The arrival of GUAM is significant because it signals that the CIS is, for all intents and purposes, a dying body badly in need of a life-support mechanism. The sixth anniversary of the CIS passed virtually unnoticed in the capitals of the CIS member-states. The man behind the creation of the CIS as an alternative to the USSR, former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, described it as a "shell. Its decisions mean nothing. This organization has no prospects." President Kuchma applauded its role in peacefully dissolving the former USSR, but he believes that currently it merely serves as a "consultative forum." The decline of the CIS and the rise of GUAM is a reflection of the incompatibility of domestic state- and nation-building, which is being undertaken within most of the non-Russian states of the CIS, and attempts at close integration on the part of Russia and Belarus. Ukraine is de jure not even a member of the CIS, having never signed the charter. In December 1997 President Kuchma pointedly stated that "Every country has its own interests. Ours, for example, lie in Europe."
Without cutting off all ties to the CIS, Ukraine under President Kuchma seeks to accomplish three tasks. First, normalize relations with Russia. A major step was undertaken in this direction with the signing of the Russian-Ukrainian inter-state treaty in May 1997. But, both sides understand this treaty in different ways and Kyiv has not failed to notice that Russian President Boris Yeltsin only flew to Kyiv, shortly before the Madrid NATO summit, because Ukraine had successfully played the NATO card. The Russian leadership sees the treaty as a way of both restraining Ukraine's westward drift to Europe, as well as a means to cement a military alliance. Both Moscow and Miensk would like to see Ukraine join their fledging pan-Slavic union. Ukraine, on the other hand, sees such a union or military alliance as leading to a new Cold War because both would inevitably be anti-Western and anti-NATO. Consequently, even after the signing of the Russian-Ukrainian treaty, the majority of Ukrainian elites still regard Russia as the main threat to Ukrainian security. Under Mr. Yeltsin this threat will remain non-military, but this could rapidly change to a more serious threat in the post-Yeltsin era, which is likely to be upon us sooner rather than later. The Russian leadership remains torn between supporting geopolitical designs in countries such as Ukraine during the 1998 and 1999 elections or supporting democratic reforms, a conundrum faced in earlier eras, after all, by other great powers in Africa (France) and in Latin America (the U.S.). Ukraine's ideal relationship with Russia will therefore continue to remain "cooperative independence" - not "cooperative integration." The second task is to continue the activist foreign policy in Ukraine's immediate "near abroad." This will entail the likelihood of Ukrainian membership in the Central Free Trade Association in 1998, providing an enhanced security role to the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Agreement and developing GUAM. GUAM's members share common security concerns in the field of energy transportation from Azerbaijan and the lessening of energy dependency upon Russia as well as support for their territorial integrity (Ukraine is the only one of the four without a separatist region beyond the control of the central authorities). In the post-Yeltsin era a new Russian leadership could stir up Crimean separatism, as the Yeltsin leadership did in the other three members of GUAM. Ukraine has therefore backed the calls of other GUAM members for it to become involved in peacekeeping under U.N. and OSCE auspices in their separatist enclaves.
The third task is to continue the path of westward integration into Europe. President Kuchma has now stated that Ukraine belongs in the European Union and NATO. This "return to Europe" theme has gained considerable momentum under President Kuchma and now dominates the foreign policy-making community in Kyiv. Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister and President of the 52nd session of the U.N. General Assembly Hennadii Udovenko, for example, is running in the parliamentary elections as a Rukh candidate. Unfortunately, Ukraine's ambitions to return to Europe look to be thwarted by the slow progress domestically on economic reform and institution building, without which any future membership in NATO or the EU will be impossible. Relations nevertheless will continue to be close between Ukraine and NATO, while remaining temperate with the EU. Ukraine and Hungary were the first countries to establish missions at NATO, reflecting the importance Kyiv attaches to NATO as a security insurance policy vis-à-vis a post-Yeltsin Russia (something reflected in the NATO-Ukraine Charter signed in July 1997). In addition, the United States, the dominant country within NATO, is convinced of the strategic importance of Ukraine to its own and European security, as well as to the continued democratic transformation of Russia. NATO expansion therefore is not regarded in a negative light by the Ukrainian policy-making elites.
Relations with the European Union are more lukewarm because Ukraine is defined as Eurasian in light of its participation within the CIS, an ambivalent geographic position that it occupies with Turkey, which has sought to enter the EU since 1958. Ukraine is not one of the 10 countries with whom the EU is currently considering negotiating future membership. Associate membership and the creation of a free-trade regime between Ukraine and the EU is all that is currently on offer.