The Big Game That Matters

From early childhood, we Americans are conditioned to believe the most important human events are the big game. Athletic contests define us. What are our loyalties? Red Sox or Yankees? Giants or Dodgers? Redskins or Cowboys? UNC or Duke?

A little over a week ago the Big Game was a Super Bowl that wasn't very (super, that is). This week and next the Big Game is the Winter Olympics at Sochi in Russia.

Much as we enjoy the spectacle of these events, hang on every slip of a ski or skate, wince at every stumble or fall, once the spectacle is over, we should remember that nothing in the real world has changed. People still die in Syria and Afghanistan and Darfur, there is no peace in the Middle East. And nothing has made lives better for human beings anywhere, including here in America.

Six hundred forty-two miles North West of Sochi, in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, a drama is playing out that could change the lives of people living there and the fates of nations. The drama gets little press here, but at stake is the future of Ukraine as a European country. Will Ukraine join Europe or be captured in the orbit of a resurgent Russia?

Two decades ago, not long after the Soviet Union broke up, I met a dozen or so Ukrainian judges at a bar in Georgetown, District of Columbia. They were in this country to study our legal system, including some pretty esoteric issues of corporate law. They were interested to learn that I was vice president of a limited liability corporation. They had just learned about that legal structure.

After a few beers, they made it clear that their aspiration was for Ukraine to become a "normal European country." I found the same sentiment when I visited Kiev a few years later. It was as though the disaster at Chernobyl had broken a dam, releasing a vast reservoir of disdain and resentment at not only the former Soviet Union but also at Russia.

The story may seem complicated. The characters have funny-sounding names like a Dostoevsky novel.  Here is one account of what is going on and why it is happening.

This is an actual Big Game - and the outcome does matter.