Russian forces are suffering their biggest defeats of the Ukraine war, and with victories
in the east and Kyiv secured against Russian attack, Ukraine is once more pushing for fasttracked
membership into the NATO alliance.
It doesn't stand alone either, as currently Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia all back Ukraine's joining
of the world's most powerful military and political alliance.
But can Ukraine really join NATO, and what would happen if it does?
Currently Ukraine is still a significant way to go to join NATO.
Under the Washington Treaty, any European country can join NATO as long as it expresses
a desire to contribute to the security of the Euro-Atlantic area, however it must also
abide by certain military, political, and economic standards before it may join.
The first of these prerequisites is the country must have a functioning democratic political
system which is based on a free market economy.
This is a challenge for Ukraine, as its elections have been rife with manipulation for years
as it struggles to throw off the yoke of Russia interference.
Corruption is also a significant problem in the country, both due to incompetence, its
status as a maturing democracy, and the fact that a lot of the older generation still sympathises
with Russia.
Before Ukraine could join NATO it would have to tackle the problem of corruption and show
the west that it’s capable of holding open and fair elections- something it has made
significant, but not perfect, progress in the last eight years since the oust of the
former president in 2014.
NATO aspirants must also show fair treatments to both racial and religious minorities.
Here Ukraine has made significant progress, though at the start of the war there were
alarming reports of black students and other minorities not being allowed to board evacuation
trains and buses ahead of whites fleeing the conflict.
To join NATO, Ukraine would have to show that it's enacted significant legal protections
for minorities and worked to mend this type of behavior.
A third standard Ukraine must meet is a commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
Ukraine easily qualifies here, as it did not seek out conflict with Russia.
In fact, President Zelensky continued to press for a diplomatic solution even after the war
started, and did not initiate mass mobilization until the invasion began.
Next, a NATO aspirant must be willing and capable of making a military contribution
to NATO operations.
In the past this may have been in doubt given Ukraine's former Soviet-style military, but
Ukraine has shown that it has learned significantly from American instructors in the eight years
since Russia annexed Crimea.
Now Ukraine fields the best army inside of Ukraine, and is handily defeating Russian
forces despite their overwhelming numbers superiority.
The question of Ukraine's military value to NATO is now without question.
Lastly, those who want to join NATO must be committed to a civilian led government where
the military is subservient to civilian leadership.
This rules out any military dictatorships, but as Ukraine builds the foundations of a
strong future democracy, it’s well on its way to meeting this criteria.
But what if NATO were to hold a vote and Ukraine was unanimously voted into the alliance despite
its current problems, what would happen?
First there is a serious concern that Ukraine's war would by necessity become NATO's war.
Article 5 of the alliance is the guarantor of European security, and states that an attack
on one member is an attack on all.
This is what has kept Russian aggression at bay since the end of the Cold War, when Vladimir
Putin hungrily eyed the breakway Baltic states who used to be Soviet Republics.
While individually the Baltic states could not face the Russian army, attacking them
would mean attacking the entirety of the NATO alliance, which Russia wouldn’t be able
to face.
There is room to question whether the ongoing war is a real concern for triggering Article
5 though.
NATO has never before accepted a member in the midst of a conflict, and technically speaking
Russia is not 'attacking' Ukraine so much as it has already attacked the nation.
There might be room here for the alliance to justify that the ongoing war does not meet
the requirements for an Article 5 resolution, and thus Ukraine joining wouldn’t put Europe
into war against Russia.
But if Article 5 were to not be invoked, it runs the risk of fundamentally weakening the
alliance.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is built upon the principle that every member
of the alliance will immediately respond to even the most insignificant of aggression
against any other member.
If this is compromised, it tests the integrity of the alliance, and would be of serious concern
to those NATO members who sit right on Russia's doorstep.
Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia all could be swallowed up relatively fast by a Russian
offensive, while mustering the forces to repel Russian troops would take time and come at
great expense.
If the Baltic states question the integrity of Article 5 it might splinter the alliance
in the future, and achieve Putin's aims of dismantling the single obstacle to his plans
of former Soviet glory.
If Ukraine were to join NATO, it's likely that the alliance wouldn't immediately declare
war on Russia.
Instead, it would provide arms, equipment, supplies, and intelligence to Ukraine, albeit
on a much larger scale.
In fact this is probably what President Zelensky is hoping for, putting NATO into an official
proxy war state against Russia would make a big difference to the amount of support
he receives for the ongoing conflict.
But this might be largely unnecessary as Ukraine already receives a great deal of support from
the alliance.
Its conscripts are already being shipped out of the country where they can train in the
west in peace and safety, receiving expert training from NATO's most seasoned troops.
Before returning home to fight they are being equipped with the latest in NATO personal
gear, putting the individual Ukrainian soldier in a far better position than his Russian
counterpart.
Ukraine joining NATO in the midst of the conflict does achieve one thing: justifying a rapid
escalation by Vladimir Putin.
In fact, Ukraine joining NATO would be a massive propaganda win for Putin, as it would justify
his invasion.
Back when the war started, Putin sold his invasion to the Russian people as necessary
to take down a “Nazi regime” headed by a Jew, and to keep NATO from expanding yet
again onto the Russian border.
A Ukrainian membership into NATO would only show that he was right- well, about the NATO
thing, not the ridiculous Nazi thing.
As he's spent decades whipping the Russian people up into an anti-NATO frenzy, Putin
could sell this event as a critical threat to the integrity of Russia itself, garnering
the public support he so desperately needs for a full-fledged mobilization of the nation.
Already NATO is the boogeyman in most Russian minds, there to blame for everything that
goes wrong with their lives.
Poor economic performance?
NATO is manipulating the global economy against Russia.
Poor Russian military performance?
NATO is secretly fighting alongside Ukrainians.
Drop your toast butter side down onto the ground?
NATO.
But suppose that Ukraine joined NATO and the alliance agreed to invoke article 5- what
would happen then?
Firstly NATO air forces would begin an immediate and extensive air campaign against Russian
forces in Ukraine.
In response to Russian threats to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, American secretary
of defense Lloyd Austin had a private conversation with Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu
. Though the details of that conversation remain classified, it's widely believed that
Austin warned Shoigu that the United States along with its NATO allies would respond to
a Russian nuclear attack with overwhelming air power attack against Russian positions
inside Ukraine.
This should be enough to send a shiver down the spine of any minister of defense, as NATO
air power is extremely formidable.
Back in Desert Storm, NATO's air campaign handily dismantled one of the best air defense
networks in the world and then laid waste to Iraq's logistics, communications, and supply
networks.
When the ground offensive started, NATO warplanes brought some of the worst destruction to a
country since the Second World War.
What should worry Russia most is that Iraq's air defenses were modeled on Soviet defenses,
and Russia has not changed doctrine very much since then.
A NATO air campaign would first focus on eliminating Russia's ability to threaten the air space
inside of Ukraine.
Air and missile attacks would target air defense radars and installations along the Russian
border, while the Black Sea is swept clear of the Russian black sea fleet.
As evidenced in Ukraine, American HARM- high speed anti-radiation missiles- are extremely
adept at destroying air defense radars.
Russia's only protection would be to keep NATO air forces at bay with its own fighters-
an extremely dubious proposition given that American air to air missiles have a greater
range than their Russian counterparts, its planes have better radars, and the spearhead
of the attack would almost certainly be stealthy F-35s and F-22s anyways.
This leaves Russia with only one other option- using its S-300 and S-400 air defense units.
But these require their radars to be turned on, which makes them a prime target for Wild
Weasel attacks using HARM missiles.
The only thing slowing down the air campaign would be that Russia has initial numerical
superiority given that the fighting is taking place on its own doorstep, and it would take
time for NATO planes to move to air fields near the action and for logistics networks
to be setup.
However, the Russian air force has been conspicuously absent from the fighting in northeastern Ukraine-
a massive red flag that warns something may be fundamentally wrong with the state of Russia's
aerospace forces.
If Russia can't project air power right across its own border, there's certainly no hope
it can protect itself from a concentrated NATO air campaign.
Once Russia's ability to threaten Ukraine's airspace is dealt with, a massive bombing
campaign would begin against any Russian forces that have not surrendered or retreated yet.
Already the United States has positioned B-52 bombers in England for just such a possibility.
The difference between NATO bombing campaigns and Russian ones though is that NATO uses
almost exclusively smart weapons, giving them lethal precision.
With nothing but short-range air defenses available to them, Russian ground forces would
be decimated by an overwhelming air campaign and inevitably forced to retreat.
The use of NATO air power alone would likely be enough to secure victory in Ukraine, with
no need to commit ground forces other than the Ukrainian military already present.
Russia has proven itself to be an ineffective, corrupt, and incompetent fighting force, marred
by corruption that has hollowed it out from within.
But this might actually make Russia more dangerous.
As it always does, the use of NATO forces inside Ukraine inevitably runs to one single
conclusion: Russia must use nuclear weapons if it hopes to avert a catastrophic defeat.
Unless Vladimir Putin is willing to admit that he was wrong, and allow himself to become
a pariah to be reviled in Russian history for centuries to come, his only recourse for
stopping a NATO offensive would be to use nuclear weapons.
He has already set the stage for their use by annexing Ukrainian territories.
Now, under the guise of defending sovereign Russian territory, Putin has given himself
the excuse to use nuclear weapons.
Where the conflict goes from there is anyone's guess, but what's sure is that NATO's commitment
to the war would only increase, not decrease.
If this means more conventional military force or even nuclear, biological, or chemical attacks
however, is anyone's guess.
And this is why ultimately many agree that the question of Ukraine's NATO membership
needs to be deferred until after the war is over.
Ukraine already enjoys many of the benefits of the alliance, especially as it proves it
can fight and win against superior Russian forces.
Now is the time for NATO to defeat Russia by simply giving Ukraine the tools it needs
to do so on its own, and this means heavy and modern equipment such as Leopard tanks
and F-15 Fighting Eagles, not more Cold War hand-me-downs.
Now go check out What Will Ukraine Do After The War With Russia, or click this other video
instead!