An enlarged Nato does not enhance its appeal
On 8 July, Ukraine marked its 500th day of holding out against Russia, whose openly revanchist bid to keep Kyiv aligned—and Black Sea access secure—was foiled with such hardy resolve that the war-torn country’s will to embrace the West was left in little doubt. Relations between the two ex-Soviet republics had snapped chiefly over Kyiv’s interest in joining the US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), a mutual defence pact whose nuclear umbrella covers most of the rich West. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine pushed its Nordic neighbours Sweden and Finland to seek the same security.
While the latter joined in April, the former’s application got a Nato nod at its summit last week in Vilnius, Lithuania. A major item on the meeting’s agenda was Ukraine’s membership, for which, to Kyiv’s dismay, no schedule was offered. And for good reason.
So far, Nato’s backing and arming of Ukraine has stopped short of the Kremlin’s definition of a ‘direct attack’—which could trigger an armed conflict between nuclear powers. With Nato members committed to take aggression against any as an attack on all, Kyiv surely cannot expect to join the top club whilst at war. Else, the Cold War II underway could get too hot for the world’s safety.
As the world’s most potent military alliance, Nato expansion has geopolitical implications. The two Nordic countries were buffer states between Soviet and Nato forces during the Cold War (1945-1991), but their Nato sign-up will now cramp Russia’s space to project power around the Baltic and even further north, just as Arctic ice-melt has begun to ease a strategic constraint on its sea ports. Several of Moscow’s Soviet-era allies swung West after 1991, led by democratic impulses for a better life and
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