In the near future Ukraine will not join NATO for a number of reasons, in particular due to the unprecedented crisis of confidence within the Alliance between the United States and European countries.
This was announced by the expert of the International centre for policy studies, Yevgeny Yaroshenko, writes “Apostrophe”.
In his opinion, even if the population of Ukraine will give a positive answer on joining NATO at the national referendum, this does not bring Ukraine closer to membership in the Alliance. The expert gives three points, which are called reasons of the impossibility of Ukraine’s accession to NATO in the near future.
1. The lack of unity among member States of NATO around Ukraine’s membership. According to article 10 of the NATO Treaty, member States of NATO may, by unanimous agreement, invite any European state to join NATO, if the country is able to comply with the provisions of this Treaty and to contribute to Euro-Atlantic security. As a consequence, the disagreement of one of the 28 member States of NATO is a sufficient legal obstacle to Ukraine’s accession to the Alliance. So, at the Bucharest NATO summit in 2008, Germany and France blocked the granting Ukraine and Georgia the plan of action on membership in NATO (pdch). Today there are much more States-members of NATO, who are critical to the entry of Ukraine because of their unwillingness to worsen relations with Russia.
2. Inconsistency of Ukraine some criteria of NATO membership. Although Ukraine spends on security sector and defence 5% of GDP and gradually goes to the military NATO standards, our state has not yet reached the important criteria contained in the map. In particular, in connection with the Russian annexation of the Crimea and armed conflict in the Donbass Ukraine is not able by peaceful means to solve international disputes, territorial disputes and “claims newossetian lands.”
3. An unprecedented crisis of confidence inside NATO between the United States and European countries. On the one hand, with the arrival of Donald trump to the US government began to strictly require European allies to do more to contribute to Euro-Atlantic security. So, 26 European countries-NATO members in total cover 34% of costs associated with stationing U.S. forces in Europe. In addition, only 5 (USA, UK, Greece, Poland and Estonia) from 28 States-NATO members adhere to the recommendations for defense spending at 2% of GDP. On the other hand, countries on the Eastern flank of NATO (Poland, Romania, Baltic countries) have lack of confidence in the abilities of his allies come to help in case of an invasion of Russia. As a consequence, the conceptual contradictions within NATO are doing the question of accession of Ukraine is irrelevant in the near future.
According to Yaroshenko, in connection with the impossibility of joining NATO in the short term, Ukraine is expedient to use the Swedish model of security policy, which is in close Euro-Atlantic cooperation and the achievement of the military standards NATO without formal membership in the Alliance. In addition, Kiev must initiate new European security architecture, which would have minimized the risk of Russian aggression against our country.
