Could and Should Ukraine Join NATO?

The Ukraine War is still in full swing. Missiles are destroying civilian infrastructure. Dams are being blown up, triggering ecological disasters. Soldiers are fighting and dying in conditions most of us can't even imagine. For this reason, it can seem premature to talk about the war's aftermath — to waste time pontificating on what comes next when what's happening now is far more important. But make no mistake: the next several decades of European, if not world, history all depend on decisions made today about the next steps. Decisions that will — like the Yalta Conference in 1945 — shape the eventual postwar peace. Decisions like whether to finally admit Ukraine into NATO.

Key Takeaways

The 2008 Bucharest Summit was a pivotal strategic failure where Germany blocked Membership Action Plans for Ukraine and Georgia, offering only a vague promise of future membership.
Russia violated every commitment in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for sovereignty guarantees from Moscow, London, and Washington.
At the fall of Communism Poland and Ukraine had similar GDPs, but Poland's NATO accession in 1999 helped drive an economic miracle while Ukraine stagnated to Iraq-level GDP even before the 2022 invasion.
Ukraine fields up to a million men under arms — the largest and most battle-tested army in Europe — and is fully trained on NATO munitions, making it interoperable with alliance forces.
The 1995 NATO enlargement study requires applicant states to have stable borders, legally preventing Ukraine from joining while the war continues.
The Israeli Model alternative would provide Ukraine roughly 500 million euros in annual military aid over ten-year cycles, but lacks the political durability of US-Israel commitments.

Spurned Advances: Ukraine's Long Road Toward the Alliance

On the face of it, the answer seems simple. With so many Ukrainians fighting and dying to protect Europe from a revanchist Russia, how could the alliance say no? Yet this simplicity hides a fiendishly complex series of calculations that are being poured over in Western capitals. Calculations about risk and reward; about fear and hope; about grand ideals and narrow self-interest. Given all the rhetoric surrounding Ukraine and NATO, one could be forgiven for thinking the alliance was begging its eastern neighbor to come into the fold. In April 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared: "All NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member." A month later, in May, the Financial Times reported that Emmanuel Macron, President of France, had for the first time called for Ukraine to be granted a NATO membership "path." With the July summit in Vilnius approaching, expectations were high that these fine words could soon become reality — that the post-war settlement between Ukraine and Russia would include Kyiv being welcomed beneath the alliance's nuclear umbrella. But all this talk hides a deeper, gloomier reality. When it comes to joining NATO, Ukrainians have heard all these empty promises before. The long and winding path towards the alliance begins all the way back in the early 1990s, as Ukraine stepped blinking from the shadows of the USSR into the bright light of independence. Initially, a westward drift seemed unlikely. In President Leonid Kravchuk, the country was led by a living embodiment of the Ancien régime — a regime that had spent decades working its way into every corner of people's psyche. When independent Ukraine's constitution was written, it included a clause on military neutrality. In 1992, Kravchuk even happily agreed to surrender to Russia Ukraine's nuclear arsenal — a vast stockpile leftover from the Soviet days. Moscow joined London and Washington in signing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, a commitment from all parties to "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine (...) (and) refrain from the threat of the use of force or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine." Russia would do absolutely none of those things.

From the Budapest Memorandum to the Bucharest Summit Failure

The Budapest Memorandum seemed to point to a future in which Ukraine could forever remain non-aligned — neither a puppet of Moscow nor a member of NATO. But if that future ever existed, it quickly crumbled as a new regime took power in Moscow. Shortly after the turn of the millennium, Ukraine's security services noticed a worrying uptick in hybrid operations carried out on their territory — operations they felt were directed from Russia. By 2002, things were worrying enough that President Leonid Kuchma openly mused about joining NATO. After all, Ukraine had been a member of the alliance's Partnership for Peace since 1994. But it wouldn't be until the Orange Revolution swept Western-facing Viktor Yushchenko to the presidency in late 2004 that Ukraine's NATO aspirations became official. And so we get to one of the West's greatest strategic failures: the 2008 Bucharest Summit. Intended to be the moment when Ukraine and Georgia were offered Membership Action Plans for joining NATO, it instead became the moment when Germany crushed both governments' dreams. Rather than a Membership Action Plan, the summit ended with a trite declaration that both nations would "one day" become members, but without offering a plan, timetable, or method to do so. From Kyiv's and Tbilisi's perspectives, it was a failure. Sadly, there was one thing the declaration succeeded in doing: stoking Vladimir Putin's paranoia. It was in the aftermath of the Bucharest summit that Russia invaded Georgia, occupying two breakaway enclaves within the latter's borders. Six years later, the Kremlin would infamously repeat the same trick in Ukraine — annexing Crimea and fomenting rebellion in the Donbas. Not that this prompted much NATO soul searching. Writing in Foreign Affairs years later, former Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Zagorodnyuk lamented: "(NATO) first concluded that admitting the country was not worth the damage to Western-Russian relations. Then, after the Kremlin annexed Crimea in 2014, NATO decided that Ukraine's membership would demand too much of the alliance and for too little in return." That has been pretty much NATO's opinion ever since. Despite Ukraine making "join NATO" part of its constitution in 2019, the alliance continued to keep Kyiv at arm's length, fretting that even a Membership Action Plan would antagonize Russia. Even after the full-scale invasion began, some of the alliance's members still balked at admitting Kyiv. As late as December 2022, a reheated version of the thin gruel given to Ukraine back in 2008 was all a meeting of NATO's foreign ministers would offer.

Why Ukraine Wants In: Article Five, Investment, and Democratic Reform

Nearly seven months later, though, the mood music seemed to be changing. With Jens Stoltenberg and Emmanuel Macron both coming out in support of a membership plan, Ukrainians were finally daring to hope that — this time — they might be invited under the nuclear umbrella. The question is: should they be? When assessing if Ukraine can or should join NATO, one must first dig into why it would want to. The simplest reason is Article Five: the part of the alliance's defense pact that stipulates an attack on one member is an attack on all. A big deal since that "all" includes not just one superpower (the USA) but also two additional nuclear powers: France and Britain. This is what kept the Soviet Union at bay throughout the Cold War. It's also why Putin's imperial war of conquest began with Ukraine rather than the far smaller Baltic States. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are all in NATO. Even if this current war ends in a Russian defeat, the alliance is seen as the only guarantee against Moscow having another go a few years down the line. But the potential advantages go deeper than merely stopping another war. British thinktank Chatham House recently wrote: "The prerequisite for Ukraine's reconstruction and recovery is guaranteed security." If Ukraine is part of NATO, businesses will be willing to put money into rebuilding because they know their investments won't be wiped out by Russian missiles. Chatham House analysts demonstrated how Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary joining NATO in 1999 led to a huge influx of investment and a spike in standards of living. Of those three, Poland is the best comparison point. At the fall of Communism, Poland and Ukraine had similar GDPs. Fast forward to today, and Poland is on a par with Taiwan or Sweden, while Ukraine — even before the war — ranked closer to Iraq. Long-term security could gift Kyiv a Poland-style economic miracle. It could also gift political stability. That Ukraine suffers from issues with corruption and oligarchs is no big secret. Nor is its occasional political dysfunction: this is a nation that had two revolutions in ten years, after all. But there's evidence a long-term security commitment could help clamp down on these things. The Center for European Policy Analysis recently documented the impact joining NATO had on the Baltic States. For 13 years the three tiny ex-Soviet nations tried to deal with the Russian bear on their doorstep, leading to what CEPA called some "hair-raising" results: "Secrets leaked. Highly unsuitable people gained high positions. Boundaries blurred between politics, business, public administration, and intelligence work." Arguably, this was a necessary evil — the only way such small nations could stop the Kremlin infiltrating and destabilizing their society. But that doesn't mean it was a good era for ordinary citizens. That came later, when preparing to join NATO meant reining in the security services' excesses and, in CEPA's words, "acquiring some good habits" of governance. For Ukraine, then, joining NATO would be mostly about defense. But it could also be a way of locking in Kyiv's move towards the west, of purging bad habits leftover from the Soviet days, and placing the nation on a firmer democratic footing.

The Grand Army: Ukraine as NATO's Strategic Asset

Article Ten of the NATO treaty clarifies that any European state can apply, so long as it's willing to contribute militarily and abides by certain criteria — among them, being a functioning democracy with a market economy and a commitment to civilian control of the military. While joining the alliance would obviously be a boost for Kyiv, Ukraine's outcomes aren't the only ones that matter. Currently made up of 31 nations — with Sweden soon expected to become number 32 — NATO operates on a principle of unanimity. No one can join without the agreement of every existing member. That means 31 or 32 countries, each looking at what they would get out of bringing Kyiv onboard. The pro-Ukraine case starts with a compelling argument: that Europe simply can't afford to keep Kyiv out. Foreign Affairs made this point in a June 2023 article. After decades of peace, many NATO members in Europe — from Germany, to Italy, to the Netherlands — let their defense budgets wither. Even France — with its self-image as a major military power — hasn't quite hit the NATO defense spending commitment of two percent of GDP in recent years. Others, like Denmark, Spain, and Belgium, don't even come close. As a result, many European militaries today are sorely underequipped, underfunded, or understaffed. The UK — one of the few NATO militaries hitting its two percent target — was estimated in December to only have enough artillery ammunition for a week of fighting. At the same time, these militaries are completely untested in large-scale warfare, a byproduct of the post-Cold War decades, which focused on highly-specialized, limited missions abroad using small, elite forces. Contrast all this with Ukraine. While Kyiv's forces are heavily reliant on Western largesse, they're also a formidable fighting force. With up to a million men under arms, Ukraine currently fields the largest, most battle-tested army in the whole of Europe. More importantly, they have experience fighting the continent's number one security threat. From this perspective, Ukraine would not be NATO's charity case. It would be the alliance's bouncer: a vast, motivated army right on Russia's border, ready to raise hell if the Kremlin attacks another member. For the eastern parts of the alliance, this fact could be key. Right now, NATO's plans for its eastern flank still rely on a "tripwire" strategy, involving relatively small numbers of soldiers deployed as first line defense. The assumption is that, while Russia could easily steamroller them, the Kremlin would not want to risk killing NATO soldiers. The obvious flaw is that if Putin suddenly decides otherwise, his forces will have a nearly clear run until the larger militaries of France, the UK, and America can be scrambled. And while some eastern states, like Poland and Finland, would not be soft targets, the Baltic States would. And once they had fallen, it would cost blood and treasure to get them back. Ukraine as a NATO member would change this. Rather than needing to wait for Washington or Paris, the alliance would have a million-man army less than 600 km from the Baltics, one that could serve as a massive rapid reaction force. As Foreign Affairs explained: "(Ukraine) has forced the Kremlin to burn through ammunition and gear at an astounding rate, degrading Russia's overall strength. In doing so, Ukraine proved that it is not a drain on NATO but, in fact, an incredible asset." Per the Atlantic Council: "Ukraine's military is one of the most capable and certainly the most battle-tested in Europe. They are fully trained on a wide array of NATO munitions and thus interoperable with NATO forces."

The Armageddon Factor: Escalation Risks and the Case Against Admission

Twice now, Jens Stoltenberg and Emmanuel Macron have seemed to warm to the idea of Ukraine in NATO — a position shared by Britain and Poland. But there are members of the alliance who have serious doubts. And not just insignificant Putin fanboys like Hungary. Around the same time Macron was moving France toward a cautiously pro-Ukraine-in-NATO position, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was inching in the opposite direction. According to a Reuters summary, he told a press conference in early June that "any future Western security guarantees to Ukraine needed to be different from the status of European NATO members." It might be tempting to dismiss this as typical Scholz — another moment similar to the Leopard 2 debacle, where he initially said no, then dithered for months, then finally changed his mind. But the German Chancellor isn't alone on this. He speaks for a significant minority of alliance members who fear admitting Ukraine could have all sorts of dangerous ramifications. The most dangerous of all: escalation. At the heart of this lies Article Five. The wording is pretty vague, simply stating each individual member "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." This could include financial aid, or diplomatic aid. Unfortunately, the legal technicalities of Article Five aren't what matters. What matters is what Vladimir Putin thinks Article Five means. Because if the Kremlin believes Ukraine joining NATO will automatically lead to the alliance declaring war on Russia, then the only semi-sane response is to hit the most-powerful members first with a preemptive strike. For this reason, leaders like Joe Biden have been pretty clear that Ukraine can't join while it is still at war — something President Volodymyr Zelenskiy recently acknowledged. Not that this would be possible anyway. The 1995 study on NATO enlargement tightened the criteria so applicant states are required to have stable borders. Through no fault of its own, Ukraine is currently lacking them. The obvious answer is to wait until the war is over — to admit Ukraine only once a peace treaty with Russia has been signed. The issue is, that may not make the escalation problem go away. Political scientist Bruce Russett has proposed an equation for how belligerent powers weigh up initiating conflict. War on the Rocks — in a discussion on the Japanese decision to attack Pearl Harbor — described it this way: "Japanese leaders were forced to consider several factors: the utility of war as a result of an attack on the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya; the utility of an attack not resulting in war, weighted by the probability of a lack of meaningful resistance; and the utility of not attacking in the first place." As the article points out, Japan's leaders feared the costs of war would be high, since it would drag in the US. But they saw the costs of not going to war as infinite — the destruction of their nation. So they rolled everything on a surprise attack as the least bad option. What can be applied to Imperial Japan in 1941 can be applied to Vladimir Putin in 2023. Putin knows that war with NATO would result — at best — in Russia's total defeat, and at worst the end of civilization in a nuclear exchange: a very high cost. But if he genuinely believes that a NATO-armed Ukraine on his doorstep is an existential threat, then the costs of not going to war might appear infinite. And so he might pick unleashing some modern Pearl Harbor as his least-bad option. Beyond escalation, there are other practical considerations. NATO states may worry what would happen if Ukraine joined the alliance after a disadvantageous ceasefire, only to then attack Russia in the hopes of recapturing territory. As Slate has pointed out, bringing Kyiv into the alliance takes an important bargaining chip off the table — one can easily imagine a peace deal where the price for Russia keeping Crimea is full Ukrainian membership of NATO. Lastly, there's the ongoing investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline blasts. While many nations still think Russia was responsible, German police have been hinting Ukraine might be culpable. Even if Kyiv is innocent, the mere fact Berlin suspects them would naturally cool Ukraine's chances of getting around Scholz's NATO membership veto.

The Porcupine: Alternative Security Models for a Post-War Ukraine

If the alliance ultimately does decide not to admit Kyiv, then Ukraine is going to need some alternative security arrangements — arrangements strong enough to stop Russia from ever attacking again. The preferred method by which many NATO states want to guarantee Ukraine's postwar security is the so-called Israeli Model, based around America's current relationship with Israel. Unlike many of its allies, the US has no treaty obliging it to come to Israel's aid in a war. What it has instead is a gigantic assistance program that pumps billions of dollars of military equipment and expertise into the nation in ten-year cycles. In this cycle, that equals $38 billion. The big idea — one that's favored by American leadership — is for NATO to do something similar with Ukraine. Jens Stoltenberg has suggested the alliance could send Kyiv 500 million euros of military aid yearly for ten years, enough to "build a robust territorial defense force and reserve force" — a force at such a scale, and with so many layered defenses, that Moscow would conclude launching a second invasion simply isn't worth it. A draft security compact proposed by Ukraine and NATO in September 2022 envisages constant diplomatic aid and a lack of limits on the size of Ukraine's military, along with monetary aid and weapons transfers. Finally, it foresees a role for non-NATO allies like Japan, Singapore, Australia, and South Korea, in which they'd pledge to support Ukraine financially. The appeal of this model is obvious. By working in ten-year cycles, it would provide mid-to-long term security guarantees to Ukraine while bringing Kyiv's army up to NATO standards, including advanced weapons systems. Crucially, it wouldn't require any nation to declare war on Russia in the event of another invasion, and so the threat of escalation would be neatly sidestepped. However, it's not a deal that everyone agrees is workable. As the Atlantic Council has noted, Israel enjoys advantages Ukraine does not: a domestic defense industrial base that produces hi-tech weapons systems, agreements with most of its hostile neighbors designed to prevent renewed war, and a secret nuclear weapons program. A second issue is that American support to Israel can continue on ten-year cycles because commitment to Tel Aviv is so central to US politics that no one would ever consider axing it. Ukraine, by contrast, already has people on the flanks of both parties who would rather abandon it: what might be called the "Tucker Carlson right" and the "Noam Chomsky left." That could lead to any agreement quickly unraveling.

The Taiwan Model, EU Defense Clauses, and Other Paths Forward

The Taiwan Relations Act is a wonderfully ambiguous piece of legislation. Passed by Congress in 1979, it commits the US to providing the island nation with weaponry to defend itself in case of an attack by China. However, it very explicitly doesn't commit Washington to declaring war over an invasion of Taiwan. Instead, it simply notes that any moves by Beijing against Taipei would be "of grave concern to the United States." Looked at one way, that could mean nothing beyond issuing a bland statement. Looked at another, though, it might suggest that Washington would take military action. This ambiguity is both deliberate and successful. The Atlantic Council credits it with helping preserve peace in the region for decades. In light of this, some are now suggesting that something similar be applied to Ukraine — a way of spooking off Russia with the specter of a full-blown war without the binding commitment that might spark a Kremlin backlash. Even better, from the point of view of party politics, the Taiwan Relations Act makes it very clear that Congress has the final say. That means no hypothetical pro-Chinese president could override it. A similar Ukraine Act could likewise stop a pro-Russian president from blocking it. As with the Israeli Model, though, the comparisons aren't perfect. Taiwan is less likely to be attacked by dint of the 160 km swathe of water between Taipei and mainland China — a brutally hard invasion to pull off. The Taiwan solution also suffers from relying on America to do a lot of the heavy lifting. While the US currently supports Ukraine, there's no doubt the Pentagon would prefer commitments be kept short-term, to free more funds up to focus on the Pacific. That's why many on both sides of the Atlantic support a Europe-led initiative — one that might involve Uncle Sam if things go south, but could mostly be handled by Brussels, Paris, and London. The simplest of all? Letting Ukraine join the European Union. With all the talk of Finland and Sweden joining NATO, it's become easy to overlook that the two already had a mutual defense pact with multiple NATO members. Any nation that joins the EU is required to implement Article 42.7, which commits them to an "obligation of aid and assistance (...) by all means in their power" if any other EU member is attacked. Only four EU nations are currently neither NATO members nor hoping to join — Ireland, Austria, Malta, and Cyprus. So, while a future attack on a Ukraine in the EU wouldn't immediately bring in NATO, it would sure as hell bring in armies under NATO protection. Beyond this, there are other ideas. The former state-secretary for the Royal Danish Foreign Ministry, Joergen Moeller, recently wrote in Al Jazeera, suggesting now was the time to assemble an EU army that could patrol a post-war Ukraine. The Brookings Institute, meanwhile, has called for a new collective force of peacekeepers to guard the frontiers — one comprised partly of NATO troops, but also of soldiers and commanders from places like India and Kazakhstan, neutral countries Putin wouldn't want to annoy by killing their soldiers. There are no easy answers. All options come with advantages and downsides that need to be carefully weighed by those in power. There is no returning to the status quo ante bellum after all of this — no return to the days when memoranda and vague promises from NATO were hoped to be enough to keep 40 million Ukrainians safe from a predatory neighbor. Going ahead, Kyiv will need firm commitments to uphold its security. Firm commitments to ensure its people never have to live through these horrors again. It is now up to those in charge to decide exactly what shape those commitments should take.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why would Ukraine want to join NATO?

Ukraine would want to join NATO to end Russian imperial ambitions in Ukraine, as stated by one of the five compelling reasons to invite Ukraine to join NATO, and to prevent Russia from establishing bases or deploying nuclear weapons on its border, which would be a significant security threat, as once Ukraine joins NATO, there's nothing Russia can do to stop it.

Why can't Ukraine become part of NATO?

The reasons why Ukraine can't become part of NATO are complex and multifaceted, involving geopolitical considerations, security concerns, and historical factors, including the failed Bucharest Summit in 2008, where Germany crushed Ukraine's and Georgia's dreams of joining NATO, and the subsequent invasion of Georgia by Russia, which stoked Vladimir Putin's paranoia and led to further aggression in Ukraine.

Why did France leave NATO?

France did not leave NATO, but it did withdraw from the alliance's integrated military command structure in 1966, under President Charles de Gaulle, only to rejoin it in 2009, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, and since then, France has continued to play a key role in NATO, with President Emmanuel Macron calling for Ukraine to be granted a NATO membership 'path' in May 2023.

Was Ukraine admitted to NATO?

Ukraine has not been admitted to NATO yet, despite NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declaring in April 2023 that all NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member, and expectations are high that the July summit in Vilnius could lead to Ukraine being welcomed into the alliance, but so far, no official decision has been made.

What agreement did Ukraine break with Russia?

Ukraine did not break an agreement with Russia, but rather, Russia broke the Budapest Memorandum, a commitment signed in 1994 by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom, to respect Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, by invading Ukraine in 2014 and annexing Crimea, and again in 2022, with a full-scale invasion that has caused significant destruction and loss of life.

Why is France withdrawing from NATO?

There is no evidence to suggest that France is withdrawing from NATO, and in fact, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has praised France's key role in the alliance, including its contributions to collective defense on the eastern flank, and President Emmanuel Macron has called for Ukraine to be granted a NATO membership 'path', indicating France's continued commitment to the alliance.

Why can't Ukraine join NATO?

The reasons why Ukraine can't join NATO are complex and involve geopolitical considerations, security concerns, and historical factors, including the need for consensus among all NATO member states, the requirement for Ukraine to meet certain criteria and standards, and the potential risks and challenges associated with expanding the alliance to include a country with an ongoing conflict with Russia.

Did Ukraine break a Treaty with Russia?

Ukraine did not break a treaty with Russia, but rather, Russia broke the Budapest Memorandum, a commitment signed in 1994, by invading Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, and Ukraine has fulfilled its obligations under the memorandum, including giving up its nuclear arsenal between 1993 and 1996, in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.