The Military Roots of Modern Ukraine --- Ukraine was once central to Soviet defense production. That history has shaped the country's politics.

""War made the state, and the state made war," the sociologist Charles Tilly once wrote. Success on the battlefield, he observed, required states to construct the powerful, centralized institutions that would define them in the modern era -- institutions with the coercive power to effectively extract taxes and draft soldiers, for example.

Tilly's theory might seem distant from Ukraine. But war has profoundly shaped Ukraine's political institutions at least since the aftermath of World War II, and it now looks certain to do so well into the future.

In the early 1950s, the U.S.S.R. sought to revive its devastated cities by means of its defense industry. The Soviet leadership chose the southern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk (today, Dnipro) for the construction of a new satellite and intercontinental ballistic missile plant, known today as Pivdenmash. Dnipropetrovsk's defense production grew at pace with the Soviet arms race against the West. And while none of its missiles were launched at their intended targets, Dnipropetrovsk became the launching pad for the careers of numerous Soviet statesmen: For three decades, officials affiliated with the city's military industry rose through the ranks to occupy leading roles in various ministries, the KGB and the Communist Party.

The symbiosis of arms manufacturing and political power brought prosperity to Dnipropetrovsk, promoted the careers of regional elites and helped the U.S.S.R. assert its global status. But it also helped create the conditions for the Soviet state's eventual undoing. Awash in subsidies and shielded by its strategic importance, the Soviet military sector quickly ossified and became impervious to reform -- a conservative force in Soviet society and an obstacle to investment in infrastructure or consumer goods that might have helped fulfill the system's emancipatory promises.

When Ukraine became independent in 1991, defense was its most advanced industry. But like the rest of the country's economy, the industry depended on production and distribution chains that connected it to other former Soviet republics. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. plunged Ukraine into a profound economic crisis. Between 1990 and 1999, according to World Bank figures, the Ukrainian GDP contracted by 60%, in constant prices and never recovered.

Leonid Kuchma, a rocket engineer and chief director of the Pivdenmash missile plant since 1986, became the country's prime minister in 1992 and president in 1994. He promised moderate reforms and technocratic stability. But he had to navigate between one camp -- including the "red directors" in charge of Ukraine's industries at the time -- that insisted on the necessity of preserving ties with Russia, and another -- nationalists and democrats -- that argued for liberalization and Westernization. Under Mr. Kuchma, the country adopted a constitution in 1996 that declared Ukraine "a state with a constantly neutral, nonaligned status."

During Mr. Kuchma's two terms, regional business networks in Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk grew into financial-industrial groups that combined control of heavy industrial assets with media power and political influence. Arbitrating among these oligarchic groups, Mr. Kuchma built a system of patronage that gave him vast power. Wary that his successor would inherit it and use it to attack the oligarchs, among whom was his son-in-law, Mr. Kuchma also pushed through constitutional reforms that moved the center of power from the presidency to the parliament.

Oligarchic rivalry became entrenched in the legislature, where the wealthy businessmen in control of these interest groups began to support rival factions. They waged demagogic campaigns that polarized the public: a nationalist, pro-European, neoliberal political camp supported by voters from rural Western Ukraine and the urban middle class was pitted against a Russophone, relatively pro-Russian camp supported by voters from the more industrialized Southern and Eastern Ukraine. Workers and managers of Ukraine's much diminished defense industry, particularly in Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv, predominantly supported the latter. Ukraine soon found itself in a culture war that helped produce a pro-European revolution in 2014, quickly followed by war with Russia-sponsored separatists.

At independence, Ukraine had inherited approximately 30% of the Soviet defense industry and around 40% of the Soviet Armed Forces, totaling some 700,000 troops in a country of 52 million. But Ukraine couldn't pay for a military this size. Mr. Kuchma and subsequent presidents cut military spending and decommissioned or sold off military assets to buyers in developing countries. As a result, its military was decimated.

The pro-European revolution that began in 2014 permanently transformed Ukrainian politics. Around 4.5 million Ukrainian citizens -- roughly 10% of the country's total prewar population -- now lived in territories no longer controlled by the central government, in Donbas and Crimea. These were once the core voters of the pro-Russian political camp. That camp's purchase on Ukrainian politics began to dwindle, strengthening pro-European political forces.

The two wartime presidents, Petro Poroshenko and Volodymyr Zelensky, followed similar trajectories. They both entered office as political omnivores, seeking to appeal to all sides of Ukraine's diverse and divided polity, and campaigning for peace and reconciliation. But the complex task of balancing among corrupt oligarchs, managing Ukraine's financial dependence on the West and assuaging disaffected voters left both presidents little space to maneuver.

Both eventually came to side with the most organized and vociferous constituency in Ukrainian politics: the Westernizing nationalists. Mr. Poroshenko pushed through changes to the constitution that replaced the neutrality and nonalignment clause with one about Ukraine's aspiration to join the EU and NATO. Mr. Zelensky followed in his footsteps.

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Dr. Fedirko is a social anthropologist at the University of St Andrews, where he researches the political economy and media in Ukraine." [1]

1. REVIEW --- The Military Roots of Modern Ukraine --- Ukraine was once central to Soviet defense production. That history has shaped the country's politics.
Fedirko, Taras. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 28 May 2022: C.3.