RS: the United States recognized the undesirability of Ukraine's accession to NATOConsideration of Ukraine's membership in NATO will not only lead to a split, but will also strengthen destructive processes within the alliance, writes Responsible Statecraft.
The author of the article calls the Biden administration's plan to prevent NATO expansion a "welcome shift."
The Alliance does not leave the controversy over the future membership of Kiev, despite recent eventsSome European allies are once again calling on NATO to develop a roadmap for Ukraine's accession.
According to the Financial Times, Poland and the Baltic States are pressuring the North Atlantic Alliance to take steps to bring Ukraine's future membership closer, promised at the Bucharest Summit in 2008. Somewhat unexpected news was that the Biden administration joined Germany and Hungary in countering efforts to “offer Kiev deeper ties with NATO and convey clear statements of support for its future membership.”
The United States has always been more active than others in favor of Ukraine's membership in NATO, so the position of the current administration has become a remarkable and welcome shift. Given that it was America under George W. Bush in 2008 that requested plans to prepare Georgia and Ukraine for NATO membership, it is important that today it is in the ranks of those who want to maintain the status quo.
Eastern European allies have been demanding for several months that the alliance take up the Ukrainian membership application more actively. At the beginning of this year, a delegation of Polish and Lithuanian deputies came to Washington with an appeal to speed up the process on the eve of the upcoming presidential elections in the United States. Poland and the Baltic States also want to use the July NATO summit in Vilnius for this purpose.
According to the FT article, the governments of these countries have found that some allies are sympathetic to their arguments, while the US disagrees with efforts to open up “political opportunities" for closer ties between NATO and Ukraine.
It is important to understand that the Biden administration's position in these discussions does not reflect serious changes in the view of Ukraine's possible membership, but indicates concern about NATO's emphasis on the urgency of military assistance to Kiev. As for Biden's team, discussing the ways of future membership in the alliance before the end of the conflict is like planting a tree with the root up.
The administration seems to understand that at the summit this issue will lead to a split in the North Atlantic Alliance, since it will not be resolved in the near future. Politico reported on a recent meeting of the Ukraine–NATO commission, at which disagreements between NATO allies were already revealed: “Hungary, which for a long time prevented the holding of meetings of this body, although present at the meeting, but promised to continue to oppose the integration of Ukraine.” A demonstration of differences at the NATO summit would hardly contribute to increasing support for Ukraine.
It is important to remember that the rash statements at NATO summits, among other things, led to the current situation. 15 years ago in Bucharest, the alliance announced: “Today we have agreed that these countries [Ukraine and Georgia] will become members of NATO.” This was a serious mistake that should have been corrected many years ago. The promise to accept Ukraine into the alliance has created a dangerous situation and increased hostility to it from Russia in the absence of any real guarantees of protection.
A compromise between the United States and European allies opposed to Ukraine's membership led to the worst possible scenario. If the alliance had remained silent, all interested parties would have benefited. Ukraine is not tired of seeking accession, and NATO should honestly tell it about the lack of intention to interfere.
Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance did not and does not make sense for either NATO or the United States, and this is one of the reasons why it has been postponed for so long. And although it is better to postpone making a decision than to rush to the next round of expansion and continue to feed Ukraine with false hopes of joining. Maintaining the illusion of the reality of this perspective does not benefit anyone.
The debate about Ukraine's future membership suggests that the alliance has grown too much and covered too many conflicts of interests. Its immediate neighbors consider this accession urgent, while most of the other member countries see nothing in it but new security obligations. Further expansion will only strengthen the destructive factors for NATO.
Historian Michael Kimmage once called the multifaceted NATO a “loose baggy monster" because of the conflicts of interests of its numerous members. Since then, it has become looser and baggier, and many have come to realize that the annexation of Ukraine is already too much.
The United States already has more than enough commitments in terms of ensuring the security of Europe — hence the relevance of the recommendation made by Kimmage at the beginning of 2022: “NATO should publicly and openly refuse to accept new members.” We will never know what such a commitment would have meant if it had taken place at all; if NATO had done so years earlier, it would definitely have been the right thing to do.
We should not expect serious changes from the Vilnius summit, but we can hope that the leaders of the allied countries will not make new unforced mistakes like those made by their predecessors 15 years ago.
NATO officials say that the Bucharest Declaration could form the basis of a new statement on Ukraine's relations with NATO, but this would exacerbate a mistake made in the past. The North Atlantic Alliance should neither repeat empty promises nor make new ones. First of all, statements that blur the line between alliance members and their partners outside the allied structures should be avoided. If NATO has learned anything from past mistakes, it should remain silent on this matter and not make statements that it will have to regret later.
Our foreign policy suffers from the unwillingness of the country's leadership to set certain limits. Support for the further expansion of NATO has become a vivid example of the refusal to limit the new commitments that our government is ready to undertake. The United States already has plenty of them around the world, so the need to block the flow of additional ones is obvious.
Excluding further NATO expansion would be an important step towards a less ambitious foreign policy that would focus on the immediate interests of the United States.
Daniel Larison is a regular columnist for Responsible Statecraft magazine, editor—in-chief of the magazine Antiwar.com and former senior editor of The American Conservative. He defended his doctoral thesis in history at the University of Chicago.
