By Andrew D. Bishop, Guest Contributor
On December 2-3, Allied foreign ministers will meet in Brussels to assess once again Ukraine’s chances of joining the North Atlantic Alliance Organization (NATO) by determining whether Kiev should be allowed to a Membership Action Plan (MAP), the most significant step before becoming a full-fledged member of the exclusive military club.
This reappraisal stems from a promise made to Ukraine and Georgia this past April when both of their candidacies were put-off by the United Kingdom, France, and Germany during NATO’s heated Bucharest Summit.
Not much has changed since. While some consider this summer’s clash between Georgian and Russian troops has highlighted the importance of bringing Ukraine into the Alliance before it becomes the Kremlin’s next target, others have come to the opposite conclusion, arguing instead that now would be the worst of times to provoke Russia.
This latter argument, which was recently illustrated by the European Union’s (EU) controversial decision to re-open its partnership dialogue with President Dmitry Medvedev, is one that carries very little weight inside the current White House.
Instead, U.S. officials have repeatedly argued that Ukrainians should be allowed to “make choices about their own future” whatever the costs to Russia’s friendship with Kiev or the West.
As attractive as it may seem, however, this tagline has very shallow roots as it fails to take into account the reality of Ukraine’s public opinion, which has been proven by several recent polls to be overwhelmingly opposed to the prospect of joining NATO.
While approximately 20 percent of the country’s population favors such a choice, a more impressive 55 to 65 percent radically oppose the idea.
The question, then, is: why the opposition?
First and foremost, Ukraine remains an eternally “torn country” with approximately 17 percent of its population being ethnic Russian, located essentially in the Eastern and Southern parts of the country and present more broadly in most urban areas.
This identity split has created a divide between the nation’s pro-European and pro-Russian camps which, according to Taras Kuzio, a Ukrainian consultant, “should be neither exaggerated nor totally downplayed.”
Russia has traditionally done its best to cultivate this rift and is alleged to have recently stepped-up its distribution of Russian passports to Ukrainian citizens, a practice already observed in Georgia.
While Kuzio calls “ludicrous and outdated” some observers’ fears that the country would break apart in the event of Kiev joining NATO, he adds that “after the Georgian crisis, where Russia justified its intervention in terms of defending Russian citizens, the Ukrainian authorities remained concerned that this scenario could be repeated in the Crimea.”
Even if the Kremlin refrained from resorting to such radical measures, however, its identity-promotion tactics have clearly created an allegiance to the East that cannot be overlooked.
As Steven Pifer, a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), puts it: “Many Ukrainians don’t regard themselves as all that distinguishable/different from ethnic Russians.”
Another important factor to explain Ukrainians’ reluctance to join NATO is that such a move could have serious repercussions on their country’s already shaky economy.
Ukraine, one of the first victims of Russia’s “energy imperialism” back in 2006 when the Kremlin cut the country’s gas supplies for several days, has no desire to experience that wrath again. Already the country’s power bill has been increasing by the year, and with winter approaching, few would argue that now is the time to test the fierceness of Moscow’s Putin-Medvedev tandem.
This has become evermore true since Ukraine was subject to the full-frontal impact of the world’s heightening economic crisis last month. If anything, Kiev might soon need a Russian hand.
The prospect of Russia meddling in Ukraine’s political affairs is one that isn’t hard to fathom given how divided the country remains at the political level.
Many in the West believe that ever since the Orange Revolution of 2004, current President Viktor Yuschenko and Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko have remained allied. Nothing is further from the truth.
Instead, Ukrainians have been repeatedly called to the polls and asked to declare their allegiance to one or the other in the past few years, as they will soon be again with parliamentary elections pending. This has created a confrontation fatigue within the country as well as with regards to the external implications of voters’ decisions, with some parties closer to Moscow than others.
In short, few Ukrainians see the current period as the right one for engaging in a battle over NATO, whether it be amongst themselves or against Russia.
In the long run, however, U.S. policymakers hope that the Ukrainian population’s lack of appreciation for the Alliance can be mended.
As NATO’s spokesman James Appathurai recently told the press, “Our biggest challenge in Ukraine is explaining to the public what NATO is about.” Pifer agrees and adds that “many of those opposed to joining NATO do not understand what NATO is today; it has a very different structure […] and pursues different missions than it did 20 years ago.”
“Every Eastern European country prior to joining undertook a NATO information campaign,” Kuzio explains, but “Ukraine has been unable to because of the high turnover of governments” in recent years.
Eventually, the Ukrainian insider believes one thing can change people’s minds: “A well funded and long term information campaign that focuses on the positives (NATO as a stepping stone to the EU, NATO as a source of military reform, NATO as a source of democratic control of the security forces) rather than on the negatives (NATO to defend Ukraine against Russia, NATO to use Ukrainian troops in hot conflicts).”
For the time being, however, David Marples, a program director at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the University of Alberta, says “the dislike has deep roots and stems from what are perceived […] as very aggressive NATO policies in the past, particularly the 1999 bombing of Belgrade” and the U.S. invasion of Iraq which was widely, though mistakenly, “perceived as a NATO-led venture.”
It is unlikely Ukraine will receive the Membership Action Plan its president has been hoping for in Brussels next month. Yet the problem with Ukraine’s bid is not one that is limited to the United Kingdom, France, or Germany’s cold-feet policy towards Russia. Instead, it has its roots at the very heart of many Ukrainian citizens’ minds and that is where it should be fixed. As Marples puts it, for now and to many of them, “It is simply not worth the risk.”
Andrew D. Bishop is a graduate student of European politics at the London School of Economics and a freelance journalist. His works can be found at www.andrewdbishop.com and he blogs at WhatYouMustRead.blogspot.com.
