Recent calls for Ukraine to join NATO are unrealistic at best and unwise at worst. Arguments advanced typically rely on a series of myths about membership: that NATO membership for Ukraine could plausibly end the war, that it would sustainably keep the peace, and that support for it is a realistic possibility.
Advancing these myths ultimately worsens Ukraine’s security, because it takes off the table the best option for ending today’s devasting war: a negotiated settlement in which continued Ukrainian neutrality is accepted in return for leaving it sovereign and militarily strong, capable of fending off future Russian assaults.
For starters, Russia is categorically unwilling to countenance any endgame that involves Ukrainian accession to NATO. Russian President Vladimir Putin waged his bloody war of conquest for many reasons. But one driver was his fear that Ukraine was slowly inching towards membership in the alliance.
In 2008, NATO offered Ukraine a Membership Action Plan, formally putting it on the path to membership in the alliance. That same year, US ambassador to Russia (and now CIA Director) William Burns presciently warned that membership was Putin’s ‘brightest of all red lines.’
But Putin understands an inconvenient reality: NATO will never admit a state at war with Russia, since that would oblige the alliance to also declare war on Moscow. One reason for his attack was to take membership off the table—beginning in 2014 with seizure of Crimea and covert operations in the Donbas, not in 2022 with the full assault.
Since NATO membership can only happen when the war ends, those advocating Ukraine’s accession are actually prolonging the fighting—reminding Putin that if he allows the guns go silent, he may be forced to swallow an intolerable outcome.
But even if Ukraine were able to join NATO, it would not get a reliable shield. In fact, there would be serious questions about the credibility of any pledge to defend it. NATO’s Article 5 has been described by President Joe Biden as a ‘sacred commitment’ to ‘literally defend every inch of NATO.’ Such a promise to fight what could become a nuclear war against Russia was made credible in the Cold War by the belief that the US might be willing to ‘trade New York for Bonn’, as was said at the time, bolstered by US operational planning to use nuclear weapons in the defense of Europe.
Yet Biden also said in 2022 that Washington was unwilling to ‘fight World War III in Ukraine.’
Membership today would raise an obvious question: had US interests in Ukraine changed so dramatically in just two years? Are Americans suddenly willing to risk New York for Kyiv?
NATO membership would put Ukraine in a reverse-goldilocks position: it would be in a new status quo that Moscow viewed as intolerable and itched to undermine, and it would lack a credible commitment from allies to deter Russian challenges. Moscow would be tempted to probe, perhaps starting below the threshold of direct war to test Western responses but eventually escalating. The alliance could face an excruciating dilemma: fight Russia in what could become a nuclear war, or watch the European security architecture crumble?
Worse, the proposal is not merely unwise but impossible. Even Biden, more Atlanticist than is foreseeable for a future US president, is firmly against NATO accession, saying he’s ‘not prepared to support the NATO-ization of Ukraine.’ Neither are such West European states as Germany, let alone those that try to balance relations with Russia (Turkey) or those that flagrantly appease it (Hungary). For a 32-member alliance that admits new members by consensus, this is an insurmountable problem.
Dangling an invitation that will realistically never be granted is not cost-free. It replicates the failures of 2008, when NATO’s vague pledge was the worst of all worlds: leaving Ukraine stuck in the waiting room and provoking Russian reprisals without receiving any protections.
However, what has until now been a mistake could be turned into an opportunity. Ukraine need not unilaterally renounce NATO membership but could instead leverage Moscow’s deep anxiety over the possibility. Were Ukraine willing in negotiations to take NATO off the table, this would likely be met with significant Russian concessions.
In fact, negotiations at the outset of the 2022 war saw Russian negotiators reportedly willing to give up all conquered territory if Ukraine would remain neutral. Russia’s position now is stronger than it was at the start of the war, and Ukraine has continually struggled to dislodge it, so such a deal today would likely be less favorable. In practice, it may mean Ukraine agreeing to a ceasefire on current lines, or getting back some territory while ultimately falling short of regaining all that it seeks. But Ukraine would remain a sovereign nation still in control of the great majority of its territory (including key industrial centers and land that gives it Black Sea access).
While Ukraine would not be a treaty ally, the West would do its part to support it, likely through security guarantees that pledged peacetime supply of weapons and through financing Ukraine’s reconstruction and supporting its accession to the European Union. Neutrality now does not mean neutrality forever—consider Finland’s long, 75-year journey from neutrality to NATO—but it does mean closing the door to accession under current conditions.
The result would be a sovereign, prosperous Ukraine. Ukraine would have made itself militarily capable of defending this new status quo while also removing a prime irritant that might cause Russia to seek to change that condition. This would be a victory that was once unthinkable, won by two years of Ukrainian valiance. It’s also superior to the alternative of continuing to vaguely dangle membership—which won’t be granted, prolongs the war and would undoubtedly leave Ukraine less safe.
