NATO, Russia and Ukraine, which way forward?
This week, Heads of member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) are meeting in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania for its 2023 summit. The summit is being held in the context of an ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s war in Ukraine will top the agenda when U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts hold a summit in Lithuania’s capital over two days.
Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands dead, displaced millions and sown economic turmoil across the world.
NATO is an organisation of countries that have agreed to provide military support to each other. It includes many European countries as well as the U.S. and Canada.
At the Vilnius Summit, NATO leaders will address a wide variety of issues facing the Alliance and ensure that NATO remains ready to respond to any challenge.
NATO summits are not regular meetings like the more frequent NATO ministerial meetings, but rather are important junctures in the alliance’s decision-making process on the highest level. Summits are often used to introduce new policy, invite new members into the alliance, launch major new initiatives, and build partnerships with non-NATO countries.
From the founding of NATO in 1949, there have been a total of 31 NATO summits; the last of which was the Brussels summit held in June 2021. Only the traditional summits have received an official number, thereby excluding the exceptional summits of 2001 in NATO headquarters and of March 2022 in Brussels.
Ukraine has expressed the desire to be formally invited to NATO at the Vilnius summit. In his January 2023 address to the Lithuanian Parliament, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the summit as fateful.
By July 8, 2023, there were 24-member state that declared their support for Ukraine’s NATO membership. Before the summit, on July 4, 2023, the former President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite has criticized the Western leaders who failed to prevent the Russian aggression and said that the refusal to invite Ukraine to NATO would be a mistake.
The group of nations faces perhaps the most complex and unpredictable security environment since the Cold War. The war has caused death on a level not seen in Europe since World War Two.
From February 2022 when the war started to May 2023 this year about 8,895 civilians have been recorded as killed and 15,117 injured, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, which said it believed the actual figures were considerably higher.
The meeting in Vilnius will therefore be an opportunity for Allied Heads of State and Government to agree further steps to strengthen our deterrence and defence and review significant increases in defence spending, as well as to continue our support for Ukraine.
In an era of increasing strategic competition, the transatlantic bond between Europe and North America in NATO continues to be essential to the security of our one billion citizens.
Security analysts have the opinion that Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine poses the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades, shattering peace in Europe and reinforcing the need for NATO to ensure that its deterrence and defence posture remains credible and effective.
In response, NATO has activated its defence plans, deployed elements of the NATO Response Force and significantly increased the number of forces on its eastern flank for instance, NATO Leaders have agreed to deploy four battalions in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, in addition to the four already present in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
It has now been established that Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea will attend the summit to strengthen their ties with NATO due to increasing tensions with China and Russia.
Indications are that a representative of the Dignitary Protection Service of Lithuania, 40 heads of state and up to 150 other high-ranking officials will attend the summit and will require personal protection. To this end authorities are not taking any chances in respect of security of participants and the people of Lithuania.
To ensure their safety and security, Lithuania committed around 1,500 police officers, including the anti-terrorist unit and the Criminal Police Bureau, as well as over 3,000 troops of the Lithuanian Armed Forces. Additionally, police officers from Latvia and Poland will aid security and around 1,000 troops from NATO states will join too.
As the world political and economic powers meet they are expected to focus on ensuring that Ukraine has support as long as the conflict continues, how to bring the country even closer to NATO without actually joining, and security guarantees Kyiv might need to ensure that Russia doesn’t invade again after the war end for peace to them and the rest of the world is crucial now than ever.
NATO leaders are meeting to address the most pressing challenges for the Alliance, further strengthen NATO’s deterrence and defence and bring Ukraine closer to the Alliance.
American President Joe Biden has stated that he has spoken to his Ukraine counterpart President Zelensky at length about the urgent need for US and allies to continue supporting Ukraine. He told CNN that he told the Ukrainian president that the US would keep ding security and weaponry for Ukraine like it does for Israel while the process plays out.
For President Biden, Ukraine is not yet ready for NATO membership, saying that Russia’s war in Ukraine needs to end before the alliance can consider adding Kyiv to its ranks.
NATO is a defensive alliance whose members are committed to safeguarding the freedom and security of all allies, against all threats, from all directions. Deterrence and defence is one of NATO’s core tasks.
The Alliance therefore deters aggression by maintaining a credible deterrence and defence posture based on an appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional and missile defence capabilities, complemented by space and cyber capabilities. Allies are significantly strengthening the deterrence and defence of the Alliance as the backbone to their Article 5 commitment to defend each other.
Ukraine membership into NATO has been a major issue, President Joe Biden and alliance leaders entered the first day of the high-stakes NATO Summit last Tuesday with a reinvigorated sense of unity.
President Joe Biden was blunt this month about Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO. His stance of making it difficult for Ukraine to be accepted into the alliance premised on democratic credentials of Ukraine which falls short of the standards of NATO.
As the conflict in Ukraine continues to unfold, it becomes clear that it will have profound consequences for the stability of Europe, the future of NATO, perceptions of American power around the world, the health and success of democracy around the world, and how the United States navigates burgeoning strategic competition with Russia and China.
The Ukrainian response to the 2022 Russian invasion has inspired a new appreciation for their country both within and beyond Ukraine but that would not in any way convince some of the NATO leaders to give her automatic membership.
Political analysts suggests that for decades, Ukraine did not set itself the objective of joining NATO. When Presidents Kravchuk and Kuchma were in office, the concept of “multi-vectors” was backed up by security guarantees for the Budapest Memorandum 1994, which included assurances from Russia. However, the conflicts that Russia has provoked in Transnistria, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia have progressively demonstrated that Ukraine has to join the defensive alliance in order to avoid being left alone in the face of Russia.
NATO allies have taken major steps to strengthen deterrence and defence, with the adoption of three new regional defence plans to counter the two main threats the organisation faces namely Russia and terrorism. The plans, according to Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will be supported by 300,000 troops on higher readiness, including substantial air and naval combat power.
This obviously sends a clear signal to the world that “NATO stands united, and Russia’s aggression will not pay.” Above all Ukraine has been brought a bit closer to NATO.
NATO is an organisation of countries that have agreed to provide military support to each other. It includes many European countries as well as the U.S. and Canada.