Why Zelensky’s NATO membership complaint is unreasonable
Tom Rogan
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Nine months prior to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. Army simulated what it would do were Russia to launch a surprise invasion of Estonia and quickly seize large parts of its territory. Estonia is NATO’s most vulnerable member state, located just 70 miles from the suburbs of Vladimir Putin’s home city, St. Petersburg.
And what the U.S. Army did was fly a brigade combat team of the 82nd Airborne Division 4,600 miles, nonstop, from North Carolina to Estonia. Around 750 paratroopers then jumped into Estonia, simulating being vastly outnumbered and outgunned by Russian forces on landing. While a company of British paratroopers joined them, only the U.S. military has the training and capability to conduct this action at such scale on such short notice. In war, the paratroopers’ mission would be to strike Russian forces and hold Estonian territory until NATO reinforcements could arrive. This airborne advance force would likely suffer heavy casualties. But they would fight hard.
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This is relevant in light of President Volodymyr Zelensky lashing out at NATO on Tuesday. Zelensky is angry that alliance leaders who met in Lithuania have refused to provide a timeline for Ukraine’s accession.
In their summit communique, the leaders said that Ukraine could join NATO without first completing a membership action plan. But they added that they will only “extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.”
Zelensky claimed that “It’s unprecedented and absurd” that an invitation timeline is not being offered. He later added that “Ukraine will make the Alliance stronger. … Our flag means that there will be no more deportations from the Baltic countries to Siberia, no more divisions of Poland, no more humiliation of Hungary by invaders, no more tanks in Prague or winter wars against the freedom of Finland — no more occupations in Europe ever again.”
This narrative from the leader of a nation under brutal attack carries moral and emotive power. NATO membership would obviously serve Ukraine’s interests. From the U.S. perspective, however, Zelensky’s argument has two weaknesses.
First, as with the 82nd Airborne’s Estonia exercise, it is the U.S. that would bear the overwhelming burden of protecting Ukraine were it in NATO and at war with Russia. We very recently gained another example of NATO’s dependence on the U.S. military during a major NATO air warfare exercise in Germany last month.
Where the U.S. military deployed 100 aircraft for that exercise, French President Emmanuel Macron sent just one. Top line: While Zelensky says that Ukraine’s membership of NATO would prevent “more deportations from the Baltic countries to Siberia,” etc., the reality as to why those darker 20th century days have not been repeated is actually understood by this article’s second paragraph.
The key here is that Ukraine cannot be invited to join NATO at least until its war with Russia is concluded. Were Ukraine provided an invitation for entry into NATO today, NATO would effectively be declaring a delayed war on Russia.
To be clear, Russia is solely responsible for the outrageous war in Ukraine. The U.S. has a strategic interest in assuring a Russian defeat. The concern vis-a-vis NATO is that the moment Ukraine entered the alliance, it could trigger the alliance’s Article 5 mutual defense commitment. NATO would have the responsibility to respond in kind.
Any NATO invitation today would also play to Vladimir Putin’s false narrative that his war on Ukraine is a holy and wholly defensive one. A war to protect not just Russian security, but its culture, history, and very existence. Putin has repeatedly, if falsely, emphasized that Ukraine’s looming accession to NATO precipitated his February 2022 invasion of that nation. Were NATO to now extend an invitation to Ukraine, Putin would score a propaganda victory — much needed following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s coup attempt — that his war is both moral and absolutely necessary. It would make the pathway to a peaceful solution harder, not easier. And when I say peaceful solution, I do not mean a fake Syria-style ceasefire to Russia’s advantage, but rather a solution in Ukraine’s manifest sovereign favor.
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There is one other reason why Ukraine is not yet ready to join the alliance. Zelensky’s government also retains an unfortunate tendency to lie where its actions spark an unfavorable international reaction. This dynamic only helps Russia and is incompatible with NATO’s exigent interest in trust and clear dialogue.
This is not to say that Ukraine cannot join NATO until far into the future. On the contrary, Ukraine’s democratic character and extraordinary courage against Russia suggest it will one day make one of the alliance’s strongest members. But that day is not yet here, and it will not be at least until this war is over.