In the wake of the announcement of Sweden’s membership in NATO, there is an active discussion of adding Ukraine to NATO and, as you might expect, some difference of opinion. In his piece discussing the NATO summit in Vilnius at RealClearPolitics Charles Lipson seems to think Ukraine’s membership is inevitable:
Two issues dominate the longer-range future: rebuilding Ukraine and its membership in NATO. A Western rebuilding effort will succeed only if lots of partners provide lots of funding and only if the war is truly over. The country cannot be rebuilt if peace is unstable. Second, they will discuss a timetable for Ukraine joining NATO and undoubtedly postpone it.
The goal of Ukrainian membership is obvious: to deter any future Russian attacks. The danger is just as obvious: If Russia did attack its neighbor, it would activate NATO’s Article 5 and lead to a direct war between Russia and the West, not the proxy war now grinding on.
while at The National Interest Christian A. Preble thinks the opposite—that talk of NATO membership for Ukraine is a cruel hoax:
First, simply put, Ukraine doesn’t have the votes, and it won’t get them. While current NATO members are almost universally sympathetic to Ukraine’s plight and fully supportive of its efforts to defend and restore its territory, they will not unanimously support its accession to NATO—and unanimity is required, as Sweden’s case reminds us. This political reality has been well understood ever since the 2008 NATO Summit in Bucharest, when then-President George W. Bush pressed NATO to make a rhetorical commitment to Ukraine and Georgia eventually joining the alliance, despite clear indications that their bids for membership lacked support among key NATO members.
The reticence around admitting Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance in 2008 was based on the rational assumption that Russia would react harshly to NATO’s further enlargement to the east. Those who objected to the Bush administration’s 11th hour push for Ukrainian and Georgian membership pointed to Russia’s vehement objections to NATO positioning additional forces on its border. At the time, advocates for NATO expansion dismissed such concerns, arguing that because Moscow had acquiesced to previous rounds of enlargement, it would do so again.
I think there are issues unmentioned by either writer including tensions between Ukraine and Poland and Ukraine and Romania that will provide additional barriers to Ukraine’s membership which, as pointed out, must secure unanimous agreement.
Update
11. We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements. Ukraine’s future is in NATO. We reaffirm the commitment we made at the 2008 Summit in Bucharest that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, and today we recognise that Ukraine’s path to full Euro-Atlantic integration has moved beyond the need for the Membership Action Plan. Ukraine has become increasingly interoperable and politically integrated with the Alliance, and has made substantial progress on its reform path. In line with the 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership between NATO and Ukraine and the 2009 Complement, Allies will continue to support and review Ukraine’s progress on interoperability as well as additional democratic and security sector reforms that are required. NATO Foreign Ministers will regularly assess progress through the adapted Annual National Programme. The Alliance will support Ukraine in making these reforms on its path towards future membership. We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.
Does that look inevitable to your or not? It looks like backpedalling from the statement in 2008 to me.
There were also contingencies IIRC in 2008. This doesn’t strike me as being that much different, it just acknowledges current conditions.
Steve
The only thing NATO membership for Ukraine does is extend the active war zone to Europe and North America. To be clear, that means bombs falling on American and European cities. However, there are enough weasel words in the communique to put off admission of Ukraine forever.
Russia has no motivation to negotiate an end of the fighting. They had a negotiated ceasefire a year ago in March, 2022, but the US squashed it. The US does not want peace; it wants war. So the war must continue until Ukraine is destroyed. The ongoing summer counter offensive has now cost Ukraine 26,000 dead, and they haven’t taken any part of the first Russian trench line.
That seems to be the way that President Zelensky took it.
From Ukraine’s viewpoint; its the worse of both worlds.
Firm enough to enrage and motivate the Russians to keep fighting for quite a while yet. But no firm legal guarantee on anything; unless you see legislation in Congress; everything is at the whim of the President, not comforting when the incumbent has a 42% approval rating and the leading opposition candidate made it clear he’s washing US involvement in the war if he gets elected.
From a war standpoint, not much changed. Next year’s summit maybe a lot more interesting.
“From Ukraine’s viewpoint; its the worse of both worlds.”
Yep, it’s doubling down on the mistake of 2008.
It’s impossible to learn from our mistakes if we don’t know what they were. IMO there are stark differences of opinion. Which was the mistake? No timeframe in 2008 or extending the possibility of admitting former Soviet republics to NATO in 2008?
The mistake is not matching our desires to our willingness to achieve them. (“Our” in this case are the key players in NATO, US, UK, France, Germany).
The mistake is making promises you can’t keep, especially promises you know (or should know) will be opposed, and then giving time and space for the opposition to gum up the plans.
Zelensky is upset because he knows Western support is flagging.