NATO wants to do more to help Ukraine win — why is Biden standing in the way?

The just-completed NATO Summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, was “historic before it even started,” said Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, because two difficult NATO expansion issues had already been resolved or successfully deferred.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had removed his opposition to Sweden’s NATO accession as President Biden approved the sale of long-sought F-16s, and agreed that Washington will refer to the country as Türkiye. Turkey’s parliament, often unfriendly toward the West, will consider the Sweden decision in October.

Biden deserves some credit for holding the alliance together on the Finland-Sweden accessions — an easy sell except for Turkey — and on NATO’s continued arming of Ukraine, though several members consistently have led Washington in supporting advanced weapons for Ukraine.  

Ironically, the positions were reversed on Biden’s decision to give Ukraine cluster munitions, which would have been unnecessary had Washington earlier provided the urgently needed tanks, missiles, air defenses and aircraft.

Sweden’s joining, and the renewed commitment to Ukraine, were the summit’s good news. The not-so-good news was NATO’s refusal, instigated by fearful U.S. leadership, to guarantee membership to the only European country bearing the brunt of the Russian aggression NATO was created to deter and defeat.

As NATO’s most important contributor, Washington naturally has the biggest say in its decisionmaking, but Biden also harbors the greatest fears of Vladimir Putin’s potential escalation — “that’s World War III.”

For Ukraine, tragically, it is a combination of déjà vu and catch-22.

Ukraine gave up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees from Washington, London and Moscow under Boris Yeltsin. In 1997, NATO and Ukraine deepened their security relationship.

At the 2008 Bucharest Summit, then-President Bush persuaded NATO to reaffirm the 1994 and 1997 security commitments and declare that Ukraine and Georgia “will become members of NATO.” But, again without a set schedule, Georgians and others complained of “NATO fatigue.” Worse, NATO statements without a security guarantee, far from deterring Putin’s Russia, were effectively putting a target on their back.

Sure enough, in August 2008, Russia invaded Georgia. The United States and NATO condemned the aggression but did nothing to stop or reverse it.

Unpunished for its Georgia aggression, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, annexing Crimea and Eastern Ukraine. America and NATO called the actions “illegal and illegitimate” and Russia was expelled from the Group of Eight. Barack Obama, then president, assigned Vice President Biden as his chief envoy for Ukraine.

The Obama-Biden administration instituted a policy of sending only non-lethal aid to Ukraine for fear of provoking Putin. In December 2017, then-President Trump broke with the policy and began sending some long-requested lethal weapons, though the process became embroiled in domestic U.S. and Ukrainian politics.

In 2019, Ukraine passed a constitutional amendment committing to become a member of NATO and the European Union. That September, Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, approved Ukraine’s National Security Strategy providing for partnership with NATO, with the aim of gaining membership.

Russia’s military buildup along Ukraine’s borders in 2021 and early 2022 — the largest since 2014 — raised alarms in the West, but the Biden administration only promised future economic sanctions.

Having met with Biden in June 2021, Putin published an article in July questioning the legitimacy of Ukraine’s borders Moscow had guaranteed in 1994. He asserted that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” threatened by Western interference.

NATO needs to rectify its deterrent policies that have led to the largest land war in Europe since Hitler’s armies ravaged the continent. The current approach enables Ukraine to defend the still unconquered majority of its territory and to try to push Russian forces out of the occupied parts of the rest. But it is a policy of survival, not liberation, and has failed to convince Putin of the futility of his ambition to incorporate much or all of Ukraine into a reconstructed Russian empire.

U.S. and Western inhibitions against provoking Putin have kept alive his expectation that his authoritarian will and threats of escalation will ultimately erode the West’s resolve. Putin is not convinced by Biden’s repeated protestations that America’s and NATO’s commitment to Ukraine is “ironclad.” As for the U.S.-NATO pledge of no decisions or even discussions “about Ukraine without Ukraine,” Zelensky’s exclusion from last week’s critical pre-summit deliberation probably cheered the beleaguered Putin.

That is what motivates Ukraine’s heroic president to press for “early” NATO membership — more than 15 years and two Russian invasions after NATO first committed to it. But Biden’s fear that Ukraine in NATO would trigger Armageddon prevents it despite the wishes of most NATO members — an ironic shift of positions since it is usually the Europeans who worry that rambunctious Americans will plunge the world into conflict.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week said he has “no doubt” Ukraine will join the Alliance “when the war is over,” a NATO posture that incentivizes Putin to keep it going.

To disabuse Putin of false hopes and bridge the transition from war to peace, NATO should establish a no-fly zone over the parts of the country that either have been liberated or were never occupied by Russia: no Russian or Belarussian aircraft allowed, no missiles, no drones over unoccupied Ukraine.

Zelensky urged the allied action even before Russian forces crossed the border. Biden opposed it then for the same reason he opposes Ukraine’s NATO membership now: the exaggerated fear that Putin would escalate the situation into a nuclear war.

But the no-fly zone would not extend over those parts of Ukraine that are still contested and/or Russian occupied — that is, Eastern Ukraine and Crimea — reducing the risk of a U.S.-NATO clash. It would apply only to those areas of the country where Ukraine is exercising full territorial sovereignty under international law. As Ukraine’s forces eject Russia from the contested and/or occupied areas, that liberated territory then would be included within the no-fly zone.

It is time for Washington to shake off the shackles of self-deterrence that helped precipitate this war and allow it to continue. Ukraine, and Western security, deserve victory and peace. Biden should let it happen before isolationist and war-weary forces in Congress vindicate Putin’s strategy of dragging the war out.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He served in the Pentagon when Vladimir Putin invaded Georgia and was involved in Department of Defense discussions about the U.S. response. Follow him on Twitter @BoscoJosephA