Sea Breeze 2006: the campaign to promote NATO is being lost

An ambiguous situation over the lack of legislation to permit the conducting of the Sea Breeze 2006 military exercises in Ukraine became the excuse for a widespread campaign against joining NATO. Although NATO has no direct relationship to these exercises and Ukraine has so far been acting in accordance to existing legislation, the Yekhanurov Government once more failed to explain its position effectively to voters and to explain what was going on.

The Sea Breeze exercises are not a NATO event. They are a joint Ukrainian–American training series that involved both NATO countries and countries that do not belong to the Alliance. The Sea Breeze exercises have been held annually since 1997. From that first year, Russia has participated in these exercises as an observer. The efforts of such parties as the Progressive Socialists and the Communists to link these exercises with NATO have no legal basis and are pure politics. Unfortunately, neither the press nor the Government was able to objectively present the situation and the real motives of the organizers of the protests. In the public mind, these exercises have now begun to be clearly associated with NATO.

The Ukrainian Government has been acting completely within the law. The Verkhovna Rada needs to pass a law only for the actual carrying out of the exercises and not for the preparations for those exercises. On the reasonable assumption that the VR would approve such a bill, the Defense Ministry began preparing for the exercises with its international partners, which included the delivery by the American merchant transporter Advantage of military and civilian property for this purpose. On the ship were representatives of the US Department of Defense.

According to the Law On the procedure for admitting and the conditions for the stay of military divisions of the Armed Forces of other countries on the territory of Ukraine, the agreement of the Verkhovna Rada is needed only in the event that divisions of the Armed Forces of another state are being landed on Ukrainian territory. Since representatives of the US DOD hardly qualify as a

“military division,” the ship’s cargo was not ammunition for such a division, and the vessel was not a military one, the Border Service of Ukraine, according to prior agreement, had every reason to admit this ship into a Ukrainian port without the say­so of the Verkhovna Rada. The fact remains that the Government and Defense Ministry miscalculated the importance of providing complete advance information on this issue. The media took this silence as indicating that they doubted the legitimacy of their own steps.

This scandal has led to even greater unconstructive political competition. Much of the press failed to understand the situation properly and too often published conflicting and incorrect information. Those factions that are determined to oppose the Government, the Party of the Regions and the Communist Party, took advantage of the situation to score political points and to underscore the ineffectiveness of the current Administration. PR demonstrated to the president just how important its presence might be in resolving regional issues. The CPU yet again pressed home its anti­NATO position. The Government showed its complete inability to work effectively with the public and to inform voters of its position. The partners in a potential Orange coalition were unable to ensure that the Verkhovna Rada made the necessary decision in time. This provides additional reason to doubt in their future ability to resolve foreign policy issues.

These events showed just how totally ineffective the Government is in promoting the idea of NATO among Ukrainians. What is more, the situation was completely taken advantage of by those domestic political forces that are against Ukraine’s integration with NATO and by Russia. The main impact of these events was to damage Ukraine’s international image and to shake the faith of its foreign partners in the power of the Ukrainian Government to effectively continue on the course of euroatlantic integration. As a result of this scandal, public support for joining NATO, which was already relatively low, sank even lower. Given the likelihood that there will be a referendum on the issue of joining the North Atlantic Alliance, Ukraine’s government has suffered a serious blow.