Contrary to the voices of present-day academia, media, and political discourse, Ukraine, shortly after ratifying independence in 1991, discreetly adopted a persistent yet cautious, evolutionary and balanced policy towards NATO. The objective of this policy I argue was two-fold: 1) de facto NATO membership at minimum (whereby Ukraine solidifies its position as a close, loyal and respected NATO ally. In turn, NATO would be compelled to support, assist and secure its Ukrainian ally to a given extent even though it is not a permanent member); and/or 2) full-fledged NATO membership at maximum (Ukraine becomes a permanent member of the Alliance and is assured the same security guarantees accorded to permanent members). A deep dive into the history and present-day conundrum of Ukraine’s geo-political affairs reveals that the new nation’s most senior leadership adopted the strategies long held by Ukrainian nationalists, to achieve this ambitious dual aimed national security objective. The strategies include: (1) innocuously and persistently integrating Ukraine into Pan-European and NATO-related structures, (2) promptly elevating Ukraine’s political, economic, legislative, social and military structures, as well as its international footprint to meet standards required for NATO membership. Next, I set out to prove that Ukraine's official NATO policy was essentially formulated, advocated, and implemented by the country’s commander-in-chief with the assistance of small group of his closest advisors. It further theorized that Ukraine’s NATO policy has been strongly affected by the following four variables: (1) content and contestation of the Ukrainian national identity, (2) the perception, self-interest and power of Ukraine’s political and industrial elite, (3) the "Russian" factor, and (4) the perceptions and policies of key Western states and international institution towards Ukraine and Ukraine-NATO relations. While these four variables drove Ukraine's NATO Policy, I demonstrated how Ukraine's leaders would seek to control and influence these variables to render them more conducive to their overall NATO policy objectives. As Scott Lewis describes, Olearchyk-Zalipsky's third thesis sought to prove that "Presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma manipulated these four variables so to render them more conductive and less obtrusive to Ukraine’s principal NATO policy objective". The results of my inquiry and analysis lead me to conclude Ukraine may be close to or may have already achieved de facto membership in NATO (i.e. as of 2000). Ukraine will continue to pursue full-fledged membership at an accelerated pace, and I predict that it will be granted within the next five to 10 years (2004-2014), so long as the present course persists without major changes. Most importantly, I argue that membership in NATO is "no longer out of the question."