JRL NEWSWATCH: “What Ukraine Needs from NATO: Advanced Weapons — and Clarity on What Membership Will Require” – Foreign Affairs: Ivo Daalder, Karen Donfried
“… Without new U.S. military assistance, Ukrainian ground forces may not be able to hold the line against a relentless Russian military. … The most urgent priority is to appropriate funds to resupply Kyiv with artillery shells, air defense missiles, deep-strike rockets, and other critical military needs. But even once Ukraine receives this much-needed support, a fundamental question remains: how to help Ukraine secure its future … a question NATO leaders … need to answer … this July in Washington [at] their 75th anniversary summit. Russia’s war on Ukraine is about … Ukraine’s political future. … Ukraine is fighting for the freedom to chart its own future … [A] vast majority of Ukrainians want … to become a member of NATO and the [EU]. Last year, the EU opened accession talks …. [Ukraine’s EU membership process] will take years to complete. … Ukraine seeks an invitation to join NATO. … NATO countries are divided over when Kyiv should join. Former officials have proposed various ideas …. One is to issue an invitation to Ukraine but not act on it until some later, unspecified time … an empty gesture, as no treaty provisions would apply until all 32 members ratify Ukraine’s accession. Another idea is to invite Ukraine to begin accession talks, a model borrowed from … EU enlargement …. But EU candidate countries follow a well-trodden path, adopting and implementing the EU’s body of law over years. NATO’s equivalent is the Membership Action Plan, but … last year[] NATO members agreed that Kyiv ‘had moved beyond the need’ for that process. Unless the goal and timing of the accession talks are clearly defined, an invitation to begin talks would leave Ukraine in the same netherworld where it has been since 2008, when NATO agreed that Ukraine ‘will become’ a NATO member. …”