Postwar reconstruction: how Ukraine can find its voice in history

Today, we talk a lot about Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction and development. However, the focus is mostly on physical rebuilding. I think this is wrong because that’s not what it is all about. If we focus on the physical restoration of destroyed buildings and infrastructure, this country will not stand a chance against Russian pressure or any other reality that will emerge in its place.

A photo of Pavlo Klimkin by Mykola Myrnyi/ZMINA

What I mean is regimes in Russia can change, but so far, no one has figured out how to change Russians.

If Ukraine focuses only on the physical reconstruction of the country, it will not even have a chance to have a voice in the West.

When I was a student studying quantum mechanics, my professor told me a story that happened during a physics exam at the University of Zurich. After the professor in that university had handed out the exam problems, one student raised his hand and said, “These are the same problems that you gave at the exam two years ago.” The professor replied, “Well, yes, but the answers have changed since then.”

So, if we don’t realize that the answers have changed for us, then we can assume that we have lost this historic chance and that everything that is happening around it is almost useless.

The problem is not that the world is changing because of some configurations or coalitions but that people and technologies will differ in one generation. One of the interesting discussions I’m having right now is about how artificial intelligence will affect international relations. We may be surprised to see how this world will govern itself in a generation.

The people are the only real achievement and potential of this country and nation. Not resources, not land, as we like to say, but people. If we fail to make Ukraine a successful project of the 21st century, we will lose.

In the twentieth century, there were only two successful examples of countries that were under constant security pressure and managed to reboot themselves: Israel and South Korea. These are different stories that took place in different conditions, but both succeeded. Much has been written about this. We have to re-read this experience and do it in our own way. We cannot copy these experiences, but we must understand our uniqueness and tell the story of it. So far, we have not told it.

For the past six to eight months, I have communicated with our Western friends and representatives of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. And I realize they have begun to look at us with different eyes, but they have no idea who we are. We are terra incognita for them.

They realize that we are different from people in neighboring countries. We are unique people, but no one understands how. And we are not able and cannot tell our story yet. Moreover, we have big problems telling it in the West.

And until we start talking about our future and asking ourselves questions, we will not be able to tell others who we are and what we want. And today, we cannot want what we wanted before 2014. And if we do not ask ourselves these questions in the discussion about the future, then we will lose ourselves.

In non-public discussions, there are statements expressed that a nation and a country on a winning drive will have no real incentive to change. Something like, “What is the incentive to change if you feel that you are successful?” At the same time, the participants of the discourse believe that changes are possible in a situation of constant security pressure and social and economic challenges. After all, one cannot overcome some fundamental challenges without changing oneself.

A couple of weeks ago, I had an interesting private discussion about how we can build a technological start to the process of real negotiations with the European Union on joining this alliance. They asked if I could give some advice, and I said, “I can’t.” We don’t know what to negotiate about, even if we start. We cannot become classic Europeans. We have already gone through that.

We have to start the discussion with the fact that we have a Constitution, which is a compromise of post-Soviet elites. We have a social contract that doesn’t really exist anymore. We have the whole logic of building a state – it is from there, post-Soviet. It needs to be rebooted, and then we need to understand how we see the Ukrainian energy sector. We haven’t even really started these discussions yet.

It’s like in Alice [in Wonderland]: “Where are we going?” – “Where do you want to go?” Don’t think that a significant number of our friends who sincerely sympathize with us and help us assume that Ukraine can make fundamental positive changes on the wave of victory. This is not a dominant sentiment in the West. In other regions of the world, no one believes in this, and almost all of them do not care what happens to Ukraine. They believe that the main thing is that it does not interfere with their interests.

We need to understand who we want to become.

I’ll tell you an anecdote in conclusion. Once upon a time, mice and other animals that were being used for experiments gathered together and went to an owl for advice, “Owl, listen, give us some strategic advice – how should we live our lives?” The owl replied, “Oh, please: become hedgehogs.” They were happy, ran, got the last stolen cheese in the kitchen, and celebrated. And one of the animals raised its paw and asked, “So, how do we become hedgehogs?” They sent another delegation to the owl with this question. And the owl answers them, “Well, you asked for strategic advice, and I gave it to you. I don’t deal with tactics.”

Many things sound great. We always have big, attractive goals, but we can’t build a plan. Many of my friends say: you Ukrainians are very cool, you are emotional. One of my very good friends in the European Commission says, “You are like Slavic Italians with your emotion, but you are fundamentally allergic to any planning and any strategy.”

You need to understand that all these processes, no matter what you call them, are not important without a plan. Do you remember an Australian cartoon called Around the World in 80 Days? There was a character called Mr. Fix, and he always had a plan that eventually fell apart, but we don’t even have a plan. We just keep moving forward. It is great that we have a binary mentality,  that we are unique. But at some point, we need to understand how to combine this uniqueness, binarism, and emotion with how the world works. After all, the world is unthinkable without planning.

I’m not saying that we need to create a 75-year plan like China or Singapore. But at least for a certain period of time, we need a vision and an understanding of how to achieve it. Otherwise, it will be drawn for us, which is already being done.

There is still a chance for us to choose worthy options, but then we need to choose and be responsible for it. We need to answer where we are going and, most importantly, how we will get there.

We also have the problem that strategies are written to be forgotten at the moment of adoption or even before that moment of adoption. So, we need to realize that this concerns all of us, which is very important.

Now we have a chance. We have it because we realize the cost of what is happening around us. We have already wasted a lot; if we don’t use this chance, it will be written down in history.

Speech by Pavlo Klimkin, diplomat and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, during a discussion on the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, principles of growth, and development challenges at the event of the Civil Network OPORA on September 21 in Kyiv.