a Debate Rages Over a Postwar Ukraine Economy” (December 8, 2022.  Non-pay-walled version here.)  It’s just a lot of blather about nothing. More pointed and detailed is this piece from The Epoch Times: “Zelenskyy, BlackRock Announce New Investment Initiative to Rebuild Ukraine” (December 28).  Buried in the The Epoch Times piece is a link to this bit of ideological nonsense from the World Economic Forum: “Ukraine's reconstruction must be green, inclusive and technology-driven.”  “Having abundant natural resources,” the WEF avers,

Ukraine can support the green transition of Europe and bolster the continent’s energy security. In particular, the country can supply solar, wind and hydroelectric energy, as well as hydrogen green steel and batteries, while also producing safe and high-quality agricultural products that would strengthen Europe’s food security.

It is imperative to ensure that the Ukrainian economy remains competitive. This means reducing its carbon footprint and cutting pollution while nurturing its energy independence. It also means rebuilding the required production facilities with energy-science technologies, developing clean transport and ensuring the availability of charging infrastructure. We also need to responsibly utilise natural resource potential and provide Europe with the commodities required for the green transition — including lithium, cobalt, titanium and more, all of which Ukraine has at its disposal.

Through all of this, “Inclusivity is particularly important.”

I do not know how much the WEF vision will influence whatever ultimately comes of Ukraine, but one can make some basic observations.  Ukraine is like the American Mid-west and West in that its economy revolves around mineral resources and agriculture.  The region has exported wheat for a few thousand years.  Then there is its mineral endowment (mostly coal).  Add that to its Soviet-era aerospace and engineering heritage.  Finally, add to all of that a restive and capable population of young people.  It is a country of vast potential, but one must now wonder how many of those young people—those not absorbed in a continuing war of attrition—have already absconded and will not be keen to return.

Years ago, I found myself hosting a young fellow from Ukraine during his visit to the antitrust agencies in the United States.  The colors of the Ukrainian flag, he observed, reflect the country’s most conspicuous endowments: golden fields under crisp, blue skies—skies that stretch to the horizon.  The WEF contemplates subordinating Ukraine and plundering its resources to support its Woke, Inclusive and Green vision of a centralized Europe.  It contemplates polluting those golden fields with solar panels, shutting down its capacity to produce fossil fuels, and plundering its stores of battery-friendly minerals.  It is hard to imagine that the WEF cares about the people or about Ukraine’s welfare in itself.