Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met in Lithuania to take stock of their military and financial support to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression there, but came away without offering any timetable to induct Ukraine, much to the chagrin of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mr. Zelenskyy, who vented his frustration after the summit, has only received reassuring words from U.S. President Joe Biden to the effect that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wrongly believes he can outlast Ukraine”. Mr. Zelenskyy’s apparent sense of disappointment is likely to have been multiplied by the fact that as of April, Finland became the 31st member, and with Turkey withdrawing its objections, it is only a matter of time until Sweden signs its documents of accession. In reality, NATO has not only gone to great lengths to support Ukraine’s war efforts directly but has also waived its Membership Action Plan. This plan is a series of political and military steps to ensure that the prospective new entrant is a functioning democracy based on a market economy, that its military is under tight civilian control, that it shows commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts, that it treats minority populations fairly, and that it has the ability and willingness to contribute to NATO operations.
While the summit meeting offered NATO a chance to take a reflective pause on the war, the Organization’s leaders appeared to have glossed over a critical existential question: would this not be an important time for NATO to consider going slow on its recruitment campaigns, the point of contention that Mr. Putin has used to make an argument for Russia waging war? Certainly, there is a chicken-and-egg dimension to this debate, and NATO has been particularly activated ever since Moscow’s unprovoked military incursion into Georgia in 2008 and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014. Yet war — even a war by proxies — is never a predictable prospect between the nuclear-armed rivals of the Cold War years. Rather than digging in their heels and setting the stage for further military escalation — now with the added cruelty of the cluster munitions promised by Mr. Biden to Mr. Zelenskyy — NATO leaders would have done well to explore potential pathways to a ceasefire and temporary cessation of hostilities. It is true that Mr. Putin is likely to remain undeterred in his ambition for territorial acquisition fuelled by the shadowy inner politics of the Kremlin — yet if NATO is a grouping that genuinely cares about market economies, democracy, human rights, and peace, it needs to work towards changing the very paradigm that set this avoidable conflict in motion in the first place.
