Ukraine requests participation in Missile Shield as tensions mount

According to the Australian, Ukraine has requested to participate in the Missile Shield by offering its Soviet-era radar stations to the system.

Obviously, if this sort of agreement came to fruition it would greatly aggravate already inflamed tensions between Russia and Ukraine.

Last week, Ukraine declared Russia would have to inform the Ukrainian leadership of the movements of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which currently docks at the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. A Ukrainian military statement last week also stated that, should those vessels engage in the Georgian conflict — which they did — they may not be allowed to return to base.

Russian officials have reacted to such restrictions with sharp disdain, saying its actions are Russian military business, and they have the right, by an agreement signed in 1997, to utilize the port Sevastopol through 2017, regardless of the political mood in Kiev.

While, Ukraine seems reticent to enforce its ultimatum and risk direct conflict with Russia, its pledge to participate in the Missile Shield shows that it plans to continue standoffish relations and not back down from its solidarity with Georgia.

What I personally find interesting is that regardless of the purpose of the Missile Shield in the first place — whether it truly was meant to be used against Iran and other rogue states — no one views its purpose as being such any longer. All sides have now used it as a pressure point for escalation and leverage in the growing tensions between the Western-backed governments in the former Soviet Union and Russia.

Among policy-makers in the Washington and Moscow, there is an widening taking place of what can be considered responses and punishments for perceived violations of each other’s national interest — all of which are destabilizing and unfortunate developments in East-West relations.

No one knows how far the chain reaction will go. Hopefully a push for normalized relations will eventually defeat the desire for brinkmanship in the two capitals.