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| (AP Photo/Sergei Chuzavkov) |
With the world turning its eyes toward Ukraine, numerous questions are being asked. What do protesters want? What is at stake for international politics? Neoconservative John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for the Bush administration, has already put his two cents into the conversation. In the Los Angeles Times, Bolton argues that what is currently happening in Ukraine is proof that NATO should have been expanded in 2008 at the Bucharest summit:
Thus the West collectively made a terrible mistake at the NATO summit in April 2008 by not placing Ukraine (and Georgia) on a clear path to NATO membership. Had we done so, the question of EU economic relations would doubtless have been more easily resolved. Ambiguity over Ukraine, leaving it in a no man’s land between Russia and NATO, obviously didn’t lead to Ukrainian stability, domestically or internationally. And the same vital question for Kiev’s citizens abides: Is their future with the West or Moscow?Is the push toward the EU just a step to integrate Ukraine into military alignment through NATO? There is undoubtedly an array of opinions among the protesters, but the question for someone like Bolton is not “what do the protesters want?” but “what do the powers-that-be want?” Historically, EU membership has been a step toward NATO membership, and it is also clear that the draft of the Association Agreement that the protesters seem to support includes military cooperation. Article X, section one, says:
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