World View | NATO entry for Ukraine —Zelensky will have to keep on fighting the war to earn its place in the elite security outfit

Zelensky’s repeated pleas and implicit consequences and calculations by NATO did not yield much except just a mention in a communique assuring him that Ukraine indeed will be in NATO. But the fact remains that; “Unless Ukraine prevails, there’s no membership issue to be discussed at all,” as NATO Secretary General puts it.

By Anil Trigunayat  

The recently held NATO Summit (July 11-12) in Vilnius, once again, showed the door from a distance to a desperate Ukrainian President Zelensky, who is frustrated by off and on tactics of the NATO members. Even though they treat Russia as the greatest threat to this Trans-Atlantic alliance which got revived due to the Russia-Ukraine war, there was no readiness or appetite to go for a direct war with Moscow which would become incumbent in terms of the Article 5 of the Treaty, if Ukraine was to become a member.

Moreover, a besieged Zelensky was said to be ungrateful when he complained of these dilatory dangling of more arms and his membership to the NATO and EU which in his opinion will deter Vladimir Putin.More weapons and missiles and even cluster bombs were promised to Ukraine as it goes through an uncertain counter offensive that has not made any significant progress in retrieving its twenty percent of territory currently held by Russia.

No doubt, Zelensky felt more miffed as Turkey, which recently supported his entry to NATO, and opposed that of Sweden,  saw the smoothening of Sweden’s entry and membership into the Alliance. Of course the newly elected and wiser Erdogan negotiated for his own pounds of flesh by way of F16s and EU entry negotiations. The other latest entrant Finland also attended the Summit.

At the time of fall of Berlin wall, George W Bush had assured an unsure Gorbachev that ‘Not an inch more towards the East’ as far as NATO expansion was concerned. But today its membership has more than doubled to 32 with 39 associated members. In fact, Russia at one time was pretty keen to join NATO to work for a collective security for Europe.

Eastward expansion of NATO was the main reason for Putin’s insecurity and eventual plunge into the ‘special operations into Ukraine’ aka War to create his own buffers to secure his borders. Unjustified or not, power has its own language and has been witnessed more in unilateralism by all major stakeholders in recent decades.

There seems to be some hesitation on the part of NATO members as to how much and how long can they continue to support the Ukraine effort, that is not paying corresponding geo strategic dividends to them. Their own supplies and war machines are stretched. Fearing that there might be a direct conflict with Moscow, NATO decided to create a collective defence plan and agreement to spend 20 percent of their budgets on upgrading their arsenal and R&D despite most western economies facing recession and downturn. As such 2 percent of GDP contributions for NATO budget was reiterated and approved.

Zelensky had to be content with the creation of NATO-Ukraine Council Forum. Moreover, the focus on Taiwan straits and the Chinese threat in the Indo-Pacific requires that the Ukrainian distraction especially for the US is minimised. No wonder they also had detailed deliberations and planning for the south China Sea and the Chinese abrasive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, while continuing to keep the dragon engaged lest it overtly begins to support Moscow which will add another complication to an already difficult situation.

Moreover, it will stunt the posturing of countries like France and Germany who would rather have a constructive engagement with Beijing. For NATO, China continues to remain a strategic challenge. Meanwhile, NATO’s efforts to take it to Asia by opening an office in Japan did not fructify as several European countries did not support the red tag idea.

Zelensky has been demanding that he wants nothing less than full membership of NATO and out of turn expeditious accession so that it does not become a bargaining chip during the negotiations with Russia whenever the war stops. His repeated pleas and implicit consequences and calculations by NATO did not yield much except a mention in the communique assuring him that Ukraine indeed will be in NATO.

“Ukraine’s future is in NATO. We will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the alliance when allies agree and conditions are met,” the NATO communique stated. Even though this bland statement was not really a reward for Zelensky, his continuous pleas have reduced the accession procedures from two step process to a single one thereby removing protracted and rather difficult conditionalities.

What one gathers at the moment is that NATO’s evident mission is to see that Ukraine prevails in this Eurasian War where after only Kiev could enter the NATO Club, as the NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg also claimed; “Unless Ukraine prevails, there’s no membership issue to be discussed at all.”Of course, President Biden sealed it when he said “Ukraine is not yet ready to join NATO and a rational path will be needed for that.” For now Zelensky will have to keep on fighting the war, hopefully not till the last Ukrainian, to earn its place in the elite security outfit. 

—The author, Amb. Anil Trigunayat, is a former Indian Ambassador to Jordan, Libya and Malta, and currently heads the West Asia Experts Group at Vivekananda International Foundation. Views expressed are personal.