The “principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law” are man’s natural and inalienable rights upon which healthy societies are built. An Alliance such as NATO, being a voluntary organization, requires from its candidates and its active members that they guarantee the protection of values of human decency in individuals. NATO is, in other words, a society of free-states consisting of tolerant citizens, who live in harmony with their neighbors with whom they wish to ally.

Whether one regards NATO as North America’s and Europe’s encroaching hand or whether one conceptualizes the Alliance as the ready policeman of the world, NATO considers itself as the instrument of stability and well-being of the North Atlantic area “founded on the principles of democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law.”

Upon the fall of the Wall in 1989, NATO hastily employed an open door policy, inviting and admitting former Warsaw Pact country members that militarily qualified to join, but lacked democratic values and principles, the absence of which contravene NATO’s own values. In other occasions, the Alliance invited quasi-qualified countries with their sole criterion being their strategic geopolitical location vis-à-vis Russia.

The FYROM’s candidacy to NATO is not only problematic, but also pointless. The FYROM does not meet any of the Preconditions set by NATO and save the exception of some troops that the FYROM sent to ISAF, it does not meet any other NATO requirements including a less than medium rated strategic location.

In my essay “Skopje Contributes to its Own Instability” I had argued that the problem in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (the FYROM) is the Slavic majority of the country that monopolizes the government and all institutions, disregarding its 35% minority of Albanians, let alone all others. Instead of acting on facts, they have chosen fiction. The latest chosen drama is FYROM’s alleged victimization by Greece according to which Greece invoked its veto power to preclude Skopje NATO membership. 

NATO’s principle for enlargement has created misunderstandings and illusions for some countries that consider NATO the place that either offers security or prestige or even both. It has created misunderstandings because the FYROM Slavs feel that their membership was guaranteed “as is” without changing their modus operandi; it has generated illusions because the FYROM believes that NATO membership is going to boost their national pride. The statement of theGreek Prime Minister that “all Balkan countries would join the EU in 2014,” the so-called Balkans 2014 project, also created great misunderstandings and illusions. Immediately after the announcement, the FYROM Prime Minister declared the Project Skopje 2014, assuming that Skopje’s EU membership was also guaranteed. 

While the strategic goal of all Balkan countries is NATO membership, it does require a series of achievements of certain political and military preconditions, as well as military, economic,and security criteria. On the other hand, one could pose the question, “what could FYROM have to offer to the Alliance, considering their Defense budget is insignificant?”

Before any country is considered a NATO member, it has to fulfill certain political criteria over and above those that NATO requires; the political preparation of the candidate country has to abide by NATO Enlargement Study and Accession Process, Ch. 5, para. 72, which expects the prospective members to have met OSCE requirements before NATO even considers preconditions and criteria for membership.

There have been certain fallacies circulating for the past few years due to ignorance on the“Macedonian Issue”. It is exacerbated by systematic propaganda emanating from AVNOJ, or communist Yugoslavia and present-day FYROM, and their intransigent ultra-nationalist Diaspora.