By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

Why The Next Few Years Will Be Crucial

As the Vilnius summit approaches, the battle of arguments over whether Ukraine should be invited to join NATO is in full swing. Meanwhile, Ukrainians are fighting in Europe’s bloodiest war since 1945—losing loved ones, defeating the Russian invaders, and liberating their homeland. Today, Ukraine’s commanders, soldiers, and society are gaining essential experience in defending against the Russian threat. Tomorrow, they will contribute their mettle to make all of NATO safe.

Who wouldn’t want an ally with Ukraine’s strength, courage, and tenacity? Compared to 2008, the last time a NATO summit formally discussed Ukrainian membership, it is a new reality. Ukraine is no longer just seeking to slip under the collective security umbrella. Today’s Ukraine is a net security contributor, protecting itself and the Euro-Atlantic community from an aggressive and revanchist Russia.

When Ukraine wins the war and joins NATO, it will be Ukrainian brigades—not U.S. or German ones—guarding NATO’s eastern flank. Battle-hardened Ukrainian units will be stationed in allied countries seeking protection from the Russian threat. No other NATO member has our experience and skills, including how to react to and repel an invasion within hours. That resolves one of the alliance’s most serious issues—rapid response time—while boosting collective security.

We are not seeking immediate membership. We will not drag NATO into this war. We have never requested foreign troops on the ground in Ukraine. With the generous assistance of our partners, we will defeat Russia on our own. This war is ours to fight.

But the next war can be avoided by admitting Ukraine into NATO. Therefore, we are requesting a vital step toward Ukraine’s future membership. In Vilnius, we ask NATO to recognize three obvious things: First, NATO needs Ukraine as much as Ukraine needs NATO; second, Ukraine is an inseparable part of Euro-Atlantic security; and third, Ukraine should be invited now to join NATO, with membership taking effect when conditions are met.

An invitation like this will not provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin—on the contrary. It will deter him from future aggression. He invariably backs down when confronted with strength, as we all saw when the Wagner Group marched toward Moscow. With Putin weakened by the mutiny, there is a window of opportunity to invite Ukraine to join NATO.

 

Security Guarantees Are Ukraine’s Bridge To Membership

What was NATO before Russia invaded Ukraine? A Cold War relic searching for a mission, a drain on Washington as it pivoted to Asia, a needless irritant to a non-threatening Russia—or so a chorus of academic and media pundits told us. French President Emmanuel Macron, Europe’s pundit-in-chief, famously summed up the mood by calling the alliance “brain-dead.”

Countries closer to Russia knew differently, of course, and tirelessly warned their Western peers that the alliance still served a vital purpose. Today, in many ways, NATO is back to its roots as a bulwark of the trans-Atlantic West against an expansionist Kremlin. Weapons are heading east, and troops are being forward-deployed. Seeking the bloc’s traditional protection, Finland has joined, Sweden is in the waiting room, and Ukraine’s path to membership will be discussed when NATO leaders meet for their annual summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, next week. We’re again talking about the defense-industrial complex, tallying ammunition production and counting tanks.

But this is no return to the past, even if some might be nostalgic for the sense of unity and purpose that seemed to define the West during the Cold War. Having brought that epic contest to a peaceful close without a major conflagration arguably made NATO the most successful military alliance in history. Today, however, the bloc operates differently, where Moscow is just one challenge of many. As allies of Russia, China, and Iran now impact European security directly; NATO, in turn, is eyeing new threats to the east. With its asynchronous combination of 21st-century technology and long-forgotten trench warfare, the land battle looks very different today, with many lessons from Ukraine for NATO still to absorb. Russia is much smaller and weaker than the Soviet Union—especially after its forces’ decimation in Ukraine—but it still has its nuclear arsenal. As the Wagner Group’s march toward Moscow showed, the country was also less stable and predictable than the Soviet Union, giving the alliance a whole new set of Russia scenarios to prepare for. And unlike in NATO’s heyday, what was then still called the “Third World” isn’t content to watch from afar but rather wants a say in how conflicts are managed.

To give us a sense of how a revitalized NATO might address these and other challenges, Foreign Policy asked nine prominent experts from Europe and the United States for their views. Below, they discuss some of the most important topics facing NATO leaders next week and in the future, from membership for Ukraine to the bloc’s role in facing China.

 

Countries Have Diverse Interests

NATO leaders meeting in Vilnius must recognize that European peace and stability rely on a secure and independent Ukraine. Ultimately, that means bringing Ukraine into NATO. I believe leaders should already extend an invitation for Ukraine to join in Vilnius—but unfortunately, certain leaders of NATO member countries remain hesitant to commit while the war is ongoing. This is a mistake. If you make membership dependent on the end of hostilities, you give Russian President Vladimir Putin the incentive to continue the war indefinitely.

If there is no agreement on an invitation to join NATO, the second-best option would be to outline a path toward membership in three steps. First, confirm that once Ukraine is invited, it can follow Finland and Sweden on an accelerated path into NATO by removing the need for a membership action plan. This procedure could drag on for many years. Second, pledge to review the question of NATO enlargement at the alliance’s 75th-anniversary summit in Washington next year. Finally, establish a NATO-Ukraine council with a mandate to work on the conditions necessary for Ukraine to join the alliance.

These steps would send a clear message to Putin: Ukraine will become a member soon rather than later. You cannot stop this process.

NATO membership is the ultimate destination, but to get there, Ukrainians need stability and security. That is why they need a fourth step: robust security guarantees now. Even before next week’s summit, a group of Ukraine’s allies should back guarantees based on the Kyiv Security Compact that I co-authored with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

A piece of paper cannot give security guarantees. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum guaranteed Ukraine’s borders and sovereignty—and turned out to be worthless when it mattered. Instead, Ukraine’s partners must ensure that Ukraine can defend itself by itself, until it is covered by NATO’s Article 5. This should involve an open-ended commitment from a group of guarantor countries to provide weapons, joint training under European Union and NATO flags outside Ukraine, intelligence sharing, and sustained investment in Ukraine’s military-industrial base. This should be modeled on the United States’ long-term military support for Israel.

Security guarantees are not an end in themselves, but they can provide the bridge to Ukraine becoming a full member of both NATO and the EU. They can provide the security needed for Ukraine’s economy to recover, reconstruction to start, and millions of Ukrainians to return to their homes.

Leaders meeting in Vilnius must not repeat the mistakes of the past. They must back robust security guarantees and set Ukraine on the path to NATO membership. If they fail to do so, we risk never-ending instability and conflict on European soil.

One of the long-term strategic consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine is that NATO is growing more extensive and more robust in northeastern Europe—the long arc from the Nordic countries to the Baltic states to Poland. This power shift will transform the alliance over the coming decade, making it more capable of deterring the Russian threat. Growing defense capabilities in NATO’s northeast will help make Europe a more severe U.S. ally while also laying the groundwork for a possible reduced U.S. contribution to European security in the future.

Poland, in particular, is building one of the strongest militaries in Europe. Warsaw has gone on a procurement spree and plans to spend 4 percent of its GDP on defense in 2023. The Baltic states are also undertaking significant increases in defense spending, aiming at 3 percent of GDP in the coming years.

The accession of Finland and (hopefully soon) Sweden will mark an even more significant strategic shift, bringing new strengths to NATO, including Finland’s capable land forces and Sweden’s solid maritime capabilities. These two new members will add strategic depth to the defense of the Baltic region. Instead of being NATO’s weak spot and a possible magnet for Russian aggression, the Baltic Sea will be a virtual NATO lake. All these countries have never belonged to the same military alliance.

Perhaps most importantly, the new northeastern bloc within NATO will inject strategic clarity into European security debates. The Nordic countries, the Baltic states, and Poland have been among Ukraine’s strongest supporters, above all because these countries have an existential interest in seeing Russia defeated in Ukraine. Likewise, they have a strong interest in credible security guarantees for Ukraine after the war—the most reasonable and efficient solution being membership in NATO. Ukraine’s accession to the Western alliance—which most allies agree is a matter of when not if—will also make Kyiv a part of the alliance’s power shift. The military ability and society-wide resilience Ukrainians have demonstrated since February 2022 leave no doubt that such a new member would substantially strengthen NATO.

The apparent reason for NATO’s northeastern members to pull together is an aggressive Russia aiming to restore its old sphere of influence. These countries do not expect the Russian threat to diminish anytime soon. Even if Russia loses in Ukraine, it will be capable of rebuilding its forces in a few years. Russia is unlikely to relinquish its imperialist ambition to reestablish control over its neighbors. NATO’s northeastern flank will ensure the alliance takes Russia seriously as a long-term existential threat.

The short-lived mutiny by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his mercenary army against the Russian government reminded the world that autocrats appear stable—until they are not. As NATO leaders convene in Vilnius, they will focus on the immediate challenge of the Russia-Ukraine war and how to maintain and increase support for Kyiv in the current counteroffensive. But the Western alliance will inevitably confront dealing with a less stable nuclear-armed Russia. NATO has returned to its original mission of containment—the Soviet Union then, an increasingly aggressive Russia now. But the ability to accomplish that mission will depend on who might come to power after Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In the unlikely event that Putin was to opt for a managed transition—akin to how he came to power in 1999—he would likely install a successor who would initially continue his policies, including prosecuting the war in Ukraine. In that case, NATO would focus on its current dual policies of supporting Ukraine and deterring Russia from escalation. But a managed transition might not work if the new leader decides not to protect the interests of the Putin elite. In that case, or if Putin suddenly departed the scene with no chosen successor, a power struggle would ensue, similar to what happened after Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin died. A more unstable Russia with different elements of the security services supporting opposing sides could raise new concerns about the disposition of nuclear warheads. Europe would likely see a wave of refugees.

To prepare for various scenarios of an unstable, unpredictable, post-Putin Russia, NATO  could encourage its members to shore up their defense capabilities, particularly the front-line Baltic states and Poland. This includes conventional military weapons and cyber defense, but NATO members also need to anticipate a range of unconventional threats from a less stable Russia, such as weaponizing nuclear energy. In case of an unstable transition or worse, the alliance must reiterate the importance and continuing applicability of Article 5 collective defense. And it would have to reach out to the Russian military to ensure viable communication about nuclear issues.

NATO’s best scenario for a post-Putin Russia would be a leadership that rejected the imperial mindset of the current Kremlin, realized that domestic development and modernization were more critical for Russia’s future as a great power than aggression against neighbors, and was willing to resume discussions on strategic stability and nuclear safety. However, it is unclear how Russian elites and the Russian public, fed a diet of xenophobic, nationalist rhetoric for years, would respond to such a radical change in Moscow’s outlook. Barring some unforeseen developments—and Russia can always surprise—this scenario is still some way off, and the immediate. The challenge remains to confine the instability within Russia’s borders.

Europe’s old division of labor—NATO responsible for the continent’s security and the European Union for economic prosperity—is no longer sustainable. The return of significant land war to the European continent for the first time since 1945 has made it clear that NATO has to become more European and the EU more of a security actor.

The reason is simple: Overwhelmingly, protection by the United States means protection through NATO. With an ongoing war in Europe and a looming conflict over Taiwan in Asia, the United States could become overstretched. Almost everyone agrees that Europeans must carry more of the burden for their security. However, better burden-sharing within NATO alone will not be enough. Many European countries have already committed to increasing defense spending after Russia’s invasion, but the expenditure is uncoordinated, fragmented, and largely ineffective at reducing Europe’s dependency.

This is where the European Union comes in. French President Emmanuel Macron’s grandiose plans for European “strategic autonomy” independent of Washington have been exposed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an unrealistic and dangerous fantasy—and were opposed by Central and Eastern European countries even before the war. On a more realistic level of ambition, the EU can make a real and lasting contribution to

European security by investing in Europe’s defense industrial base and bankrolling the military capabilities that Europeans are lacking. Financing European defense and coordinating procurement is not a task for NATO, which has little influence on what its member states buy and how they finance it. Here, the EU can make an actual difference.

The EU has radically transformed since Russia launched its war in 2022. Never before has the bloc acted so quickly and decisively during a security crisis, moving with power and speed on sanctions and energy decoupling from Russia. For the first time, Brussels used the European Peace Facility, set up in 2021 to fund peacekeeping missions, to procure weapons and ammunition for a non-EU country directly. Additionally, the EU is financing a military assistance mission to train up to 30,000 Ukrainian soldiers.

The EU’s next logical step should be to do for itself what it has already done for Ukraine: Finance and build the military capabilities that will allow Europeans to become genuine security contributors, not just a burden to the United States. The EU cannot and should not replace NATO. However, European countries should acquire the capability to conduct a medium-size combat mission in their neighborhood on their own—without the United States and within either an EU or NATO framework.

The initial instinct during wartime is to stick to what has proven successful. However, the combination of Russia’s war and China’s stepped-up threats against Taiwan is such a significant turning point that things must change to remain the same. To future-proof the world’s most successful defense alliance for the next decade and ensure the continent's security, NATO could collaborate with its EU cousin.

When NATO leaders discuss the bloc’s future next week, an elephant will be in the room: What happens if former U.S. President Donald Trump is reelected in 2024? Even short of pulling the United States out of the alliance, as Trump came close to doing, a future U.S. president might limit engagement in Europe, driven by either isolationism or the need to shift scarce resources to the Asian theater.

Without the United States, the value of the alliance approaches zero. Deterring the Kremlin depends on credibility and power—and for the foreseeable future, those qualities can only be provided by the world’s leading military.

Europeans lack the military strength and, even more importantly, the strategic unity to deter a determined adversary. France is little trusted in much of Europe and focused elsewhere, and Brexit weakens Britain, while Germany does not have much of an active military. Countries along NATO’s eastern and northern frontier have the will but lack the means. Without a strong and credible deterrence, Moscow would double down on regaining its Soviet-era possessions, and war in all its forms would spread beyond Ukraine.

Trump-proofing NATO is impossible, and Europe must live with a degree of dependence. But the risk of losing Washington can be diminished. To keep the United States engaged as the essential power behind the European security order, its allies must massively raise their share of the burden.

The key to any severe burden-sharing remains Germany—Europe’s economic heavyweight, political and geographic center, and close partner of much of Central and Eastern Europe. Germany must become the critical backup power for the countries exposed to Russian pressure. It won’t be able to do that alone because it lacks a nuclear deterrent, which remains crucial to being at eye level with the Kremlin. But Berlin could and should take over a significant share of the burden, stepping into the still-vacant position of “partner in leadership” that then-U.S. President George H.W. Bush offered to Germany after the Cold War.

A commitment to spend 3 percent of its GDP on defense—roughly doubling the 1.44 percent it spent in 2022—would be a solid signal to Russia and Europe. By stepping forward as Japan did in the Indo-Pacific, Germany would make it much harder for any U.S. leader to blame Europe for not bearing a fair share of the continent’s defense.

A muscular Germany ready to free the United States from a large part of its European burden would not only impress the skeptics in Washington but usher the trans-Atlantic relationship into a new era no longer defined by Cold War memories. It would turn NATO into a key element of an emerging free-world architecture involving the United States, Europe, and key Asian allies and partners, including India, Japan, and South Korea. Tokyo has already stepped into the new era by doubling defense spending, while Berlin has yet to take any serious steps.

A massive investment in German defense would be far more than a symbolic tool to keep Washington engaged. It would become the basis for a healthy and sustainable balance between the United States and Europe in underwriting the European security order. Finally, it would be the prerequisite for any Plan B if the worst comes to pass and a future U.S. president withdraws from Europe, leaving the continent on its own to face a neoimperialist Russia.

NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept took an essential first step by recognizing China as a security challenge, but now the alliance needs to translate that into concrete actions. That won’t be easy: China is not an accustomed object of NATO concern, and allies differ on how to deal with Beijing. But forging a coherent approach is vitally important for improving the West’s collective resistance to China and bolstering the United States’ ability to deter and—should it be necessary—fight a war in the Indo-Pacific.

Dealing with China starts inside NATO’s guts and gears. The alliance operates by consensus, precedent, and the following tasks from public pronouncements. That’s why NATO needed to include China in the 2019, 2021, and 2022 summit declarations and the new Strategic Concept. The key now will be to build support for concrete actions that follow from the threat assessment and fit naturally into NATO’s core security mission.

First, NATO needs to develop contingency plans for what it would do during a U.S.-China war. It also needs to have the ability to regularly take joint positions with China, even if it lies outside of its geographic focus on the Euro-Atlantic region. A significant objective of Chinese diplomacy is to disrupt the cohesion of U.S.-led alliances, and NATO is a leading target. At a minimum, the North Atlantic Council must be able to air China matters routinely. Eventually, it will probably need a consultative body to deconflict between NATO and the European Union—and avoid paralysis in a crisis.

Second, NATO needs tools to thwart Chinese activities that undermine its ability to perform its military mission. That includes threats to infrastructure, telecommunications, military readiness, and interoperability. A NATO perforated with Chinese influence could be unable to defend itself against Russia in a crisis scenario.

Third and most importantly, NATO needs to be more capable than it is now of defending the Euro-Atlantic home area. It’s always a welcome sight to see French or British ships in Asian waters, and it’s wise for NATO to deepen its partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. But the heart of NATO’s job is in Europe. The United States’ ability to deter and if necessary, defeat China will depend on having a solid defensive glacis in Eastern Europe. That begins by inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine, but it will also require a more substantial and permanent NATO presence on the eastern flank. That can’t only come from the United States and front-line allies; Western Europeans will have to do much more in Eastern Europe than they do now.

The next few years will determine whether the West can avoid a major conflict with China. NATO has a crucial role as an anchor to global stability by doing its core job in Europe—and doing it well.

Russia is using precision weapons to attack apartment buildings, shopping centers, and energy infrastructure all over Ukraine. As long as Russia is a threat to NATO, the Kremlin’s weapons of war on civilians mean that integrated air and missile defense (IAMD) will be required at a much grander scale than the alliance thought. Not only does critical military infrastructure need to be protected, as current plans envision, but NATO also has to protect half a billion European civilians.

The alliance is not prepared for this. Improving the scale, quality, and sustainability of air and missile defense is, therefore, NATO’s most urgent military task. As we’ve seen in Ukraine, salvoes of missiles, drones, and enemy aircraft will likely come in swarms from multiple directions and at various speeds and altitudes. The initial defense against such an attack will most likely be by a single member state or group of states—until Article 5 is invoked and NATO decides to act.

This threat requires NATO members to integrate their capabilities better and develop the policies and processes required to respond instantaneously to any sudden attack. What is needed?

1. NATO must ensure it has a permanent, fully integrated IAMD architecture to perform Early warning and command-and-control functions and defeat incoming threats during the transition from peacetime to conflict.

2. Frequent joint multinational exercises should test and verify IAMD capabilities, including in a simulated contested environment. This has not happened at the required scale for at least ten years.

3. Member countries must invest in next-generation fighter aircraft and a follow-on for NATO’s Airborne Warning and Control System. The first line of defense will likely be air forces, as ground-based air defense alone cannot protect most targeted areas. Aircraft can cover more territory and shift to threats more quickly. But this requires tested and reliable sensors and a command-and-control system to direct aircraft while integrating and coordinating them with ground-based air defense. No one model of aircraft is the answer, but European allies must invest in aircraft that optimize alliance interoperability. Nations that can’t afford aircraft or their modern missile defense systems can contribute by purchasing and hosting sensors and other support.

4. NATO needs to strengthen the maritime component of air and missile defense with more ship-borne sensors and weapons systems.

5. Alliance members must increase their ability to defend against a massive, comprehensive attack for an extended conflict. Air and missile defense must be sustainable for as long as the threat lasts.

6. NATO must accelerate the rapid fielding and training of Patriot systems in Poland, Romania, and Sweden, a key partner in any future Russia contingency.

7. The alliance should seek new technologies that can disrupt ballistic missile attacks before they can get off the launch pad.

8. NATO must improve the passive defense of military targets by minimizing detection and damage through dispersal, camouflage, deception, and hardening.

If Russia makes the terrible decision to attack NATO, it will begin with a massive salvo of missiles, rockets, and drones. The West cannot afford to be unprepared. Effective deterrence—and if deterrence fails, defense—requires greatly improved air and missile defense.

Is NATO a bloc or a network? At the alliance’s 2012 summit in Chicago, NATO members met alongside 13 global partners selected out of more than 40 countries for their critical contributions to NATO operations. The summit communique emphasized the importance of “a wide network of partnership relations” and embraced partnership beyond the bloc as a vital element of cooperative security. In a speech shortly after that summit, then-NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen described a kind of globally networked NATO comprised of “clusters of willing and able Allies and partners ready to cooperate in specific areas.”

That vision of a more horizontal, networked, and cooperative NATO is designed to “empower—to offer assistance and partnership—as much as to overpower,” as I wrote. That ideal is quite at variance with NATO’s currently renewed role as the bulwark of the West, a united front of nations prepared to push back against what is left of the Cold War’s eastern bloc: Russia and Belarus. Yet when it comes to advancing NATO’s core values of “democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law,” whether at risk inside or outside the alliance, the network approach of building peer relationships among groups of countries and their officials is likely to work best. That is how the European Union works among members, with candidate countries striving to join, and in much of its foreign policy.

Even as NATO renews its original raison d’être as a collective security alliance against Russia, its members would do well to remember the subtler security threats corroding strong and honest government institutions in countries around the world, as well as the existential nonmilitary threats all governments now face. Cooperative security networks are more critical than ever.

 

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