Ukraine in NATO? An empty promise mobilizes Russia

Since the end of the Cold War, the number of NATO member states has doubled. Today there are 32 of them. An example was shown by Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, which joined the pact in 1999. Back then it was an easy and pleasant process. Russia remained too weak to oppose him, and America believed that by offering membership to the Central European countries it was limiting itself to an essentially symbolic gesture: war on our continent seemed unimaginable.

America’s weakness towards Russia

It was on the wave of such thinking that in 2008 George W. Bush wanted to offer Ukraine (and Georgia) a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a kind of vestibule to full accession. The idea was blocked by Germany and France. To this day, there is an ongoing dispute whether the initiative of Paris and Berlin accelerated the war because Putin sensed the West’s weakness, or delayed it because the Kremlin came to the conclusion that Kiev would not immediately escape from its control.

The fact remains that, contrary to Georgians’ hopes, Washington did not lift a finger when, four months after the Bucharest summit, Russia occupied a significant part of their country. For the next 16 years, Ukrainians remained with the cursed formula agreed in the Romanian capital that they would “become a member of NATO.” This promise, which is still unfulfilled, on the one hand, mobilizes Moscow to regain control over the former Ukrainian satellite as quickly as possible, and on the other hand, it does not oblige the Atlantic alliance to take any specific action.

For the next 16 years, Ukrainians remained with the cursed formula established in the Romanian capital that they would “become a member of NATO”

The July summit of the pact in Washington will not change this. This is primarily due to the weakness of NATO itself. The meeting will take place in the final stretch of the US presidential elections, which means that Joe Biden cannot make too far-reaching commitments if he does not want to expose himself to a significant degree of isolationist American voters. But the other countries of the alliance, paralyzed by fear of Donald Trump coming to power, are not ready to agree on strategic decisions.