The NATO Summit and 75th anniversary celebration has concluded. In its congratulatory celebration of itself, it revealed itself to be as detached from reality as it is anachronistic. There were many assertions that had no basis in reality, but there were four big ones that stood out.
NATO is a Peaceful Alliance that Poses a Threat to No One
As if self-consciously aware of the need to convince that it is a peaceful alliance, this claim is made no less than three times in the opening paragraph of the Summit’s declaration. And to close on that thought, it is repeated again in the second last paragraph.
Seventy-five years ago, the declaration opens, NATO was “forged to preserve peace.” It is a “defensive Alliance” that “adhere[s] to international law and to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
It axiomatically asserts that claim with no evidence or discussion and with no recognition of the long history that refutes it. NATO may have been established as a defensive alliance, but, since the fall of the Soviet Union, it has neither been defensive nor respectful of international law or the United Nations. It has several times been aggressive in defiance of, or simply circumvented, the Security Council. The Summit Declaration simply asserts its claim as if NATO had not supported the U.S. or followed the U.S into Kosovo, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria, and as if the 2014 Ukrainian coup had never taken place.
Since the internal collapse of the Soviet Union, there has been nothing for NATO to defend against. NATO’s reason for being died with the Soviet Union. Since that time, NATO has only created the threat it was meant to prevent. It is NATO’s quarter of a century of expansion east, and finally right to Russia’s doorstep, that provoked the very Russian response that created the need to defend against Russia that NATO was meant to prevent. NATO is the self-fulfilling cause of the need for its own existence. Without NATO, there would be little need for NATO.
The Summit Declaration condemns the “all-domain threat Russia poses to NATO” by “rebuilding and expanding its military capabilities.” It criticizes Russia, saying it “has increased its reliance on nuclear weapon systems and continued to diversify its nuclear forces, including by developing novel nuclear systems.” Similarly, it says that China “continues to rapidly expand and diversify its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a larger number of sophisticated delivery systems” and urges China “to engage in strategic risk reduction discussions.”
The Declaration says all this with no sense of hypocrisy that it simultaneously congratulates itself for having “undertaken the biggest reinforcement of our collective defence in a generation” and for “delivering on the Madrid and Vilnius Summit decisions to modernise NATO for a new era of collective defence.” There is no sense of hypocrisy in condemning Russia and China for diversifying and developing their nuclear arsenals, while boasting that “NATO remains committed to taking all necessary steps to ensure the credibility, effectiveness, safety, and security of the Alliance’s nuclear deterrence mission, including by modernising its nuclear capabilities.” The United States alone is spending $1.7 trillion on modernizing its nuclear weapons.
The Declaration says that China “has become a decisive enabler of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” not by providing Russia with weapons, but by providing Russia with “dual-use materials, such as weapons components, equipment, and raw materials that serve as inputs for Russia’s defence sector.” But “the provision of military equipment and training for Ukraine by Allies and partners… will not, under international law, make NATO a party to the conflict.”
Russia’s Military Objective is to Conquer All of Ukraine
In his welcome address to the NATO Summit, U.S. President Joe Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants nothing less, nothing less, than Ukraine’s total subjugation… and to wipe Ukraine off the map.” The Declaration goes further, saying that NATO is “determined to constrain and contest Russia’s aggressive actions and to counter its ability to conduct destabilising activities towards NATO and Allies.”
Putin has insisted that “this conflict is not about territory” but about security arrangements, a claim that is consistent not only with Russia’s stated war goals, but with the limited number of troops Russia committed to Ukraine. Those troops, according to Putin, “were there to push the Ukrainian side to negotiations,” and their numbers only grew after the West intervened to block those negotiations.
There is no evidence in the historical record that Russia intends to conquer all of Ukraine or to “wipe Ukraine off the map.” Ukrainian officials involved in the Istanbul negotiations with Russia confirm that Russia’s key demand in ending the war was a written promise that Ukraine would not join NATO.
If Russia had wanted to conquer more Ukrainian land, they had the ability and the means in 2014 when Putin had a mandate from the Russian parliament to use military force in Ukraine, not just Crimea. Russia could have annexed the Donetsk and Lugansk regions that same year when they voted for autonomy, but Putin neither recognized the results nor acted on requests to accept the regions as part of Russia. Russia could have, in 2008, incorporated Georgia when they had the opportunity to do so or even recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and then annexed them. But, again, Putin did not.
Right up until the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Putin remained committed to the Minsk II Accords and was still urging France and Germany to pressure Ukraine to implement them. That solution would have left an autonomous Donbass in Ukraine.
NATO’ Open Door Policy
The very first point of the Summit Declaration defends NATO’s extension of an open door policy to Ukraine: “Every nation has the right to choose its own security arrangements.” It then states that “We reaffirm our commitment to NATO’s Open Door Policy, in line with Article 10 of the Washington Treaty and, specifically, that “We fully support Ukraine’s right to choose its own security arrangements.”
Though it is true that international law allows the right of every nation to choose its own security arrangements, international law also stipulates that “they will not strengthen their security at the expense of the security of other States.” When NATO simply asserts the first principle, Russia reminds them of the second. The Istanbul Summit Declaration of 1999 and the Astana Summit of 2010 both commit nations to this principle of a common security that is indivisible.
So, it is not clear that every nation has complete freedom to choose its security arrangement, and it is not clear that Ukraine has the right to choose a security arrangement that threatens the security of Russia as much as Cuba aligning with Russia would threaten the security of the United States. But the U.S. always conditioned relaxing hostility against Cuba on Cuba cutting all ties with the Soviet Union and not allying with them. The Monroe Doctrine states that any attempt of a European power “to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere” would be interpreted as “dangerous to our peace and safety.” President Kennedy invoked the Monroe Doctrine to justify illegal U.S. intervention in Cuba, claiming that, “The Monroe Doctrine means . . . that we would oppose a foreign power extending its power to the Western Hemisphere.”
Neither is it so clear that NATO’s Article 10 commits NATO to an unguarded open door. Membership is not the discretion of the applicant, and NATO is not obliged to accept every application. Joining has to be at the invitation of NATO, and the NATO members have to agree unanimously: any one of them can say no. And NATO is under no obligation to extend an invitation to a solicitous country: the NATO treaty says only that they “may then be invited to join,” and that there is no guarantee. The invited country also has to “further the principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area.”
An Irreversible Path to NATO
The Summit Declaration reaffirms NATO’s “unwavering solidarity with the people of Ukraine in the heroic defence of their nation, their land, and our shared values” and offers an “irreversible path to… NATO membership.”
But, though the people of Ukraine have shown heroically unwavering solidarity, there are reports that polling suggests increasing numbers who support compromising and negotiating an end to the war with Russia. And it is not clear that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shares all of our values. The recent banning of political opposition parties, censorship and curbing of the freedom of the press and of speech, the banning of Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and the shrinking of minority language and cultural rights do not point encouragingly at shared democratic values.
The point that has attracted the most attention in the Summit Declaration, though, is the addition of the word “irreversible” in the statement that “we will continue to support [Ukraine] on its irreversible path to… NATO membership.” But that the path is irreversible means that you can’t step backward on the path: it does not mean that you will step forward. The Biden administration is “very sceptical about bringing Ukraine any further along the path to full Nato membership this year.”
And how does the path being described as irreversible differ from the path being described as a promise, which it has been since 2008 when NATO promised Ukraine and Georgia that “We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO?” A promise implies irreversibility, or it wouldn’t be a promise.
Though the Summit Declaration uses the word “path” and “bridge” to Ukraine’s membership in NATO, it still says that that bridge would be crossed only when NATO is “in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.” That is the exact same language as last year’s NATO Summit’s statement that NATO “will be in a position to extend an invitation to Ukraine to join the Alliance when Allies agree and conditions are met.” The word “irreversible” changes the packaging, but it is not clear that the package handed to Ukraine has brought them any further along the path.
NATO’s 75th anniversary summit was self-congratulatory but not grounded in reality. When NATO’s Soviet target disintegrated so did its foundational purpose. Perhaps it is time to stop expanding and creating the very threat it was created to prevent. Perhaps instead of growing, it is time for NATO to reexamine its role and its reason for being. Perhaps instead of one side of a Cold War security arrangement, the world would be better served by a comprehensive European security structure.
Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.
