Biden diminished Zelensky, fumbled the ball in NATO’s Vilnius meeting

In Vilnius, Lithuania, NATO entered the critical fourth quarter of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s war of survival against Russia. President Joe Biden, unfortunately, fumbled the football. 

Instead of strengthening Zelensky in the eyes of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Kremlin cronies and talking heads, Biden in fact diminished Zelensky. 

In his 2014 book “Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War,” former Defense Secretary Robert Gates wrote of then-Vice President Joe Biden, “I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Even former President Barack Obama was reported to have said of Biden, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f— things up.”

Sadly, nothing has changed, except that now Biden’s decisions have a much broader impact.

In an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria prior to the Summit, Biden said that Ukraine was “not ready for membership in NATO,” and that it was “premature” to begin the process to allow Ukraine to join the alliance in the middle of a war. He added that he did not “think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, and that the process could take place only after a peace agreement with Russia was in place.”

Wittingly or not, he then blindly played into the messaging of the oft-circulated Russian disinformation campaign on social media when referenced what he described as a “lack of democratization” in Kyiv. Biden provided no details or context as to what that meant, nor did he explain why it is presently disqualifying to Ukraine’s eligibility for NATO membership. 

The Kyiv Post reported that, seizing the moment, “top Russian officials accused Kyiv and its allies of bringing humanity closer to World War III and prolonging the war in Ukraine in some eyebrow-raising reactions at the end of the first day of the NATO summit in Vilnius.”

Once again, Washington and Brussels have seemingly succumbed to their own escalation paralysis.

Understandably, Zelensky is not happy with Biden’s comments. He understands the influence that Biden’s words have over the partner nations, and he responded angrily by saying, “It’s unprecedented and absurd when [a] time frame is set neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership, while at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine.” 

Zelensky came to Vilnius in pursuit of a much-needed Ukrainian path to admission into NATO, and for respect to bolster Ukrainian morale and fighting spirit. In the end, he got neither. British defense secretary Ben Wallace did not help when he suggested that “Ukraine needs to put more emphasis on thanking the West for its assistance,” and with comments such as, “Whether we like it or not, people want to see a bit of gratitude,” and concerning requests for military equipment, “You know, we’re not Amazon.”

Wallace seemed oblivious to the carnage that Russia had inflicted upon Ukraine and its people for the last 17 months, to say nothing of the beat-down Ukraine had imposed upon the Russian army. 

And it seemed as though National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan was looking for a pat on the back when he said, “The American people do deserve a degree of gratitude from the United States government for their willingness to step up and from the rest of the world as well.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, perhaps mindful of then Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill’s repeated haranguing of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to act faster at the beginning of World War II, was quick to distance himself from his own defense secretary’s comments.

Sunak told reporters that “President Zelensky has expressed his gratitude on a number of occasions, not least in this incredibly moving address he made in parliament. I know he and his people are grateful to the U.K.”

From Zelensky’s perspective, the goal posts appear to be moving. Ukraine may be feeling a bit ill-used as Washington uses its war to pursue broader strategic goals. 

At the onset of Putin’s “special military operation,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin had said, “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

A spokesperson at the National Security Council followed up Austin’s comments by saying they were consistent with U.S. goals — “to make this invasion a strategic failure for Russia.”  He added, “We want Ukraine to win. One of our goals has been to limit Russia’s ability to do something like this again, as Secretary Austin said. That’s why we are arming the Ukrainians with weapons and equipment to defend themselves from Russian attacks.”

Now that Ukraine has survived what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told lawmakers would be the capture of Kyiv within 72 hours, its admission into NATO has lost its urgency. 

Ukraine’s weakening of Russia has bolstered NATO’s eastern flank without the loss of a single NATO soldier. That accomplishment, in Zelensky’s view, warrants a clear path for his own country into the alliance. But no such path was presented in Vilnius, and Russia is the chief beneficiary.

NATO assistance will continue, of course, including dual-purpose improved conventional munitions to support Ukraine’s battle in the trenches. France agreed to supply Ukraine with 50 Scalp cruise missiles to supplement the British Storm Shadow missile for precision deep strike capability. Germany announced Patriot air-defense missile launchers, Marder infantry fighting vehicles and Leopard tanks. Led by Denmark and the Netherlands, 11 NATO countries agreed to begin an F-16 training program in Europe this August.

But the problem is that more “just enough” military assistance is not going to be enough. 

The leaders of the NATO alliance declared in the summit’s final communique that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.” But it is not yet clear how Kyiv will ever get there. Biden and NATO fumbled that ball in Vilnius.

Jonathan Sweet, a retired Army Colonel and 30-year military intelligence officer, led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy and is an economist, entrepreneur, and former board member of the World Trade Center, St. Louis.