NATO doesn't have role as defensive alliance since Cold War end - expert

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On 30 May,1982 Spain joined NATO and became its sixteenth member. Since NATO's formation in 1949 the organization accepted new members six times and as of 2014 NATO unifies 28 states in Europe and North America. Michael Binyon, foreign affairs writer at The Times, expressed his opinion on exactly how reasonable a potential futher enlargement of NATO would be during his interview with Radio VR.

What are your forecasts for the further NATO enlargement? Would the organization manage to move eastward in Europe?

I think it is extremely unlikely. It would only move to take new members if those new members clearly want to be a member of NATO and were suitable or qualified. But at the moment it doesn't look as though anybody would like to join NATO and NATO certainly has no wish to enlarge unless any members particularly request to join. I think at the moment it is absolutely clear that Ukraine neither has the wish to join nor would it be advisable for Ukraine to be a member.

In 1954 the Soviet Union expressed its will to join NATO. However the US, France and Great Britain rejected to add the USSR. In your opinion what was the main reason for the refusal? Does it mean that NATO was formed in counterbalance to Russia and the country was perceived as a main military and strategic enemy from the very beginning?

Certainly it was performed as a defensive alliance against what was seen as Soviet expansionism and particularly the setting up of communist governments in Czechoslovakia and Poland and one or two other Eastern European countries. Many of those governments were set up with Soviet force and control behind the establishment of a communist government. And there was a feeling that this was a sort of domino effect which eventually might engulf other governments in Western Europe. So, it was set up indeed as a defensive alliance against the Soviet Union. Remember we are talking Soviet, not Russia. It was never intended to be anti-Russian, it was anti-Soviet expansionism.

 But the 1954 request by Moscow to become a member, that was an intriguing situation, which really screwed NATO off balance. It was a very clever peace of diplomatic maneuvering by Molotov. It was the year after Stalin's death. The reasons given for not accepting: there were two. One was that it would not have allowed the US to be a full member. Their proposal was to have the US and China and observers. Then Molotov changed the proposal and said the "US could be a member." and the reason given was that it would actually not be compatible with NATO's democratic nature or indeed with its defensive alliance. So, NATO turned down the Soviet request.

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How did NATO change since 1949? What are the main aims of the organization in the XXI century?

Yes, since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been looking for a role for itself. It doesn't really have a military role as a defensive alliance anymore at all because officially all Europe is friendly with each other, we are all members of the conference for security and cooperation in Europe. The question would be against whom is NATO a defensive alliance. And the answer is not against anybody. And after the end of the Cold War there was a proposal that NATO should become a regional security organization for maintaining stability within Europe. It was only actually brought into play during the Yugoslav conflict, during the crisis in the Balkans. And since then NATO has had a new role as a regional stability organization in Afghanistan which I have to say has not been very successful. So, NATO to some extent is really not quite sure what its role is now.

In your opinion, is it reasonable to spend large amounts of money on the enlargement of alliance, meanwhile many member states suffer from decay in the economy and social sectors? Why do these countries still agree with NATO's policy?

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In fact, taxpayers wouldn't be grumping about it because joining NATO is much cheaper than running your own individual separate defense policy. The whole point is that it is a collective defense. So, you pull a lot of your resources. And it is much cheaper to smaller countries to be part of a larger collective alliance than it is to run a separate defense policy which would also include separate procurement of weapons, possibly different types of weapons. The whole point about NATO is that it is a standardization of weapons across the alliance. So, for many countries it is a rather convenient way of getting defense on the cheap. So, I don't think that many taxpayers are hoping that their countries will pull out of NATO.

Is it possible that Ukraine could join NATO? And what will be the consequences of this move?

I think it is extremely unlikely for two reasons. First of all, Russia still sees NATO as in some way hostile to Russian interests and to the Russian view of collective security in Europe and therefore there is no point inviting a neighbor of Russia to join, or in fact even proposing negotiations for Ukraine to join if it would be an antagonistic move to Russia. NATO is not there to try to provoke Russia. In fact NATO has asked Russia to take a full part in the NATO-Russia council where Russia has full membership in Brussels. Russia has made it very clear. It would see Ukraine joining as a hostile act. And I think that would therefore be politically unwise. It is also clear that Ukraine itself is divided on this question. Some people in Western Ukraine think that it would be a nice way of tying Ukraine to West-European interests, those in East of Ukraine think it would be a disaster. So, as long as the country itself doesn't have a firm view, NATO has no intention of offering membership.