The Foreign Affairs has published an article which says it all if the world is to be made really safe. It is wiser to read it, here it goes: As the war in Ukraine grinds on, policymakers and pundits, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the former U.S. ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, are pushing for NATO to offer Ukraine what French President Emmanuel Macron calls “a path toward membership” after the conflict concludes. The way in which this issue is settled will have serious consequences for the United States, Europe, and beyond.
The stakes could not be higher. Membership in NATO encompasses a commitment by the allies to fight and die for one another. Partly for this very reason, its members worked throughout the post–Cold War era to avoid expanding the alliance to states that faced a near-term risk of being attacked. NATO leaders have also long understood that admitting Ukraine involves a very real possibility of war (including nuclear war) with Russia. Indeed, the chance of such a conflict and its devastating consequences is the main reason that the United States and other NATO members have sought to avoid being drawn in more deeply into the war in Ukraine. The tension is clear: almost no one thinks that NATO should fight directly with Russia for Ukraine today, but many favor promising Ukraine a path into the alliance and committing to fight for it in the future.
Ukraine should not be welcomed into NATO, and this is something U.S. President Joe Biden should make clear. Kyiv’s resistance to Russian aggression has been heroic, but ultimately states do what is in their self-interest. And here, the security benefits to the United States of Ukrainian accession pale in comparison with the risks of bringing it into the alliance. Admitting Ukraine to NATO would raise the prospect of a grim choice between a war with Russia and the devastating consequences involved or backing down and devaluing NATO’s security guarantee across the entire alliance. NATO leaders would be wise to acknowledge these facts and close the door to Ukraine.
