The statement of the President of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelenskythat the first objective of his Government is to recover the territories occupied by Russia has deflated the balloon of the entry of your country into NATO after the war. The statement made last Friday by the general secretary of the Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, that Ukraine has reserved a place in it, although the priority is that it win the war, has given rise to different interpretations. The debate on the possibility of the organization adding one more partner on the border with Russia has been opened once again. Something that, at the beginning of the war, more or less explicitly, gave the impression that both the Ukrainian leaders and NATO itself renounced in advance. Precisely, one of the reasons put forward by Moscow for the invasion it was kyiv’s willingness to join the Alliance, encouraged by the Western allies.
In light of NATO’s behavioral guidelines, it is impossible to think that Stoltenberg’s words were homegrown. It is more plausible to suppose that the hypothesis for the future proposed by the general secretary has its origin in the analysis of the organization’s strategists, inspired by the United States. At no time since the start of hostilities has the White House ruled out the possibility that Ukraine, assisted by NATO partners, will win the war and that, in such a case, with a weakened Russia, it will decide to join.
The truth is that nothing is possible as long as weapons impose their law: the start of negotiations, as long as they are complex, for Ukraine to enter the European Union with fixed deadlines and effective entry into NATO are unattainable objectives as long as the war. And in no case can the double possibility of joining the EU and the Alliance as if the meaning of both operations were the same. In the best possible future, Russia could digest the first, but it is unlikely that it would consent to the second..
Stoltenberg’s words are unlikely to be particularly damaging in getting the fighting to stop and the fate of the crisis to be decided at a negotiating table. Realism leads one to think that long before succumbing to defeat, Russia would escalate the war to the point of taking it to the brink of the precipice. Thusthe premise of the secretary generalthe entry after the Ukrainian victory on the battlefield, seems a theoretical and rhetorical assumption that goes beyond what is foreseeable. More closely to what is imaginable is that the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO later, something unacceptable for the Kremlin, is not invoked in a possible negotiation.
The conviction is growing that the war has acquired the profile of a crisis irresolvable by arms. The stalemate in the fighting, the calculated involvement in the war of NATO partners and the exploration made in Beijing by several European rulers about the usefulness of the 12-point plan drawn up by China lead one to think that what Stoltenberg said will not harm the prospect of a negotiated solution. An exit that, by the way, is not just around the corner and abounds in sharp edges.