The Clinton Administration’s Policy of Democracy Promotion in Ukraine (1993–2001)

The violence perpetrated against Ukraine has raised questions regarding the direction of U.S. grand strategy since the end of the Cold War, with the Clinton administration’s decision to pursue a policy of democratic promotion in central and eastern Europe coming under specific scrutiny. Was this, as critics suggest, a strategic blunder that prompted Moscow’s apparent attempt to re-establish control over its former satellites, or, as was believed at the time, a necessary step towards political and economic reform of the European continent following the Cold War? This paper reveals how the Democracy Promotion pillar of the Clinton administration’s policy of Engagement and Enlargement aided the development of Ukraine without antagonizing the Kremlin, and the lessons that the Biden administration could glean from this policy thirty years later.