Bush the Younger was in Ukraine yesterday and he was extending his support to the idea that Ukraine (and Georgia) should be permitted to begin joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I have no idea how serious Bush is in his desire to see Ukraine put on the path to membership, other NATO members are less than enthusiastic. For all I know he was just saying nice things while he was a guest in their country and has no intention of following up in the least, but I am in complete agreement. NATO should be expanded to include Ukraine and Georgia.
NATO was created, more or less, to ensure that in the event of a Soviet attack on Western Europe the United States would have no choice but to commit immediately and totally to the fight. Before the alliance was founded the United States had twice tried to stay out of European continental wars and twice failed to do so. NATO recognized the reality that Europe and America are, both culturally and economically, bound much closer than most places separated by 3,000 miles of ocean.
The Soviet Union hasn’t existed for seventeen years and that has naturally raised questions about the purpose of NATO. In a world that remains conflict ridden and unstable an alliance as successful as the one between the North Americans and the Western Europeans was not to be casually discarded, whatever its original justification. NATO is comprised of countries that no longer have any significant territorial or security disagreements (Cyprus and Gibraltar being two prominent but manageable examples to the contrary) and share a devotion to representative government and liberal society. They make natural allies.
After the Berlin Wall fell and the two Germanys reunited, the NATO membership of the newly reunited country endured. Nine years ago NATO was expanded again, with quite a bit of controversy, to three former members of the Warsaw Pact. Four years ago a slew of former Eastern Bloc states and three (3!) former Soviet Socialist Republics were brought in as well. In the new world the threat of invasion was less than the threat of instability. NATO remained a defensive alliance, but it also became a way to bind the new democracies (where a slide back to totalitarian government was not out of the question) to the older and more established ones. These were precedented moves; Spain joined the alliance in 1982 after it emerged from the dictatorship of General Franco.
Expanding NATO is not altruism on the part of America, Britain, France, Germany or any of the older members. Saying to countries like Poland, the Baltic republics, or even Ukraine that they are not welcome at the Atlantic table because they’re just too close to Russia is the worst kind of short sighted realpolitik. The article in this morning’s New York Times quotes the French prime minister thusly, “We are opposed to the entry of Georgia and Ukraine because we think that it is not a good answer to the balance of power within Europe and between Europe and Russia.” That’s an awful lot of words to basically say, “Please don’t turn off our natural gas.”
It’s unfortunate if the Russians are antagonized by expansion, but they need the cooperation of Europe (as a market for natural gas and for other economic reasons) just as much as the Europeans need them. The last time I checked one sovereign nation does not have the right to tell another, no matter their history together, what groups it may and may not join and what policies it may and may not pursue.
The point is to tie North America and Europe that much closer because together we are all stronger. At the moment Ukraine may not have much to directly contribute to the security of the United States, but that may not be the case twenty years from now. It’s a country of 45 million people and while it is neither rich nor strong today, a few decades down the road it very well could be both. Would the French Prime Minister prefer the Ukraine become a strong and wealthy country with close ties to Russia? Or to Western Europe?
In the more immediate future the newer NATO members have proven eager to contribute troops to peacekeeping missions and generally done what they can to prove that they belong as well. In an effort to pad its application Ukraine is already supporting NATO missions around the globe. A little fresh blood in the club from time to time is a healthy thing.
Let’s also not forget that the attacks of 11 September 01 caused NATO to invoke Article 5 (the one that stipulates that an attack on one member is considered an attack on them all) for the first time. That means that the war everyone wishes got more attention was a NATO war, while the Iraq war is not. Anyone who would like to remind the Russians that NATO is not an American led gang of international vigilantes can point to the lack of NATO sanction for the 2003 invasion of Iraq as proof positive.
The trans-Atlantic alliance remains the defining security arrangement of the world. As much blood as has been spilled in all the regional and ethnic conflicts, most of which sprung up after the Cold War, the terrible specter of a real World War III has never been more remote. This is the kind of democracy promotion that the United States and friends can and should be doing. A democratically elected and legitimate government is asking to join the premier club of democratic governments. The right answer, in all kinds of ways, is “Yes”.
Brief Note: At the moment Greece is unhappy with Macedonia’s application to NATO because it doesn’t want the country of Macedonia, which it refers to as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, to have exclusive rights to the term “Macedonia”. There was even a full page ad in today’s New York Times (page A15) detailing how much of historical Macedonia is in modern day Greece. I do not know the details of the grudge or how it got started, my guess is pride and money are at stake somehow, but I find this whole thing hilarious.
