This week the UK’s foreign secretary said Britain would support accelerated Nato membership for Ukraine, and that all Nato’s members agreed Ukraine had shown it was ready for the kind of fast-track used for Finland.
So what? This was not quite true. There are significant differences between Nato members including the US on how and how fast Ukraine should be allowed to join the alliance, which is a problem for the world’s democracies.
But with two and a half weeks to go, Nato isn’t there yet:
For their own part Ukraine’s leaders insist security guarantees should be a prelude not an alternative to actual Nato membership for Ukraine, whose army has already proved highly effective including in the use of Nato equipment.
The options. At least three models are being discussed for Ukraine-Nato collaboration (or, more precisely, for avoiding Ukraine’s instant integration into the alliance, which members agree isn’t possible while the country is at war):
Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s in return for security assurances (in the Budapest Memorandum), and now has neither the weapons nor security. Hence its position that security guarantees alone cannot substitute for a promise of full Nato membership.
American drag. The US is reluctant to let Ukraine join Nato because of the risk of direct US-Russia conflict which could escalate to nuclear war. Biden’s latest assessment is that the threat of Putin using tactical nuclear weapons is “real”, and Neil Melvin of the Royal United Services Institute says this approach will last until the risk of confrontation with Russia decreases.
Catch 22. But if Ukraine doesn’t join Nato sooner rather than later, the risks for global security are much higher – as they became after the 2008 Nato Bucharest Summit when Ukraine and Georgia did not get the MAP, and Russia immediately started a series of wars and annexations.
A simple choice. Ukraine’s Nato integration is not just a question of Ukraine’s security, but of Nato’s borders. What Russia has made clear is there can no longer be any room for confusion about where they lie because the fate of any “grey zones” is for Moscow to control or occupy them.
If Ukraine’s fast-track Nato integration plan fails, there will be 600,000 square kilometres on the European continent where Russia will feel free to do whatever it wants subject only to the Ukrainian army’s ability to fight back.
The Russia-Ukraine war has already led to tectonic changes in the global economy, energy markets, not to mention a rolling humanitarian disaster. If the global power balance does not adapt with concrete progress towards Nato membership for Ukraine, the risk is that the war becomes eternal.