What Ukraine needs to be able to join NATO

The possible union of Ukraine to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO or NATO, for its acronym in English) is one of the main fears of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who -among other points- demands that it be guaranteed that his neighboring country will not join the Atlantic Alliance.

The origin of NATO occurred on April 4, 1949 with the Washington Treaty, signed by twelve countries, which agreed to create an alliance and commit to defend each other in case of armed aggression against any of them.

The USA, Canada, Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, the United Kingdom and Portugal were the twelve signatory countries of this international political and military organization whose objective is guarantee the security and freedom of its member countries.

NATO currently groups 30 countries. In addition, it maintains association agreements with around 40 States collaborating with the Alliance in activities related to security and defense.

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Requirements for membership

NATO is a defensive alliance with an open door policy to new members.

“Any European country that is in a position to promote the principles of the Washington Treaty and contributing to security in the Euro-Atlantic area can become a member of the Alliance at the invitation of the North Atlantic Council,” according to the NATO website.

In this way, any European country that independently decides to seek NATO membership can do so. However, nations wishing to become part they must meet certain political, economic, and military standards.

Although there is no official checklist for accession, the group maintains a list of minimum requirements for nations interested in joining:

• The new members must uphold democracy, including tolerance of diversity.
• The new members must move towards a market economy.
• Its military forces must be under firm civilian control.
• They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders.
• They must work towards compatibility with NATO forces.

Entry of Ukraine

The Alliance has had a close relationship with Ukraine since the country joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1991 and the Partnership for Peace program in 1994.

In 2008, when Viktor Yushchenko was the president of Ukraine, he began his accession process when submitting your application to become a member of the Alliance in Brussels. However, in 2010 he changed the country’s presidency to Viktor Yanukovych and relations with Europe cooled. In 2014 the annexation of Crimea by Russia would come, returning the conflict to the country.

During the 2014 Crimean crisis, then-President Petro Poroshenko pushed for NATO membership if the population approved it through a referendum.

In June 2017, the Ukrainian Parliament established NATO membership as the country’s foreign policy goal, and in February 2019 the goal of joining NATO and the European Union (EU) was even included in the Constitution.

In 2018, NATO officially granted Ukraine the status of a candidate country. In a statement it was announced: “NATO’s door is open to any European country capable of fulfilling the involvement and commitments of membership and contributing to security in the Euro-Atlantic area.”

The Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky, asked on February 19 for a “clear and feasible” timetable for his country’s accession to NATO.

Western countries must “support Ukraine and its defense capabilities” and set “a clear and feasible timetable” for joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Zelensky told the Munich Security Conference (MSC). Ukraine is “Europe’s shield” against the Russian military, he noted. “It is said that the doors of NATO are open. That is very good, but there are no concrete steps,” Zelensky said.

A few days later, the Ukrainian president lamented that his country had been left “alone” to defend itself against the Russian invasion.

“They have left us alone to defend our state,” Zelensky said in a video posted on the presidential account. “Who is willing to fight with us? I do not see anyone. Who is ready to give Ukraine a guarantee of NATO membership? Everyone is afraid“, he claimed.

Ukraine is still a long way from joining NATO. This because of the Alliance does not accept new members if they are in an active conflicta point that would be exploited by Putin to keep the country out of the group.

“Currently, in practical terms, accepting a country with a serious conflict with unresolved territorial disputes, obviously it will be difficult for NATO, since then NATO would inherit that conflict”, he told McClatchyNews Sean Monaghan, Visiting Professor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, whose career has focused on international defense policy, including NATO.

Monaghan explained that Russia’s strategy has been to foment conflicts in countries that could join NATO to hinder that process and make it more difficult, exactly as is happening in Ukraine now.

While Stanley Sloan, an expert on transatlantic relations at Middlebury University and a former international security official, said an unspoken reason why Ukraine has not been allowed to join NATO is because of concerns by some European leaders about how such a step could affect its relations with Russia.

“There are many European allies who opposed inviting Ukraine since they had hopes of being able to have a closer relationship with Moscow,” Sloan said, detailing the Miami Herald. “So there was both a formal and technically precise reason, but also an unspoken reason, for the most part, political as well,” he added.

Russian invasion

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began eight days ago, has caused an exodus of refugees and prompted Western countries and their allies to respond with a battery of sanctions to isolate Russia diplomatically, economically, culturally and sportingly.

The Russian president, who promised to continue his offensive against Ukraine “without concessions”, called for “the recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the demilitarization and ‘denazification’ of the Ukrainian state and the promise of its neutral status” as preliminary conditions to a conflict resolution. (I)