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At his final NATO summit, in Bucharest, Romania, in 2008, President George W. Bush pushed, cajoled and pleaded with allies to invite Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance. Such a move, Bush explained, would send “a signal throughout the region that these two nations are, and will remain, sovereign and independent states.”

Vladimir Putin was at the summit, and he watched as Bush was rebuffed. “Ukraine is not a country,” the Russian leader told Bush. Within six years, Russia had invaded both countries.

Now, NATO can undo at least a part of its mistake. On Tuesday, leaders will gather in Vilnius, Lithuania, with the situation reversed: The majority of allies want to set a specific timetable for Kyiv’s admission, and it is the United States that is resisting, concerned that a specific membership pledge will provoke Russia. It’s the same flawed reasoning that has led the administration to withhold critical weapons such as the tanks, long-range missiles and advanced fighter jets Ukraine needs to retake its territory. Almost 75 years after NATO’s founding, the record is clear. NATO doesn’t provoke war; it guarantees peace.

No serious person advocates NATO membership for Ukraine while the current fighting continues. That would be tantamount to a declaration of war with Russia. But it is equally true that after a cease-fire, a durable peace cannot be achieved unless that peace is guaranteed by NATO membership.

To stop Putin
Putin won’t willingly give up on his quest to conquer Ukraine as long as he believes he can succeed. He will use any cessation of hostilities to pause, reconstitute his forces and resume his invasion in a few years’ time — just like he did in after his 2014 invasion and annexation of Crimea.

He made his objectives abundantly clear in a nearly 7,000-word manifesto, published in 2021, in which he explained that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people,” descendants of “Ancient Rus” bound together by common language, culture and religion. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he said, “Russia was robbed” and Ukrainians were separated “from their historical motherland.” He will not stop until he incorporates Ukraine into a restored Russian Empire.

In pursuing this goal, Putin is playing a long game. He assumes Western interest in helping Ukraine will wane over time as costs escalate and new crises inevitably arise elsewhere. He doesn’t need to win, in his judgment; he just needs to keep fighting until we quit. The only way to stop him is to make his goals impossible to achieve. And the way to do that is to bring Ukraine into NATO.

Critics of NATO membership say it will provoke Putin to keep fighting. Recent history shows otherwise: Putin has invaded only non-NATO countries. To leave Ukraine outside the NATO alliance is an invitation to renewed aggression. NATO membership will cement the reality that Ukraine’s destiny belongs in the West, in NATO and in the European Union. The sooner Putin is confronted with that clear and unmistakable reality, the sooner he will be forced to accept that he has lost his war.

To strengthen Zelensky
If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said today that he was willing to consider a peace deal that left any Ukrainian territory in Russian hands, he’d be thrown out of office. The Ukrainian people are in no mood for compromise. A Gallup poll published in October found that 70 percent favor fighting until victory, which they overwhelmingly define as retaking all territory seized by Russia since 2014, including Crimea. A Democratic Initiatives Foundation poll published in May found those views virtually unchanged: Sixty-seven percent of Ukrainians said that no concessions to Russia were acceptable, while just 22 percent supported some compromises to end the war.

Only by delivering NATO security guarantees can Zelensky sell a cease-fire or armistice to his citizens — especially if Ukraine has not achieved its goals of driving Russia completely out of every inch of Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

Right now, Ukraine is in the early stages of its counteroffensive. It needs time and resources to bring that operation to a successful conclusion. The United States should support Ukraine in its effort to recover all of its illegally occupied lands from Russia — and America must not use the promise of NATO membership to pressure Kyiv to make territorial concessions.

But a time might come when Zelensky could face a choice similar to that faced by West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1955, when his country was physically divided and at grave risk from the Soviet Union. Adenauer had to decide between holding out for full reunification or securing the part of Germany he controlled by anchoring it in the NATO alliance. He chose security — and 34 years later, his choice was vindicated when the Berlin Wall fell and his country was reunited as a free, sovereign and democratic state.

Zelensky might become strong enough with voters to do the same, former national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley tells us, “if part of the deal is NATO membership — not in six years, not in six months, NATO membership right then. … Because that’s his insurance policy that the Russian invasion is not going to be resumed from that portion of the territory of Ukraine that Russia still occupies.”

It will be up to Ukrainians to decide whether to join NATO before they have fully reunified their country. If they do, NATO should not recognize Russian annexation of any Ukrainian territory — just as allies never recognized the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states. But the only way Ukrainians will be able to make that choice is if it is backed by NATO’s Article 5 guarantee that an attack on one is an attack on all.

To save American taxpayers billions of dollars
Peace is cheaper than war. Without NATO membership, Ukraine will be a constant magnet for Russian aggression — and the United States will continue to be drawn into aiding Ukraine’s self-defense. We must foreclose future attacks. Otherwise, Putin will resume his invasion a few years after any cease-fire — at a cost of further tens of billions to American taxpayers.safelu

Something similar is true when it comes to Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction. The World Bank estimates the cost of rebuilding the war-ravaged county at $411 billion. Some of that cost can be covered by tapping the $300 billion in Russian Central Bank assets that Western banks have frozen since last year. Much of the rest can come from private-sector investment — but only if investors have confidence the Russian assault won’t resume.

By creating confidence that attracts private investment, NATO membership will also help the Ukrainian economy, allowing Kyiv to provide for its own defense, just as Poland and the Baltic states — already NATO members — do today. A stable, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine will be a customer and trading partner for America. An unstable Ukraine, under constant threat from Russia, will be a continual drain on U.S. resources.

To normalize relations with Russia
As distant as the possibility seems, the West will never build a constructive relationship with Russia until the option of aggression against Ukraine is off the table once and for all. In Bucharest, Bush declared that “the Europe we are building must also be open to Russia”; that “we have a stake in Russia’s success” and “look for the day when Russia is fully reformed, fully democratic and closely bound to the rest of Europe.” He added that “Russia is part of Europe and, therefore, does not need a buffer zone of insecure states separating it from Europe.”

Russia’s belligerent conduct over the ensuing 15 years makes those words seem fanciful. But Bush was correct: NATO membership for Ukraine would create stability, which in turn might one day turn into cooperation. It could take years, even decades, before Russia is able to accept those opportunities. But it will never come as long as Russia eyes Ukraine as prey to be swallowed — an option that NATO membership would forever foreclose.
To strengthen NATO
Finally, bringing Ukraine into NATO is good not just for Ukraine; it is good for NATO, too. Ukraine now has the most capable, battle-hardened, NATO-interoperable military in Europe. Unlike some allies, it will have no trouble or hesitation meeting its NATO obligation to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense. It will be a net contributor to European security and thus strengthen the alliance.

So what are the next steps?
NATO leaders should approach the Vilnius summit as a two-part process. Part 1, in Vilnius, should be an unambiguous commitment by NATO, led by the United States, to invite Ukraine to join the alliance at the 75th-anniversary summit in Washington next summer. Then, NATO must create the security the alliance will guarantee, by spending the coming year helping Ukraine shape the conflict with Russia to a point where the invitation can safely be extended in 2024.

In shaping conditions on the ground, the United States’ objective should be to help Ukraine regain every inch of its territory as soon as possible. It is a mistake to think that a quick and decisive war creates any greater risk of escalation than a long, drawn-out stalemate. That means delivering all the weapons Ukraine is seeking to make its counteroffensive succeed — including long-range precision missiles, tanks and advanced fighter aircraft. Greater progress on the battlefield will bring the war to a point where a cease-fire is Russia’s only option — and Zelensky’s defense of his country is a clear success. Then, Ukraine can pivot to securing its military gains with NATO membership.

Some have suggested non-NATO alternatives for Ukraine’s long-term security. For example, they point out that America’s commitment to Israel is clear despite the absence of a mutual defense treaty that requires America to come to Israel’s defense. We would argue that Israel’s real deterrent is the perception by its adversaries that it possesses nuclear weapons. (Israel has never confirmed nor denied a nuclear capability.) Ukraine once had its own nuclear deterrent but relinquished the weapons at the insistence of the United States in the 1990s. Absent restoring that deterrent, the only thing that will prevent Russia from violating Ukraine’s sovereignty again is an Article 5 security guarantee from NATO.

Others say the United States could declare Ukraine a “Major Non-NATO Ally.” This would be nothing more than a symbolic gesture. MNNA status gives a designated country priority access to U.S. military equipment — something Ukraine already has in abundance — but does not entail any security commitments. It would amount to an empty promise, and Putin would conclude that the United States has blinked again.

If progress in retaking territory comes more slowly, and Ukrainian leaders feel confident they can continue to achieve their goals on the battlefield, NATO should support that decision. The alliance can issue a formal invitation to membership at the Washington summit but wait to ratify Ukraine’s accession until its leaders are ready to choose this course. Ultimately, it must be up to Ukraine when to disengage militarily and join NATO.

Right now, President Biden appears to have no theory for victory, much less a theory for peace. He needs to appreciate that he has nailed America’s colors to the mast in Ukraine. We might not have soldiers fighting in this war, but make no mistake: This is our war. If the fight in Ukraine is lost, it will be America’s defeat; if it is won, it will be America’s victory — and, by extension, Biden’s victory. It is baffling that Biden does not see a specific pledge of NATO membership for Ukraine as the key to unlock a historic success. The only way he can end this conflict, and bring stability to Ukraine and the rest of Europe, is for NATO to draw a bright line that Russia dare not cross.



This is a starting point. What do you think about Ukraine?

You spelled "Pieces" wrong.

Just curious. Which treaty are you referring to?

This administration is now sending Ukraine.. Cluster Munitions... 120 Nations have already signed Treaties to ban such Munitions... Saudi Arabia has Miles and Miles of these stockpiled supplied by the USA... during the Gulf war to free Kuwait from Iraqi Occupation we dropped CBU-87 and CBU-89 clusters on Iraqi troops in Kuwait and up the Highway of Death... Al Jabber Air Base in Kuwait had hardened shelters we rained down these munitions throughout the base, the Iraqi's would run into the shelters for cover and then we'd drop the 2000lb Bunker Busters right through the roof tops... No Survivors... my last deployment 2002 to Al Jabber, you could still sit on the Burm at night a smoke a cigar and watch as these unexploded Ordinances would go off from heat and cool exposure over the years.. you could also see the yellowish/green glow of depleted uranium rounds that were used light up different areas of the sand like glow sticks we use for camping...


IMO the next waive of Balloons the Chinese send will be in the 1000's all packed up with Chemical Weapons to float across America with...

but yet noone can put a finger on who's Cocaine it was in the West Wing or some other location in the WH... DOH!!!!!!!!

Not and expert by no means and todays world I'm reading the same Shock and Yawn out of the media as everyone else...

I do know the Russians are getting their ass's handed to them as their military leaders and civilians are pretty much fed up with their leader?? the Ukrainians are fighting for their country and freedoms from Russian Rule... pretty sure they'll come out on top.. War of Attrition (sp?) and Ukrain is being supplied by Allied NATO nations... as these Nations do not want to be next if Russia gains a foot...

Opinion: Ukraine in NATO?

My heart says yes. But my head says no.

WAPO
There is undoubtedly a powerful case for admitting Ukraine capably laid out in a recent op-ed in the Hill by my friends Randy Scheunemann, who was John McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser, and Evelyn Farkas, who is executive director of the McCain Institute. There is little doubt that Ukraine has earned the moral right to be part of the Western alliance. Its heavy sacrifices, after all, are indirectly protecting NATO members from being menaced in the future by the Russian war machine. (The head of the British armed forces just said that Russia had lost half of its combat effectiveness in Ukraine, including as many as 2,500 tanks.)

There is also little doubt that NATO expansion has been a powerful force for peace and stability in Europe. The very reason Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is invading Ukraine — rather than Poland or the Baltic states, which were also once part of the Russian Empire — is that those other countries are in NATO and Ukraine is not. For all of Putin’s bravado, he does not want to risk a conflict that would trigger NATO’s Article 5 collective security guarantee, including the ultimate deterrent provided by the United States’ nuclear forces. It’s bunk to say, as Kremlin apologists do, that NATO expansion to Eastern Europe has caused Russian aggression. The illiberal nature of Putin’s regime accounts for its aggression — and the Kremlin would be a far greater threat if Putin knew he could attack more of Russia’s neighbors with impunity.

Yet there is deep and understandable reluctance among Western European states and the United States to admit Ukraine to NATO, because it is at war with Russia and will be for the foreseeable future. This isn’t a stable stalemate like the division of East and West Germany or North and South Korea. This is a dynamic, ongoing conflict that, if NATO were to take in Ukraine, could draw other members into a shooting war with a nuclear-armed Russia.

It’s true, as Scheunemann and Farkas argue, that Article 5 — which holds “that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies” — “does not mandate a specific response by member states.” NATO members could say they are complying with Article 5 by doing what they are already doing: supplying Ukraine with weapons, training and intelligence and imposing sanctions on Russia. But there has always been an implicit assumption that an armed attack on a NATO member would result in military action by other NATO members. If that’s not the case, it would risk watering down Article 5 and reducing the overall effectiveness of the NATO alliance. Do we really want to send a message to Putin that he could invade, say, Lithuania and the West won’t fight to defend that embattled democracy?

NATO could try to skirt that difficulty by announcing that Ukraine will not be admitted now but in the future, once its war with Russia is over. But that would create a perverse incentive for Russia to keep fighting so as to prevent Ukraine’s entry into the transatlantic alliance. NATO should not make the same mistake it made at its Bucharest summit in 2008 when it declared that it “welcomed” the “aspirations” of Ukraine and Georgia to “become members of NATO” but did not agree on a Membership Action Plan to turn aspirations into reality. That only increased Putin’s incentive to attack those countries before they were granted admission to NATO — as he did with Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.

The good news is that, even without admitting Ukraine, it is possible for NATO members to bolster long-term security ties with Kyiv and make clear to Russia that it will never be able to destroy Ukraine’s freedom. As Eric Ciaramella of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace argued in a recent policy paper, Washington’s relationships with Israel and Taiwan point the way. Neither is a treaty ally, but in both cases, the United States is bound by law and diplomatic agreements to arm them so that they can resist aggression.

Since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which Israel nearly lost, successive U.S. administrations have pledged to help the Jewish state maintain a “qualitative military edge” over its Arab neighbors. This concept was eventually codified by Congress into law. The United States and Israel have also negotiated a series of “memorandums of understanding” that commit Washington to provide fixed levels of aid. (The most recent memorandum, signed in 2016, pledges the United States to provide $38 billion in military aid between 2019 and 2028.) These U.S. commitments have allowed the Israel Defense Forces to remain the most powerful military force in the Middle East.

Iuliia Mendel, a former press secretary for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, writes guest opinions from inside Ukraine. She has written about trauma, Ukraine’s “women warriors” and what it’s like for her fiance to go off to war.
Columnist Fareed Zakaria covers foreign affairs. His columns have reviewed the West’s strategy in Ukraine. Sign up to follow him.

The United States ended its formal military alliance with Taiwan in 1979 when it established diplomatic relations with Beijing. But at the same time Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which states that Washington will sell weapons to Taiwan so that it can “maintain a sufficient self-defense capability” and that the United States will “resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security … of the people of Taiwan.” The United States has not provided Taiwan with nearly as much military aid as Israel, but U.S. support has allowed Taiwan to remain de facto independent of the Communist regime on the mainland.

These are the models that the United States should follow with Ukraine. The Biden administration should pledge that the United States will provide sufficient weapons, training and intelligence support to allow Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty (preferably within the 1991 international borders), and Congress should write that pledge into law. If a Republican-controlled House agrees, that would provide a powerful signal of bipartisan support for Ukraine. Other NATO members should make similar pledges.

It is also imperative for the West to provide a continuing stream of monetary aid to ensure Ukraine’s economic viability despite the war, which has devastated its industrial and agricultural base. The European Union should take the lead in offering Ukraine a road map to membership — which would force Ukraine to take tough action against corruption in return for eventual access to E.U. subsidies. Western countries should also pledge to turn over to Ukraine roughly $300 billion in Russian funds frozen in Europe and the United States to finance the reconstruction of war damage.

Even without offering the guarantees of Article 5, NATO states can greatly strengthen Ukraine’s capacity to resist Russian aggression over the long term and make clear to Putin that this is a war he cannot win.

“You’re welcome” ~ France

If someone needs democracy upheld, we need to enter a war to uphold it. We doing a great job of upholding our democracy!

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"The American Colonies and France signed this military treaty on February 6, 1778. It formalized France's financial and military support of the revolutionary government in America."

"America could never have won the war without France. "

"The French provided supplies, arms and ammunition, uniforms, and, most importantly, troops and naval support to the beleaguered Continental Army. The French navy transported reinforcements, fought off a British fleet, and protected Washington's forces in Virginia."

Notwithstanding Frances hatred of England, many people in France, especially the nobility, were deeply engaged in the intellectual movement known as the Enlightenment and were inspired by new ideas about human society, rationalism, science, and progress. They viewed the American states, with their republican forms of government, as the embodiment of some of these new ideas."

I think another event can guarantee peace in Ukraine; the demise of Putin, which seems likelier the longer the special military operation slogs on in Ukraine...the Russian military as a whole and especially its command, has been exposed as frauds...

his supporters among the oligarchs and the Russian economy have suffered under the restraints of world sanctions...few people among the Russian power elite share Putin's goals to rebuild the USSR...

There must be no membership until the war is over. Then it would be a good buffer zone for Poland. Also, that little country that starts with an M should be added at the same time.

Oh, the idea of WW3 is stupid. Russia using nukes is a realistic possibility. But if NATO marched on Russia the war would be over in less than a week.

Since Patriots are taking out there sonic missiles I doubt a nuke would make it out of Russian airspace. We has something unknown to the public as of now capable of doing that. The problem would be nukes on subs.