Page 50 - bneMag April 2022 Russia living with sanctions

50 Opinion bne April 2022
COMMENT
“Ukraine will never join Nato”.
Five simple words we refused to say. Are we now about to double down on our mistake?
Richard Chetwode in London
It's easy now to claim Putin was always going to invade Ukraine and that unless the West stood up to him, this would simply be the first step in rebuilding the Soviet empire. But maybe it’s much simpler than that; maybe, having ignored his security concerns for so long, we (the West), chose to call his bluff, and he wasn’t bluffing. Maybe we are at least partly responsible for this mess.
Vladimir Putin will know that very rarely in history has the invader won... think Germany in WWI & WWII; North Korea invading South Korea; the Yom Kippur War; Russia (and later Nato) in Afghanistan; Israel in Lebanon; Iraq in Iran; Argentina in the Falklands; Iraq in Kuwait; the UK and US
in Iraq... to name but a few. In all cases the invader lost. If history clearly shows that the country which invades another country doesn’t win, then de facto, invading another country is an irrational act. So why did he do it?
www.bne.eu
A simple message: Ukraine and Georgia can never be members of Nato
History may well say that President Putin was an authoritarian bully, a dictator, even a tyrant, but it will also record that he viewed Ukraine (and/or Georgia) joining Nato as a “Clear and Present Danger” to the security of Russia. For the last fifteen years, he has consistently warned that he will not tolerate either of them joining the Alliance and will never countenance a situation where US missiles and US troops could be based in either country. It may seem an odd question, but through his words and actions, how much clearer could he have been?
2008: Nato states that Ukraine and Georgia will join Nato
Let’s go back to 2008 when on the eve of the Nato summit
in Bucharest in April, President Bush publicly stated "we support [a Nato] MAP for Ukraine and Georgia” – MAP, or the Membership Action Plan, is the final stage on the road to full
The West chose to call Putin's bluff, and he wasn’t bluffing.