WHEN Nato leaders meet in Vilnius, Lithuania, on Tuesday, they will be confronted with an uncomfortable question: how far should the transatlantic alliance go in extending membership to Ukraine? Certainly, the Ukrainians, led by their President Volodymyr Zelensky, are lobbying Nato members intensely in order to secure the coveted membership to the club. Yet many powerful members of the Western camp, while issuing statements about ‘unity’ and ‘solidarity’ with Ukraine, know that accepting Kyiv into the alliance would mean a direct war with Russia — a conflagration that would be far more devastating than the current conflict, and would likely lead to war in much of Europe. Officially, the Western states say that Ukrainian membership can only be considered once the war with Russia is over. But deep down they know that letting Kyiv into the club now or later would mean crossing swords with a nuclear-armed Moscow one day, as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty speaks of collective defence: were Ukraine to become a Nato member and hostilities with Russia continued, other Nato states would be obliged to come to Kyiv’s defence directly. That is not an attractive thought for most Western capitals.

For sure, the Western bloc is playing a cunning game in Ukraine. The Nato states are taking advantage of Russia’s ill-advised invasion of its western neighbour to wear down Moscow. For example, the US has just allowed the delivery of cluster munitions to Kyiv, even though many within the American administration acknowledge that these weapons “create a risk of civilian harm”. Germany has opposed the decision, as has the UN secretary general. The cluster bombs are the latest in a series of sophisticated Western weapons that have reached the Ukrainian battlefield to supposedly teach Russia a ‘lesson’. While these weapons deliveries do raise the chances of a direct clash between the West and Russia, a formal invitation to Ukraine to join Nato would be a considerable escalation. Therefore, it would be highly inadvisable for the military bloc to issue the invitation to Kyiv in Vilnius. The fact is that the growing threat of Nato and its arsenal near Russia’s borders was a major trigger for Vladimir Putin’s invasion. Extending an invitation to Ukraine would only deepen the crisis, and threaten the security of Europe and the wider region.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2023