The anniversary of the summit of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) in Washington is just a few weeks away. Meanwhile, the Alliance partners have made it clear to Ukraine (both through a series of public statements and communications behind closed doors) that none of the inflated expectations of an "invitation to NATO" have the right to even cross the ocean. It is time to understand where we are today and what is happening. In other words, to make a preliminary diagnosis of preparatory efforts for the anniversary summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the context of Ukraine.
The shadow of Vilnius over Washington
The Vilnius summit of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) was a trauma not only for Ukraine, but also for Joe Biden's administration. Of course, not as powerful, and collective as the exit from Afghanistan, but still quite noticeable. Perhaps that is why the potential solutions of the Washington Summit began to be discussed already a few months after the meeting in the capital of Lithuania. If these discussions needed a suitable soundtrack, it would be a song, or an entire album called no more drama. Moreover, from the American point of view, the source of the drama was not the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), nor the resolute and concrete position of the United States of America and Germany to prevent any real progress (and even more so real commitments) in the context of Ukraine's future membership in the Alliance. And not even the inclination of the member countries to verbal tricks and ambiguity in expressions, which the leaders resorted to, preparing the final document of the meeting.
Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally were considered to be such a source of drama. In fact, the discussions came down to how to make sure that this time there would be no such "antics" like Zelenskyy's tweet that he made last year. It is noted that he wrote it on the way to a meeting. It must be admitted that such concerns were not unfounded: one of the most influential leaders of Ukraine, during his visits to Washington last fall, joked at some meetings like "the road to Vilnius was short, so we had time to write only one tweet, imagine how many we will have time to write on the way to Washington ". Some of the think tanks helping the White House with gathering ideas about the results of the upcoming summit expressed their opinion at a meeting with our expert delegation last November in an even more brutal form. Representatives of these centers said that if the White House has doubts about President Zelenskyy's behavior at the summit, President Zelenskyy simply will not be invited to this summit."
At that time, the contours of the future summit were already quite clearly outlined in the American capital. American officials and representatives of analytical centers close to the administration spoke about them in almost the same terms. They also sounded in European capitals with reference to representatives of the American administration, who visited the allies in order to familiarize them with Washington's vision and ideas about the summit in advance and to warn against any previously uncoordinated steps and initiatives on this track. After all, when in Vilnius, President of the United States of America Biden, squinting his eyes, added the famous phrase to the communique about when Ukraine will be invited to the Alliance, he did so as the president of the most influential state — a member of the Alliance. The essential difference between Washington and Vilnius is that in the American capital, Biden will act in a triple guise, namely as the host of the summit, and as the president of the most influential member state, and as a presidential candidate from the Democratic Party of the United States of America. Not to mention that, given the jubilee nature of the summit, he is also the political heir of the democratic president who initiated the creation of the Alliance 75 years ago.
That is why Washington's vision of the development of events in other capitals this time had to be received, if not with universal Euro-Atlantic admiration, then at least with respect. And the main elements of this vision can be conditionally reduced to several blocks:
- The summit should become a celebration of transatlantic unity — a unity formed against the background of unprecedented security challenges under the leadership of the United States of America and President Biden personally. Ideas that divide allies have no place on the banks of the Potomac River these days.
- The summit is just days before the Republican National Convention, so there should be no pretext for Donald Trump to use the summit to weaken Biden's candidacy for the presidency of the United States of America. At this summit, the main figure should be Biden. This should be a " Biden's summit", due to which he will strengthen his electoral positions, not weaken them.
- The issue of "inviting" Ukraine to the Alliance cannot even be raised. The emphasis should be clear, namely it should be clear that we are not talking about membership, we are talking about how to build a bridge to it. The question of Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) cannot, in principle, be considered until the end of the war. Alternative proposals, which provide for the beginning of Ukraine's accession to the Alliance in a more creative way — without an invitation, but with a decision to start accession negotiations, or to record on paper the intention to invite — should be rejected in the same way.
As you can see, most of these elements are subordinated in one way or another to one big political goal... the re-election of Biden as the President of the United States of America. No victory in the war with Russia. Not a demonstration that, even after 75 years, the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is clearly and resolutely determined to fight back against what it considers to be its "most significant and direct threat" according to the Strategic Concept of the Alliance from 2022 — the Russian Federation. Not fixing Russia's lack of veto power on the expansion of the Alliance at the expense of Ukraine in the form of an invitation or a decision for Ukraine to start accession negotiations without a formal invitation.
Joe Biden has repeatedly made it clear that he is a president who aims to protect democracy domestically and aims to protect democracy in a global sense.
For now, it appears that of these two priorities, he has clearly prioritized the protection of democracy in America itself, which he sees as keeping Donald Trump out of the White House again. Trump, not Russia, is the most significant and direct threat to American democracy in Biden's eyes.
What are the foundations of the American vision of the summit? And what summit decisions can ultimately be produced based on this vision?
Terrified by Putin and Trump's tweet
"Don't ask for an invitation in Vilnius, it's better to do it in Washington," some American partners advised us on the eve of last year's meeting of leaders in the Lithuanian capital. Moreover, they advised so persistently that even among my Ukrainian profile contacts, voices began to appear that, they say, it would really be very symbolic and powerful to receive an invitation specifically in Washington - to the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Alliance. Such logic raised many questions from the beginning. It became all the stranger after the Americans decided to organize the summit not on April 4, when, in fact, it is the anniversary of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), but in July, a few days before the party convention of the Republican Party, where Donald Trump will be announced as the presidential candidate.
The same Trump, who has been trying to convince American voters for more than two years that with his policy regarding Russia's war in Ukraine, Biden and his administration are "dragging" America into the third world war in opposition to him, Trump, under whose presidency, firstly, there could not be a war in principle, but even now, and this is secondly, he knows how to end it in one day. The White House apparently assumes that any decision to invite Ukraine to the Alliance will significantly strengthen Trump's argument about "dragging America into the Third World." "Unfortunately, the administration is forced to pay attention to what Trump's tweet will be after the summit," diplomats in some countries that are the members of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) who are friendly to the Biden administration explain. It is explained with such conviction that Trump is not capable of defeating any decision of the summit in his favour. A politically powerful decision is like getting into a war; weak or lack of any political decision — as Biden's fear of Putin and another confirmation of the inability of the current owner of the White House to demonstrate leadership, which is traditionally a basic requirement for any president of the United States of America.
This process is made especially interesting by the fact that today it is important for both Trump and, most interestingly, for Biden to win the votes of Nikki Haley's voters. With the minimal gap between the two candidates, these votes are especially important. Haley's voters would hardly welcome the entry of the United States of America into World War III, but they are certainly opposed to tolerating Putin's de facto veto power over the expansion of diplomats in some countries that are the members of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) at the expense of Ukraine. In addition, according to the results of a survey by the authoritative and influential The Chicago Council on Global Affairs (its president, the ambassador of the United States of America to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) Ivo Daalder is an important voice for the current administration on issues related to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO)), the majority of Americans — 69% — support Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO).
However, the domestic political argument is only one of the important explanations why Biden was categorically rejected any ideas about the real start of Ukraine's accession to the Alliance, and the word "invitation" became such an irritant that even we, the experts, were advised not to use it in the dialogue with representatives of the administration of the United States of America.
Many of my interlocutors in Washington continue to see the administration's fear of provoking an even greater escalation from Putin as a key challenge to Ukraine's invitation to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). After all, if there is any horror that forces American presidents to wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, it is the dream of the beginning of the third world war with the use of nuclear weapons during the tenure of this particular president in the White House. And if this cadence also coincides with a re-election campaign, then the priority for maintaining the status quo — even in its most disgusting and brutal form — becomes unconditional. Specifically, in the case of Biden, this horror is exacerbated by his deep-rooted fear of the potential deployment of American troops to Ukraine, which I personally heard from him in April 2014.
Yes, we must admit that even in the third year of the war, we see two epicenters of fear in the Western world: one in Washington, the other in Berlin. Bill Birnes, Biden's main voice on Russia issues, as early as 2008 as the ambassador to the Russian Federation, tried to convey in a clear and simple way to the main political establishment of the United States of America that Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is "the reddest of all red lines for Putin." The then president and vice president failed to grasp this message, and they supported the Action Plan on Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), despite the warnings of Bill Birnes and the skepticism of the then Secretary of State (Condolese Rice) and National Security Adviser (Stephen Hadley). However, it is worth noting that the following democratic administrations seem to have engraved these words of Bill Birnes in all their instructions on how to carry out policy regarding the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) and Ukraine.
At the same time, I am not sure that the fear of escalation is the only and dominant reason why political leaders in Washington (as well as in Berlin, by the way) stubbornly refuse to do what, in fact, is the main demand of the Ukrainian side, namely, to record on paper the irreversibility of Ukraine's future membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). The main stoplight, in my opinion, is the simulation of future negotiations on the end of the war. In particular, several assumptions that exist in these capitals when discussing the "negotiated settlement" process.
Assumption No. 1: with any irreversible decision regarding Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), Putin will finally lose his desire for any negotiations, because, they say, the main reward for him for conducting them disappears. To put it more brutally and rudely, the main bait for the president of the Russian Federation will disappear, namely the opportunity to agree on the neutral status of Ukraine at these negotiations. It is not for nothing that Putin continues to focus on the need for Ukraine's neutral status, making his next "peaceful" proposals. It is the negotiations as the main reason for reluctance of the political lieders of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) to move along the path of Ukraine's accession to the Alliance instead of strengthening the partnership track, noted in his essay for Dmytro Kuleba's book "War and New Horizons", until recently British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who obviously knows what he is writing about: "I suggest to get rid of this opinion — out loud or somewhere deep in the soul — that (Ukraine's) membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is some kind of trump card that will have to be played during future negotiations with Putin. There are still those who believe that the war can be ended, and everything can be resolved through negotiations as opposed to the victory of Ukraine. These people believe that Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is some value that can be traded. There are several versions of such a deal — and all of them are despicable.”
Assumption No. 2: perhaps Ukraine itself will be happy to renounce the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) membership as part of the "search for a compromise" with the Russian Federation. After all, they say, Ukraine was potentially ready to do this in Istanbul. And security agreements were positioned as security guarantees. In addition, they say, this is not as valuable for Ukrainian society as, say, territorial concessions to the aggressor. Perhaps that is why, after the Vilnius summit, representatives of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) member countries regularly asked Ukrainian politicians and experts whether Ukraine's position on joining the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) had changed or whether we were still seeking an invitation. And, in my opinion, they reacted somewhat with surprise to the Ukrainian: "Nothing has changed for us, because the political leaders of Washington must have another way in which we should receive an invitation or confirmation of the irreversibility of Ukraine's future accession to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO)."
Of course, none of the above-mentioned explanations will appear among the official reasons why neither Ukraine's invitation to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) nor the start of accession negotiations is even considered in the American capital. We should be ready to listen and hear arguments from the American side about the lack of reforms and the presence of corruption as a reason not to start any real process of Ukraine joining the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). We can debate for a long time about which of the countries joined the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) and at what level of readiness. Currently, after Ukraine received the status of a candidate for the European Union (EU), it has become quite easy to compare Ukraine with the countries that joined the Alliance last: they are also candidates for joining the European Union (EU), and the European Commission's unified reports on all candidates clearly show which country stands at which position in terms of democratic reforms. However, the main argument that should really prevail in this situation right now is that we should not be talking about the transformational expansion of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) that took place in the late 1990s or early 2000s. This is the time when the process of accession was primarily supposed to encourage the process of reforms in the countries of Central Europe. We are in the late 1940s, when the Alliance was just being formed, and the Allies had to come together to jointly face a powerful threat from the East. Therefore, we are talking about geostrategic expansion, and not about transformational expansion.
A bridge, a flyover or a springboard into the unknown
What is offered to Ukraine within the framework of the current American vision? Ukraine is offered a bridge. A bridge to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) membership. In this way, American diplomats and government officials figuratively formulated a package of proposals for our country that would fit into their vision of the summit devoid of any ambitions regarding a political solution for Ukraine. Moreover, the design of the bridge has already changed several times. Last year, when I heard this metaphor for the first time in Washington, it was mainly used in the context of the conclusion of a bilateral security agreement between Ukraine and the United States of America, which was planned to be signed in the American capital at that time pathetically just at the summit of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). Then, when Ukraine categorically and quite rightly did not accept the idea of "selling" a bilateral security agreement as the main achievement of the summit, the bridge began to turn into a flyover, which is overgrown with more and more new elements. In particular, the idea appeared (apparently it was voiced first by Jake Sullivan) to offer Ukraine a kind of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) Transformation Mission for Ukraine (NATO Transformation Mission) — another coordination mechanism that would combine the current initiatives for assistance and training for Ukrainians. After all, in this way they could better prepare for future membership in the Alliance.
Therefore, according to the plan of the authors of the mission, the coordination of the Rammstein format should come under the umbrella of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). And it is interesting that when last year, before the summit in Vilnius, some allies voiced the idea of transferring Ramstein under coordination of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), political leaders in the White House were categorically against it. The explanation is the same banal: they say, it can provoke an unnecessary escalation on the part of Putin.
In Kyiv, the idea of the mission was met in different ways: some criticized it, while others suggested renaming it to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) Accession Mission. In the end, the problem was solved in a peculiar way by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who, after Emmanuel Macron's proposals, sent training missions to Ukraine. People began to get nervous hearing the very word "mission". Thus, the proposal is currently called Security Assistance of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) and Training for Ukraine (NSATU). Ukraine presented a list of conditions under which it would welcome such an initiative in the decisions adopted by the summit. One of these prerequisites is that this initiative cannot be a substitute for a political decision regarding Ukraine's future membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO).
Other, more practical and less public, solutions are being prepared, which will certainly be useful for the practical readiness of Ukraine to become a member of the Alliance in the future. Obviously, from the American point of view, these decisions should make Ukraine look satisfied in Washington, and Zelenskyy did not even think of writing angry tweets to and from Washington (just think how difficult it is for the Biden administration: it should be concerned with the tweets of not Trump, but Zelenskyy).
On the other hand, all these initiatives look like diligent attempts to find solutions to save the face and reputation of the United States of America and the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), and Ukraine simply has to help Washington and Brussels to save this face and reputation. This has already happened more than once, when the Alliance "invented" for important summits either a Comprehensive aid package or some other format, in order to create the appearance of a new super-progressive and powerful proposal for Ukraine, even if it was essentially a new shelter for already existing initiatives.
Especially since for Ukraine, if it can be a question of practical compensation for a weak political decision, then such compensation can be not Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), but the decision to provide a very specific number of air defense systems (Zelenskyy spoke about seven additional Patriot systems), with a very specific number of missiles for them (we will take 1000 interceptors as a guideline).
And also a political decision to create, if not by all members of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), then by individual members of the Alliance a kind of air defense shield (or, as some of our Western partners say, an air defense bubble) over part of Western and Southern Ukraine, so that our partners would be given the green light to shoot down drones and missiles flying towards Poland and Romania and within range of the Patriot or the theatre anti-missile system (SAMP/T) deployed there. This would be a practical decision of the summit, properly accepted by Ukrainian society.
For Ukraine, it is not enough to simply offer a bridge. All the more so because those Americans who know the Ukrainian context well must clearly understand that the concept of "bridge" has been sufficiently discredited in Ukraine since the time when politicians at all levels tried to build a bridge between East and West from our Ukraine itself. It is not for nothing that in the Ukrainian version of the bilateral security agreement with the United States of America, the word bridge is translated as "link". One famous American diplomat, who played a powerful role in the American policy of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) expansion at the expense of Central European countries, rightly remarked at our meeting late last year: "Even if there is a bridge, it should be made of concrete and high-quality steel, not sticks and straw".
Challenge to vision: are there brave ones?
Perhaps, instead of worrying about how to make sense of the current American vision, we should challenge it? Has anyone from Washington's allies tried to do this? Obviously, perhaps the biggest challenge for the American administration in this sense was the idea of French President Macron to consider the possibility of the military presence of certain member of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) countries on the territory of Ukraine. A challenge that the American side intended to nip in the bud: there are legends in European capitals about how a well-known representative of the American administration called allies of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) on the eve of the Macron summit with a recommendation not to participate in it, at least at the highest level. At the same time, America showed its own example, meaning that it delegated to the summit of leaders, which is being held by President Macron, "as much as" the deputy secretary of state.
Such resistance is not accidental, because the proposal of the French president removes the discussion about Ukraine's status as a future ally from the enchanted discussion about Ukraine's invitation and accession to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO). Macron's idea actually "jumps over" the stage of invitation, opening negotiations, and partially even the stage of accession, which provides for the right to collective defense, but does not provide for the immediate involvement of troops of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) in the territory of one or another member state. Yes, Macron's initiative does not allow us to invoke something like Article 5 at the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) level, but it does allow individual countries to de facto invoke Article 5 for Ukraine by sending in their troops, which is one of Biden's biggest nightmares. It is not surprising that the United States of America was so opposed to these proposals. And it is probably no coincidence that Biden's visit to France was the only state visit he agreed to make in a difficult election year.
It is quite possible, and in order to make it clear once again: the United States of America will continue to see the absence of Ukraine's invitation to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO), and not its presence, as one of the ways to end the war faster. Although in fact the very absence of an invitation for Ukraine to the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is an invitation for Putin to continue waging war. And we have to keep explaining why this is so. If the political leaders in Washington even predict that one day Ukraine will be a member of NATO, then at best this possibility will already be considered after the end of the war as a post-war scenario, after "victory in the war". Such an opportunity for our country will be given only "In the best case", because President Biden's programmatic interview with TIME magazine, in which he makes it clear that Ukraine's membership in the Alliance is not a prerequisite for lasting peace, makes us doubt this vision as well. And the bridge advertised by the administration to Ukraine's membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) is actually beginning to resemble a springboard that leads into the unknown.