From 'Tent City' to NATO
Washington Post, December 14, 2004; Richard Holbrooke

Optimism about Ukraine suffuses Richard Holbrooke’s December 14th op-ed in the Washington Post. He writes, “[t]he path of NATO enlargement… is now well understood. It has paid off handsomely for U.S. and European security.” And so, he proposes, Ukraine will soon join the ranks of NATO and, though “probably a decade away,” the European Union. What of the thousands spread throughout Kyiv (the Ukrainian name for the capital) protesting the attempted theft of the recent Presidential election? Holbrooke says, “There is little doubt that Yuschenko will soon be president,” and sees Russian President Vladimir Putin as “isolated and humiliated” after his attempt at direct assistance to the Prime Minister of Ukraine in his bid for the office. Ukraine, Holbrooke says, will succeed in saving its democracy, and, with “strong sponsorship by Washington, assisted vigorously by Warsaw,” add its name to the growing list of eastern European NATO members.