Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko intends to prepare his country for European Union and NATO membership within six years. Some of his fellow East Europeans who are already members of both organizations will actively encourage that ambition, while leaders of NATO and the EU will do their best to rain on Poroshenko's parade. I think the East European attitude has rather more merit.

At first glance, six years is an awfully short time for Ukraine to prepare for membership in the European clubs for nation states. Economically, the country is a wreck — lacking international reserves, almost devoid of globally competitive businesses, poor in exportable natural resources and still run by corrupt, bungling politicians.

For months, Ukraine's fiercest advocates have been calling for radical deregulation, to little effect. The week before last, Anders Aslund of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who has long rooted for a European Ukraine, thus described the recent coalition agreement of Ukraine's pro-EU parties that together have a majority in the new parliament: