Ukraine and NATO: How Stalled Accession Undermines Article 5 and Emboldens Russian Aggression

May 14, 2021

In a February interview with Axios aired on HBO, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was asked what he would ask for from the incoming Biden administration and the United States. His reply could not have been more clear, stating, “Therefore, I have a very simple question – why is Ukraine still not in NATO? …the first simple question from me would be; ‘Mr. President, why are we not in NATO yet.’” A February article for the Atlantic Council by Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, echoed that sentiment, stating that Ukraine should be granted a Membership Action Plan (MAP) and join the alliance, as the country plays a crucial role in the security of the Black Sea region. 

Then, in late March, fighting along the eastern front in Ukraine began to escalate, along with a buildup of armor and infantry along the southwestern Russia-Ukraine border throughout April. While Russia would end up announcing a withdrawal at the end of the month, there still remains around 100,000 troops deployed near the border as well as in annexed Crimea, according to Ukraine’s head of state security, Ivan Bakanov. This all occurred in the midst of ongoing NATO Defender Europe exercises which involved 28,000 troops from the U.S. and European allies performing maneuvers in Albania as well as other parts of Easten Europe. Defender Europe will be followed closely by NATO’s Steadfast Defender 2021 exercise, which will further test the speedy deployment of NATO forces to Europe. 

The Russian aggressiveness seen in the troop buildup and then the lack of follow-through on the announced plans for a withdrawal are merely part and parcel of ongoing Russian malign activity against the territorial sovereignty of Ukraine. In addition, it is a finger in the eye of NATO, U.S., and European decision makers who see the military buildup as a situation that could easily spiral out of control or trigger a more involved crisis. While ongoing NATO exercises and the resultant mass of allied troops should have acted as a deterrent to Russian aggression in Europe, it may have actually accomplished the opposite goal. According to former NATO Commander, Admiral James G. Stavridis USN (Ret.), “The big NATO exercise almost certainly has influenced that Russian decision to maintain a significant troop presence on the Russian-Ukrainian border,” and “The message Vladimir Putin seeks to send is simple: Ukraine should not even think about a NATO membership. Nor should NATO offer one. Any move in that direction will lead to a Russian intervention.”

All of this raises the essential questions: should Ukraine be admitted into NATO?; and if so, why is Ukraine not on a realistic path towards NATO accession? 

NATO and Ukraine: A (Very) Brief History

Dialogue between the country and the alliance began when a newly independent Ukraine joined the North Atlantic Cooperation Council in 1991 and the Partnership for Peace program 3 years later. This was followed by the signing of the 1997 Charter on a Distinctive Partnership which established the NATO-Ukraine Commission, a forum for common security consultation which is still operational until this day. This was followed by the 2009 Declaration to Complement the Charter on a Distinctive Partnership which not only reaffirmed the cooperation between NATO and Ukraine, but gave the NATO-Ukraine Commission a key role in supervising the process outlined at the Bucharest Summit for a Membership Action Plan and underpinning Ukrainian efforts on reforms in economic, defense, and political fields. 

Following the 2014 invasion by Russia, the 2016 NATO Summit in Warsaw outlined a Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) for Ukraine which aimed to support capacity building; military command, control, communications, and computers (C4); defense cooperation; cyber cooperation, energy security; work on countering hybrid warfare; and security services reform, amongst other issues. 

In addition to these ties, Ukraine is a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace Planning and Review Process, the Building Integrity program, the Defense Education Enhancement Program, the Air SItuation Data Exchange, the NATO Operational Capabilities Concept Evaluation and Feedback Program, and an “Enhanced Opportunities Partner” in NATO’s Partnership Interoperability Initiative, amongst other programs. 

For Ukraine’s part, the country’s parliament in 2017 adopted legislation restoring NATO membership as the country’s foremost strategic foreign policy objective. This was followed in 2019 by ratification of a  Ukrainian constitutional amendment committing the country to becoming a NATO and EU member. Finally, just last year, in September, Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved the country’s new National Security Strategy which transitions away from old Ukranian language about “creating the conditions for NATO membership” to more clear language, stating, “Acquisition of full membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is the strategic course of the state.”

Ukraine has also supported peace operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, contributed troops to the Kosovo force, the NATO Training Mission in Iraq from 2005-2011, and has contributed ships to various counter-terrorism and counter-piracy NATO operations over the years. 

Ukraine’s Stalled Membership Action Plan: Lacking Rhyme and Reason

All of these aforementioned partnerships and cooperation are largely similar to previous NATO engagement with Bosnia and Herzegovina, which has been a member of the Partnership for Peace Planning and Review Process since May 2007. Bosnia and Herzegovina has also contributed officers to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan as part of Danish and German contingents, as well as NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan. However, in 2010, Bosnia and Herzegovina was invited to join the Membership Action Plan program, while Ukraine is still on the outside, looking in. This is despite ongoing human rights concerns in Bosnia and Herzegovina as seen in Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina or ongoing corruption that is endemic in the country. 

This gives lie to the arguments that Ukraine’s path to progress towards NATO accession is only blocked due to needed reforms on corruption, judicial and security sector reform, and state interference in the economy, as Bosnia was given a membership action plan despite similar rule-of-law related concerns. 

While these rule-of-law concerns are not something to be dismissed out of hand, they are, frankly, weak excuses for slowing the accession of a Russia-threatened European country into what is primarily a security alliance. The primary reason why these particular concerns should not block Ukraine’s acceptance into NATO is that by keeping Ukraine on some middle-path, somewhere between a direct path to accession and outright denying their membership, it undermines not only NATO credibility in regards to future members’ accession paths, but emboldens Russia to continue to act with impunity in the Crimean peninsula and Donbas. The Kremlin recognizes that the current trajectory of Ukraine-NATO relations leaves the Ukranians in limbo, without the guarantees of NATO’s Article 5. 

To put it bluntly, many arguments against giving Ukraine at least a legitimate path towards NATO accession are grounded in defeatist attitudes about the entire NATO alliance system. Such pessimistic pronouncements are best seen in an April survey of foreign policy experts done by the Carnegie Europe Foundation. The survey quoted Alexander Graef of the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, who said, in regards to a Ukraine membership action plan, “A MAP for Ukraine would not help end the war in the country’s eastern Donbas region but would encourage Russia to escalate the conflict and create a fait accompli.” Furthermore, John Lough, Associate Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House stated, “ If NATO were to fast-track Ukraine’s entry into the alliance, it could only defend the country by extending the nuclear umbrella, with the risk that Russia would call NATO’s bluff and show the alliance to be a broken paper tiger.” 

These types of dire pronouncements are unconvincing in terms of the form that these arguments take. If an action plan for Ukraine would only encourage Russian aggression, and such escalation would mean that NATO allies would not meet their Article 5 obligations, then the alliance is for all practical purposes, defunct already, and adding Ukraine or not is merely a meaningless thought exercise. However, if that were the case, then Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary should all be very concerned about their future security and stability. Indeed, there does not seem to be any alliance-wide clamoring for an abandonment of the Baltic region due to their proximity to a threatening Russia. 

In the case of Ukraine, it appears that there is some trepidation by certain NATO members, particularly Germany and France, preventing Ukraine from getting on a more clear path towards full NATO membership. This uncertainty from major European NATO members comes despite calls in the most recent NATO Experts report, “NATO 2030: United for a New Era” which said that NATO should “shift from the current demand-driven approach to an interest-driven approach and consider providing more stable and predictable resource streams for partnership activities…NATO should expand and strengthen partnerships with Ukraine and Georgia…”

Furthermore, German or French nervousness about the Russian response to Ukrainian NATO accession actually serves to weaken NATO in the long-term. Putin, whatever failings he may be guilty of, has been fairly adept at reading other states’ reactions to his provocations and has, so far, carefully calibrated Russian actions abroad in the gray zone accordingly. He therefore understands that by keeping up pressure on Ukraine, it actually diminishes the chance of Ukraine achieving Putin’s most undesired outcome, which is NATO expansion on his doorstep. 

Furthermore, the failure to give Ukraine a concrete path towards NATO membership actively undermines NATO’s Article 5 guarantees. While only full NATO membership confers Article 5 protections, another future failure to respond to a Russian attack on an Enhanced Opportunity Partner that has been a member of the partnership for peace for over a quarter century would almost certainly call into question whether NATO’s Article 5 commitment to countries like Latvia or Estonia would be any good in light of some future Russian aggression towards them. Already, Western nations are grappling with the fact that their responses to Russian aggression below the threshold of war have so far failed to deter Russian cyber attacks. Failure to come to the aid of Ukraine in the event of further military aggression by Russia would, therefore, naturally lead to NATO’s Article 5 guarantee being called into question in terms of which nations it truly guarantees. 

In addition, while some commentators, like Elisabeth Braw at the American Enterprise Institute have said that in regards to Ukraine joining NATO, “Strategic ambiguity is a much better course of action. Russia can’t know how NATO may respond to aggression toward Ukraine, so Moscow has to assume a muscular response. Remember: in deterrence, fear and surprise are the decisive factors”, the recent Russian buildup on Ukraine’s borders and the weak response from Western NATO countries gives the lie to statements like these, as the West’s “strategic ambiguity” regarding Ukraine can more easily be interpreted as weakness rather than caginess. 

Not only does the slow pace of Ukraine’s NATO accession fail to give the West it’s desired strategic ambiguity, it also risks missing out on real opportunities to change the security situation in the region. For instance, just last month, Turkey issued a 20 point declaration of solidarity with Ukraine, which supported Ukraine’s intention to obtain a membership action plan in the near future. Such a move is undoubtedly an olive branch towards the U.S. after the contretemps over Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 anti-air systems, and represents a chance for the U.S. and Turkey, both key NATO allies, to get back on the same page, which is an opportunity that should not be missed. For instance, with Erdogan’s talk of obviating the Montreux Declaration with the creation of the Istanbul Canal, the U.S. should be investigating whether it can leverage Turkey’s newfound support for Ukraine’s sovereignty into greater access for U.S. and NATO warships in the Black Sea, at least when the West sees Russia massing troops on Ukraine’s border.

Ramifications of Stalled NATO Accession

During the Cold War, there existed the idea Finland traded membership in Euro-atlantic organizations like NATO, as well as a chunk of its territory, in exchange for a Soviet guarantee of Finnish sovereignty. Such “Finlandization” of Ukraine’s foreign policy has been suggested by some commentators, though some suggest modifications that offer to punt the issue down the road. However, not only would a Finland-like path be out of the question here, as Russia has already seized Ukrainian territory by force rather than treaty, but such a plan further risks undermining the overall strength of NATO, as it would show that the West was willing to trade Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for its continued independence. This would merely serve to embolden Vladimir Putin to begin pressuring other neighboring states in similar attempts to carve out more Russian territory, possibly in Belarus if Putin is unable to carry out a desired merger with Minsk. As Keir Giles of Chatham House said in a recent paper on the “Myths and misconceptions in the debate on Russia”, “Perhaps the most dangerous dissonance lies in Russian and Western notions of sovereignty. The key difference is the Russian presumption that only great powers can be fully sovereign; and that smaller, less powerful states like Ukraine…are simply objects of different degrees of influence wielded by powers like Russia…”

While speaking in regards to cease-fire terms that are more generous to Moscow than to Kyiv, Giles makes a valid point that, when it comes to Russian aggression, “the West insists on terms that constrain the victim while allowing the aggressor, Russia, continued freedom of action…A particularly vivid case is the widespread assertion in the West that the best resolution for the war in Ukraine would be for Ukraine to make concessions, rather than for Russia to cease its aggression.” The same can be said for the slow accession process, which is slowed primarily due to continued Russian aggression at the Ukrainian border which renders NATO member states hesitant to allow Ukraine into the alliance due to fears about having to come to Ukraine’s defense. 

A stalled accession process also has political ramifications that redounds on efforts to combat corruption and facilitate positive changes in Ukraine as well. As Arkady Moshes and Ryhor Nizhnikau at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs have said, “What the West needs to do is go beyond the technocratic approach and recognize its political “ownership” of the process. The personal involvement of high-level Western politicians in the elaboration and implementation of the conditionality policy vis-à-vis Ukraine can make a difference at this stage.” Part of that ownership process needs to be an understanding that there must be both carrots and sticks for Ukraine’s government, and that demanding institutional reforms, as necessary as they may be, without the promise of concrete, achievable rewards, makes reform harder to achieve, not easier. 

As has been said by James Greene, former head of the NATO Liaison Office in Ukraine, “Ukraine deserves substantial credit for its consistently constructive role in this complex region. Ukraine’s commitment to the principles for inter-state relations of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has been an important factor in ensuring stability on NATO’s borders and in the Black Sea region. Its full participation in PfP, and consistent, substantial contributions to NATO operations have set a high standard for partnership and provided a welcome contrast to Russian behaviour.” While recent behavior from Ukraine’s government certainly calls for more of the stick than the carrot, NATO member states must be careful not to overlook Ukraine’s past contributions to regional security and stability.

Moreover, Western ownership of the accession process vis-à-vis Ukraine doesn’t necessarily mean immediate or even imminent accession for Ukraine, as they do have major rule-of-law issues to confront before their political systems can be as compatible as their military has become. For instance, North Macedonia’s membership action plan took from 1999 until their accession in February of 2019 to complete. While that is obviously longer than what Ukraine would like, a membership action plan would constitute concrete progress towards Ukraine joining NATO, which may help President Zelenskyy gain the leverage to continue to push for reforms.

Ukraine Accession and Changing Behavior

In behavioral psychology, there exists the idea that the strong reinforcement of a desired behavior will overpower the usual reinforcers of a problem behavior, and, as a result, the problem behavior will decline as desired behavior goes up. This process is called differential reinforcement of alternative behavior, and the idea can be applied not only with children, but with all humans. In regards to Ukraine, the concept is that the nation’s corrupt politicians and oligarchs are the reinforcers that maintain the problem behavior (corruption) in the country. Therefore, although a membership action plan that provides a concrete and, more importantly, achievable path to NATO accession does not directly address those Ukranian actors’ spoiler-ish behavior, it should provide enough of a differential reinforcer that is stronger than the reinforcing behavior of corrupt actors. Thus, providing them with a true path towards NATO accession should eventually produce the desired rule-of-law following behavior, despite the fact that the action plan doesn’t directly address the underlying corruption issues. 

A membership action plan is not a panacea for all that ails the Ukrainian political system, and NATO member states would need to be on guard for further backsliding by either Zelenskyy or Ukrainian opposition to reforms. However, granting Ukraine a path towards NATO accession that does not merely wait for the Russian threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty to simply fade away is both the right thing to do from a standpoint of influencing Ukrainian actors’ behavior, it is right in that it prevents NATO from looking weak and unable to defend its partner countries. 

NATO must remember that when considering enlargement, the 1995 “Study on NATO Enlargement” said that, “No country outside the Alliance should be given a veto or droit de regard over the process and decisions.” As long as Ukraine’s NATO accession path languishes indefinitely, Russia has clearly been given such a veto, and with an individual like Vladimir Putin in charge, that will only serve to embolden his aggression towards former Soviet republics and endanger the wider stability and security of Eastern Europe. 
Sadly, it is unlikely that this will persuade hesitant NATO members to sign-off on Ukraine’s accession plans any time soon, as Germany and France are highly unlikely to upset the status quo with elections upcoming in the next 12 months. As Estonian defense minister Jüri Luik said in a December 2019 panel on Baltic and Black Sea security, “Russia is the existential threat…” and that NATO is the only organization that can viably deter Russian aggression against its neighbors. That was true in 2019 and it is still true today, even if certain countries do not wish to acknowledge it.