Zelensky’s NATO Illusion
Why does he want to join the alliance if he believes Russia plans to attack it?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wants the United States to defend Ukraine. However, even the Biden administration said no. President Donald Trump has demonstrated in recent days that he is even less likely to agree—especially after Zelensky said the end of his nation’s war with Russia “is still very, very far away.”
The Russo–Ukrainian War is a great tragedy. Primary blame for the conflict lies with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. However, American and European officials recklessly flouted their assurances to Moscow and challenged its security concerns, then denied their complicity after war erupted. They too are drenched in blood.
Now Ukraine is running out of soldiers and the allies are running out of weapons, whereas Moscow has proved willing to pay the price necessary to win. The Biden administration was inclined to risk war by fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. That policy is now dead. Zelensky continues to push for Kiev’s membership in NATO. Why? Because otherwise, he contends, Russia will attack NATO.
Come again?
At the recent Munich Security Conference, Zelensky spoke of Putin, warning: “I think that he’s preparing the war against NATO countries next year. But it is not 100 percent. God bless we will stop this crazy guy. How to stop him? Security guarantees for us.” He cited a Russian military build-up in Belarus: “They can simply go on the offensive into Ukraine, just like they went in 2022… or they will go to Poland or the Baltic countries.” Indeed, Zelensky told Trump: “Even you. You have [a] nice ocean. And you don’t feel it now. But you will feel it in the future.”
Zelensky is not alone in predicting a Russian rampage. Allied officials, many of whom lied for years about NATO expansion and implementation of the Minsk accords, echo his claims. Putin is a bad guy, but the world is full of dictators who don’t commit aggression. And some democratic states do—the estimates of civilian dead resulting from Washington’s invasion of Iraq alone start in the low 100,000s and race upward. Zelensky’s contention that NATO can prevent Russian aggression against Ukraine but no one else, including America, is obvious nonsense. In fact, Moscow has no reason to attack other states or to expect an easy victory if it did so.
The Europeans are not behaving as if they believe Russia is preparing a Blitzkrieg to the Atlantic. Other than Poland and the Baltics, no European countries are engaging in serious defense buildups. Only last week did the United Kingdom offer a meaningful rearmament program, after shrinking its army to pre-Napoleonic size. France looks serious only compared to other Europeans. Germany’s much acclaimed “Zeitenwende” (historical turning point) was a bust, while Italy and Spain continue to sport large economies but minimal militaries. The Europeans still expect Uncle Sam to play Uncle Sucker.
Anyway, irrespective of Putin’s desires, Russia lacks the capabilities for large-scale aggression. The Soviet Union turned out to be much weaker than the military behemoth promoted in the Pentagon’s propagandistic annual publication Soviet Military Power. After the Soviet breakup the Russian military was but a pale reflection of its predecessor, which explains Moscow’s poor performance against Georgia. Although since reformed, the Russian military again demonstrated its significant limits in Ukraine.
Russia has spent three years battling one nation, even now only slowly gaining ground. Who imagines Moscow conquering Europe, with Russian soldiers overspreading multiple countries, defeating various militaries, occupying ever more territory, and maintaining control over hostile populations? Especially when the U.S. could enable its allies to unleash hell directed at targets in Russia presently beyond Ukraine’s reach.
Moreover, Putin also isn’t acting the part. He originally wasn’t hostile to the West. As a KGB agent stationed in Germany, he was more worldly than most Soviet apparatchiks. He was the first foreign leader to call George W. Bush after 9/11 and just a couple weeks later told the German Bundestag “No one calls in question the great value of Europe’s relations with the United States.”
Alas, he changed his opinion of the US, as he explained in his famous speech at the 2007 Munich Security Conference. Even then, he targeted NATO expansion, fueled by bad faith and broken promises, as having no “relation with the modernization of the Alliance itself or with ensuring security in Europe. On the contrary, it represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. … And what happened to the assurances our Western partners made after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact?”
In 2008 after the allies committed to induct Georgia and Ukraine, William Burns, then U.S. ambassador to Russia, reported: “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). … I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.” Intelligence officer Fiona Hill, who later served with Trump’s NSC, predicted “that Mr. Putin would view steps to bring Ukraine and Georgia closer to NATO as a provocative move that would likely provoke pre-emptive Russian military action.”
Even so, Putin responded with violence in Ukraine only after the West sought to realign the country, backing a street putsch against the elected president and threatening Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol. He also limited military action to the Crimea and Donbass, eschewing a full-scale invasion of a much weaker Ukraine. And he engaged in negotiations to end the 2008 conflict, leading to the Minsk agreement which Kiev violated and which allied leaders now say they never intended to keep. He sought talks about the critical issues before invading Ukraine in February 2022, but Washington refused. Just weeks after invading, his government negotiated with Kiev to end the fighting. Putin still bears responsibility for attacking Ukraine, but continental conflict was never his objective.
No doubt, Putin’s war aims might expand. However, his demands so far have been limited. A joint Ukraine/NATO commitment to take alliance membership off the table might have forestalled the invasion. Even now the Putin government emphasizes military limitations, saying it would respect its neighbor’s sovereignty, including Ukraine’s joining the European Union—which remains years away because of European, not Russian, obstacles. Negotiations would be the best way to test Moscow’s ultimate intentions.
Nevertheless, Chatham House’s Keir Giles asserts: “Putin’s intention to take what he (and many Russians) see as rightfully theirs has never been clearer.” Elsewhere Giles insists: “There is no doubt as to the intent, and there is a strong risk that Russia might persuade itself it has the capability too.” Where and when has Putin stated or demonstrated these supposedly obvious intentions?
When asked by Tucker Carlson last September whether he planned to invade his neighbors, Putin responded: “We have no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywhere else. Why would we do that? We simply don’t have any interest. It’s just threat mongering.” War with Poland would happen “only in one case: if Poland attacks Russia.” His conduct so far matches his rhetoric. If he desired European conquest, why didn’t he grab the Baltics long ago? Why didn’t he take all of Georgia in 2008? Why didn’t he attack Poland before it began rearming?
Giles goes on to state: “We are once again living in an era where brute military force will determine the lives and futures of millions of people across the continent.” But that was the case throughout the Cold War. It was also the case with America as the unipower, when the U.S. and allies violently dismembered Yugoslavia while insisting that ethnic Serbs everywhere and always remain under oppressive majorities, as in Croatia and Kosovo.
So far Putin’s behavior, though odious, looks defensive. He has not sought to recreate the Soviet Union. Fearmongers can cite his statement: “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart.” However, his next line was “Whoever wants it back has no brain.” For the last quarter century Putin sought to create a military cordon sanitaire next to his country, something considerably smaller than what the United States claims as part of its “Monroe Doctrine” in the Western Hemisphere. U.S. foreign policy is ostentatiously more aggressive, asserting that Washington is entitled to intervene everywhere up to every other nation’s border and often inside their countries as well.
Does Putin have nefarious global ambitions? Much has been written about his “war against the West” and desire for a different “world order.” However, Moscow is not alone in its dissatisfaction with the West, which created a “rules-based order” designed for its benefit, and which it violates whenever convenient. The Global South’s skepticism toward U.S./European policy was well-earned. Moreover, until the allies’ proxy war against Russia, the latter cooperated with the U.S. on nonproliferation against Iran and North Korea. Putin offered assistance in the Bush administration’s campaign against terrorism and provided logistical support against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Russia has long valued good relations with China, but nothing like today’s “partnership without limits.”
After three years of war, Putin’s consistent policy remains: to avoid a clash with NATO. Allied officials lied to Ukrainians as well as Russians, promising membership that they never intended to offer. In moments of weakness, they sometimes admit the truth. For instance, in 2023 then-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said of Putin, “He went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite.” The entry of Finland and Sweden, added Stoltenberg, “demonstrates that when President Putin invaded a European country to prevent more NATO, he’s getting the exact opposite.”
Again, Putin’s behavior backs this assessment. If Putin wanted an easy conquest and cared nothing of NATO members, he could have targeted the largely indefensible Baltic states in NATO, which brought a potentially hostile alliance just a few score miles away from St. Petersburg. However, Putin never took advantage of their vulnerable position, even as they upped their hostile rhetoric and military outlays. Finally, he waited years with Ukraine, acting only after the allies seemed intent to bring NATO into Ukraine via weapons shipments, military exercises, and allied training. So now Putin supposedly plans a frontal assault against the alliance he went to war to avoid?
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine was, to paraphrase the French statesman Talleyrand, worse than a crime. It was a blunder. Even victory, whatever that means, will leave Moscow worse off. However, U.S. and European officials share blame for the conflict.
To Trump’s credit, he wants to end hostilities. If Kiev is determined to fight on, he should simply conclude America’s involvement. That certainly means no security guarantees to Kiev, or to European governments for aiding Ukraine. Ending the war is essential for the continent. Staying out of the war is even more important for America.
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