Exclude Ukraine for Inclusive Security
// The price of the question
U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Kiev casts light on U.S. strategy in Eurasia and the prospects for regional security. Relations between Ukraine and NATO are a question of the stabilization or erosion of the situation from the Atlantic to Vladivostok. The former is possible through the creation of an international procedure that will include all states in the region. The latter will be the unavoidable result of the expansion of a union led by the United States.
The expansion of NATO in the 1990s was the reason the idea of a “new world order” failed and the countries of the West were unable to form institutions of collective security.
Why did it happen? First because he very scale of the expansion was insufficient to accomplish the goals set for it. The inclusion in the bloc of ten countries that had no independent military or strategic value was able to stabilize only a very small part of Europe.
Second, Russia, the second center of power in Eurasia after the U.S., found itself not only outside NATO, but in very complex relations with it. With all the consequences that implies. Including extra-regional players like China.
I will grant that these European problems may look less important from the point of view of U.S. global policy. It is much more important for Washington to obtain new allies in Europe that it can depend on to carry out its projects that are not related to European security. But in that case, the destabilizing role of the U.S. in Europe can be considered a fait accompli.
European history provides indisputable examples of a country's membership in NATO playing a decisive role in its movement toward democracy or away from confrontation. Italy was literally saved from political chaos at the end of the 1940s. The membership of Turkey and Greece in the alliance allowed them to avoid military clashes more than once.
But we will not forget that, in the case of Italy, participation in NATO was reinforced by the role of founder of the European integration process. And the alliance's structures allowed Greece and Turkey a unique opportunity to discuss disputed issues.
Neither of those factors are active in case of Ukraine. The European Union will not accept Ukraine as a member in the next 10-15 years. Nor is there any threat of conflict between Ukraine and another NATO candidate country. Thus, the value of Ukraine's membership in the alliance is null for security in Eurasia and for its own development. But the potential harm in domestic political turmoil and disassociation with Russia is huge. It has not only regional dimensions, but global.
The strategic stability of Eurasia can be achieved only through full participation by the countries that can disturb that stability, such as Russia and the U.S. Keeping Ukraine out of NATO leaves open the possibility of correcting the mistake of the 1990s. And the future possibility of entering into a system of universal Eurasian collective security that includes the “old” members of NATO, and Ukraine, and, most importantly, Russia.
Timofei Bordachev, director of the Center for European and International Research, State University – Higher School of Economics
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 31, 2008
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