At 75, NATO's Future is Tied to Success in Ukraine

As leaders gather in Washington this week to celebrate the 75th anniversary of history's most successful alliance, they are mindful that its future depends increasingly on Russia's defeat in Ukraine.

NATO leaders arrive in Washington, DC, this week to celebrate decades of peace and security in Europe and North America—a peace founded on the foundational principle that each member’s security and freedom is vital to its own security and freedom. That principle is embodied in the core commitment, enshrined in Article 5 of the treaty signed 75 years ago, that “an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.” And it is why NATO over the years has grown from 12 members at its founding, to 16 at the end of the Cold War, to 32 today—including Finland and Sweden as its newest members.

But while the Washington Summit will rightly celebrate the successes of an alliance built on the idea that security is indivisible, the formal and informal discussions will be dominated by a growing realization that alliance security depends increasingly on a country that is not a member: Ukraine.

Now in its 11th year, and almost two-and-a-half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, the outcome of the war in Ukraine will be fundamental to the security—indeed, the very future—of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. If Russia succeeds in subjugating Ukraine, it will not only demonstrate that force will once again determine relations among states in Europe but also pose a dire threat to NATO’s security—if not immediately, than in years hence. Of this, there can be no doubt—and every NATO leader gathered in Washington this week knows it to be true.

The United States and NATO and a coalition of more than 50 countries standing strong with Ukraine.  We will not walk away because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated. 

And it will not end there.  Ukraine’s neighbors will be threatened.  All of Europe will be threatened. 

And make no mistake, the autocrats of the world are watching closely to see what happens in Ukraine, to see if we let this illegal aggression go unchecked.  We cannot let that happen. 

The words are President Biden’s, delivered at the commemoration of D-Day 80 years after young men stormed the beaches to liberate Europe. But they express what every NATO leaders knows: If Russia succeeds in Ukraine, their security is at grave risk.

An Inadequate Response

Unfortunately, there is little indication that the leaders have fully understood the implication of this truth. While their support to Ukraine has been unprecedented in scale and scope, it has been inadequate when measured against what is at stake.

For all the military assistance, training, and intelligence provided to Ukraine, NATO countries have not supplied it with the means necessary to defeat the Russian assault, let alone retake much or all the territory it has lost. Successive, incremental decisions to provide lethal aid, heavy armor, long-range strike capabilities, combat airplanes, combat training, and to allow strikes against legitimate military targets inside Russian territory, were often made after the need was greatest. The result is that Russia now enjoys an advantage in the balance of forces.

These delays reflect an understandable reluctance to risk direct confrontation with Russia, a nuclear power. But they also reflect a larger strategic shortcoming: the failure to set a clear strategic objective for Western support of Ukraine. To say that Ukraine is fighting for our freedom, that we will support it not only “as long as it takes,” but also with “as much as it takes,” and that Kyiv will ultimately decide when and how the war ends is both evidently true and an insufficient guide to policy. The West also has a direct responsibility in shaping the outcome of this conflict. That requires being clear-eyed about what Russia is up to.

What Russia Wants

From day one, progress and failure in the war has been measured by the amount of territory lost or gained along the 1,000-km frontline. That assumes this war is mostly about territory. It is not. The war is fundamentally about who controls Ukraine’s future: imperial Moscow or an independent Kyiv.

The focus on territory has blinded many to Russia’s real strategy. Vladimir Putin isn’t focused on occupying parts of Ukraine per se; he seeks to control Ukraine and, through it, break the Western will to resist the extension of Russia’s strategic influence in Europe. His campaign began with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the destabilization of the Donbas in 2014. He feigned a diplomatic endgame by presenting his wishes in the form of draft treaties that would enshrine his goals, and now is trying to achieve it militarily by defeating Ukraine.

Putin goals are clear:

• Win in Ukraine, by controlling critical parts of its territory and breaking Ukraine’s capacity and will to resist. Russia’s military objective is to destroy the Ukrainian army’s organized capacity to fight on the ground, its energy and industrial capacity to support that fight, and the will of the people to continue the war.

• Break the Western will to resist by threatening escalation to deter both direct and indirect intervention and engage in gray area operations against NATO countries. Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons and expand the war to NATO are meant to deter NATO support and intervention. Increasingly brazen hybrid attacks on NATO countries—ranging from assassinations, bombing of weapons depots and energy facilities, and interference in elections through financing and media manipulation, to cyberattacks on GPS and other critical infrastructure, disruption of maritime and civil aviation, disinformation campaigns, and unilaterally redrawing borders—are designed to weaken alliance cohesion and European security.

The Need for Strategic Clarity

It is up to Ukraine—and Russia—to determine the territorial endgame of the war. And for them to fight and negotiate that outcome. NATO countries and others can help—by continuing to supply weapons and intelligence, lifting caveats on how weapons can be used, supporting Ukraine diplomatically, and squeezing Russia economically. But Kyiv and Moscow will decide who holds what territory when the shooting stops.

Whatever the territorial outcome, however, the war will not end until Ukraine has decided its own political future—without Russia’s interference or determination. That future, its leaders and people have made abundantly clear, is within the West—as members of NATO and the European Union.

The war in Ukraine will not end—Russia will not have been defeated—unless and until Ukraine is fully integrated in the West as a member of NATO and the EU. The European Union last month agreed to start formal accession negotiations, but these will take many years to complete. NATO has agreed that Ukraine “will become a member” and that “its future is in NATO.” But until membership is a fact—and Ukraine enjoys the security of Article 5—the threat from Russia will persist. And NATO’s security will hang in the balance.

The 32 leaders of NATO have an opportunity in Washington this week to state clearly and definitely that they have a clear strategic objective: to ensure Russia’s defeat by having Ukraine as a member of NATO.

The road to full membership will take time to travel, and there are many procedural issues that will not to be addressed (as Karen Donfried and I explained a few months ago). But there is no better time than now to begin the process of driving down that road and reach the endpoint as soon as possible.

Ukraine’s future requires it. NATO’s future depends on it.