Three things from our pod this week with former special envoy for Ukraine and ex-NATO Amb. Kurt Volker:
The latest NATO communique was even weaker than last year’s. Suggestions that allies don’t agree on Ukraine’s membership, that Ukraine hasn’t met vague “conditions” and more are nothing less than encouragement to Moscow.
The right call is a clear pathway for Ukrainian membership in NATO post-conflict.
We talk too much about Russia — what will Moscow do, what does Putin think. Russia needs to become a normal country. Period.
Bonus: read Marc Thiessen and former Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun’s op-ed on why membership is critical for Ukraine
It’s gauche to say, but Vladimir Putin has probably done more to revitalize the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and NATO’s sense of purpose than any leader in the 21st century. He has single-handedly caused weak-kneed European leaders to rethink their shrinking defense budgets, and single-handedly reunited the United States and Europe after a period of drift. So, one would think that with this renewed sense of purpose and unity, the NATO members might have come together in Vilnius Lithuania last week and drawn a map for eventual Ukrainian membership in NATO. But noooooo. They didn’t.
Armchair historians may remember that at the turn of the century, in the face of similar Russian aggression, George W. Bush pushed NATO to open its doors to the likes of Georgia and Ukraine — and the Euros blanched. Strangely enough, this time it was Europe that showed enthusiasm while the Biden administration murmured “wait just a doggone minute you lying dog-faced pony soldiers,” or something along those lines. Biden frets about making Putin mad (madder?). Which itself is weird, because, you know, America is far, far away, and the Euros much, much closer to angry Putin. But there it is.
Naysayers to Ukrainian NATO membership will note that Ukraine is not a robust democracy. Its economy was a bit of a mess, and corruption was rife, even before the war. But they forget that the US had a defensive alliance with South Korea when it was a dictatorship, and allowed Portugal into NATO when it too was far less than a flourishing democracy. The state of the government in a partner country is important, but NATO is a defensive alliance, not a democratic alliance. (“Phew,” says Recep Tayyip Erdogan.) Its aim is to deter invasion, not to foster democratic reform, or seek conflict.
Right now, NATO’s greatest threat is Russia. There are precisely zero NATO troops fighting Putin’s hordes. The Ukrainians are fighting and dying and winning. This is what you want in an ally. Our complaint about NATO for years was free riders —Ukrainians are far from that.
Not only is Ukraine doing NATO’s job for it, but our guest notes that the long game in this struggle should be a normal Russian state — not more decades of Kremlin imperialism; not a break for a few years before Russia lashes out again. The goal should be a Russia that, like other states post-WWII (ahem, Germany) decides to be a legitimate international actor and live — and live well — within its boundaries. A strong NATO is crucial to this end.
There will be another chance next year at NATO’s 75-anniversary celebration. Amid the chardonnays and brie and backslapping, it will be time to provide a clear commitment to Ukrainian membership.
HIGHLIGHTS
Talk to us about last week’s NATO summit communiqué?
KV: The language that NATO used to describe its future relationship with Ukraine was actually quite weak. It said that Ukraine, its future is in NATO, but it also said that Ukraine will receive an invitation when all allies agree, meaning that they don't now, and when conditions are met, meaning that there are conditions that are not currently met, but it doesn't say what those are. So it is actually, in my view, a weaker statement of NATO commitment to Ukraine than what we had for the last 15 years, which was weak enough.
What did you want to see?
KV: What they needed to get was a very firm commitment from NATO that they will help Ukraine win and bring them into the alliance as soon as it's practical to do so, a clear statement of resolve and determination, because the whole point of this is not to bring them in at Vilnius, no one's saying that. The point was to convey to Putin and inevitability that there is no other way this comes out than Russia losing the war and Ukraine being in NATO, so you may as well stop now. That's the message that Putin should have gotten. Instead, I think what he got was this, "Well, maybe someday we'll see," and I think that gives him an encouragement to keep the war going.
What are the best objections to a firm NATO commitment for Ukraine?
KV: The most valid point is risk. Isn't there a risk to committing to defend another country, especially if Russia's likely to attack them? Yes, there is, but the whole point of NATO is to eliminate the risk by banding together, that you deter that attacker from doing so. Because frankly, until we formed NATO, there was a risk of the Soviet Union attacking or taking over Italy and France and Western Germany, even though they already had Eastern Germany; so there was a threat to Europe when we rose to meet that threat by forming NATO. When Poland became free and the Baltic states, these had been occupied or controlled by the Soviet Union, and we gradually allowed them to join NATO.
And in doing so, we created a deterrent. We made it such that Russia would not attack them in the future. With Ukraine, we have done the opposite. We have kept them out. We've kept them in a gray zone, and that has been a signal to Putin that he can attack them at will, which is exactly what he's done. So at the end of this, and we're not at the end yet, the end of this has to be, we do the same thing with Ukraine. They're a democratic country, they're a market-oriented country, they're a European country, and they will be the front line of freedom as they are now.
NATO members have criticized the quality of Ukraine’s democracy…
KV: NATO was a defensive alliance. NATO was formed by countries banding together to make sure that no one would attack them because an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all, and we brought in Turkey when it was dominated by its own military. We brought in Portugal when it was a dictatorship.
We've gone through ups and downs throughout the alliance. Today, Ukraine is doing more to defend freedom in Europe than any other NATO country in Europe.I put the US in a special category, but Ukraine is the one that is fighting on the front lines, they're innovating, they're using their troops. They're also, by the way, significantly diminishing the threat to the rest of Europe that Russia presents by destroying a good section of the Russian military. And I would add that they're doing this without any US troops or any other foreign troops.
Will the G7 assurances make up for NATO’s waffling?
KV: Now, you have the G7 coming out now in a number of countries saying that they will provide security assurances to Ukraine. But again, as an American taxpayer here, my question is, why should the US give a security guarantee or assurance to Ukraine and leave our NATO allies off the hook? If we're going to do it, every single one of them should do it too. We want a NATO commitment, and not only is that going to make sure we have burden sharing when it comes to supporting Ukraine, it's also the most effective way to actually deter the conflict, so we won't have to fight it.
Some say NATO membership for Ukraine is a road to NATO war with Russia…
KV: As you say, no one wants to send troops to Ukraine to fight the Russians directly. We don't want to turn Russia's war against Ukraine into a NATO war against Russia, so that was not what was being proposed. What was being proposed was sending an unmistakable signal that we are going to continue to help Ukraine, they will win the war, and we will bring them in as soon as we can. That's not the message that was conveyed.
What’s next?
KV: The next big opportunity where this will be addressed is the Washington Summit of NATO next year in July, the 75th anniversary of NATO, and the last one in this term of the Biden administration. Who knows if he's reelected or if we have a different president elected, but it's a big summit next year. We have to be thinking hard now about what we can do to bring Ukraine in at that time, and the reason is because as I argued in that piece in the Financial Times, the nature of European security has changed. It used to be that we could all live fine and peaceful and safe and prosperous in the transatlantic community because we were safe under the NATO umbrella, and no one was going to be doing anything that would really damage us.
So looking forward, I think we need to start talking to the Ukrainians and each other about formulas. What does it look like? One example that is not ripe today, but might be ripe a year from now is to say, "We extend a NATO membership and Article 5 guarantee to all of the government controlled territory in Ukraine and the Russian occupied territory, we are not going to join Ukraine in fighting for, but we do support its reintegration with the rest of Ukraine."
They want to continue fighting to retake their territory, and they have a good chance of doing it, and in particular, the most important pieces of territory are Southern Ukraine, Kherson Province, South Ossetia Province, and Crimea. They want to get those back because they make the rest of Ukraine viable, particularly the shipping out of Odessa and Mykolaiv. So, the Ukrainians are not ready to do that now, but maybe by next year we would be in such a situation. And as you say, we may never have an end to the war. Russia may decide to keep itself in a state of war with Ukraine indefinitely, and that again, underscores the reason why we have to make sure Ukraine that is not occupied is safe.
Some are suggestion a ceasefire to move forward…
KV: Ukrainians are not enamored of the idea of a ceasefire. They have to get all the territory back and lock it down, and added to that is the war crimes that the Russians commit in territories that they occupy. So, it's not only about the land, it's about the people that live on the land, what happens to them. So, it would have to be a significant step for Zelensky to be willing to push for a ceasefire and stop the war where it is. NATO membership would have to be a part of that, and I would argue too, it would probably have to be that remaining 10% you're talking about has got to be only in the far east of Ukraine in Donbas, which has been occupied for eight years now. It would not be some of the newly occupied areas and it would not be Crimea.
What about Russia though? Won’t Moscow feel encircled?
KV: At some point, Russia needs to become a normal country. It needs to stop wanting to be an empire, to stop thinking it should control its neighbors, take their territory, take their lives, needs to live in peace with its neighbors and live within its own borders. This is what Russia has to do. So far, what Russia has done is it's declared an intent to rebuild the empire, it has declared that it has a right to take over the affairs of its neighbors, and it believes that it has a right to govern all Russians, which is kind of outlandish when you think about it Russia has to accept the borders that exist, and moreover, it's arrogant to assume that Russian-speaking people want to be in Russia. Certainly the Russian speakers in the Baltic states are quite happy being in the Baltic states. The majority of fighters in Ukrainian military are Russian speakers. They are fighting Russia to protect their country, which is Ukraine, even though they speak Russian. So, the Russians manipulate a lot of the imagery here because they say, "Oh, they're all Russians," but it's really about imperialism and power, and that's what we have to get Russia to come to grips with. The days of imperialism ended with World War II, except for Russia, and they need to end there too.
What’s it going to take for a “normal” relationship with Russia?
KV: The two issues that I think we should require for there to be a normal relationship with Russia are accountability, just as Germany and Japan were held accountable for what they did in World War II, there needs to be accountability for Russia for the crime of aggression and for the war crimes committed in the name of the Russian people. And then secondly, they have to live within their own borders in the future. No more special cases for Russia where they get to occupy parts of other people's territory and we look the other way.
As for paying for what they've done for Ukraine, I think we should be seizing the Russian Central Bank reserves and using them to fund reconstruction of Ukraine right away. The Russian people will never see that money, and they know they will never see that money. They view it as something that the Putin regime has stolen and it's not theirs. We should just seize it and use it for Ukraine. In terms of additional reparations beyond that, maybe, let's see. You don't want to repeat the World War I situation where the burden on Germany was so high it built resentment that they wanted to attack again, just for that alone.
Should we want democracy for Russia?
KV: We shouldn't have too high an expectation of what's going to happen inside Russia. We can't control it, we can't really direct it. So, I think we just have to be clear about the way Russia behaves internationally, that we can do something about.
In addition to the needed munitions, what should the U.S. do?
KV: One thing we can do to help achieve that is pass a substantial supplemental appropriation in September to cover all of next year. No reason to be having debates over this and votes in Congress and making people go on the record in Congress during a presidential election year. And then a final thing I would hope that we could do is get presidential candidates from both parties to adopt the same position on aid to Ukraine, that this is an important American interest that they win. Those things could all be very, very helpful and I think keep a little bit of stability and perspective in where this ultimately has to go.
Should we worry more than we are about nukes?
KV: I don't see the risk of escalation the same way that people talk about it. First off, conventional, if Russia could escalate right now, they would. They are doing everything they can. The problem Russia has is it doesn't have well-trained people, it doesn't have good equipment, it doesn't have good leadership, it doesn't have good logistics. It is the shambles of a military force and that's why they're losing and they can't possibly escalate.
I don't think that even Russia believes that launching a strategic nuclear exchange is a good idea. It would annihilate Russia and the regime and they know it, but I even think they don't think that tactical nuclear weapons are a good idea for several reasons. It will not advance them on the battlefield. It's not going to cause Ukraine to give up. It's going to harm their own forces on the battlefield.
The places where they use the nuclear weapons become uninhabitable, so you're not achieving your objective of seizing and holding territory, and it will engender a direct response as we have warned them and others have warned them, including China and India warning them, "Don't use nuclear weapons," and that's because the issue is even bigger than Russia.
Full transcript here.
SHOWNOTES
Topic article: Only NATO membership can guarantee peace for Ukraine
Ukraine is doing Nato’s job for it (Financial Times, July 15 2023)
US must signal there ‘won’t be space’ for European war (July 16 2023)
NATO’s reluctance to invite Ukraine incentivizes Putin to continue the war – Kurt Volker (Yahoo report on Volker KSF discussion, July 12 2023)
What Did the NATO Summit Change for Ukraine? (Foreign Policy, July 12 2023)
Why NATO Should Accept Ukraine (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 13 2023)
A (Mostly Secret) Revolution Is Afoot in NATO’s Military (Foreign Policy, July 13, 2023)
Would the Israel Model Work for Ukraine? (Foreign Policy, July 14 2023)
Ukraine’s Progress Towards NATO Membership: Going From Bucharest to Vilnius Without Moving? (Centre for European Reform, June 8 2023)
G7 Joint Declaration of Support for Ukraine
Disappointed but not discouraged: Ukrainians react to NATO summit (Atlantic Council, July 13 2023)
‘Historic day’: Turkey’s Erdogan agrees to back Sweden’s NATO bid (Aljazeera, July 10 2023)
Special Report: Assessing Putin’s Implicit Nuclear Threats After Annexation (ISW, September 30 2022)