Sten Rynning—
It seems so long ago. In July 1990, at a London summit, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) heralded the beginning of a new age of cooperation and partnership. “We are building a new Europe,” NATO’s Secretary General Manfred Wörner told the allied chiefs gathered at the summit, “a Europe drawn together by the unfettered aspiration for freedom, democracy, and prosperity.”
Today, major conventional war between the continent’s two largest countries—Russia and Ukraine—is raging. Russia has declared war not only on Ukraine but on the security order that began in July 1990. NATO is mobilized but also conflicted about where to take this confrontation. The risk of escalation is obvious, but so is the risk of appeasement.
NATO is doing a lot. The alliance has set up several structures—a NATO-Ukraine Council, a NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine program, and a NATO-Ukraine Joint Analysis and Training Center—to advance Ukraine’s defense capability and interoperability with NATO standards. The alliance has also announced a Pledge for Long-Term Security Assistance for Ukraine, promising to channel equipment and money to Ukraine for the duration. And it has labeled Ukraine’s path to full Euro-Atlantic integration (i.e., NATO membership) “irreversible.”
And this is not all. Individual allies offer the bulk of the money and weaponry that go to Ukraine. The idea to channel this assistance into long-term commitments—more predictable and reliable for Ukraine; more deterring vis-à-vis Russia—comes out of a G7 declaration of July 2023. The G7 gathers the world’s seven largest liberal economies, and their long-term initiative has since morphed into a string of bilateral ten-year security commitments to Ukraine and now also NATO’s institutional commitment.
Still, and to an extent, NATO allies are dithering. Their military aid to Ukraine is insufficient. Ukraine has too little ammunition and too little military equipment to match Russia in its war of attrition. Western countries have drawn down stocks to assist Ukraine but have not done enough to ramp up their defense industrial production. Russia has, and China is assisting. A gap between the talk and the walk of Western allies, between promise and action, is easy to see, and it is hurting Ukraine.
NATO is likewise hesitating when it comes to Ukraine’s foreseen membership of the alliance. At their July 2024 summit in Washington, the allies upgraded their language by declaring, as mentioned, the path to membership “irreversible.” But they also added the usual caveat that NATO is ready to extend a membership invitation to Ukraine only “when Allies agree and conditions are met.”
The alliance is explicit about not wanting to become a party to the conflict, meaning it would come into direct armed conflict with Russia. Ukrainian NATO membership could make such a direct conflict more likely, and so, key allies, especially the United States and Germany, are holding back, biding their time. The effect hereof is that as the alliance self-deters, as it considers Russia’s national territory, from which it launches its war of aggression, a sanctuary, and as it leaves Ukraine vulnerable from the air (it has very limited air defenses), Russia soldiers on.
The essential challenge for NATO is to confront the wider implication of Russia’s choice of war. In 1990, in London, NATO’s vision was a continent “whole and free.” Today, Russia has forced NATO to define the limits of this vision. Does it de facto—and not simply in summitry language—apply to Ukraine? Does it apply all the way to the border of Russia? Or is Russia de facto the master of a certain continental space wherein it can pursue a competing strategic vision?
If NATO intends to uphold its vision to the furthest extent possible, it must channel greater assistance to Ukraine and accelerate its NATO membership. This would demonstrate to Russia that even war cannot erode the principle of self-determination, and it would contribute to a defeat of Russian strategic objectives. NATO could use the creative space in its treaty—whereby it is up to individual allies to define the terms of their collective defense obligations—to uphold its vision while avoiding becoming a party to the war. It would all presuppose continued US leadership in NATO and, considering the need for equitable burden sharing across the Atlantic, considerable military investments and political commitments on the part of European allies.
If NATO would rather draw back to avoid any risk of confrontation with Russia, it would need to adapt to the fact that Russia and China would be emboldened by their successful challenge to NATO’s continental vision. Russia could then be trusted to continue to destabilize that part of Ukraine it did not occupy, creating a permanent drain on European coffers and testing the patience of Western leaders and publics alike. And if the past is any guide to the future, Russia’s challenge to Western security would creatively extend far beyond Ukraine.
NATO allies are currently kicking the can down the road, hoping that they are doing just enough to keep options open. Considering NATO’s 75-year history of bold vision and strategy, it is a curiously hesitant approach, one that risks playing into the hands of more determined strategic competitors.
Sten Rynning has researched and written on NATO for twenty-five years. He is a professor and director of the Danish Institute for Advanced Study, University of Southern Denmark, and the author of NATO in Afghanistan and NATO Renewed.