According to the BBC, the Ukrainian parliament today voted to drop the country's non-aligned status and explore joining NATO. The decision comes in the wake of the annexation of Crimea and a Russian-fomented rebellion in the eastern Ukraine.
Although the fears of the Ukrainian people are understandable, admitting Ukraine to NATO seems like a bad idea on three grounds:
1. It will embroil NATO and the United States in a conflict with the Russian Federation, raising the potential for a war between the major powers.
2. It will create yet another drain on America's budget as we have to commit resources to yet another conflict that has nothing to do with our national security.
3. It will further Russian paranoia towards the West, strengthening the hand of Putin.
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Before we say anything else, let's make it clear that Vladmir Putin is an authoritarian ruler who has gradually expanded his oppression of the Russian people to include a crackdown on gays, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, etc. Arguing against admitting Ukraine to NATO is not the same as arguing in favor of Putin. As stated above, there are good reasons for opposing this move.
Let's take these reasons in reverse order. First, extending NATO right up to Russia's borders would provoke-legitimately in my view-a nationalist response from the Russians. Indeed, the expansion of NATO during the late 1990s-contrary to our verbal assurances while the Soviet Union was breaking up-provoked a Russian backlash and contributed to the rise of Putin in the first place. George Kennan, the architect of our Cold War containment policy, warned as much in a discussion with Tom Friedman in 1998:
''I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,'' said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ''I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.''
''What bothers me is how superficial and ill informed the whole Senate debate was,'' added Mr. Kennan, who was present at the creation of NATO and whose anonymous 1947 article in the journal Foreign Affairs, signed ''X,'' defined America's cold-war containment policy for 40 years. ''I was particularly bothered by the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the cold war were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime."
Well, President Clinton ignored Kennan, and as a result Russia did become aggressive. Does anyone honestly believe that expanding the alliance up to Russia's borders will weaken Putin, or cause the Russians to back down?
The second issue is that while NATO is supposedly an alliance of equals, in practice it is the "Let America Pay Our Defense Costs" Club. Admitting Ukraine to NATO will simply add another nation that we will have to supply with equipment and materiel. It will also add another country whose aid we will have to rush to if they're attacked. Our defense commitments-and budget-are large enough as it is.
Finally, although an all out conflict is unlikely, it is worth remembering that Russia is the one country where, if we lobbed everything at them and they lobbed everything at us, they could hurt us as badly as we could hurt them. This isn't a third world country that can be bullied at will-it is a former superpower which retains much of its weaponry from the Cold War.
If President Obama has any sense, he will respond to any applications by Ukraine to join NATO with a firm "Thanks, but no thanks."