ABSTRACT
After his accession to power in July 1994, Ukraine's president, Leonid Kuchma, introduced a Bismarckian approach to policy that was not only ambitious but urgent. Although Kuchma's predecessor, Leonid Kravchuk, had begun to convince key Western powers that Ukraine's future affected their own interests, three years of independence 1 had done little to dislodge the widespread prejudice that Ukraine was a geographical expression rather than a nation and that its second 'experiment' in independence in this century would fail like the first.2 Strictly speaking, this state of affairs called for a dual policy rather than a 'balanced' policy on Kuchma's part, for in the absence of positive Western interest in Ukraine (thanks to the nuclear issue, there was no deficiency of negative interest) there were no countervailing forces to balance. Instead, circumstances demanded nothing less than a comprehensive effort to reshape the country's geopolitical environment and, by coordinated but asymmetric means, secure long-term, mutually beneficial, and mutually reinforcing relationships with both Russia and the West.3
