The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), much like Pac-12, no longer lives up to its name. Several of its member states evoke neither “North” nor “Atlantic.” Like Arts & Entertainment becoming the murder/hoarders/history of wrestling channel or MTV morphing into reality television, NATO ain’t what it used to be.
Albania — call it the Utah Utes of NATO — joined in 2020. But Turkey (Colorado Buffaloes), Bulgaria (Arizona Sun Devils), and other nations beyond the geographic range of the intent of the original treaty joined before them, so one cannot blame them for hitching onto a trend.
Ukraine, quite a distance from the North Atlantic, wishes to join NATO too. The benefits to Ukraine seem rather obvious. Article 5 stipulates that “an armed attack against one or more of [the member states] in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and that member states “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”
The mission creeps dismiss those last few words as an atavism. But obviously no defense of the North Atlantic area occurs when defending Ukraine. Perhaps member states redefine the Black Sea as the North Atlantic to mesh with distorting the group’s original stated purpose.
Foundational questions do not animate the discussion over Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO.
The organization punting on Ukraine’s membership sparked Volodymyr Zelensky to insist this week that his nation “deserves respect.” Ukraine’s president called it “unprecedented and absurd” for NATO to issue time frames “neither for the invitation nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about ‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine.”
One cannot blame Zelensky. His nation endures an existential crisis as the result of the invasion of its more powerful neighbor that, at various points in its history, ruled over it and even slaughtered or starved vast numbers of its people. But when an outsider demands membership in a club, it generally does not endear him to the members of it.
For Ukraine, membership has its privileges. For the rest of NATO, admitting Ukraine imposes obligations. The former’s enthusiasm and the latter’s reticence boil down to: What’s in it for me?
Some NATO states, perhaps a minority, regard war with the world’s greatest nuclear power as outweighing a free Ukraine in a cost-benefit analysis. Others calculate that NATO’s common-defense provision diminishes the possibility of Russia acting up against Ukraine in the future. Whatever the prevailing mindset, NATO does not rush to consider Ukraine’s admission, and this irks Ukraine’s leader.
Joe Biden met with Zelensky, whom he referred to as “Vladimir” weeks after referring to his country as “Iraq,” to harmonize on Wednesday. They both sang from the same sheet of music in saying that once the war ends Ukraine joins NATO. For Zelensky, this seemed at least like progress, and not merely because Biden did not speak of Ukraine joining Kiwanis or the Oddfellows once the war concludes.
For many confused as to the source of the specialness of the special relationship between Biden and Zelensky, Ukraine in NATO makes little sense.
Seventy-four years ago, Sen. Robert Taft of Ohio articulated reasons, including the dubious constitutionality of stripping warmaking powers from Congress in favor of an international agreement decreeing what triggers the U.S. into battle, for his opposition of the North Atlantic Treaty. One of the reasons he joined 12 of his colleagues in opposing the 83 votes in favor of the pact strikes as more relevant to the current controversy surrounding NATO than anything occurring in 1949.
“If we undertake to arm all the nations around Russia from Norway on the north to Turkey on the south, and Russia sees itself ringed about gradually by so-called defensive arms from Norway and … Denmark to Turkey and Greece, it may form a different opinion,” Taft explained. “It may decide that the arming of western Europe, regardless of its present purpose, looks to an attack upon Russia. Its view may be unreasonable, and I think it is. But from the Russian standpoint it may not seem unreasonable…. How would we feel if Russia undertook to arm a country on our border; Mexico, for instance?”
Russia’s 2022 actions catalyzed counteractions, such as additional countries rushing to join NATO, that a leader not thinking past his next move on the chessboard neither considered nor desired. One wonders if the push to bring NATO to Russia’s southern doorstep might also bring about unintended consequences.
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