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At his final NATO summit, in Bucharest, Romania, in 2008, President George W. Bush pushed, cajoled and pleaded with allies to invite Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance. Such a move, Bush explained, would send “a signal throughout the region that these two nations are, and will remain, sovereign and independent states.”
Vladimir Putin was at the summit, and he watched as Bush was rebuffed. “Ukraine is not a country,” the Russian leader told Bush. Within six years, Russia had invaded both countries.
Now, NATO can undo at least a part of its mistake. On Tuesday, leaders will gather in Vilnius, Lithuania, with the situation reversed: The majority of allies want to set a specific timetable for Kyiv’s admission, and it is the United States that is resisting, concerned that a specific membership pledge will provoke Russia. It’s the same flawed reasoning that has led the administration to withhold critical weapons such as the tanks, long-range missiles and advanced fighter jets Ukraine needs to retake its territory. Almost 75 years after NATO’s founding, the record is clear. NATO doesn’t provoke war; it guarantees peace.
No serious person advocates NATO membership for Ukraine while the current fighting continues. That would be tantamount to a declaration of war with Russia. But it is equally true that after a cease-fire, a durable peace cannot be achieved unless that peace is guaranteed by NATO membership.
To stop Putin
Putin won’t willingly give up on his quest to conquer Ukraine as long as he believes he can succeed. He will use any cessation of hostilities to pause, reconstitute his forces and resume his invasion in a few years’ time — just like he did in after his 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea.
He made his objectives abundantly clear in a nearly 7,000-word manifesto, published in 2021, in which he explained that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people,” descendants of “Ancient Rus” bound together by common language, culture and religion. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, “Russia was robbed” and Ukrainians were separated “from their historical motherland.” He will not stop until he incorporates Ukraine into a restored Russian Empire.
In pursuing this goal, Putin is playing a long game. He assumes Western interest in helping Ukraine will wane over time as costs escalate and new crises inevitably arise elsewhere. He doesn’t need to win, in his judgment; he just needs to keep fighting until we quit. The only way to stop him is to make his goals impossible to achieve. And the way to do that is to bring Ukraine into NATO.
Critics of NATO membership say it will provoke Putin to keep fighting. Recent history shows otherwise: Putin has invaded only non-NATO countries. To leave Ukraine outside the NATO alliance is an invitation to renewed aggression. NATO membership will cement the reality that Ukraine’s destiny belongs in the West, in NATO and in the European Union. The sooner Putin is confronted with that clear and unmistakable reality, the sooner he will be forced to accept that he has lost his war.
To strengthen Zelensky
If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said today that he was willing to consider a peace deal that left any Ukrainian territory in Russian hands, he’d be thrown out of office. The Ukrainian people are in no mood for compromise. A Gallup poll published in October found that 70 percent favor fighting until victory, which they overwhelmingly define as retaking all territory seized by Russia since 2014, including Crimea. A Democratic Initiatives Foundation poll published in May found those views virtually unchanged: Sixty-seven percent of Ukrainians said that no concessions to Russia were acceptable, while just 22 percent supported some compromises to end the war.
Only by delivering NATO security guarantees can Zelensky sell a cease-fire or armistice to his citizens — especially if Ukraine has not achieved its goals of driving Russia completely out of every inch of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.
Right now, Ukraine is in the early stages of its counteroffensive. It needs time and resources to bring that operation to a successful conclusion. The United States should support Ukraine in its effort to recover all of its illegally occupied lands from Russia — and America must not use the promise of NATO membership to pressure Kyiv to make territorial concessions.
But a time might come when Zelensky could face a choice similar to that faced by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1955, when his country was physically divided and at grave risk from the Soviet Union. Adenauer had to decide between holding out for full reunification or securing the part of Germany he controlled by anchoring it in the NATO alliance. He chose security — and 34 years later, his choice was vindicated when the Berlin Wall fell and his country was reunited as a free, sovereign and democratic state.
Zelensky might become strong enough with voters to do the same, former national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley tells us, “if part of the deal is NATO membership — not in six years, not in six months, NATO membership right then. … Because that’s his insurance policy that the Russian invasion is not going to be resumed from that portion of the territory of Ukraine that Russia still occupies.”
It will be up to Ukrainians to decide whether to join NATO before they have fully reunified their country. If they do, NATO should not recognize Russian annexation of any Ukrainian territory — just as allies never recognized the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states. But the only way Ukrainians will be able to make that choice is if it is backed by NATO’s Article 5 guarantee that an attack on one is an attack on all.
To save American taxpayers billions of dollars
Peace is cheaper than war. Without NATO membership, Ukraine will be a constant magnet for Russian aggression — and the United States will continue to be drawn into aiding Ukraine’s self-defense. We must foreclose future attacks. Otherwise, Putin will resume his invasion a few years after any cease-fire — at a cost of further tens of billions to American taxpayers.safelu
Something similar is true when it comes to Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction. The World Bank estimates the cost of rebuilding the war-ravaged county at $411 billion. Some of that cost can be covered by tapping the $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets that Western banks have frozen since last year. Much of the rest can come from private-sector investment — but only if investors have confidence the Russian assault won’t resume.
By creating confidence that attracts private investment, NATO membership will also help the Ukrainian economy, allowing Kyiv to provide for its own defense, just as Poland and the Baltic states — already NATO members — do today. A stable, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine will be a customer and trading partner for America. An unstable Ukraine, under constant threat from Russia, will be a continual drain on U.S. resources.
To normalize relations with Russia
As distant as the possibility seems, the West will never build a constructive relationship with Russia until the option of aggression against Ukraine is off the table once and for all. In Bucharest, Bush declared that “the Europe we are building must also be open to Russia”; that “we have a stake in Russia’s success” and “look for the day when Russia is fully reformed, fully democratic and closely bound to the rest of Europe.” He added that “Russia is part of Europe and, therefore, does not need a buffer zone of insecure states separating it from Europe.”
Russia’s belligerent conduct over the ensuing 15 years makes those words seem fanciful. But Bush was correct: NATO membership for Ukraine would create stability, which in turn might one day turn into cooperation. It could take years, even decades, before Russia is able to accept those opportunities. But it will never come as long as Russia eyes Ukraine as prey to be swallowed — an option that NATO membership would forever foreclose.
To strengthen NATO
Finally, bringing Ukraine into NATO is good not just for Ukraine; it is good for NATO, too. Ukraine now has the most capable, battle-hardened, NATO-interoperable military in Europe. Unlike some allies, it will have no trouble or hesitation meeting its NATO obligation to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. It will be a net contributor to European security and thus strengthen the alliance.
So what are the next steps?
NATO leaders should approach the Vilnius summit as a two-part process. Part 1, in Vilnius, should be an unambiguous commitment by NATO, led by the United States, to invite Ukraine to join the alliance at the 75th-anniversary summit in Washington next summer. Then, NATO must create the security the alliance will guarantee, by spending the coming year helping Ukraine shape the conflict with Russia to a point where the invitation can safely be extended in 2024.
In shaping conditions on the ground, the United States’ objective should be to help Ukraine regain every inch of its territory as soon as possible. It is a mistake to think that a quick and decisive war creates any greater risk of escalation than a long, drawn-out stalemate. That means delivering all the weapons Ukraine is seeking to make its counteroffensive succeed — including long-range precision missiles, tanks and advanced fighter aircraft. Greater progress on the battlefield will bring the war to a point where a cease-fire is Russia’s only option — and Zelensky’s defense of his country is a clear success. Then, Ukraine can pivot to securing its military gains with NATO membership.
Some have suggested non-NATO alternatives for Ukraine’s long-term security. For example, they point out that America’s commitment to Israel is clear despite the absence of a mutual defense treaty that requires America to come to Israel’s defense. We would argue that Israel’s real deterrent is the perception by its adversaries that it possesses nuclear weapons. (Israel has never confirmed nor denied a nuclear capability.) Ukraine once had its own nuclear deterrent but relinquished the weapons at the insistence of the United States in the 1990s. Absent restoring that deterrent, the only thing that will prevent Russia from violating Ukraine’s sovereignty again is an Article 5 security guarantee from NATO.
Others say the United States could declare Ukraine a “Major Non-NATO Ally.” This would be nothing more than a symbolic gesture. MNNA status gives a designated country priority access to U.S. military equipment — something Ukraine already has in abundance — but does not entail any security commitments. It would amount to an empty promise, and Putin would conclude that the United States has blinked again.
If progress in retaking territory comes more slowly, and Ukrainian leaders feel confident they can continue to achieve their goals on the battlefield, NATO should support that decision. The alliance can issue a formal invitation to membership at the Washington summit but wait to ratify Ukraine’s accession until its leaders are ready to choose this course. Ultimately, it must be up to Ukraine when to disengage militarily and join NATO.
Right now, President Biden appears to have no theory for victory, much less a theory for peace. He needs to appreciate that he has nailed America’s colors to the mast in Ukraine. We might not have soldiers fighting in this war, but make no mistake: This is our war. If the fight in Ukraine is lost, it will be America’s defeat; if it is won, it will be America’s victory — and, by extension, Biden’s victory. It is baffling that Biden does not see a specific pledge of NATO membership for Ukraine as the key to unlock a historic success. The only way he can end this conflict, and bring stability to Ukraine and the rest of Europe, is for NATO to draw a bright line that Russia dare not cross.
This is a starting point. What do you think about Ukraine?