July
25, 2023
In
a rare public display of division and lost tempers, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky and his Western partners exchanged expressions of
frustration with each other at the recent NATO summit in Vilnius Lithuania. The
exchange exposed more than their frustration. It exposed raw questions about
the origins and endings of the war in Ukraine.
Zelensky
traveled to Lithuania craving a promise and a timeline for NATO membership. He
got a repetition of the promise but no timeline. And the promise was muddied
and watered down. Though NATO announced that Ukraine "has moved beyond the
need for the Membership Action Plan" that advises NATO aspirants on
reforms they have to make to meet NATO standard for admission, they
simultaneously announced that they "will be in a position to extend an
invitation to Ukraine" when those "conditions are met."
Noting
the paradox of an MAP without an MAP, Zelensky lashed out that "It’s
unprecedented and absurd when time frame is not set neither for the invitation
nor for Ukraine’s membership. While at the same time vague wording about
‘conditions’ is added even for inviting Ukraine."
Zelensky’s
explosion made the US delegation so "furious" that they considered
revising the invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, making it "less
welcoming to a speedy Ukrainian accession to the alliance," or withdrawing
the invitation altogether. UK defense secretary Ben Wallace said that the US
and UK "want to see a bit of gratitude" from Ukraine and revealed
that he "told them last year, when I drove 11 hours to be given a list,
that I’m not like Amazon."
But
if the US and the UK don’t want NATO to be treated like Amazon, then they
shouldn’t advertise their services like Amazon. The US led West has
consistently promised that Ukraine will have what it needs to defeat Russia for
as long as it takes.
Zelensky’s
demands, though insatiable, are not unreasonable. As early as February 27,
2022, Zelensky was willing to negotiate the end of the war that had started
only three days earlier on terms that satisfied Ukraine’s goals. But then, and
in subsequent negotiations mediated by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett
and, most promisingly, in talks held in Istanbul, the US and UK pressured him
to continue the war in pursuit, not of attainable Ukrainian goals, but in
pursuit of US goals. Then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Zelensky that
Russian President Vladimir Putin "should be pressured, not negotiated
with" and that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with
Russia, "the West was not." State Department spokesman Ned Price
explained that “This is a war that is in many ways bigger than Russia, it’s
bigger than Ukraine.”
Zelensky
gave up peace for Ukraine for a promise that the US and its NATO allies would
give it everything it needed to continue to fight Russia in pursuit of the US
and its allies’ goals. It is not unreasonable for him to expect fulfillment of
that promise when confronted with the Russian military and treat NATO like
Amazon as advertised.
In
the end, Zelensky offered the demanded contrition, saying "The United
States has stood side by side with Ukraine throughout our defense against
aggression. We appreciate it tremendously," and the US kept the
declaration of promised NATO membership for Ukraine.
Strangely,
it was French President Emmanuel Macron who played the leading role in the push
to keep the language of the invitation in the declaration. That is a strange
role for Macron to assume. In December 2022, Macron said, "We need to
prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states,
and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating
table. One of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has
always said – is the fear that NATO comes right up to its doors, and the
deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia."
Macron
then broke with the US by saying the West had to negotiate not keeping an open
NATO door to Ukraine; Macron now broke with the US by maintaining that NATO had
to keep on open door to Ukraine. Perhaps the change in policy reflects the
change in times. Dr. Suzanne Loftus, Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute
Eurasia Program, suggested to me that Macron’s calculus – perhaps not entirely
correctly – is that "making a statement about Ukraine joining NATO will
push Russia and Ukraine to end the war in the sense that Russia will get scared
that NATO will one day enter the war, and Ukraine would be motivated to
negotiate with Russia if it knows it will be in NATO."
France
keeping the NATO door open to Ukraine in the 2023 Vilnius NATO summit is also
ironic because it was France and Germany in the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit that
closed the door on US President George W. Bush’s call to welcome Ukraine into a
NATO Membership Action Plan.
The
public exchange between Zelensky and his American and British partners put on
display not only their frustrations with each other and their divisions but
also, once again, the important questions of the origins of the war and the
need for negotiations.
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