FOR THE RECORD: Kyiv conference on "NATO at 50"
Following is a text of remarks by Ross L. Wilson, principal deputy special advisor to the secretary of state for the new independent states delivered at the conference on "NATO at 50: Prelude to the Washington Summit" held in Kyiv on March 18. The conference was co-sponsored by the U.S. Embassy, the Atlantic Council of Ukraine, and the NATO Information and Documentation Center.
Secretary [Volodymyr] Horbulin, Ambassador [Steven] Pifer, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased and honored to represent the United States here today at the opening of this conference. This meeting could not be more timely. Last week, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic formally joined the North Atlantic Alliance. In five weeks President [Leonid] Kuchma will meet with the 19 leaders of the alliance for the first ever NATO-Ukraine Summit. That meeting, the NATO Summit itself, and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council Summit will lay critically important foundation stones of European security for the 21st century. As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of NATO, we will also lay the groundwork for the next 50 years of peace in Europe.
Ukraine enjoys a special relationship - a distinctive partnership - with NATO. It has developed this partnership through the NATO-Ukraine Commission and engagement in the Partnership for Peace (PFP). It has hosted several successful international joint military exercises. A NATO Liaison Office will open this spring here in Kyiv, expanding NATO's direct involvement here based on the ongoing work of the NATO Information and Documentation Center. Ukraine has offered Yavoriv, a modern military training and exercise center, for use in PFP exercises.
Who in this room, who in Ukraine and, indeed, who in NATO would have dreamed 10 years ago that this would be possible? Who would have imagined that a free Ukraine, sovereign and independent, would celebrate with NATO 50 years of success in safeguarding freedom and democracy in Europe?
Ukraine has good reason to be proud of what it has achieved. Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk spoke last week about Ukraine's "European choice" - its vital interest in making this country an inseparable part of the European family to which it belongs. For us Americans, there is equally one fundamental and enduring truth: the well-being of the United States depends in large measure on what happens in Europe. The United States will not prosper without an economically vibrant Europe; it will not be safe without a secure and peaceful Europe. These ideas are what join the alliance, our partners and, I think, our two countries together.
NATO, Ukraine and our partners are creating a framework of stability and security that is consolidating the integration of market democracies of Europe across the whole Euro-Atlantic area. The NATO-Ukraine Summit will offer an opportunity to review the distinctive partnership that was established with the NATO-Ukraine Charter signed in 1997. This partnership already has borne fruit. In Washington, NATO leaders will applaud this positive record and look ahead. They will discuss with President Kuchma Ukraine's future NATO policy and our mutual goals for working together to strengthen peace and security.
Ukraine has developed and proposed an ambitious Program of Cooperation with NATO up to 2001 - the first and only state of the former Soviet Union to do so. This program will provide for Ukraine to make a permanent contribution to Euro-Atlantic security. NATO members are committed to helping Ukraine to implement this program and, more broadly, to pursue the economic and political reforms that will bring the prosperity and stability it needs to be a full and reliable partner.
The NATO Summit will lay the groundwork for, and express NATO's vision of, a more integrated Europe and a stronger trans-Atlantic link. Our central summit goal is to adapt NATO to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
This 21st century NATO will be a larger, more flexible alliance. It will reaffirm its Article V commitment, that an attack on one is an attack on all. This remains the core mission of the alliance. ... The new NATO will also be capable of working in partnership with other nations and organizations to advance security, prosperity and democracy for the entire trans-Atlantic area. It will remain the primary means for Europeans and North Americans to act together - politically and militarily. ...
Some observers, including here in Ukraine, are skeptical. They criticize NATO and its opening to the East as some provocative thing aimed at them. These feelings are not justified. The growing number of Ukrainian officers and soldiers who work in NATO headquarters and keep the peace in the former Yugoslavia are emblematic of a new order. NATO is, and will remain, a defensive alliance, not aimed against any country, but targeted at peace. This is a reality that Ukrainians can testify to based on their own experience.
We can make an interesting historical parallel. At its birth, NATO incorporated countries that had fought a brutal war and tied them together in a commitment to mutual defense. Now, at its rebirth at the dawn of a new century, NATO seeks to do the same thing: bring together former Cold War adversaries in a new, mutually beneficial commitment to peace and stability, and to a Europe genuinely whole and free.
We can think about NATO's adaptation in terms of three key policy areas: new missions, new members and stronger partnerships.
First, new missions: NATO needs to remain prepared to defend the territorial integrity of NATO member-states and to prevent, deter and, if necessary, respond to a broader spectrum of possible threats to alliance interests. These include the proliferation of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and their means of delivery, regional conflicts beyond NATO's territory - as in Bosnia and Kosovo - and transnational threats such as terrorism.
Second, new members: NATO is now welcoming as allies the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. The opening of the alliance is a natural consequence of a peaceful, undivided and democratic Europe growing together. The alliance will reaffirm that the door to new members remains open, an act designed to encourage integration among states that have suffered too much from division and isolation. The alliance will act to strengthen the candidacies of those who seek membership by enhancing practical military cooperation and political dialogue with NATO.
Third, stronger partnerships: The alliance will intensify its work with all partner nations, regardless of possible aspirations to membership, to extend security and stability throughout this broader community.
It will do this through a new political-military framework and a NATO-partner coalitions initiative to facilitate joint crisis response and to provide for a more operational partnership; through continued strengthening of the NATO-Ukraine distinctive partnership; and through further development of NATO-Russia relations under the Founding Act.
The NATO-Ukraine Summit is a centerpiece of this effort. Ukraine's bilateral cooperation with Poland in the Polish-Ukrainian Battalion serves as an example of the type of regional cooperation we hope will grow. Ukraine's offer of Yavoriv as a training facility for NATO and partner exercises is another example of Ukrainian leadership in reinforcing regional peace and security.
NATO's initiatives toward its partners will be a major step toward a 21st century NATO that is able to cope with the real security challenges that we are likely to face. ...
Ladies and gentlemen, the Washington summit will be one of the last summits of the 20th century, but should also be considered the first summit of the 21st century. Ukraine will have a prominent place at the creation of the new NATO. The summit provides a chance for North Americans and other members of the Euro-Atlantic community to prove, politically and in practice, that we do indeed have common interests and values, that we are capable of defending them together, and that we will have a Europe genuinely whole and free. That gives Americans, and I hope Ukrainians, great optimism for the future.
Below is the text of opening remarks by Ambassador Steven Pifer.
... Europe has witnessed striking changes over the last 10 years: the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, countries in transition, building democratic market economies. This has meant change in how European countries relate to one another and in key Euro-Atlantic institutions.
In the fall of 1994, then-Deputy Foreign Minister [Borys] Tarasyuk and Deputy Secretary [of State Strobe] Talbott discussed European security issues at the State Department in Washington. To Ukraine's west, NATO had announced the beginning of a process to take in new members, and several Central European states, including neighbors of Ukraine, were prime candidates.
Russia was making clear its displeasure at the prospect of NATO enlargement. Some in Moscow were even voicing threats about how Russia would react should enlargement proceed.
Mr. Tarasyuk expressed concern that Ukraine, located between an enlarging NATO and a restive Russia, might become a buffer state between the two. He posed the question: how could this be avoided?
Mr. Talbott agreed that this was a very legitimate question for Kyiv. He conceded that the U.S. government did not have a ready answer, but he felt a solution that would avoid leaving Ukraine in an insecure position could and would be found.
As we thought about this problem in Washington, we concluded that it was in no one's interest - certainly not Ukraine's, but also not in the interest of the United States, Ukraine's neighbors, or Europe as a whole - that Ukraine feel trapped in a gray zone of insecurity. We understood that a stable, democratic Ukraine, secure and confident and maintaining good relations with all its neighbors, could play a critical role in shaping a more stable and secure Europe for the 21st century.
Helping Ukraine achieve that status became a key aim of American security policy for Europe. As we sought to enlarge NATO and expand the alliance's outreach to the countries to NATO's east, we worked to do that in a way that built bridges to Ukraine and gave Kyiv greater confidence in its security position.
Part of the answer to Mr. Tarasyuk's question lay in strengthening the bilateral U.S.-Ukrainian relationship. Those links grew throughout 1994 and 1995, culminating in 1996 in the announcement of a strategic partnership and the launch of the Gore-Kuchma Binational Commission.
Another part of the answer lay in crafting a web of links between Ukraine and key Euro-Atlantic institutions like NATO. Ukraine became the first former Soviet republic to join the Partnership for Peace, and Kyiv's relations with the alliance thickened. In July 1997, President Kuchma joined 16 NATO leaders in Madrid to conclude the NATO-Ukraine Charter on a Distinctive Partnership.
Four and a half years after that conversation between the deputy foreign minister and the deputy secretary, I think we can look back and say that we have done a pretty good job of answering Mr. Tarasyuk's question. Ukraine is not caught in a gray zone. Instead, it has strong and growing links with the West and is increasingly thought of as a Central European state rather than a "former something."
Ukraine at the same time has stable and friendly relations with Russia. That is good for European security. Indeed, as we in the United States sought to strengthen ties between Ukraine and the West, we always tried to avoid putting Kyiv in a position of having to choose between the West and Russia. That is a false choice that Kyiv does not have to make. Ukraine can and should have good relations both to its west and east.
This is the kind of subject that we hope to explore in today's conference, which will cover five themes in panel discussions.
... NATO today is a very different entity from what it was 10 years ago. And this is not always well understood. The alliance has adapted in recognition of Europe's changed security realities. It has new members, enjoys new partnerships, and faces new challenges and missions. Its military structure is hugely different from what it was during the Cold War. ...
Europe's security architecture ... has changed dramatically from the bipolar structure of the Cold War to what is now referred to as "variable geometry." Different organizations - OSCE, NATO, the European Union, the Western European Union, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, each with a unique membership and its own objectives - must find a way to work together, so that each can maximize its contribution to shaping the Europe that we hope to build.
The Washington summit [is] in April ... Actually, I should say summits, as there will be at least three: NATO, meeting for the first time with 19 government heads; NATO-Ukraine; and the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, which will bring together more than 40 leaders. A fourth event, involving NATO and Russia, remains to be determined.
... our common goal [is] building a more stable and secure Europe, one in which our children can live in peace and have the freedom to realize their potential and their dreams.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, April 11, 1999, No. 15, Vol. LXVII
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