RT Expert View: shortcut to NATO
30 November, 2008, 11:33
This week we discuss Georgia’s and Ukraine’s prospects for joining NATO and whether they need the much-discussed Membership Action Plan to gain entry to the alliance.
Peter Lavelle, RT’s political commentator and anchor.
This upcoming week NATO will meet. At the last meeting there was the promise that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually be given a Membership Action Plan and would end up in the alliance at some point. This was promised. Is the position still firm?
There has been talk of side-stepping MAP all together. This would be a major change in strategy. Is membership for Ukraine and Georgia turning into a pride issue?
There appears to be great reluctance to backtrack on the earlier promise. Where does NATO go from here?
Patrick Armstrong retired in 2008 after 30 years as an analyst for the Canadian government, specialising in the USSR and then Russia.
All indications are that Washington is the principal mover behind the idea that Georgia and Ukraine should become NATO members soon. Indications are that some, or even many, of the Europeans members are beginning to have their doubts about whether Georgian membership might be too much of a blank cheque. But at least the Georgian population wants into NATO – no opinion poll has suggested that more than a quarter of Ukrainians want to and in a recent poll nearly half regarded the issue itself as very divisive. Which it is: it is hard to think of an issue more calculated to split Ukraine than NATO membership.
So, the real question is whether Washington has give up on the idea. It seems inconceivable that the current Administration can push the other NATO members into making a firm offer, so that question boils down to the question of whether the next Administration will continue to advocate membership or quietly give up the idea. But, given that Barack Obama seems to be bent on filling his appointments from Bill Clinton’s address list, and given that NATO began its apparently unstoppable expansion in the Clinton Administration, it may be naïve to expect a change.
As to the future of NATO, one may be sure that it will continue to provide a comfortable employment for its minions for many years to come.
Sergei Roy, editor, www.guardian-psj.ru
Condoleezza Rice, a sure candidate for the title of the worst secretary of state under the worst possible president of the United States, is nearing the end of her term in office in her usual unilateralist style. This steadfastness might earn her grudging respect – if it weren’t for a sense of grotesque rupture with reality that informed her feverish activities this past week in the run-up to the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on December 2-3.
The International Herald Tribune thus described these activities: “U.S. starts diplomatic offensive on NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine.” Now, who are the targets of this (not very) diplomatic assault? Apparently, the “old European” countries like France, Italy, Germany and quite a few others, who refused to proffer Georgia and Ukraine what is known as the Membership Action Plan, or MAP, at the Bucharest NATO summit in April. Instead, “after much haggling,” in the words of a senior NATO diplomat, a compromise was reached in Bucharest to postpone the decision until December, when the application of Georgia and Ukraine for membership would be reviewed, the decision to offer that membership plan contingent on the two countries’ greater readiness to enter upon it.
In fact, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel then raised the most serious objections to accepting these two new members on even more general grounds. As reported at the time, Merkel had not yet decided how far NATO should expand or whether NATO would be willing to defend these two countries if they were to come under attack – or, one must presume, if they were foolish enough to start a military adventure of their own.
These doubts of Frau Merkel and her French, Italian, and other European colleagues have only grown since April, particularly in the wake of Georgia’s criminal assault on South Ossetia and its leaders’ general tendency toward stupid provocations, while Ukraine has been sinking into an ever deeper political and economic crisis that steadily pushes it toward the unenviable position of a failed state.
Thus there is no question but that the two candidates are less ready than ever to enter upon a MAP and are not going to be offered any such thing in Brussels. So what has Condoleezza Rice come up with?
Putting it briefly, she now says: Scrap the MAP! At a news conference at the State Department she outlined a plan for circumventing this obstacle to the US desire to bring NATO military bases within a few kilometers of Russia’s borders. She pointed out that Poland and the Czech Republic had not been required to follow any such scheme as MAP, and spoke of “different ways to fulfill the terms of the Bucharest declaration” reached in April. One way, she said, would be through the special Georgia-NATO and Ukraine-NATO commissions. In plain Anglo-Saxon, this means: by hook or by crook. Primarily the latter.
Forestalling possible criticism, she said that this procedure for involving Georgia and Ukraine in NATO “does not anticipate or suggest that there would be lower standards for entry into NATO. It does not suggest that there needs to be an accelerated timetable. It is the same open-door policy that we've had about meeting standards.”
In situations like this, rude Russians are likely to ask the $64 question: “Why would a priest need a concertina?” If there is to be no lowering of standards and no accelerated timetable – why scrap MAP? What’s the sense of such a weird procedure?
No sense in ordinary human logic, of course – but politics has a logic of its own. Politically, any decision along the lines suggested by Rice would (a) show the Europeans once again who is boss in NATO, and (b) leave the Obama administration less scope in disentangling itself from the Cold War-style mess into which the outgoing administration has plunged the US.
It is only to be hoped that the Europeans will correctly read these designs and react appropriately. It is hard to see how else they can react as they observe Condoleezza Rice perform her dance macabre – to the accompaniment of Obama’s discrete silence.
Joera Mulders, independent Russia watcher, Amsterdam
Politicians and intellectuals in European capitals genuinely believe they can export values such as democracy, good governance and freedom of expression by offering membership to candidate members who have gone through a lengthy preparation process.
Let’s leave no doubt. I believe in these values. Yet, exporting values is a tricky process. The conditions present often do not adapt to imported values. The imported values adapt to the conditions present. The will of the people may be a strong paternalistic rule. Freedom of expression may cultivate a vocal xenophobic minority
EU enlargement was conducted out of the desire to bring Europe together. 'Never again', we said after 1945. 'Never again', we said after 1989. Yet the enlargement spreads values thin. Not only did the EU incorporate countries with questionable human rights records, the Balkan wars also raised doubts about the values of the West European governments themselves.
After populations of EU member states started to revolt against further enlargement, NATO stepped in with promises to those countries in line who by then realised they will not make it to the counter before the EU would call a technical break.
For both Kiev and Tbilisi, the prospect of NATO membership was initially a substitute for the prospect of EU membership.
What is in it for NATO? I truly believe NATO bureaucracy's prime concern is to exist. They need to do something. Georgia and Ukraine's location close to the Middle East or Russia is of secondary importance.
But what drives the EU electorate and their politicians? Pro-EU people are distressed that EU enlargement is halting. When NATO wants to export 'western' values, that is just great. The faith in the benevolence of these values is so high, that concerns about NATO are brushed aside. Those people who halted the enlargement don't care. They believe it is NATO and the Americans that will pick up the bill.
And what about the US? I believe the US wants a strong NATO to provide security for Europe in return for political support and admiration. Does it want NATO to encircle Russia? Individual policymakers may wish so. Is this a priority in Washington? I strongly doubt it.
As a result the EU has given NATO a carte blanche for its dealings with Ukraine and Georgia. And NATO has been extremely negligent in its attention for the conditions present: two ethnical-territorial time bombs in Georgia and a dividing nation in Ukraine.
NATO's promises drove Saakashvili mad. Once a beacon of democracy, now a bloody tyrant. Imported values adapt to the conditions present. But NATO didn't see that coming or did not care.
NATO's promises have turned Yushchenko into a president who wants to lead his country west, but leaves half of his people behind. NATO doesn't seem to care.
Will NATO promises turn false on the 2nd of December? Yes, they will. European capitals have realised NATO is not spreading their values, not even improving security. In total disregard of the local and geopolitical conditions, it is making a mess, discrediting the European values they claim to promote. Now these European capitals remember they have a voice in NATO and it will be heard, although quietly. European diplomats prefer to discuss awkward matters behind closed doors.
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