The debate over Ukraines potential admission to NATO
Charles Kupchan, Former National Security Council Official:
I'm all for helping Ukraine and doing our best to enable Ukraine to recover as much of its territory as possible, hopefully all of its territory.
But I part ways with Evelyn on the question of whether NATO should open its doors and offer membership to Ukraine at this point. President Biden and his NATO allies are helping Ukraine defend itself, but they're not going to war to defend Ukraine, in part because they have made a judgment that they're not ready to see NATO go to war with Russia, risk World War III over Ukraine.
And we need to keep in mind that, if NATO does admit Ukraine, and a single bomb were to fall on Kyiv, we would have a treaty-based obligation to go to war with Russia.
Secondly, I think that we see that this is a war that is going to go on for a long time. We don't know how to — how it will end. We need to keep open the prospect for some sort of cease-fire, perhaps an armistice, in which we might need Russia to play ball. Much harder to get them to play ball.
Two final reasons. One is, there's no consensus in NATO about admitting Ukraine. NATO's strongest suit right now is its unity. And I don't think we want to interject this debate right before the summit in July, and go into that summit with disunity.
And, finally, there's the domestic question. Sweden is on the path to NATO membership. Turkey is blocking it. It's not clear to me that, if we go down the path of wanting to admit Ukraine, that our own Senate would be ready to ratify it. Before we start moving toward NATO membership for Ukraine, we need to make sure our political ducks are in order.
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