Follow us on social

Original

Russia relations sour as Austin floats Georgia, Ukraine NATO membership

The latest tit-for-tat comes amid signs of warming relations.

Analysis | Europe

Despite recent hopeful signs of warming U.S.-Russia relations, Russia suspended its NATO mission on Monday in response to NATO expelling eight of the Russian mission’s diplomats for alleged spying. The episode came one day after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said  “there is an open door to NATO” for both Georgia and Ukraine, something experts say would be needlessly antagonistic toward Moscow.

To deal with any emergencies after this week’s incident, the Russians suggested the two sides communicate via their embassy in Brussels. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that NATO has long ago “buried the key rule [of cooperation] of the Russia-NATO council with their own hands.”

The council was created in 2002 during the brief era of hope for NATO-Russia cooperation but Russia’s annexation of Crimea largely put an end to that and the council has met only sporadically since. 

Referring to the news this week, Milan Czerny, a researcher of Russian foreign policy at the University of Oxford, told the Responsible Statecraft that “in itself the end of the Russian delegation is not very meaningful. But it is symbolic of an important broader trend that is deterioration of ties between the U.S. and Russia.”

Many experts link this deterioration in part to NATO expansion. Russia officially considers NATO to be a national security threat. Georgia and Ukraine both saw a Russia-backed insurgency when the Kremlin became concerned at the prospect of each joining NATO back in 2008 and 2014. 

Ben Friedman, Policy Director at Defense Priorities, called Austin’s statement hypocritical.

“Ukraine needs to cut a deal with Russia,” he said. “The U.S. dangling the NATO prospect in front of Ukraine prevents Ukraine from having a working foreign policy towards its main issue.”

Friedman, who has argued against Ukraine’s NATO membership, called Austin’s suggestion a “bad idea” because both Ukraine and Georgia have territorial conflicts with Russia. 

“They would be very hard to defend while offering almost no benefit. It’s a loser for a cost-benefit analysis,” he said, adding that “the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine is not related to U.S. security” while Russia has a “strong historical interest” in these countries, especially in Ukraine. 

During a briefing with the Ukrainian minister of defense on Tuesday, Secretary Austin said “no third country” — meaning Russia — “can veto Ukraine's accession to NATO.” However, NATO members can veto new accessions and European allies don’t seem keen on Ukraine’s membership. French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian said in June that France believes "that for the moment the conditions [for Ukraine’s membership] are not met." 

Regarding Austin’s comments on potential NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine, Friedman believes that the United States has “lost the ability to differentiate between the countries it supports diplomatically and those it would fight a war for.” 

“I think this is something that Washington needs to get over,” he said. “We need to get back into the habit of thinking more clearly about alliances.” 


U.S. Northern Command personnel move medical supplies for distribution at New York's Javits Medical Station as part of the U.S. military's COVID-19 response (U.S. Army Photo by Pvt. 1st Class Nathaniel Gayle)
Analysis | Europe
Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Donald Trump
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump meet, while they attend the funeral of Pope Francis, at the Vatican April 26, 2025. Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Handout via REUTERS

US, Ukraine minerals deal: A tactical win, not a turning point

Europe

The U.S.-Ukraine minerals agreement is not a diplomatic breakthrough and will not end the war, but it is a significant success for Ukraine, both in the short term and — if it is ever in fact implemented — in the longer term.

It reportedly does not get Ukraine the security “guarantees” that Kyiv has been asking for. It does not commit the U.S. to fight for Ukraine, or to back up a European “reassurance force” for Ukraine. And NATO membership remains off the table. Given its basic positions, there is no chance of the Trump administration shifting on these points.

keep readingShow less
POGO
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

When 100 new B-21 bombers just isn't enough

Military Industrial Complex

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.

keep readingShow less
Ursula Von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas
Top image credit: Ursula Von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas via Alexandros Michailidis / Shutterstock.com

Europe pushing delusional US-style rearmament plan

Europe

Amid questions of the over-militarization of U.S. foreign policy and the illusion of global primacy, the European Union is charging headlong in the opposite direction, appearing to be eagerly grasping for an American-esque primacist role.

Last month, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, proposed the Security Action for Europe (SAFE), a part of the EU’s sweeping, $900 billion rearmament plans. This ambition, driven by elites in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and Warsaw rather than broad support from Europe’s diverse populations, reflects a dangerous delusion: that, in the face of a purported U.S. retreat, the EU has to overtake the mantle as leading defender of the “rules-based liberal world order.”

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.