(Dobbs) Ukraine In NATO? A Calculated Risk Worth Taking
It's what Putin fears the most. And what might put him in his place.
What are they waiting for?
NATO’s 31 member nations officially declared at their summit in Lithuania, “Ukraine’s future is in NATO.” But actual membership? Not quite yet.
The trouble is, Ukraine won’t have a future if Russia prevails in its savage strikes against it. NATO’s Secretary General said it yesterday himself: “Unless Ukraine prevails, there is no membership to be discussed at all.” But while we’re generously sending advanced arms and ammunition to Ukraine, we’re not making the ultimate moves that might ensure a Russian defeat.
The best way to deter Russia, maybe at least to force Putin to negotiate for peace, is to send him the message he fears: you’re no longer only up against a battered nation that you outman and outgun. With NATO’s policy of “an attack on one is an attack on all,” you are up against the largest, most powerful, most unified military alliance on earth.
Putin can’t counter that. He doesn’t have the Warsaw Pact anymore, the Soviet-led alliance that was created as a counterpunch to NATO. Although I’m loathe to predict the outcomes of conflicts, Russia against the collective nations of NATO most likely would be no contest.
There is of course the fear felt by leaders clear up to President Biden— and to be sure, not a totally unfounded fear— that if Ukraine is given a fast track into NATO and suddenly Putin finds himself facing the Western alliance across almost every mile of his western borders, he might feel like he has no choice but to resort to nuclear warfare.
There’s no guarantee against that. Welcoming Ukraine as NATO’s 33rd member (Sweden soon will be its 32nd) would be a calculated risk. But here’s my calculation: however much a sociopath he may be, Vladimir Putin is not a suicide bomber with his nation strapped to his chest. He already was on the inside when the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. agreed to arms control based on the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction. He understands that. If he knows nothing else, Putin knows that if he strikes any member of NATO, he and the superpower he aspires to strengthen will be destroyed. He is a nationalist. His goal is a stronger motherland, not one that has to rebuild from scratch.
But still, the U.S. administration and at least some of our allies don’t want to admit Ukraine to NATO until the war is over. That might be too little, too late. Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan said yesterday in Lithuania that the commitments that were made at the summit, including a permanent pipeline of weapons, “send a powerful signal of the alliance’s support.” But the alliance already has been showing its support in powerful ways, yet it has not scared off Putin. I’m not a war-monger but with what’s at stake, we have to show not just support, but muscle. There is no more muscular deterrent and, if necessary, no more muscular fighting force in the world today than NATO.
The official excuse for denying NATO membership is that Ukraine still has work to do to reach “NATO standards”— further democratization, military integration. President Biden says Ukraine must keep working on “necessary reforms.” Yes, there is still corruption in Ukraine, but President Zelensky already has suppressed some of it, and since Ukraine otherwise has its hands pretty full right now, I’d cut them some slack. There are bigger issues to deal with these days in the besieged nation than reform. Anyway, it’s not as if member states like, for example, Turkey, live up to “NATO standards.” As for military integration, there is no more battle-hardened fighting force in all the world than Ukraine’s. It has proved, in the seventeen months it has been under merciless attack, that it is tough, it is resilient.
If a future Russia must be contained, it could be one of NATO’s more important assets.
A declaration came out of the NATO summit that says, Russia “is the most significant and direct threat to allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area.” So why are we putting limits on the resolve we need and even the risks we must take to meet the threat?
Russia’s response to this week’s summit was another wave of airstrikes against Kiev. If Russia prevails and wears down its enemy, it will be a boost to Vladimir Putin’s dreams of empire and a blow to the security of the West. A stronger Russia means stronger alliances with its allies, which are our adversaries. A stronger Russia means an emboldened Russia.
The clock is ticking. The longer we wait to put Putin in his place, the closer Ukraine might come to defeat. And the closer we might come to a weaker West.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
i agree with you totally, well done. j skalet
The reticence for most of the NATO countries to enter into direct conflict with Russia is understandable. They are currently enjoying relatively peaceful lives and are not eager to have bombs bursting in air upon their homes. No one currently knows what Putins mental state is and how fanatically his whims might direct his wrath. That said it doesn't seem that he would risk annihilation
should he decide to go nuclear.