Ukraine NATO Bid Could Trigger World War, Yet Not Impossible - Ex US Official

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Ukraine joining the US-led NATO alliance would pose an enormous threat to world peace and threaten a world war, yet the intellectual preparatory work for such a move is already being done, former US State Department official Nicolai Petro, currently a professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island, told Sputnik.

"The danger that such a move would pose to global peace and stability, however, is absolutely no guarantee that it will not happen," Petro said.

Last week, Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky said he expected NATO to speed up his country's accession to the bloc following the referenda on joining Russia of Donbas, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions.

Petro, who served as State Department special assistant for policy on the Soviet Union under President George H.W. Bush, pointed out that joining NATO has long been an aspiration of the US-backed, weak governments in Kiev following the toppling of Ukraine's democratically elected government in the February 2014 Maidan coup.

"NATO membership was made mandatory by amendment to the Ukrainian constitution by Zelenskyy's predecessor [Petro Poroshenko who presided over the first stage of the Russo-Ukrainian war.] From NATO's perspective, it makes even less sense today than it did then," he said.

Publicly, top US and NATO officials have avoided endorsing Zelensky's demand.

US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on Friday that the best way for the West to support Ukraine was on the battlefield and suggested that the military alliance would take up Kiev’s bid "at a different time."

However, the governments of nine Eastern European members of NATO have already issued a joint call for the Alliance to accept Ukraine.

The document was signed by the presidents of the Czech Republic, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland and Slovakia.

Petro said a widespread effort was already being made to prepare the public of Western nations to support Ukrainian accession to NATO even though it might trigger a disastrous global conflict.

"The preparatory intellectual work is already being done to 'normalize' world war. In a nutshell: since we are already at war, what's the big deal in acknowledging it?" he said

In this context, immediate NATO membership could easily be justified as an "extraordinary circumstance," Petro explained.

"In that way, you see, the violation of procedures would be justified as a humanitarian necessity, for which the foundation has also been laid by referencing past Russian atrocities. Given this track record, supporters of 'NATO membership now' will argue that membership will serve to protect Ukrainian civilians from future Russian atrocities," he pointed out.

War hawks in the West were already rallying around the new talking points to justify increased confrontation, Petro warned.

"The script almost writes itself," he said.

Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office in Ukraine, told Polish President Andrzej Duda that Kiev counted on Warsaw’s help in joining NATO.