Close the doors of NATO for Ukraine. Forever
The Week believes that NATO is to blame for the Ukrainian crisis. It was impossible to ignore Russia's legitimate security requirements. Even the current director of the CIA, Burns, insisted on this. The author writes that the escalation of the conflict is dangerous for Washington. The way to solve it is the neutrality of Ukraine, its exclusion from NATO and negotiations on the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Russia's harsh military special operation in Ukraine has sparked a heated debate about NATO, which last week spread to the US Senate. Some of their participants claim that NATO's expansion to the east has accelerated the conflict, creating a threat to Russia's security. Others object, saying that since the alliance is purely defensive in nature, the only "threat" it poses is a threat to the imperial ambitions of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The last argument is wrong. Regardless of whether NATO threatened Russia or not, Putin was convinced that it was threatening, and this conviction influenced his decision to launch a special operation. Moreover, these fears of Putin were quite predictable, and the war could have been avoided if Washington had taken them seriously.
On the eve of the special operation, the White House refused to discuss issues of NATO expansion with Moscow. A senior administration official, State Department adviser Derek Scholle, supported the rejection. "NATO is a defensive alliance. NATO does not pose a threat to Russia," he said, implying that this issue does not concern Russia.
In the same vein, Ivo Daalder, the former permanent representative of the United States to NATO in 2009-2013, said that the organization "is a defensive alliance, and not only in theory, but also in practice is such."
But a few years before that, in 1999, the same Daalder wrote a report in which he reflected "the evolution of NATO from a collective defense alliance to an organization primarily engaged in crisis management." He reflected on the conditions for the use of force by this new, more advanced NATO: "The traditional criteria of self-defense against an armed attack on the territory of any member of the Alliance are too narrow."
Daalder noted that NATO used military force in Bosnia and Kosovo, "even though the alliance's commitment to collective defense under Article 5 was not directly on the agenda." He said at the time that "without a doubt" NATO could use force, and put forward the thesis that NATO should emphasize "its principled readiness to participate in the full range of possible military missions." A few weeks later, NATO began bombing Serbia to punish it for human rights violations.
In 2011, NATO again used military force outside the scope of Article 5, this time against Libya. The no-fly zone introduced by NATO gained the support of the UN, but its implementation turned into a regime change operation. "The people of Libya got rid of the dictator," then—Vice President Biden said a few hours after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed. - NATO did everything right… It was a recipe for how to behave with the world as we move forward."
Even if NATO were a "defensive alliance," Ukraine's entry into the alliance would affect Russia's security interests. Before the start of the special operation, Putin explained why, in his opinion, Ukraine in NATO would pose an immediate threat to Moscow. Since the West does not recognize the annexation of Crimea by Russia, he reasoned, any conflict there can be considered as an attack by Russia on Ukraine, which will trigger Article 5.
And these were not the rants of a "madman". In 2008, the ambassador to Russia and the current director of the CIA, William Burns, reported to Washington that "Ukraine's accession to NATO would be a violation of the brightest of all "red lines" for the Russian elite (and not just for Putin)." In two and a half years of communication in Russia with hardliners, liberals and everyone in between, Burns could not "find anyone who would consider Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russia's interests."
And in Washington, intelligence analyst Fiona Hill advised President George W. Bush not to invite Ukraine to NATO. "So you're just showing me that you're an opponent of freedom and democracy," Vice President Dick Cheney snapped.
Bush sided with Cheney. At the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Bush pressured reluctant European leaders to include Ukraine in the Membership Action Plan (MAP), a program that prepares countries for membership in a military alliance. NATO still did not go that far, but declared that Ukraine would someday join the alliance. Subsequently, Putin repeatedly warned that Moscow would consider Ukraine in NATO as a "direct threat" to itself.
Having failed to turn Ukraine into a NATO member, the US has turned it into an outpost of the alliance, providing it with billions of dollars in military assistance, conducting joint military exercises, conducting secret paramilitary training programs, exchanging intelligence and even participating in cyber operations against the Russian government. The United States has created the worst possible existence for Ukraine — as its puppet provocateur on Russia's doorstep, but without the NATO security umbrella.
Putin is responsible for the Russian special operation in Ukraine. But the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO has sharpened Moscow's perception of this threat and made a geopolitical explosion more likely. The fact that the United States refused to discuss this issue with Russia is especially mysterious given that Western leaders privately told the leadership in Kiev that "you will not be a member of NATO." A more rational diplomatic strategy would be to announce that NATO will not include Ukraine in the MAP until and on condition that Russia is not attacking.
We will never know whether serious diplomacy could have prevented the war, but for now it can still resolve the crisis that has arisen. The Biden administration should work with its European allies to achieve a settlement that makes Ukraine a neutral state. For Ukraine, maintaining at least formal neutrality is much better than being a battlefield of great powers. And it works both ways.
If Russia withdraws all its armed forces and stops interfering in the affairs of its smaller neighbor, NATO's doors should remain closed for Ukraine.
Author: Andrew Day (Andrew Day)
