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Is NATO expansion a reasonable price to pay for Ukraine's control of its 1991 borders [1]

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Date: 2023-05-08

Finbarr Bermingham, in Brussels

Published: 9:00pm, 7 May, 2023 Should Ukraine win the war, Bērziņa-Čerenkova said, it would likely become a Nato member as a country within its 1991 borders, as recognised by China. Thus, she said, Beijing’s relentless attacks on Nato suggest that China cannot be considered neutral. “In the mental picture of the people right now, it almost feels like Ukraine is five minutes away from joining Nato. So the question that we ask ourselves is, if China is pushing back against Nato in the Indo-Pacific or even here, whether this would be a power that would be interested in helping Ukraine restore back to its 1991 borders.”

There are many ways to guarantee the security of an ally, as we have seen at least three iterations in the case of Ukraine.

The United States and its allies have long turned their backs on the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in which Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees. Russia was party to that deal aimed at ensuring respect for Ukraine's territorial integrity.

The issue was highlighted further after the Ukrainian President, in a global exclusive interview with Republic Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami on Thursday overtly disclosed that Ukraine is looking for ‘security guarantees’ from its Western allies to proceed further with the negotiations. Zelenskyy further revealed the names of the nations, on whom, he is pinning his hopes, namely: the US, UK, China, Turkey, Germany, and Poland. (8th April 2022)

The Agreement, Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine, provided for a return to the 2004 Constitution, that is, to a parliamentary-presidential form of government, the holding of early presidential elections before the end of 2014 and form a "government of national trust." It also provided for the withdrawal of security forces from downtown Kyiv, the cessation of violence and surrender of weapons by the opposition.[2] An agreement to resolve the political crisis was signed by the President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych and opposition leaders Vitali Klitschko , Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Oleh Tyahnybok , and formally witnessed by the Foreign Ministers of Germany and Poland, and the head of the Department for Continental Europe of the French Ministry of Foreign. Special representative of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Lukin, who participated in the negotiations, refused to put his signature under the agreement. The Agreement, although signed, did not last long, as Yanukovych soon afterwards fled to Russia and became a fugitive, resulting in Euromaidan’s success.

NATO has a series of documents foretelling Ukraine’s NATO membership dating back to 1991.

What if Ukraine does not join NATO for 20–30 years? Ukraine is not a member of NATO now and except for its citizens doing the lion’s share of the fighting they are doing fairly well. What if US, UK, China, Turkey, Germany, and Poland give Ukraine a joint security guarantee outside of NATO to give Ukraine unrestricted aid in the defense of it’s internationally recognized territory in the case of an unprovoked invasion as long as it remains outside of NATO.

In addition, the NATO federation agrees to halt its expansion beyond present day membership applications for 10 years to give universal peace a chance. Security agreements between nations and allies are common and can be offered to concerned parties outside of NATO as the concerned parties deem prudent. In every statement Putin has made about the Ukraine invasion, NATO expansion is the villain. China also claims NATO expansion to be an aggression and accuses the US, and it’s European allies, of ignoring Russia's security needs. So let’s freeze NATO and establish a regional council under the UN umbrella to negotiate a regional security agreement in exchange for Russia ceasing all hostilities and physically withdrawing from all occupied internationally recognized Ukraine territory.

Issues of the EU, US, Russia and China on sanctions, tariffs, trade barriers etc. are not founding issues in the initial invasion of Ukraine and should be negotiated separate from ending the hostilities and removing hostile forces from Ukraine territory.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/8/2168012/-Is-NATO-expansion-a-reasonable-price-to-pay-for-Ukraine-s-control-of-its-1991-borders

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