Ukraine-NATO: what next after the non-aligned status?

Although the current Ukrainian leadership has taken Ukraine’s NATO membership off the agenda, it is nevertheless actively cooperating with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. What hopes is Brussels pinning on cooperation with Ukraine? Does it expect Kyiv to take part in deploying the European antimissile system? This is the subject of The Day’s exclusive interview with Robert NURICK, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, who recently visited this country to take part in the forum “Ukraine 2020: a Political Dialogue in Support of Ukraine’s European Integration.”

A NATO Summit has recently been held in Chicago. In your opinion what opportunities have opened for Ukraine after this largest forum in the history of the Alliance?

“I think that is a very good question. I think in principle there are possibilities. I am not so sure whether they will be implemented. This is one of the things we have been discussing, which is the case that Ukraine is engaged now in Afghanistan, has medical personnel there, and of course supplies, transport and aircraft. But thinking about Ukraine’s engagement with NATO in general, that is a much more complicated issue. We understand, the decision on non-bloc status is an issue that takes membership off the table, but it also says that this does not preclude continued cooperation with the Alliance, questions what it can consist of. And one of the things we want to talk about, we have been talking about in the group, is what it might consist of, what things may be useful not only from the US point of view, but for Ukraine, and one of the things that is difficult from an American point of view is the absence right now of strategic documents, official documents from Ukraine which explain what they see as their interest, what they would like to get out of this cooperation. That is something where the non-bloc status decision has made the difference, because before the cooperation with NATO and to some degree with the United States too, the framework for this was driven by the requirements and procedures of accession, membership accession. That is now off the table. So the question now is: what is the new framework? What are the underlying purposes not only for Washington and Brussels, but for Kyiv for this cooperation? This is one of the things we are talking about.”

But we have an annual national program?

“There is the annual program and that will continue, but I can tell you that there are questions both in Brussels and Washington about what Ukraine now sees as its interests. And thinking about planning for the future, everyone – and I am one of them – wants to sustain this engagement. But I think over the longer run, particularly given the financial pressures in NATO and certainly in the US, there can be a lot of scrutiny of these projects. So what we are going to need – it’s not something we need to do today or tomorrow – but we have to start the process planning a new framework for these relationships. It’s not hard to think of what the framework might be because there was one in the period before the Ukrainian government took the policy decision that it wanted membership in NATO. We had a framework then which was called the distinctive partnership, and that focused really very much on two areas, two basic rationales: one had to do a security sector reform and the other basically had to do with interoperability in NATO standards with the point being to allow Ukraine the option of operating together with NATO allies militaries if it chose to do so. So, I can imagine going back to something like that and that would make a lot of sense to me to do something like that, but we need to clarify that this is what everyone has in mind.”

Do you see that Ukraine has a strategic vision of how it should develop its relations with NATO?

“I certainly think that there’s been a stable vision in the strategic community which goes back to the mid-1990s and I think endures, and that is to preserve engagement. It is focused very much on reform of the security sector, why that’s important on the one hand, and secondly, possibility for Ukraine to engage in activities and operations with Allies and Allied forces over time. And what I think those basic impulses are very stable, and the question is what the priorities are now.”

What does NATO and the Euro-Atlantic community in general expect of Ukraine regarding the creation of the European Missile Defense?

“To be honest, there is initiative in Ukraine’s views about this. It is obviously an important political and strategic issue for the Alliance. And it is very new reality issue with Russia. People I have seen privately talk about the possibility of Ukrainian engagement, but it’s not central for the plan. So it is not as if I don’t have an impression that either the United States, or NATO is looking for some kind of early decision about the engagement. And certainly impression I get here is that Ukraine is inclined in a certain way (it’s not an early decision about it either) that it wants to wait and see where this is all going and particular whether any kind of arrangement can be worked out between NATO and Russia, and I understand this, because I don’t see any interest in Washington in pushing Ukraine to make a faster decision. There are other issues that are very much on people’s minds. And when they get settled, then I think there will be a lot of interesting things what Ukraine would like to do, whether it would like to participate or not, but it is not like at the moment, it is not a first-order issue in Washington. I think a more imminent issue is actual conventional arms control.”

Why is it so?

“I mean there’s a broader question here – I am speaking for myself, but I think I am not alone, people in Washington are looking at this – it seems that Ukraine is a big country and it is an important country, and it has not in the last few years been very active in European security debates and it seems to me that conventional arms control and the future of the CFE Treaty in particular is something where Ukraine will have real interest. So when I ask myself where will I like to see expressions of Ukrainian views, interests, priorities and so on, that is where I start, because this is an alive issue which could affect Ukraine. The CFE Treaty I think is widely seen as being sort of more about, and people are thinking why anything should replace it and I would think it would be important for Ukraine to think about what it would like to see replaced if anything, or what you would like to avoid for that matter.”

Why do you think Ukraine is not involved in the debate on this issue?

“I don’t know the reason. I mean what I have observed in the past two years, as far as I can tell it has not been engaged in these discussions in general. As for the reason, I can speculate. But I don’t know whether it has made up its mind or feels that it’s too early, that it does not need to take a position yet, or whether it is simply preoccupied with other issues. It could be any of those things, I don’t know. But as a sympathetic outsider, I think it would be very useful for Ukraine to start thinking through what it would like to achieve, like to see in these areas. It could affect its interests.”

After the Chicago Summit some Western media wrote publications that the Alliance has sputtered out, there is no agreement among the allies, and, thus, it will soon dissolve. What is your opinion on this?

“NATO is not going to be dissolved. As to why it’s appearing, I think in some cases it is wishful thinking. And in some cases it’s a simple misunderstanding what NATO does and what the nature of the discussions are. NATO is changing and there are real debates – there’s no disguising – what NATO’s functions should be. And one is – and this is widely shared – is that NATO has been (and I think for foreseeable future will remain) the institution that binds the Transatlantic community on security issues, provides the consultative cooperative and political mechanisms and so on. That’s stable. What I think is interesting and what’s been discussed is what the balance is now between the true directions that NATO has embraced, but they are not the same, and those are the traditional so-called Article 5 requirements which are really about territorial defense. And there are more global activities and interests. Everybody agrees that NATO is the place where the Transatlantic unity needs to decide on policy on these global interests. The issue is where the resources go and where operation should go. Part of NATO wants to bring back the so-called territorial defense, Article 5 issues. That’s one issue, this balance between these global obligations, global initiatives on the one hand, and territorial Article 5 issues, on the other. And another issue is the balance between traditional hard security aspects of Article 5, and the new security agenda and what NATO’s role should be. And that’s much more complicated, because the new security identity, and what I mean by that is cyber security, energy security, those are the two big ones, and those are both areas where everyone understands that policy in both of those areas, cuts across what has traditionally been the line that divides government from non-government obligations.”

By the way, before the Chicago Summit there was a great number of publications in Western press, in which authors argued strongly that Russia deserved to be invited into NATO. Would you please comment on this?

“Every once in a while I see pieces like that. It’s not going to work. You can get people to say: in a greater fullness of time where there will be very different European security arrangements and a very different Russia. Fine. Or you can get people to say that we have every interest in integrating Russia, making sure that they are committed to the European security arrangements that exist rather than want to overturn them. You can get people to make general statements like that, but it’s a long way from saying we should invite them into NATO or for that matter for Russia to say they want to be invited.”