A thin red line line or a fat blue one?

As you all know our lovable neighbour just had a rather unpleasant confrontation with Georgia. Naturally we are rather annoyed in case some of that nasty stuff gets spilled on our own freshly mowed lawn, however there are other troubling events to pay attention to as well. David Cameron and David Miliband and some others not named David recently enjoyed their own bout of sabre-rattling. That is NATO giving Ukraine something of a turbo-membership. Something we should be rather afraid of.

Don't get me wrong, everybody and their grandmother should be given a chance to be free of intervening KGB veterans and all but NATO membership might be one step too many. You see, Ukraine is not a lovely unified country of western values and aspirations but rather a country stuck between two radically different worlds. Without getting bogged down by details, one can view Ukraine as a bipolar country. The nation is roughly split in two along the same lines as on the picture to the left. The western part of the nation can be characterized as pro-European and the eastern or southern, which ever way you like it, part as pro-Russian. This means a seriously messed up country in short. The Estonian equivalent of such a division would not be the Ida-Virumaa versus the rest but rather something along the lines of Estland and Livland. What I wanted to prove with that boring demographic talk was that the country itself is not sure, which way it wants to go. Apparently they are too busy cutting each others throats to see the big bad wolf creeping around the house.

Now imagine NATO getting involved. Apart from the fact that we would be forcing an alliance of serious strategic importance onto people against their wishes (how's that for democracy?), these kind of countries tend to be extremely unstable and impossible to predict. It is like giving a rabid schizophrenic monkey pumped up to the eye-balls on various stimulants a fully armed nuclear football. Oh and just for the heck of it, the monkey lives next door to a megalomaniac mastermind as well as some bloke named Hitler. Even without a smirking Russia poking around where it is not wanted, the mixture is still highly potent. If, at some point, a few oblasts would decide to secede, the odds are that a full blown civil war might erupt. What will NATO do then? Back one ethnically cleansing half of the country over another? Simply ignore the events? Ask the warring sides to simply kiss and make up? Install a meaningless puppet regime tasked to freeze the conflict and hope nobody notices?

Though I strongly support all attempts to help Ukraine deal with it's nasty neighbour, NATO membership is no silver bullet. Until it's ready, and by that I mean dealt with it's internal issues, there should be no further talk on the subject. Right now we would simply be trying to douse the flames with gasoline. Not only would be fuel further conflict but put ourselves on the line. This, my friends, is contrary to the golden rule of helping someone out: make sure you do not put yourself in danger. Nobody needs another would-be helper crying for rescue.