The Eagle and the Trident

An insider's account of the complex relationship between the United States and post-Soviet UkraineThe Eagle and the Trident, the first comprehensive account of the development of U.S. relations with an independent Ukraine, covers the years 1991 through 2004, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. During that period, the United States devoted greater attention to Ukraine than any other post-Soviet state, except Russia. Here Pifer has written the definitive narrative of the advances and setbacks experienced by Washington and Kyiv while both countries worked to fulfill the promise of the newly independent Ukrainian state.The relationship between the two countries moved from heady days in the mid-1990s, when they declared a strategic partnership, to troubled times between 2001 and 2004. The Eagle and the Trident describes how the United States has generally succeeded in its major foreign policy goals in Ukraine-notably the safe transfer of nearly 2,000 strategic nuclear weapons left there after the Soviet collapse. However, while Washington also provided robust support for Ukraine's effort to develop into a modern, democratic, market-oriented state, these efforts to reform the state proved less successful, leaving a nation that was not sufficiently resilient to stand up to Russian aggression in 2014.Pifer, who served as the American ambassador to Ukraine during its early days of independence, reflects on what worked and what did not work in the various U.S. approaches toward Ukraine since independence. He also offers a practitioner's recommendations for current U.S. policies in the context of ongoing uncertainty about the stability of Ukraine and Russia's long-term intentions toward its smaller but important neighbor.