Ukraine may join NATO Response Force in 2015-16
Bruessels: Ukraine has been invited to join the NATO Response Force as a partner country in 2015-16, a spokesman for the NATO military committee said Wednesday.
Colonel Massimo Panizzi said Ukraine would become “the first non-NATO country to join the Response Force.”
The Response Force consists of rapid deployment forces with land, air and sea components, capable of swiftly reacting to crisis situations.
Panizzi added that the matter would be discussed at a meeting of Ukrainian and NATO chiefs of staff on January 26 in Brussels.
He described the move as “a significant step forward in the implementation of military reform” that NATO is expecting from Kiev “on its way” toward NATO candidate status.
Asked whether other NATO partners could join the Response Force, Panizzi said: “All partners are invited to cooperate within the framework of the process.”
Ukraine was one of the first NATO partner countries to offer to play a role in the NATO Response Force.
The country’s pro-Western leadership has been pursuing NATO membership since 2004, when President Viktor Yushchenko came to power.
Ukraine failed to secure membership in the NATO Membership Action Plan, a key step toward joining the alliance, at a NATO summit in April 2008.
Russia vehemently opposes the post-Soviet country’s NATO ambitions, and in February 2008 the Kremlin threatened to retarget missiles at Ukraine if it joined NATO.
The NATO Response Force is capable of performing missions worldwide across the whole spectrum of operations, including evacuations, disaster management, counterterrorism, and acting as ‘an initial entry force’ for larger, follow-on forces.
Russia is creating a similar force with its partners in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Perhaps this is a way for NATO to save face, after Georgia and Ukraine weren’t accepted as members just before the South Ossetian war, and even future membership has been postponed definitely.
@Carlo: it’s all a “fuck you!” to the people in the Ukraine who have clearly voted against NATO and who are told that their soliders will still have to die for the Empire. That is how things are done in Europe anyway. Remeber when a country votes against joining the UE or some UE treaty, what happens then? The popular will is simply ignored and the governments put the same thing on the ballot again, or simply ignore it altogether. I wonder if there is a single country in Europe right now in which most people want to send troops to Afghanistan. And yet, NATO is there doing the Empire’s work.
Remember Brecht:
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had thrown away the confidence of the government
And could win it back only
By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
In that case for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
That is also NATO’s attitude.
Interesting to see grant recipients NED funded organisations from the 2008 grant section on the National Endowment for Democracy website.
http://www.ned.org/grants/08programs/grants-eurasia08.html