In April 2008 the NATO Summit in Bucharest made the following declaration on Ukraine’s and Georgia’s NATO aspirations:
“NATO welcomes Ukraine’s and Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that these countries will become members of NATO. Both nations have made valuable contributions to alliance operations. We welcome the democratic reforms in Ukraine and Georgia and look forward to free and fair parliamentary elections in Georgia in May. Membership Action Plan is the next step for Ukraine and Georgia on their direct way to membership. Today we make clear that we support these countries’ applications for MAP. Therefore we will now begin a period of intensive engagement with both at a high political level to address the questions still outstanding pertaining to their MAP applications. We have asked Foreign Ministers to make a first assessment of progress at their December 2008 meeting. Foreign Ministers have the authority to decide on the MAP applications of Ukraine and Georgia.”
This language was disingenuous somewhat since the United States of America under President George W. Bush was pushing genuinely for Ukraine’s NATO Membership Action Plan while Germany and France did all they could to undermine that push ostensibly concerned with Russian reaction, that a MAP for Ukraine and Georgia would infuriate the Russians. Assuming good faith and simply bad judgment, apparently, there was a belief in the minds of Germany and France that Russia would be appeased from aggression if Ukrainian NATO membership were put on hold. They could not have been more wrong.
Since then, and only a few months thereafter, Russia invaded Georgia, then six years later invaded Ukraine, through a bogus referendum annexed a part of sovereign Ukrainian territory, then invaded another part of Ukraine, in due course murdered hundreds of Dutch and Australian civilians on board Malaysian Air 17, denied blame and accused Ukraine, proceeded to kill well over ten thousand Ukrainian military and civilians, forced the displacement of millions of Ukrainians, and in yet another part of the world enabled its lackey the murderous President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to use chemical weapons on his own people not once but twice, interfered with the democratic electoral process in the United States and attempted similarly to effect elections in France and Germany, attempted murders through chemical and other weapons on foreign sovereign territory. This is a limited version of a long and disturbing chronology of Russian aggression, disregard for human life and the sovereignty of other nations flouting international agreements and civilized behavior.
Ukraine, on the other hand, suffered a severe setback even before physical fighting with Russia ensued in 2014, with the takeover of power in Ukraine by a Russian proxy in 2010, his policies eroding Ukrainian democracy and sovereignty with fraudulent elections, a new agreement extending Russian military presence on sovereign Ukrainian territory for twenty-five years and precluding Ukraine’s quest for European integration. But the Ukrainian people managed to win that hybrid battle through a Revolution manifesting their nation’s dignity. Thereafter, even in the midst of now a military confrontation with Russia, Ukraine has conducted democratic elections, managed to shore up its military from a tattered insignificant number to more than a quarter million today, one of the largest by a democratic state and the largest in Europe and even began its battle with endemic and often foreign imported corruption.
If the Bucharest declaration was a legitimate test for Ukraine and not merely rhetorical, Ukraine over the last ten years has passed that test with very high grades. If Germany’s and France’s reluctance in Bucharest was a test for Russian appeasement, Russia has failed that test miserably. In fact, Russia has been fully exposed as the incorrigible enemy and pariah of a civilized world, to be contained only through deterrence.
NATO’s next summit is in July in Brussels. There should be no question about Ukraine’s military preparedness for NATO. Nor should there be any question about Russia’s aims irrespective whether Ukraine is in NATO or not. German and French reluctance of 10 years ago has managed only to whet the Russian appetite for aggressive adventure. That’s what appeasement does. In fact, Ukraine’s path to membership in NATO is a deterrent to Russian aggression. Deterrence is the only viable course. The sooner that NATO member countries, and in particular the reluctant ones, recognize this the better for NATO. Ukraine would become arguably NATO’s most potent and reliable non-nuclear member. Germany and France have an opportunity to correct their Bucharest error.
Under NATO’s security umbrella, Ukraine and its oligarchic leadership, albeit democratically elected, might even address more seriously some of Ukraine’s other problems like corruption. Being on the path to NATO membership requires a certain behavior which Ukraine would be behooved to follow. Security assurances such as NATO affords and military rigor as NATO requires will make Ukraine even stronger both militarily and democratically. That’s clearly a win not only for Ukraine’s citizens but its neighbors as well. A democratic and strong NATO member on Russia’s border may be Russia’s worst nightmare, but it’s also the civilized world’s greatest and thus far most elusive dream.
The writer is an attorney at law based in New York and former president of the Ukrainian World Congress.
