At the Washington Summit in July, NATO Ukraine to host 2008 Bucharest SummitHowever, no formal invitation to join or specific path to membership is provided. The US just signed a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine.But this would fall far short of the collective defense initiative that Kiev so desperately needs.
It is time for NATO to be honest with itself and with Kiev. Membership does not depend on Ukraine’s future. President Joseph Biden has stressed that he has no intention of starting World War III to defend Ukraine. As long as Ukraine is at war with Russia, membership is out of the question. Otherwise, NATO would be at war with Russia from the moment it joined. The president has also vowed to defend “every inch” of NATO territory.
Some Western leaders have suggested that Ukraine could join once the war is over. This is doubtful. The confidence that NATO’s collective defense guarantees would deter Russia from attacking Ukraine is misplaced. Ukraine occupies a unique place in the Russian political imagination, different from any other country that has joined NATO since the end of the Cold War. Russian leaders are convinced that their primacy in Ukraine is essential to their own security.
Russian President Putin himself I believe that Ukrainians and Russians are one people It should be unified into one nation.
The possibility of Russia testing NATO’s commitment to Ukraine would surely be enough to convince at least one ally to break the agreements necessary for Ukraine’s membership and accept the risk of imminent war with Russia.
That ally could be the United States. Indeed, any administration would have a hard time mustering the constitutionally required two-thirds Senate support, given growing Republican resistance to further security assistance to Ukraine.
Concerns about Ukraine’s membership are not surprising. NATO’s dirty secret is that since the end of the Cold War, it has never accepted a country that it felt it needed to defend against Russian aggression. The first two enlargement waves, in 1999 and 2004, brought in all the former Warsaw Pact members, the Baltic states and Slovenia, but this came at a time when NATO and Russia were focused on building cooperation.
Subsequent waves of attacks engulfed the Western Balkan states, which had been insulated from Russia by other NATO allies and may have been vulnerable to Russian interference in their internal affairs, but were not vulnerable to armed attack that would have triggered their commitment to NATO’s collective defense.
The recent accession of Finland and Sweden may seem like an exception, but these two Nordic countries had strong military forces and long experience of cooperation with NATO. Unlike other new members, they actually contributed to strengthening NATO from the moment they joined. NATO is more likely to ask them to defend other allies than to be asked to defend them.
If NATO membership is too difficult, what should Ukraine do? Sweden offers a model that can be adapted to the current situation. During the Cold War, Sweden was formally neutral and had a strong defense industrial sector and a capable military. But it also enjoyed close security and intelligence cooperation with the United States and other NATO allies. That cooperation was kept secret at the time, but the Soviets undoubtedly knew about it. And that knowledge served as a powerful deterrent against military aggression.
Even as the war rages, the West should help Ukraine become an updated Cold War Sweden. This will require increased support for rebuilding Ukraine’s defense industrial sector and training its military, as well as closer security and intelligence cooperation. These arrangements are included in bilateral agreements the United States and other allies have signed or are soon to sign with Ukraine. Adequate funding should be provided to ensure stable support for at least the next decade.
Supporting Ukraine also requires helping it reform its economy and political system to European standards. The Swedish model worked in part because Sweden was a strong democracy with an efficient market economy. In this regard, the upcoming accession negotiations to the European Union are crucial to Ukraine’s long-term security.
With enough time and Western support, Ukraine can build a credible deterrent against Russia outside of NATO. But that will never happen as long as NATO holds up the illusion of membership and tempts Ukraine to pursue it. It is long past time to abandon that illusion and focus on what is feasible and sufficient for Ukraine’s security.
Thomas Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as senior director for Russia on the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration.
