At the Vilnius summit, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy demanded a clear commitment from NATO to Ukraine and a concrete timetable for joining the alliance. However, there won’t be. In principle, the alliance wants to enable Ukraine to join once the war is over. However, NATO’s usual admission program, the Membership Action Plan (MAP), is to be dispensed with. Finnish security expert Minna Ålander thinks that’s right, but calls for Ukraine to be given clear prospects of accession, including a commitment to begin integration work immediately.
ntv.de: What do you think of what the NATO members have agreed on?
Minna Ålander: The plan not to use the MAP is positive, because then unfulfilled criteria of the admission program could not be an excuse later for the process to take longer. Compared to other candidate countries, Ukraine is in a completely different situation. It is right to find an individual solution for them.
A prerequisite would normally be interoperability, i.e. the ability to cooperate militarily, to adapt the weapon systems to NATO standards. That actually makes sense.
However, Ukraine’s process of rapprochement is quite different: Western training brings it closer to NATO. She is also currently receiving a lot of Western equipment and is immediately testing it in battle. In this way, their armed forces acquire a know-how that many member states do not even have.
Minna Ålander researches security in Northern Europe and Nordic defense cooperation as well as German foreign, security and defense policy at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs in Helsinki.
NATO does not accept a country that is in a military conflict. This also applies to Ukraine. right?
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warns against triggering a direct conflict between NATO and Russia. US President Joe Biden seems to share this concern. However, there are also many voices in the USA that would like to offer Ukraine a clearer accession perspective than the one that only comes after the end of the war. It is very vague and, if in doubt, encourages Russia not to end the war.
Can there be a solution between these two positions? About the Israel model that the USA is considering? That would mean: permanent support so that Ukraine can arm itself to the teeth, as Israel is doing. However, for almost 30 years Israel has invested 10 percent of its economic output in armaments. Ukraine would hardly have the money, it needs it for reconstruction.
This is one of the reasons why I consider the model unsuitable for Ukraine. Both countries also got into their respective situations in very different ways and face very different threats. That’s hard to compare. The Israel model also raises questions about nuclear armament.
Israel is itself a tacit nuclear power, but does not – yet – have a nuclear power as an opponent. How can Ukraine protect itself from Russia, the world’s largest nuclear power?
The West must ask itself whether it would agree to Ukraine developing its own nuclear weapons. Kyiv’s partners would certainly have a say in that. But who could blame Ukraine for making sure to guarantee its own security? What level of security would be necessary? And who would pay for that? I believe that the Israel model quickly reaches its limits when it comes to these questions.
What could a better model look like?
In my view, it is in NATO’s own interest to fully integrate Ukraine in the medium term. And not to link this to conditions that would have to be met at some point in the future, but with a clear plan of how and when the entry should take place. It should also be clear which steps it must and can take in relation to political reforms – promoting democracy, fighting corruption. And NATO, together with Ukraine, would have to define a defense plan for them. That would send the signal to Russia: We mean business. With the aim of clearly defining Ukraine as part of the European security architecture. Make sure you share both their interests and their analysis of the situation.
What danger do you see in the other case?
If Kyiv doesn’t get a real NATO perspective, it may eventually decide to force the end of the war some other way – by attacking Russian territory. That would be legitimate, but the West definitely doesn’t want it to avoid an escalation. Without a clear NATO perspective, however, he weakens his ability to influence and control Ukraine’s behavior.
One of NATO’s main priorities in Vilnius is once again not to provoke Putin. If we compare it with the situation in 2008, at the then NATO summit in Bucharest: Exactly the same goal was there, and that is why NATO refused Ukraine and Georgia a commitment to join. In 2009, a year later, Russia invaded Georgia.
It was actually only four months later, not even a year.
What conclusions can be drawn from this?
The strategy of that time failed completely. It did not appease Russia – as intended – but instead encouraged Putin to act aggressively in the entire Baltic Sea region. There were subsequent disruptive maneuvers and attempts to intimidate the Baltic and Nordic states. Airspace was violated, underwater infrastructure was sabotaged, and in 2013 there was even a simulated nuclear attack on Sweden in an exercise. Putin understood the Bucharest result as follows: he has a clear path and can do almost anything he wants.
What conclusions has NATO drawn from this?
In my view, NATO is now in danger of repeating exactly this mistake. For me, the central argument in this question is: NATO is the usual guarantee of security in Europe. Either you are non-aligned or you are a member of NATO, otherwise there are no special arrangements. As long as Ukraine remains excluded and does not get a clear prospect of membership, it sends the signal that Ukraine is different from the rest of Europe. It thus confirms Russian claims to a sphere of interest in the region. It’s the same strategy as in 2008 to park Ukraine in some kind of waiting room.
There are isolated voices, such as the political scientist Ian Bond, who advocates thinking more flexibly and courageously, actually considering admission to NATO even now, for example with a restriction of Article 5. As long as the war lasts, it could alliance can only occur if Ukraine is attacked in the area that it currently controls.
Somewhat provocatively, one could call this strategy the “German model”.
Like 1955?
At that time, Germany was divided and only the parts of the country that were under the Bonn government joined NATO. The counter-argument is that there was no hot war then, which of course is true. You can’t directly compare the situations, but you can’t compare Ukraine to Israel either. I think there is no perfect solution here. For the Ukrainians, the NATO decision is a disappointment.
In your opinion, what would have been Vilnius’ best result?
In my opinion, Ukraine should definitely get a firm commitment to prospective membership. Precisely because there is no convincing alternative. An important factor in this is Putin’s nuclear threats. They played a crucial role in the course of the war. They were a central reason why the West initially held back on many weapon systems. It is therefore clear that the basis for security guarantees must be nuclear weapons, NATO’s nuclear shield. I don’t see that the US, France or the UK would be willing to guarantee Ukraine that security on a bilateral basis.
How specifically should NATO formulate this commitment?
If I were to recommend something to the heads of government, I would say: avoid gray areas, the times when that worked are over, as is shown by the accession of Finland and soon probably Sweden. Ukraine has fallen into a gray area and the war is the result. Now there’s no going back and the West mustn’t do things by halves: I think it’s wrong to say that we can’t talk seriously about it until the war is over. We don’t know when the war will end, how it will end, not even how we would define an ending. There are too many uncertainties. Germany, among others, has always stated that it aims to put Ukraine in the best possible negotiating position. If Ukraine had a very clear NATO perspective, that would be a very good negotiating position.
With Minna Ålander spoke Frauke Niemeyer