Is Ukraine Ready?

Sameer Lalwani, blogging live from the NATO summit in Bucharest, raises another set of questions about the idea of NATO membership for Ukraine -- is it really a good candidate state? He cites some insights from Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves:

Ilves went on to explain that countries attempting to wield the threat of internal upheavel, civil war or political collapse to leverage entrance into NATO would likely fall short or undermine their own case for membership. "Don't say you're owed anything" he argued. Rather, prospective countries needed to make the case on their own merits -- that they are on par with other admits and have made domestic reforms that warrant entrance. Overall, he argued that entrance needed to be sought for the sake of the country, for the citizens of the nation.

Ukraine, as Sameer notes, is suffering from various sorts of ills that make it questionable at the moment as to whether or not bringing it into the alliance would be any kind of real asset. Meanwhile, we have President Bush arguing that NATO is not an anti-Russian alliance but Ukraine needs to be a member so it can fight Russia (or else perhaps robots) so there continues to be some underlying confusion among proponents of further expansion as to what they want to do. It's worth noting, however, that John McCain is a real outlier in terms of anti-Russian sentiments and seems to take the view that the proper role of the President is to go out of his way to cast all U.S. action in as an aggressively Russophobic light as possible, so things could get much worse.

Comments

There's all kinds of crazy NATO news today.

BBC: "Nato has confirmed it will not yet offer membership to Georgia or Ukraine after the 26-member alliance was split amid strong objections from Russia."

BBC: "Greece says it is almost certain to veto Macedonia's bid to join Nato, following Macedonian portrayals of the Greek prime minister as a Nazi."

RTE: "President Nicolas Sarkozy has said France will decide next year on its full reintegration into the military structures of NATO. [...] 'After the French presidency, the time will have come to conclude this process, and to take the necessary decisions for France to take its full place in the structures of NATO,' Mr Sarkozy said.

NATO-riffic!

Posted by joejoejoe | April 3, 2008 8:40 AM

Sameer Lalwani's error is that he is taking his understanding of Ukraine from another. The problem here is his error is being repeated and adopted by Matt. This error is the suggestion that most Ukrainians in Eastern Ukraine are opposed to NATO entry. The people in Eastern Ukraine who oppose the entry are Russian immigrants brought in during the Soviet occupation of Ukraine. Of course they will vote with Russia's interest and not Ukrainian. The great Ukrainian majority, non-Russian, from Western Ukraine are strongly in favor of associating with NATO. As Americans we should understand the feelings of emigrants for their native country since we see it in the Mexicans who have migrated here who identify more with Mexico than the USA.

Unfortunately, I must agree with Bush on this one. Had Ukraine been put on a course to join NATO, it would have been a small but important redoubt against the oil empowered Russian. It also may have given Russia second thoughts in its attempt to destroy its independence.

However, maybe what Bush has a sinister motive and does not really support Ukraine. We may be looking at a bait and switch. When Bush goes to meet Putin he may give Putin Ukraine so that he can put his missiles in Poland to defend the US against Iranian missiles that can only reach, at best, Germany. To understand Bush, you must realize he is the first president who believed the 4th Amendment did not apply to him. So selling out another country would hardly bother him since he so cavalierly sold out the rights of his own people.

Posted by Matt Connolly | April 3, 2008 8:49 AM

If Russia was smart, they'd ask to join NATO, too. They can claim to feel the threat from China on their eastern border.

Posted by Helter | April 3, 2008 9:24 AM

Matt Connolly is confusing "Ukraine" with "Lithuania." Eastern Ukraine has had a strong Russian element since at least the 18th century - or really back to Kievan Rus in the 10th century since traditionally there was never any kind of sharp division between "Ukrainians" and "Great Russians". Culturally and linguistically the difference between Ukraine and Russia is certainly no greater than the difference between say Bavaria and Prussia, Tuscany and Calabria, or England and Scotland. And then you have to deal with the fact that even major Southern and Western Ukrainian cities like Odessa and Simferopol were never culturally part of Ukraine in any way - they were Russian imperial cities, traditionally with very culturally diverse populations - Jews, Greeks, Tatars, Rumanians, etc. - who don't really want to be incorporated into an ethnically pure Ukraine. The mistake in retrospect the Russians made was incorporating Galicia into Ukraine after it was occupied in 1939. Galicia had never been part of the Russian Empire and is culturally much closer to the West than the rest of Ukraine. It's the Galicians who are causing most of the trouble.

It's ironic that people still talk about a Russian threat when all the US has done the last 19 years is try to weaken and undermine Russia at every opportunity.

Posted by vanya | April 3, 2008 10:34 AM

It is indeed dumb to tie Ukraine joining NATO to sending a message to Russia, and I agree it raises an issue of Bush treating this as more of a bargaining chip than an actual proposal. As an aside, as I noted in the last thread, I also agree it makes pretty good sense for Russia to join NATO.

Anyway, one thing people like Matt need to understand is that joining NATO involves going through the Membership Action Plan process. So, a country like Ukraine doesn't have to be completely ready at the start of this process, but the goal is to guide them to the point they are ready, and then they can join. And that is one of the real benefits of NATO expansion to the existing countries in NATO, such as the United States: this admission process is an opportunity to guide countries through reforms that will make them safer and better partners, even before they actually join NATO.

Posted by DTM | April 3, 2008 10:49 AM

I have a question. What purpose does NATO serve in the world at this point? Its original purpose was containment of the Soviet Union. Is a massive alliance of most of the most powerful countries in the world (plus a lot of tiny weak ones) really required to contain Russia at this point? And if containment of Russia is no longer the point then what in the world is?

Further, does the United States really want to get into a mutual protection pact with Ukraine? In other words, should Ukraine be attacked (by, let's say Belarus), would the citizens of the United States really be prepared to go to war? To me the idea is insane.

Also, vanya's comments about the US undermining Russia at every turn for the past 19 years is right on.

Posted by Rob Mac | April 3, 2008 1:59 PM

Piling on: Thanks, vanya, for bringing some informed sense to this discussion. Matt Connolly's ideas about the Russian population in eastern Ukraine, and the legitimacy of its leanings, are -- well, let's just say interesting.

Even aside from the provoking Russia, it's not at all clear to me why NATO states should have any interest in giving Ukraine membership. The EU's already bitten off a big chunk with the accession of the nations in southeastern Europe. I haven't talked to any Europeans who think that expanding the Union is desirable in and of itself. Yet plainly NATO membership is intended as a precursor to Ukrainian EU membership, and Ukraine's problems are much larger and deeper than even those of, say, Romania.

This is just Bush at his most phantasmagorical, obtuse, and hapless. The stupid prick may as well propose that everyone fart lilac, for all the relevance it has to -- anything.

Posted by sglover | April 3, 2008 2:44 PM

The primary purpose of NATO in the post-Cold War world is to help the member nations coordinate their military policies and actions in mutually-beneficial ways. The basic premise is that most military threats in the modern world are unlikely to be limited to individual nations, and the most prominent current examples would be "rogue nations" like South Korea and international terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda. There are also basic economies of scale in military matters which tend to reward coordination of this kind. Finally, a notable secondary purpose of NATO is to encourage various security-enhancing reforms among applicants as a condition to their becoming members.

Posted by DTM | April 3, 2008 4:32 PM

The notion that since "terrorism is everywhere" that every military bloc in the world (the US, NATO, China, Russia) needs to be "everywhere" is bullshit.

There is no military solution to terrorism. Period.

Therefore, NATO has no business being in Afghanistan - as most of the European population and many of their leaders agree (based on the reluctance to get more heavily involved than they are.)

NATO should be concerned about defending the EU against any conventional military enemies, and any militant groups within or near the EU's borders.

As for admitting new members, unless that country is an official member of the EU, it should not be invited in. Cultural and economic ties should come first, not military ones.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | April 3, 2008 5:43 PM

Richard Steven Hack,

First, you don't have to believe the military can solve terrorism to think sometimes military action against terrorist groups is necessary. And indeed, I'm not sure I understand why a European country would only be concerned about militant groups located near its borders--it is not all that hard for militant groups to take action at a distance from their primary location.

Second, from where do you get your premise that cultural and economic ties necessarily must come before military ties? Indeed, should the United States not be allied with countries in Europe because it isn't part of the EU? Should the United States not be allied with Japan or Australia either? Are you really that isolationist?

The fact is that military treaties can have mutual benefits regardless of whether or not the countries share a common culture and economy. Indeed, insisting on only being allies with countries that are already closely knit in other ways strikes me as extremely short-sighted--we should want a lot more friends in the world than that.

Posted by DTM | April 3, 2008 6:15 PM

"If Russia was smart, they'd ask to join NATO, too. They can claim to feel the threat from China on their eastern border."

My understanding is that they have on a few occasions. Guess what the answer was?

Posted by Daniel Nexon | April 3, 2008 7:12 PM

I agree with DTM's comments. NATO membership for Ukraine, while admittedly at this point primarily a pipe dream, doesn't realistically threaten Russia in any way. Opposing it, however, is very useful for the current rulers of Russia on a number of levels.

For Ukraine, the idea offers very important advantages in its ongoing efforts to re-establish its ties with European culture that were artificially blocked for three-quarters of a century.

And congratulations to The Amazing Hack for finally getting someone to respond to one of your posts on the merits rather than as a reply to the usual stream of insults, abuse, and hysteria. Yes, DTM, he's really "that isolationist". And worse.

Posted by Robert Powell | April 4, 2008 7:05 AM