Despite the flood of positive and negative commentary on NATO’s recent Vilnius summit, a careful perusal of what actually happened there cannot but raise concern.
On the positive side, the obstacles to Swedish membership fell away and virtually everyone reaffirmed their support for Ukraine and pledged material contributions to it and NATO. But on the negative side, NATO conceded it is divided over Ukrainian membership, there is little sign that the alliance, rather than its individual members, will be able to produce or willing to give Ukraine the weapons it needs to win, which it has persistently requested for months.
Moreover, NATO once again attached conditions to Ukrainian membership even though nobody knows or can define what those conditions are. Even though Ukraine is defending not only itself, but also European security, at an immense cost, not only is the door to NATO still closed but nobody knows what the key to unlocking it is, where it is, or if it will fit when found.
Worse yet, NATO revealed here that it has no strategy for ending this war or for what comes after it. This can be gleaned simply by closely examining statements and actions by leading members of the Biden administration.
First, despite months of supposedly close and rigorous interaction with our European allies, Washington apparently failed to take full account of the fact that the majority of our European allies supported a timetable for Ukrainian membership in NATO.
Nevertheless, as any fundraiser knows, pledges are meaningless unless acted upon. And in NATO’s case, and as many other instances in world affairs tell us, actual commitments are generally not forthcoming. Furthermore, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is now expressing confidence that Ukraine will join NATO after the war. If the administration is confident now, why weren’t they before and during the Vilnius summit?
Second, the stated reason for postponing membership is that doing so would place NATO at war with Russia. While this concern to avoid war with Russia is understandable, this contention overlooks the fact that Moscow would be vastly outmatched in a war with NATO and likely wants to avoid one. Therefore, Ukrainian membership would not only negate Moscow’s reason for going to war, but it also constitutes a huge threat to Putin that he can reduce or avoid only by getting out of Ukraine. Beyond that, Ukrainian membership in NATO would also send an electric shock through the already fragmenting high command, government and society.
Finally, membership, in and of itself does not commit the rest of NATO to send troops, something Ukraine has not asked for, even as it upsets all of Russia’s strategy.
The failure of the U.S. and other governments to think these questions through highlights the fact that neither the administration nor NATO has proclaimed any definitive strategy, leading many observers to wonder if there is one. Thus, there is fear that the administration does not want a full Ukrainian victory or a decisive Russian defeat. Possibly, the administration believes it still needs to have a dialogue with Moscow over arms control and that additional support for Kyiv’s victory precludes that option from being realized.
Compounding this absence of a U.S. or NATO strategy is the fact that someone must make the case to the American people as to why it is in our interest to either resist Russia or go to war with it to defend Ukraine if it joins NATO. On the contrary, the president has made the opposite case, stressing that despite a proxy-war-type situation in Ukraine, his core concern is avoiding a direct clash with Russia. Yet, here too, he has publicly contradicted himself in ways that can only add to the concern that the airline pilot has no flight plan.
On the one hand, he has invoked a credible Russian nuclear threat of “armageddon.” Yet now, he says Putin cannot win the war and there’s “no real prospect” of him launching nuclear weapons. If that is the case, then what holds NATO back from granting Ukraine the membership and weapons it knows would help them defeat and deter Russia? Given Secretary Austin’s expressed confidence about membership following the war, what conditions must Kyiv fulfill and what is the NATO or U.S. strategy for this war? The electorate, Congress and our allies, if not Ukraine, have a vital interest in knowing the answer.
The failure to address these questions in Vilinus reveals that the self-satisfaction evinced by NATO during and after the summit is unjustified. The failure to grapple with these issues and offer Ukraine a clear path to NATO or commit to a decisive defeat of Russia will only encourage Putin in his delusions that Russia can somehow prevail and outlast the allied coalition.
It should, thus, be made clear that Ukraine will get the weapons it needs for victory and NATO membership, which alone, will ensure its security. After all, to paraphrase British Adm. Horatio Nelson during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Ukraine is saving itself by her exertions and Europe by her example.
Stephen Blank, Ph.D., is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is a former professor of Russian national security studies and national security affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College and a former MacArthur fellow at the U.S. Army War College. Blank is an independent consultant focused on the geopolitics and geostrategy of the former Soviet Union, Russia and Eurasia.