SNOTRA DELUX
OUR-BLOGS
HOT-VIRAL-ADDICTIVE!
OUR-BLOGS
HOT-VIRAL-ADDICTIVE!
On a day when Kyiv was pounded by Russian shells and missiles and the invading force tightened its grip on the capital, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, acknowledged that Ukraine will not join Nato. This is a significant concession on a day when the invading force tightened its grip on the capital.
At least five people were killed in the latest artillery onslaught on Kyiv, forcing the city council to declare a 35-hour curfew starting Tuesday night, amid concerns that the Russian campaign's emphasis has moved to the destruction of civilian infrastructure and residential areas.
While speaking to leaders of the new Joint Expeditionary Force, a UK-led project bringing together ten north Atlantic nations to establish a capacity for reacting quickly to emergencies, Zelenskiy mentioned Nato.
"It is evident that Ukraine is not a Nato member; we recognize this," Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko remarked. "We've heard about the seemingly open door for years, but we've also heard that we won't go through, and these are facts that must be accepted.
NATO claims to have a "open door policy" for new members. According to NATO's website, any European nation that is in a position to advance the principles of the Washington Treaty and contribute to security in the Euro-Atlantic region may join the Alliance at the request of the North Atlantic Council.
NATO's position has always been that any state that wishes to join NATO is welcome to do so. There is a procedure and criteria to follow if it takes that decision on its own.
Countries who want to join NATO must achieve "particular political, economic, and military objectives.
The Alliance announced standards for nations seeking membership in NATO in 1995. These are some of them:
(i) a functional democratic political system based on a market economy;
(ii) equitable treatment of minorities;
(iii) commitment to peaceful conflict resolution;
(iv) capacity and desire to participate militarily in NATO missions;
The essential aspect is that Ukraine has made the decision. In practice, adopting a country with a smoldering war and unresolved territorial issues would be difficult for NATO since NATO absorbs the problem.
The impression was, and probably still is, that Ukraine has not totally eradicated political corruption and that its democracy was still evolving. As a result, the Alliance had some official grounds to claim that Ukraine was not yet ready to join the Alliance.
According to NATO's website, during the Bucharest Summit in 2008, NATO welcomed Ukraine's request for membership and agreed that it may ultimately join if it satisfied certain criteria. NATO membership is subject to a number of requirements. Ukraine didn't actually meet any of them, but it was on its way to doing so, and NATO was assisting them in doing so.
There was a way back then, but it now seems to be much less plausible. However, according to Sloan, an unspoken reason for Ukraine's refusal to join NATO was due to European officials' fears about how it might effect their relationship with Russia. Many European allies were adamantly opposed to admitting Ukraine because they hoped to strengthen their ties with Moscow. So there was the official and technically correct explanation, but there was also an unsaid, mostly political rationale.
Russia's Strategy
Russia's approach has been to instigate crises in countries that may join NATO in order to complicate the process, as is the case in Ukraine right now.
This is quite unlikely to occur. At this moment, there are just too many challenges. Sympathy for Ukraine is high right now, and depending on how the crisis plays out, this might lead to a shift in NATO's stance about Ukraine's membership.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and Quora
HOT-VIRAL-ADDICTIVE
