“… The July 2023 NATO summit … settl[ed] on an ambiguously worded communiqué declaring … NATO could invite Ukraine to join ‘when Allies agree and conditions are met.’ … The absence of a clear plan … has given Putin more confidence that he can wait out the West … in a war of attrition. … [T]he lack of resolve … sends all the wrong signals about … confidence in Ukraine’s ability to win, which makes policymakers more reticent to approve large military assistance packages. NATO’s ambiguity sets up a feedback loop whereby Kyiv’s purported failures — driven, to a large degree, by a lack of adequate Western military aid and lags in the delivery of support — appear to offer evidence that further support in the form of NATO membership would be of little use or might even backfire, forcing the West to become more directly involved in the war. 
But Russia’s ability to improve its logistics and fighting in recent months is, in part, a result of NATO’s ambivalence. Putting Ukraine on the path to NATO accession … is the country’s best hope to prevent Russian aggression in the long run … [and] the best way to strengthen NATO’s deterrence capabilities and … value as an alliance. … Article 5 does not automatically commit [NATO] to enter the war. Rather, it stipulates that the alliance determines ‘action as it deems necessary’ …. Putin has long framed the war against Ukraine as a war against NATO and the West. So whether Ukraine’s Western allies like it or not, the world, including China, would see Ukraine’s subjugation by Moscow as a defeat for NATO, with profound global consequences for U.S. global leadership and for international security. … NATO must … assert[] that the only possible path to durable peace in Europe starts with putting Ukraine on a clear path toward membership. … NATO does not need to offer Ukraine an immediate formal invitation. It can announce that it is opening accession talks with an invitation to follow at a future date [like the EU] ….”
[featured images are file images from other occasions]
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