Ukraine Adopts New Military Doctrine

President Leonid Kuchma has issued an order endorsing a new military doctrine for Ukraine. The presidential order characterizes the doctrine as defensive, which means that Ukraine doesn’t view any country as its military adversary. At the same time, Ukraine will view any nation or group of nations as potential military adversaries should their consistently unfriendly policies pose a threat to Ukraine’s military security.

According to Interfax-Ukraine, the National Security and Defense Council examined the draft military doctrine on November 25, 2003. Ukraine adopted its previous military doctrine in 1993.

Among the ways to ensure Ukraine’s military security, the new doctrine envisions a policy of Euro-Atlantic integration, its ultimate goal being accession to NATO — the mainstay of a common European system of security. The doctrine further requires Ukraine to secure its state border, pass appropriate border laws, and sign international border agreements. It also envisions pursuing closer ties with international, European, and regional structures of collective security, maintaining adequate defense capability and combat worthiness of the army, containing possible military aggression by military and nonmilitary means, and preventing and resolving sociopolitical, interethnic, and interfaith conflicts in the country.

The doctrine reads that Ukraine, which is a member of the UN and OSCE, and a partner of NATO, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, and the Partnership for Peace Program, views participation in international peacekeeping missions as a major direction in its foreign policy and an element of regional military security. Ukraine shall contribute to international peacekeeping efforts by providing peacekeeping forces and personnel, along with material and technical resources, and services.

Among the major real and potential external threats to Ukraine’s national security in the military sphere, the doctrine names the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and missiles to deliver them; the country’s possible involvement in confrontations with other nations or in regional wars; the massing of military forces and armaments by other countries near Ukraine’s borders resulting in an imbalance of military forces; uncompleted international agreements and laws on the state border of Ukraine.

The major domestic threats to Ukraine’s national security in the military sphere are illegal activities of extremist, separatist, or radical religious organizations and attempts to create terrorist organizations or military formations unforeseen by law; the dangerous reduction in the equipping of Ukraine’s Armed Forces with a new generation of military and specialized equipment, and weapons; the slow pace of reforms of the country’s military and defense industrial complex, as well as inadequate funding of relevant programs; and the accumulation of obsolete military hardware, arms, and explosives in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

According to the doctrine, as part of efforts to improve the system of national security in the military sphere, Ukraine shall reform its Armed Forces so as to ensure that their nature, composition, system, management, and training meet NATO standards. The complete text of the doctrine is available on the official Web site of the Verkhovna Rada (www.rada.gov.ua).