Ukraine's Future Is Not In NATO

Comment on this story

comment

During World War II, the Allies began planning for the post-war period before victory was even in sight. A year after Ukraine’s fight against Russia began, it’s time for Kyiv and the West to do the same.

Ukraine certainly did not win the war, and with Russia’s unfolding offensive, an agreement may be months or even years away. But if peace does break out, Ukraine will still have to ensure its security against a Russian regime that barely recognizes its right to exist. Fair or not, Ukraine is unlikely to solve this problem by becoming a US contractor. However, it will still need Western support for years to come.

Even when wars end, the conditions that created them can endure. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he aims to steal as much Ukrainian territory as possible because he doesn’t believe the country is a real state worthy of real sovereignty. Even if he or a successor is forced to conclude a peace deal or simply moderate the intensity of this conflict, Moscow could renew its aggression when the moment seems right.

Plan A for Ukraine could therefore be membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a right enshrined in the country’s constitution. It’s not difficult to understand why. NATO membership brings the gold standard of security guarantees: a promise by the world’s most powerful alliance, which includes the world’s only superpower, to treat an attack on one as an attack on all. There is no better invasion insurance in the modern world.

Unfortunately, it’s unlikely to happen. As a rule, NATO does not accept countries with ongoing border disputes or even half-frozen conflicts on their territory because they do not want to make the problems of new members their own. So if the war doesn’t end in a total Russian withdrawal and a capitulation on issues of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, Kiev could be left out – a victim of the cruel irony that the very condition that makes NATO membership desirable also makes it impossible might.

Every club that sets its own rules can of course change them. But NATO works by consensus, and it’s doubtful its 30 members will be ready to take on Russia when the war resumes. As President Joe Biden has said, he “will not fight World War III in Ukraine.”

Ukraine may well deserve NATO membership: it has shown incredible courage and skill in beating blood on that alliance’s main enemy. But in world politics, “earning” doesn’t count for much.

So Plan B is a Ukraine that is linked to the West but not formally allied – and that has a very powerful military to protect its own independence.

Ukraine is likely to emerge from this conflict as one of the leading military powers in Europe. No country on the continent will take defense more seriously; Ukraine will also have huge reserves of skilled labor. Its military, now transitioning from Soviet-standard equipment to NATO-standard equipment, will have a higher quality of weaponry than at the start of the conflict, including highly advanced capabilities such as the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System and Abrams tanks.

This relates to a second component of Ukrainian security: a close and ongoing partnership in which Western countries advise and help train Ukraine’s military, while continuing to provide Kiev with the weapons and supplies it needs for self-defense.

This model is already in the making. The Abrams tanks that Biden wanted to hand over to Ukraine are complex pieces of equipment that pose significant logistical and sustainability challenges. They’re not the kind of capability Washington offers unless it plans to delve deeply into the receiver.

Individual NATO countries could even go further. The states on the eastern front – especially Poland and the Baltic states – share Ukraine’s existential fear of Russia and are strengthening their own armed forces. There could be a “new Warsaw Pact” – a military bloc of Eastern European states perhaps moving closer to a formal alliance, this time dedicated to protecting liberty rather than stifling it.

This strategy comes with challenges. The history of, shall we say, relations between Poland and Ukraine is not entirely happy, so one question is whether the current challenges can enable Eastern Europe to overcome past divisions. Plan B is a second-best solution for Ukraine because – as the current war shows – the difference between “NATO ally” and “close security partner” can be existential. The US should not underestimate the costs either.

Ukraine is building an impressive military. But it will have great difficulty maintaining it as the war has devastated the country’s economy. There simply aren’t enough frozen Russian assets to pay for reconstruction, even if Washington and other countries took that approach.

So Ukraine is likely to remain an economic ward of the West, with Washington and its allies funding the country’s defenses for the foreseeable future. Even if Kiev does not move towards NATO, the end of the war could only be the beginning of a long Western commitment to Ukraine.