US, NATO, EU & Ukraine – What Next?

Ukraine’s biggest geopolitical problem is that it is situated on the border with a giant, powerful, threatening, vindictive, aggressive, and deceitful neighbor – Russia.

Throughout history, countries near and far have never given Ukraine a fair shake. At best those countries could be classified a fair-weather friends.

Despite Lord Palmerston – Henry John Temple’s quotable quote that there are no permanent enemies or friends, just interests in international relations, Ukraine has never even been invited to the global arena on an equitable basis. Because of international fear of Russia’s ubiquitous presence on the border with Ukraine, global attention has been benevolently passive at best and maliciously negligent at worse. Ukraine has been and continues to the victim of a slew of detrimental circumstances.

Russia has been called on the carpet by the US and other western allies for its disruptive adventurism but never punished. Their words are supportive and their sanctions reassuring but in the end Moscow never ceased its wrongdoings anywhere around the world – Europe, the Middle East, Central or South America or Asia.

Take today’s shameless invasion of Ukraine. As in the post-war years, when none of the attempts by Ukrainians or the other captive nations to liberate themselves from Russian subjugation were actively supported by the free world, so to today for all intents and purposes Ukraine has been left to face Russian aggression by itself. Even the intelligence services were remiss in their duties to monitor what Russian is planning and doing. Putin had almost announced during the summer of 2013 – just like Hitler did in his Mein Kampf – that he will no longer tolerate the independence of the x-captive nations, especially Ukraine, and will restore the iron curtain.

Ukraine is now caught in a war for its survival with Russia and the world is still contemplating what to do about it. To be fair, the Washington’s rhetoric is on target, as demonstrated by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s testimony yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Canada has assumed a harsh stance versus Russia while other allies have been less stringent.

Much to the embarrassment of Russia, UN member-states have also expressed support for Ukraine and varying degrees of condemnation about Russia.

Sanctions have been applied and reportedly they have had significant negative effects on Russia, despite Putin’s denial.

Much to the EU’s credit, it did accept Ukraine into its fold, which hopefully will contribute to Ukraine’s economic, commercial and political evolution.

But nonetheless, Ukraine today is still regarded as a second-class participant in global affairs. It will continue to be compelled to look over its shoulder to see if Moscow is mobilizing its army on Ukraine’s borders.

Thankfully, Russia’s energy pipelines cross Ukraine into Europe, bringing it resources for its existence but without those pipes Europe would probably betray Ukraine in the blink of an eye.

Ukraine’s only salvation is if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization were to grant it full membership. Since the end of World War II, NATO’s veil has been unfairly offered to too few countries. Some former captive nations in Eastern Europe have been allowed to join, but not Ukraine.

NATO announced that it is preparing measures to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, while adapting to the fact that Moscow now considers the alliance as an adversary, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told a Spanish-language newspaper on Sunday.

NATO has made clear it has no plans to get involved militarily in Ukraine or accept it at as member, even though it has sent military aircraft and ships to Eastern Europe and Rasmussen said it was considering long-term measures to ensure the protection of its allies.

“We must adapt to the fact that Russia now considers us its adversary,” he said.

Rasmussen said NATO was preparing an aid package to present to its members’ foreign ministers at the end of this month that would include help for Ukraine to reform its defense sector and modernize its armed forces.

But even in this context the allies are not in unison. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, perhaps the most outspoken, is dangerously wrong to resist NATO calls for permanent deployment of allied troops in former captive nations, amid fears of retaliation by Russia. During Rasmussen’s visit to Berlin this week, Merkel acknowledged that many former captive nations feel unsafe because of developments in Ukraine, but according to Euractiv Germany she curiously said: “There is no doubt the NATO-Russia Act should remain valid.” – The 1997 act ended presumably only on paper the rivalry between Russia and NATO, which in fact exists in proxy situations everywhere.

Such a good cop-bad cop behaviour on the part of the alliance is not safe.

As Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said today, the situation in Ukraine, including how EU and others treat it, is a test for the European Union. “Today the situation is a test for the EU in terms of what the European Union is and which role it should play in the world,” he said at a briefing in Kyiv.

Klimkin pointed out that if the EU countries do not act as a team, nobody would believe them in future. He noted that for this purpose the EU countries had demonstrated unity in their approach to the situation in east Ukraine and Crimea. He expressed hope that such a common position would be adopted with respect to Ukraine in future.

Very true. It is a futile exercise to hope that Moscow will undergo a democratic metamorphosis because nothing in its history and current events indicate that change is in the offing. Consequently, the US, EU and NATO must remain as bastions of freedom and democracy for Ukraine and the other former captive nations versus Russia’s very real never-ending aggression and offer them full membership.

That is the only hope for global peace, stability and security. Otherwise NATO will evolve into a paper tiger and unfortunately Russia will realize this before the alliance does.