Today, a series of missteps by American and European leaders has put millions of Ukrainian families through extreme hardships, tremendous loss of life, and unimaginable misery. From the Clinton administration’s negotiation of dismantling Ukrainian nuclear arms, the world’s inaction on the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, and the failure of European leadership to bring Ukraine into NATO are a list of missteps that have brought Ukrainians to the current state.
In 1994, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US found it in its best interest to dismantle 1,500 nuclear warheads pointed at the US by the old Russian state. The US agreed to pay $175 million needed to dismantle the nuclear warheads and also provide $300 million in support of the Ukrainian nation. After the end of the Cold War, a policy of nuclear disarmament and the possibility of reducing the number of nuclear arms from the former Soviet state seemed to be the right policy and was approved by NATO as well as most European countries. Since Ukrainians needed financial support to prop up their economy, they never negotiated and received any firm assurance for their inclusion in NATO membership or any firm defense commitment from the Americans or Europeans. It was a major miscalculation by the Ukrainians, NATO, and the other major European countries.
In 2014, NATO, the US, and other major European economies were outwitted and outsmarted by Putin as the Russians sent out their military in disguise and created discord in the local populations to take over parts of Eastern Ukraine and annex Crimea. Since the US was still recovering from its entanglements in Iraq and still spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan, neither the American leadership nor the American public had any appetite to get involved in another war, either militarily or financially. Without any support and leadership from the US, the European leadership failed to stand up to the Russians. Not only did that enbolden the Russians, but it also enabled Putin’s fetishes to recreate the glory of old Russia as the Soviet Union.
Since 1994, when Americans and Europeans convinced Ukrainians to give up nuclear arms, one of the most significant strategic failures has been to bring Ukraine into NATO. One could say that, as only less than one-third of the Ukrainian public approved Ukraine’s joining NATO before 2014, it also lacked some of the key requirements imposed by NATO for transparency and other metrics to measure corruption and democratic rule set by NATO for its members.
In the past, countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina were brought into the Membership Action Plan (MAP), a step before becoming full members of NATO. NATO has not invited Ukraine to start a MAP process either. Since the 2014 invasion of Eastern Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea, the Ukrainian public and its politicians have repeatedly asked to become a member of NATO for protection from a full-fledged invasion from Russia. The United States and European leaders were again played by the Russians by telling them that such an action would force the Russians to invade Ukraine.
Since Americans and their key European allies were heavily focused on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Putin used it as an opportunity to make quick incursions first in Georgia in 2008 and then in Ukraine in 2014 to avoid the world’s attention to these land seizures. Putin knew that the West’s heavy involvement in unpopular wars and expenses would force the Americans and Europeans to not send any military and financial assistance to the old Russian states. Given Americans and Europeans’ lack of resolve to their earlier incursions, Putin believed that if he could take over Ukraine quickly, the same scenario of 2008 in Georgia and 2014 in Eastern Ukraine would play out again. As the Ukrainians stood up to the Russians and made it a much longer conflict, Putin’s further incursion in Ukraine backfired significantly. The more protracted conflict allowed the West to arm Ukraine and regroup to stop the Russians.
Today, Russia borders 14 countries, including Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Kazakhstan, North Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Norway, Poland, and Ukraine. Except for the NATO countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and now Finland), and countries with strong militaries (China and North Korea), Russia has either tried to control its neighbors by getting heavily involved in selecting their political leadership or outright getting involved militarily in case the countries not towing Moscow’s direction. Russians chose Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 due to their intentions to be part of Western Europe and weaker militaries, with no commitment from the West for their defense.
As discussed above, one of the Americans and Europeans’ key strategic mistakes was not including Ukraine in the NATO alliance. One could argue that if Ukraine had become a NATO state, Putin would have thought twice before sending his troops to a NATO country, as he never did so in Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania– countries that were part of the Soviet Union and are now NATO members. Today, Russians continue to play the Americans and Europeans with a threat of nuclear war if they support Ukraine with direct involvement, even though they are deeply involved in funding Ukraine and providing all strategic and military support in defending Ukraine.
To turn the tide of Russian aggression, the West should set a deadline by which Ukraine will become part of NATO. The West should continue to fund Ukraine’s military during this time without direct personnel involvement in defending Ukraine. At the same time, make it very clear to Russia that the day Ukraine becomes part of NATO, all militaries of NATO countries will not only defend Ukraine but will take all necessary steps to push the Russians out of Ukraine.
It is time for the Americans and Europeans to take a firm stand by including Ukraine in NATO and clearly telling the Russians to get out of Ukraine. Short of anything, pushing Russians out of Ukraine will open a door for others, such as the Chinese, to move into Taiwan, and all other mighty armies to take territories they believe they can gain by force. It will also be a win for the democratic rule of law over authoritarian rule. This should have been done long ago to deter Russians from walking into any of the old Soviet states without the approval of their citizens, and could have avoided the Russians’ earlier incursions in Georgia and Ukraine.
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