It is popular that Ukraine and Georgia cannot become members of the alliance until they resolve disputes with neighbors, as the rules for admission to NATO require this. We checked how just this argument is.
In December 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia Published Design of two documents “On Security Guarantees” and measures to ensure it, which are proposed to sign the United States. In them, in particular, It is said The obligation of NATO to exclude the “further expansion of the alliance”, including separately mentioned the possible entry of Ukraine into this military-political bloc. Moreover, Russia Requires From NATO “Return to the borders” of 1997. A month after the official transfer of draft these documents, Russia held a number of international negotiations: January 10 In Geneva with the USA, January 12 In Brussels with NATO and January 13 In Vienna with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The publication of draft agreements and the agreement, as well as subsequent negotiations, caused active discussion in the media, blogs and social networks. A number of speakers questioned the validity of the requirements for non -confusion of Ukraine among NATO members. They argue that it is excessive, since the alliance according to its own rules cannot accept the country drawn into territorial disputes to the organization. So, on January 15, 2022, journalist Julia Latynina on the air of the Echo of Moscow radio station She said: “NATO just has a rule: do not accept those countries that have some acute territorial conflicts. In this sense, Ukraine and Georgia, of course, simply do not sink through this selection. And if you think about why Putin was arranged by Donbass and Lugansk, then one of the rational options, how rational this behavior is generally, may be the answer that then Ukraine will definitely not take on NATO with such ulcers in the territory. ”
A similar point of view in December 2021 expressed The Ambassador of Ukraine at NATO Natalia Galibarenko, suggesting that "the Russian Federation has already tested this technology on Georgia: she looked at what elements work, and is working with small adjustments to Ukraine." Previously on the impossibility of Ukraine entering the Alliance without solving territorial disputes She said, for example, Estonia President Kersty Kaliulaid. Similar statements appeared in the materials of the largest news agencies, including "RIA Novosti" And TASS.
North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) appeared in 1949, when 12 countries signed Washington has a North Atlantic Treaty. The USA, Canada, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Italy and Portugal took over a number of obligations to "protect freedom, general heritage and civilization of their peoples, based on the principles of democracy, individual freedom and legality." Also, the signature countries announced “determination to combine their efforts in order to create collective defense and preserve peace and security”-measures to achieve this goal were described in the agreement that laid the foundation for the Alliance.
The contract initially implied the possibility of the inclusion of new member states in NATO, but not every country could get into the Alliance. In article 10 It is said: "Contracting parties by general agreement may offer any other European state that can develop the principles of this Agreement and contribute to the security of the North Atlantic region, to join this agreement." Over the next four decades (until 1989) NATO Replenished Only four new members: Greece and Türkiye joined the organization in 1952, West Germany in 1955, and Spain in 1982. In 1990, a full -fledged participant in the alliance I became Already united Germany.
After the end of the Cold War and the decay Organization of the Warsaw Treaty, uniting the socialist states of Eastern Europe and the USSR, NATO has additional opportunities for expansion. “Some new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe wanted to begin integration into Euro -Atlantic institutions,” - It is said On the Alliance website. The opinion is that the abandonment of such an expansion was promised by the President of the USSR Mikhail Gorbachev - for three decades this topic remains the subject of disputes regarding Track Mostly oral and rather vague agreements.
Be that as it may, the events of the late 1980s and the early 1990s became rotary not only for the USSR, its allies and satellites, but also for NATO. At the summit in November 1991, the participating state Accepted The Roman Declaration, which spoke of the "new chapter in the history of the Alliance." NATO members welcomed the “commitment of the Soviet Union and other countries of Central and Eastern Europe by political and economic reforms after the abandonment of their peoples from totalitarian communist rule” and expressed their readiness to help any steps in this direction, because their own security is inextricably linked with the safety of all other European states ”. Further, the declaration describes in detail already launched and proposed for the future implementation of the initiative in a multilateral partnership between NATO countries and former social camps in various fields. At the same time, the text does not say anything explicitly about the possibility of their attachment to the alliance.
Already in early 1994, at the Summit in Brussels, NATO position became more specific. In the declaration adopted following the meeting Confirmed “Adherence to strengthening security and stability throughout Europe” and the desire to “strengthen relations with democratic states in the East (Europe. - Approx. Ed.)”. The authors of the declaration also emphasized that the union remains “open to the membership of other European states that can promote the principles of the contract and contribute to the security of the North-Atlantic region”: “We will expect and will welcome the expansion of NATO, which will cover the democratic states to the east of us, as part of the evolutionary process, taking into account political events and events in the field of security throughout Europe”.
In the same declaration of the country, NATO gave the initiative "Partnership in the name of peace". This program implies a bilateral interaction between the alliance and the countries that are not included in the Union to maintain security in Europe. In 1994-1995, agreements on participation in the program signed Almost all European countries that are not part of NATO, and former Soviet republics in Asia. Russia also became a participant in the initiative quite quickly, in June 1994, and remains in this status until now.
The next year is the alliance Published The “study on the expansion of NATO”, in which the principles and goals of this process were called, analyzed its possible positive and negative consequences and, most importantly, the criteria that the country should comply with in order to receive a formal invitation to join the alliance. Special attention was paid to relations with Russia and their development against the background of the process of future expansion. At the same time, the text does not say which countries and when they can join the alliance.
Apparently, the idea that countries that have territorial disputes with other states cannot join NATO before their permission appeared precisely because of this study of 1995. His sixth paragraph says: “States with ethnic or external territorial disputes, irredant claims or internal disputes about jurisdiction are obliged to resolve them peacefully and in accordance with the principles of the OSCE. The decision of such disputes may be a factor when making a decision to invite the state to the Alliance. ”
However, already in the next, seventh paragraph “Study” it is stated: “There is no fixed, rigid list of criteria for inviting new member states to join the alliance. The decision on expansion will be made in each case. <...> The allies based on the consensus will decide whether to invite a new member to the Alliance. ” This provision is also emphasized in the fifth chapter of “Research” (paragraphs 70–72), which at the same time lists the “expected” characteristics of the Pretentent state and its actions, which will help to realize his desire to join NATO. They mention the “commitment and respect for the norms and principles of the OSCE”, including the resolution of disputes described in paragraph 6.
In 1999, at the Summit in Washington, there was Accepted A plan for joining NATO (Membership Action Plan, Map). This document became the basis for formalizing invitations of the states of Central and Eastern Europe for joining the organization. In the plan, a list of measures proposed by the Candidate State is listed, the implementation of which will help the country meet the requirements of the 1949 agreement. Including from those who wish to join the Alliance “expect a peaceful solution” of any external and internal territorial disputes in peaceful means in accordance with the principles of the OSCE. In other words, and in this document the complete absence of such conflicts is not indicated as a prerequisite that must be strictly consistent.
In 2016, the journalist of the Russian BBC service Boris Maksimov in his article introduced A very extensive selection of territorial disputes that existing members of the Alliance exist - both among themselves and with other states. The vast majority of examples given by journalists relate to countries that have joined NATO even before the adoption of documents in the 1990s, according to which such conflicts may become the basis for discussions about membership members. Thus, the text of Maksimov does not make it possible to evaluate how much the criterion about the absence of territorial disputes has become really important for NATO during active expansion.
In order to at least try to give such an assessment, you should turn to the experience of countries that have entered the Alliance in recent years. Even before Map, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary received an invitation to become members of the Alliance. This procedure is successful ended in 1999. Three years later, already through participation in MAP, similar negotiations began with Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. These seven countries also entered the alliance in 2004. In 2009, the ranks of NATO members were replenished by Albania and Croatia, in 2017-Montenegro. The latter today entered the Alliance North Macedonia in March 2020.
Several of these countries, at the time of joining NATO, had various territorial disputes with neighbors. Here are a few examples:
- Estonia still Not concluded with Russia an agreement on the state border, although since the 1990s such attempts have repeatedly They were undertaken. In 2005, the next year after the Baltic Republic entered the NATO, the contract was even signed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both countries and ratified by the Estonian parliament. However, the Russian side refused to do this, referring to the unacceptable additions in the text of the preamble. The new version of the contract was agreed and signed in 2014, but not one of the countries has still ratified it due to the consequences of events in the Crimea and the conflict in the southeast of Ukraine;
- Croatia since the 1990s argues With Serbia about how exactly the border between the countries in the Danube passes. The positions of countries differ regarding almost uninhabited 140 km2, for the most part consisting of islands and forests. In the early 2000s was Created The bilateral commission to resolve this issue - its activities, however, have not yet led to any significant results;
- Romania, who joined NATO in 2004, for several years I argued With Ukraine about the sea border between the two states. In 1997, the country officially lost to the former Soviet Republic Ostrov Zmein in the Black Sea, which, after the Second World War, began to belong to the USSR, but the underwater territories rich in natural fossils around the island remained the subject of discussions. In 2004, after unsuccessful negotiations on the division of territorial water, the case was referred to the UN International Court, five years later, the judges supported the Romanian position.
Similar examples show that in general NATO really “expects” the states - candidates to enter the resolution of territorial disputes, but often does not require the completion of this process by the time the alliance is made by the alliance. We emphasize that such disputes are solved, as MAP requires, peacefully - through diplomatic negotiations, creating joint commissions or filing a claim to international courts. Moreover, the discussions of the borders presented after the collapse of large states (USSR and Yugoslavia), and not as a result of armed clashes.
A possible entry into the Alliance of Ukraine and Georgia in this sense is fundamentally different from the situations described above. Both countries, like other post -Soviet republics, back in 1994 joined to "Partnership in the name of peace", and in the mid-2000s Received From NATO invitation to an “intensive dialogue”. A similar format of communication between the alliance and the state who wants to join it implies the provision of comprehensive support for reform, which will help the candidate country meet the requirements of the organization. At the same time, the “intensive dialogue” itself does not impose any formal obligations on the further acceptance of the country in NATO and is more likely a symbolic and political character.
Until now, neither Ukraine nor Georgia have even offered to join MAP, which has now become a prerequisite for the candidate countries. It is possible that one of the reasons for a significant slowdown in this process was military conflicts in the territory of the two countries: 2008 war In the case of Georgia and Military-political processeswhich began in 2014, in the case of Ukraine. Despite the fact that efforts to regulate these conflicts are being undertaken At least in relation to Ukraine, the threat of their decision by military way does not completely disappear - this distinguishes the situation with two post -Soviet republics from the examples described above. In such a situation, the inclusion of a country in NATO can automatically make an alliance by a participant in the armed conflict that occurred without its direct participation. The nature of such disputes is also important - this is not about the channel of the river or a small island, but about the territories in which many people live.
It is difficult to unequivocally say how significant a role is played by serious territorial disputes with Russia in the issue of (not) the adoption of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO at present. On the one hand, the head of the alliance of the alliance in Kyiv Aleksander Vinnikov in August 2021 declaredthat the conflict in the Donbass will not prevent Ukraine from becoming a member of the alliance. On the other hand, Vinnikov at the same time emphasized that the appearance of a new member of the organization should always strengthen NATO safety. Probably, this goal will be more difficult if the alliance begins to participate in the conflict simultaneously with the expansion.
As it were, both countries participate in the exercises that NATO conducts with his external partners (we note that in 2011, even before the Ukrainian crisis, the Russian Air Force also Accepted participation in the development of joint operations with the alliance forces), and the Georgian military even were involved In the operation in Afghanistan.
As for the prospects of the two countries to join the Alliance, the formal, legal process has not yet been launched. January 12, 2022, when the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg directly asked About such an opportunity for Ukraine, he did not give any unambiguous answer: “The alliance members are ready to support Ukraine on the way to membership, helping to carry out reforms and modernize the armed forces so that they meet NATO standards. And then, in the end, the decision on membership should be made by allies in NATO and Ukraine. ” Similar position Stoltenberg expressed Three months before, emphasizing that the possible entry of Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance “obviously, will not happen tomorrow” and that both countries should do a lot in the future to achieve a full membership in the alliance. At the same time, on January 14, 2022, the Secretary General of the organization in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica declaredthat the “decision” on the future entry of Ukraine and Georgia was made back in 2008, but it is not known when this will happen.
Thus, the presence of territorial disputes in the country that claims to join NATO is not considered an insurmountable obstacle when considering the relevant application. The alliance documents and the prevailing practice show that the nature of such conflicts and especially measures to resolve them is much more important. The state that wants to join the Union is obliged not only to solve existing problems peacefully, but also to lead to almost the zero probability of using force in this process. This position is explained-otherwise, if the conflict goes into a larger phase, NATO can become a member of hostilities, and the declared main goal of the organization and its expansion is, on the contrary, in strengthening the security of member countries.
Do not forget that the current NATO members approve of an application to expand the organization on the basis of numerous factors and on an individual basis. Therefore, the weight of some of them is like reforming the army or commitment to democratic institutions can be significantly higher than some others-for example, the presence of a territorial dispute of one degree of seriousness. To take into account or not such territorial disagreements - the issue is a non -level political than legal, which is appropriately recorded in the alliance documents.
Half truth
- NATO. The North Atlantic Treaty
- NATO. Partnership for Peace Programme
- NATO. Study On Nato Enlargement
- B. Maksimov (Russian BBC service). NATO countries have many territorial disputes
- Is it true that the United States promised Gorbachev not to expand NATO east?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please inform us of this, highlighting the text with an error and by pressing Ctrl+Enter.
