Follow us on social

Volodymyr_zelensky_2019_presidential_inauguration_05

Amid tensions with Russia, Ukraine says it wants into NATO

It won't happen because that would mean the Atlantic alliance would have to mobilize for war.

Europe

After meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Ukraine hopes to be invited this year to join a NATO Membership Action Plan. In his words: "NATO is the only way to end the war in Donbass. Ukraine's MAP will be a real signal for Russia."

Stoltenberg did not reply directly to this request, but repeated, in a tweet, the usual NATO line about supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression. The Biden administration on the other hand, is essentially trying to shelve the issue. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the administration has been discussing Ukraine's membership aspirations with Kiev however, "we are strong supporters of them, we are engaged with them… but that is a decision for NATO to make." 

Shelving the issue of NATO membership for Ukraine (and Georgia) is good. Abandoning it would be even better. For what after all do Zelensky’s words about the Donbas really mean? He is suggesting that NATO, with Ukraine as a member, would threaten to go to war with Russia in order to force Russia to abandon the Donbas. And not just that: NATO would have to try to force Russia to give up the annexation of Crimea and abandon its naval base at Sevastopol and its entire strategic position in the Black Sea. 

Not likely. 

If NATO, with Ukraine as a member, really adopted such a strategy, this would mean planning for war with Russia. The whole of U.S. global strategy, military deployment and military spending would have to be redirected to this end. The containment of China would be abandoned. The U.S. Navy would be drastically downgraded, and the Army would be recreated as the massive armored force of the Cold War. NATO’s European members would have to vastly increase their military spending and reintroduce conscription. Western publics would have to be told to accept the risk of nuclear war, and the certainty of massive military casualties, for a Ukrainian Donbas and Crimea.

Of course, none of this is going to happen — and Moscow knows it perfectly well. The only result of threatening Russia in this way would be to make NATO look ridiculous.

Instead of thinking about such hard military realities, NATO since the 1990s has befuddled itself with warm and woolly mantras about “spreading democracy” and “enhancing security,” and “supporting this or that country’s European Vocation.” NATO secretaries-general have been retired politicians from countries that have not thought seriously about war for a century or more, and are culturally allergic to thinking about it. But if NATO takes in Ukraine as a member, then NATO is going to have to think seriously about war.


Volodymyr Zelensky. Photo credit: Mykhaylo Markiv / The Presidential Administration of Ukraine via WikiMedia Commons
Europe
israel gaza ceasefire
Top photo credit: A man, wearing shirt in the colours of the U.S. flag, and a woman, wearing an Israeli flag across her shoulders, celebrate after U.S. President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas agreed on the first phase of a Gaza ceasefire, at the "Hostages square", in Tel Aviv, Israel, October 9, 2025. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Trump Gaza Deal will work: If he keeps pressure on Israel

Middle East

Reports today indicate that both the Israelis and Hamas have agreed on a deal that would call for an immediate cessation of fighting and return of hostages and prisoners on both sides in a first phase.

Both parties are expected to sign the agreement and the Israeli cabinet will vote to approve it afterwards. The deal would supposedly see a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces from the ground in order for the hostage-prisoner swaps to proceed, but the thornier issues of Hamas disarmament, governance, full Israeli withdrawal and a complete end to the war have been left to hammer out in later phases.

keep readingShow less
Sanctions are strangling Syria’s new economy
A building destroyed by fighting near the al-Madina Souq in Aleppo, Syria. (Connor Echols/Responsible Statecraft)

Sanctions are strangling Syria’s new economy

Middle East

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — The Old City of Damascus is teeming with life. On any given night, one can find thousands of Syrians strolling through streets lined with endless shops. People stream in and out of restaurants situated in ornate Ottoman-era courtyards, where diners hang out around elegant, black-and-white stone fountains until the early hours of the morning.

But a short walk east reveals a ghost town. The neighborhood of Jobar, a former rebel stronghold with a prewar population of 300,000, has been reduced to a maze of crumbling apartment buildings and mangled cars. “When I was [in Syria] in January, I was shocked at the level of destruction,” said Robert Ford, who served as U.S. ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014 and has visited the country several times in recent years. “It looked like films I'd seen of cities in World War Two.”

keep readingShow less
Sanae Takaichi, Xi Jinping
Top photo credit: Japan’s LDP leader Sanae Takaichi (Govt. of Japan) Chinese President Xi Jinping Alan Santos/PR/Roman Kubanskiy (Wikimedia Commons)

First female Japan PM takes hawkish position on China, Taiwan

Asia-Pacific

On October 4, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in Japan chose Sanae Takaichi — who is expected to reflect a more determined stand in defense of Taiwan — as its president, and the Diet is expected to elect her as prime minister next Wednesday.

(Editor's note, 10/10: The Kōmeitō’s departure from its 26-year coalition with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) reported today has complicated Takaichi’s path to the prime ministership and delayed the Diet vote on who will lead Japan.)

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.