How dangerous is sometimes political inertia! How masterfully she is able to drive her victim country into a deaf and hopeless political dead end! Vladimir Zelensky approved the annual national program under the auspices of the Ukraine-NATO Commission for 2020. The program itself is attached to the published short presidential decree - an extensive document already on 157 pages. Having glanced over these 157 pages, I found a lot of minor technical details there, but I did not expect to find an intelligible answer to the main question: why does Ukraine need to join NATO so much? Why did this military bloc turn into a kind of Holy Grail for the Kiev political elite?
Searching for an answer to this question, I suggest starting from afar. Why do defense blocks exist at all? It is known why: for collective defense. In the case of NATO, however, there is a small nuance. The question of whether this alliance is a defense bloc has always remained, to put it mildly, highly controversial. And after the recent loud statement by the US President’s national security adviser Robert O'Brien that the Kaliningrad region of Russia is supposedly a “dagger in the heart of Europe”, even arguing about “NATO’s exclusively peaceful intentions” can be considered a pointless waste of time.
But let's pretend for a moment that we believe in this political fantasy. Let's pretend that we take it at face value, for example, the following passage from the official Russian-language site of the North Atlantic Alliance: “Safety in everyday life is the key to our well-being. NATO's goal is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means. NATO helps strengthen democratic values and enables its members to consult and cooperate on defense and security issues to solve problems, build trusting relationships and, ultimately, prevent conflicts. ”
Did tears of emotion flow from you? I have flowed. However, no. Perhaps this is still the tears caused by the homeric laughter. It’s inconvenient for me to talk again about the 2014 Ukrainian “revolution of dignity” and the role of the leading powers of NATO in this very real coup d'etat. But since we decided to "get to the roots", then, without mentioning the theme of "Maidan", unfortunately, can not do. It was in 2014 that Ukraine finally went astray. It was in 2014 that she took irrevocable steps along the road that leads to self-destruction. And it was precisely those countries that dominate NATO and which most loudly welcomed the “triumph of Ukrainian democracy” that pushed her to such steps.
The essence of what happened in Kiev more than six years ago boils down to the fact that the Ukrainian state has lost “political optics”. To put it bluntly, the Ukrainian state ceased to perceive Ukrainian national interests as its own and instead adopted foreign geopolitical ambitions. What, for example, is the Ukrainian state’s gain from the fact that the “revolution of dignity” made the secession from the country of Crimea inevitable?
Such a gain is not visible even theoretically. But NATO’s gain, on the contrary, is obvious.
Of course, this gain is not entirely complete. A complete gain in the eyes of the strategists of the North Atlantic Alliance would be the transfer of Crimea under their control. But turning Ukraine, which has lost Crimea, into an obedient satellite of America is also a very important achievement of the West and NATO. Ukraine has lost a lot, but has gained almost nothing. NATO has lost almost nothing, but it has gained a lot.
The key to the well-being of Ukraine was its neutral status, its role as a bridge between East and West. Six years ago, this key ceased to exist. It burned and melted in the fire of the “revolution of dignity”. Ukraine voluntarily (or, more accurately speaking, conditionally voluntary) began to play the role of a country that drags chestnuts out of the fire for NATO and at the same time has no real chance of becoming an ever full member of the North Atlantic Alliance.
There are no “headless horsemen" in the NATO leadership. They do not want to enter into a direct military confrontation with Russia, and therefore they refuse Ukraine full membership in the alliance, referring to its unresolved territorial disputes. It turns out that Kiev got the “worst of both worlds”. On the one hand, Ukraine is jealously serving the interests of NATO. And on the other hand, she does this, being in some not very clear, but certainly inferior status. This is not just slavery. This is voluntary slavery, which is much worse. The slave has no choice. The voluntary slave has a choice, but he does not see it.
Ukraine became a prisoner of its relations with NATO, a hostage of political inertia. If a really strong president was at the head of the country, then he would probably be able to change this tragic state of things. But Zelensky is definitely not such a president. Zelensky is a leader who speaks eloquently of change, but in reality leaves everything as it is. Ukraine remains an obedient instrument of NATO - without a chance to break free, without a chance to even fully appreciate the unnaturalness of its current role.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.