NATO Expansion – The Impact of Ukrainian and Georgian Membership

NATO has been expanding. Many of the former Soviet-bloc countries are currently supporting the seemingly-unilateral American operation in Iraq. Furthermore, President Bush recently emphasized the necessity of wider and greater NATO cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which many assumed that Bush hoped to include Ukraine and Georgia into NATO in the near future. Russia will obviously oppose any such movement. But why is it so obvious? This article analyzes the role of NATO in the post-Cold-War era with a specific focus on the impact of Ukrainian and Georgian membership.

NATO has been a military organization to plan tactics and strategy against any hostile nation. Its imagined or probable enemies were the Soviet Union and its Warsaw allies. In the 1980s, NATO became a channel of bi-lateral negotiations on arms control between the United States and the Soviet Union. One example for such function is the Treaty on the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (the CFE Treaty). This treaty restrained the possession of conventional arms, namely tanks, armed combat vehicles, artillery, combat aircrafts, and combat helicopters. By 1995, regardless of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunification of Germany, the ceiling on the number of arms enforced by the CFE Treaty was fairly observed. By this statistics, people assumed that Europe became a peaceful theater of economic and political cooperation.

Europe, however, has never been “arms free.” Even with the positive results from the CFE Treaty, a close analysis on the treaty itself gives an alternative view. First, no naval arms were restricted by the CFE Treaty or any other treaties (except a few types of nuclear cruse missiles). Anti-submarine nuclear depth charge, submarine launched nuclear missiles, aircraft carriers, naval aviations… those are the technological advantages of the United States and its NATO allies, never limited. Second, by the membership of Denmark and Turkey into NATO, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea are “choked” by NATO-friendly ports of Copenhagen and Istanbul respectably. These two points above guarantee NATO’s strategic advantage over any navies in the world. Third, with this NATO’s supremacy on the sea and NATO’s capacity of rapid deployment, NATO can transport any quantity and quality of armed forces within a short period of time anywhere in the world. Therefore, it seems that there is little impact of NATO expansion on the Russian national security; without Ukraine and Georgia, NATO can do any hostile actions against Russia if it is willing to do so.

Then, why is NATO expansion necessary? Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO had to seek out its new mission. Economic and political cooperation has been taken over by the European Union. So, NATO was willing to cooperate with the United Nations to carry out the so-called humanitarian interventions. Additionally, recent “War on Terrorism” has been associated with the idea of collective security guaranteed by NATO charter. NATO is now deeply involved in the both operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both humanitarian interventions and war on terrorism often focus on the universal peace and freedom of all humanity. Therefore, the more participants such operation has, the higher legitimacy the operation will gain.

From the Russian perspective, NATO expansion into Ukraine and Georgia is more than a strategic loss. Of course, NATO bases across the mountains from Chechnya and NATO naval bases on the nose of the Crimean Peninsula are annoying and future problems can be easily expected. What we should focus here, however, is the Russian pride. Both Ukraine and Georgia were traditionally in the Soviet/Russian bloc. Many nationals in those countries share culture, language, and religion. Participation of such countries into NATO simply means the decline of the Russian influence in the region. Military reality of NATO supremacy described above is one thing, but socio-political decline of Russia is totally another thing.

Russia will not be a part of NATO for a while. Despite the fact that the Soviet Union joined the Gulf War on NATO’s side, Russia prefers to be an alternative patron in Europe to the United States or the European Union. The Russian pride fueled by rich national resource reserves will not easily give up Ukraine and Georgia regardless of the seemingly-determined military inferiority of Russia. Observing the political life of Gorbachev, the admittance of the Russian (or Soviet) loss in international relations, small or big, will put the leader into a miserable collapse of domestic political leadership. Remembering Machiavelli, it is unlikely that Putin or his successors would commit such political suicide.

Tags: Europe, Politics, Russia

Category: Articles