ANALYSIS: Why Ukraine should be asked to join NATO in Madrid (07/06/97)

ANALYSIS

Why Ukraine should be asked to join NATO in Madrid

by Taras Kuzio

At the Madrid summit of NATO countries, the greatest changes in over half a century will be made to the European security landscape. Three, maybe even five countries, will be asked to join NATO. All of these potential candidates for NATO have earned a place within NATO's ranks for their persistence in pursuing domestic reform and resolving outstanding border and ethnic conflicts. However is not NATO ignoring Ukraine as a candidate for membership - the West's greatest strategic and geopolitical asset that arose in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet empire?

Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry visited Ukraine, an active member of NATO's Partnership for Peace and the third largest recipient of U.S. aid, on more occasions than he visited the U.K., France and Germany combined. Increasingly since 1994, Ukraine is being seen by Western governments as central to European security and stability for four inter-related reasons.

First, Ukraine, as Volodymyr Horbulin, secretary of its National Security and Defense Council pointed out, is the only country that is simultaneously part of Central, Eastern and Southern Europe. It is a member of both the Central European Initiative and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Agreement. Meanwhile, Ukraine is not legally a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States never having signed its charter, and has always opposed the creation of CIS supra-structures. By refusing to transform the CIS into a new Russian-dominated union and rejecting a military-political alliance with Russia, Ukraine is both preventing the renewal of Cold War between two expanding blocs and the revival of a Russian great power, which would pose a challenge to the new post-Cold War balance of power.

Secondly, unlike some other conditions contenders for NATO membership, Ukraine has resolved all of its border disputes and its frontiers are now all recognized in bilateral inter-state treaties with its neighbors. In addition, Ukraine peacefully resolved domestic difficulties with the Crimean peninsula.

Ukraine has consistently and strongly opposed Russia's demand for the division of CIS borders into "transparent internal" and "jointly guarded" external borders. This persistence on the part of Ukraine eventually led to the first legal codification of CIS borders between Ukraine/Belarus and Ukraine/Russia. As 90 percent of the contraband, narcotics, and illegal weapons are confiscated by Ukraine on the border with Russia, the border demarcation will help stem the flow of this contraband into Central and Western Europe.

Thirdly, as Zbigniew Brzezinski stated in a Foreign Affairs article three years ago, "without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire." Ukraine is the main external democratizing influence upon Russia. Mr. Horbulin believes the greater the degree of Ukraine's co-operation with European and Trans-Atlantic structures, the greater the degree of Russia's "Europeanization."

In 1992 and 1995-1996 Ukraine rejected Russian offers to maintain joint CIS armed forces or create a CIS military bloc, which, if supported by Kyiv, would have undoubtedly de-railed NATO enlargement. Ukraine's persistence in demanding internationally recognized borders will play a profound role in encouraging nation-state building within the borders of the Russian Federation. Ukraine's nation-state building will encourage Russia to no longer re-define itself as an empire.

Fourthly, Ukraine is a force for stability in an unstable continent. Its positive record on national minority and human rights have been recognized both by the OSCE and the Council of Europe. Kyiv cleverly used NATO enlargement to encourage Romania and Russia to sign inter-state treaties with Ukraine, thereby resolving two of Europe's potentially dangerous conflicts. Ukrainian peacekeepers have been active in the former Yugoslavia, first under U.N., and since then, under NATO leadership. Kyiv helped broker a resolution to the Transdniester conflict in Moldova when it became one of the guarantors of the non-resumption of hostilities after Russian forces are withdrawn. Ukraine's objectivity and impartiality in its peacekeeping have been recognized by Georgia and Azerbaijan, which would like to invite Ukrainian forces, under U.N. or OSCE auspices to Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh to replace Russian or Russian proxy forces.

Ukraine's membership in NATO, advocated by former U.K. Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, would therefore represent the anchoring of a key strategic ally within the Western camp and the consolidation of an arc of stability and security stretching from Italy to Ukraine. At the same time, it would serve to further reinforce Russia's democratic transformation into a modern nation-state by preventing the emergence of a new Eurasian empire.

There are no legal obstacles to Ukrainian membership in NATO, which Ukrainian Foreign Minister Hennadii Udovenko used to press for the consideration of Ukraine's membership at a meeting in Brussels in March. Ukraine's Constitution (June 1996) and National Security Doctrine (January 1997) both dropped Ukraine's earlier adherence to neutrality and non-bloc status. In addition, public opinion polls consistently give high support for membership similar to those levels found in the Czech Republic and Hungary; amid Ukrainian elites this is as high as 89 percent.

Western member governments of NATO should therefore commit themselves to three policies at Madrid. First, invite Ukraine to join NATO in the same capacity as Denmark or Norway, as a country that would not station nuclear weapons on its territory, and as France, which opted only for political-economic membership. This would allow for Ukraine's armed forces to be reformed and brought under civilian control prior to joining NATO's military structures.

Secondly, the U.S. and other Western governments should take a greater interest in Ukraine's energy security by encouraging Western private and institutional investment in the Azeri-Georgian-Ukrainian energy corridor.

Finally, Western governments should define their security interests in the Baltic-Black Sea region lying between Germany and Russia. Not only should more west European countries take an interest in Ukraine, but Ukraine's associate membership in the CIS should be no longer regarded as an obstacle to associate membership of the Western European Union.

By adopting these three policies, and inviting Ukraine to become a non-nuclear and political-economic member of NATO at the Madrid summit, Western governments will have successfuly consolidated their major post-Cold War security and strategic gain in Europe.

Taras Kuzio is a research fellow at the Center for Russian and East European Studies, The University of Birmingham, United Kingdom.

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