Should Ukraine be promised a "bridge" or better yet, "an irreversible path"? The country's allies are still looking for the right terms ahead of a NATO summit scheduled to take place in Washington from July 9 to 11. It will mark a historic anniversary: 75 years of the Alliance, against a charged political backdrop in the United States. The threat of Donald Trump's return to the White House in January 2025 clouds the future. But the main immediate concern for the 32 members is to agree on the terms of their commitment to Ukraine, still engaged in a defensive war against Russia.
According to a senior American official, the goal is to "institutionalize the long-term trajectory" of Ukraine by helping its army, reinforcing its anti-aircraft defense and promoting the development of its military-industrial base. The goal is to ensure that Ukraine is ready to join NATO from "day one," when there will be a "consensus" among members on the subject.
On Friday, July 5, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg pointed out that the members of the Alliance had been spending $43 billion a year on military aid to Ukraine since the start of the war. Supporters of Ukraine hope that this effort will continue until 2025. Trump, however, has promised that if he wins the election, he will bring peace between Ukraine and Russia during the presidential transition period, i.e., before he even enters the White House.
At the Washington summit, a long-term NATO mission should be set up to coordinate this aid to Kyiv. In particular, the mission would organize arms deliveries and training. But this initiative has more to do with logistics than geopolitics. The US is still opposed to Ukraine joining NATO in the short or medium term, and to any form of a binding timetable.
"Joe Biden is clearly blocking membership, which is not a position shared by everyone in his administration," said Tara Varma, an expert at the Brookings Institution, an American think tank. "The president sees things through the prism of the Cold War, but it's not all about the past. In reality, several cold wars are intertwined today and the fear of escalation among Americans is not just about Russia. There is the one between the United States and China, and between the Europeans and Russia. Added to this is the fact that Moscow is working with North Korea and Iran, while benefiting from Beijing's support."
In the summer of 2023, the White House was taken by surprise after unprecedented public pressure in favor of Ukraine's membership shown by the Baltic countries, in particular Lithuania, on the eve of the Alliance summit in Vilnius. Accustomed to these Eastern Front nations aligning themselves with the US, looking to Washington for their security, the administration expressed its exasperation. This was exacerbated when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the language used in the press release for his country's accession, which stated would only happen "when the allies agree, and the conditions are met," as "absurd."
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