Mira no encuentro el hilo ese de auto-onanización de "Aciertos de foreros" que puso el Cinta... pero lo pongo aquí.
OS LO DIJE, van a meter a Ukrania en la OTAN por las bravas y luego van a reconquistar el resto o lo van a convertir en tierra de nadie. PERO ESTO PUEDE SER FUENTE RUSKYI, pero me da a mi que es algo que se plantean tanto NATO como Rusia.
NATO does not have a unified strategy on Ukraine and may have to start thinking about a new strategy which would see only parts of the country being admitted into the alliance, Matthew Kroenig, vice-president of the Atlantic Council, told LRT.lt in an exclusive interview.
Kroenig is a professor at Georgetown University, director of the Atlantic Council's Snowcroft Centre for Strategic and Security Studies, as well as the author of dozens of books and articles on international security. LRT.lt spoke to him at the Lennart Meri Conference in Tallinn.
Taking into account the broader political processes in the West, what’s the current situation surrounding Ukraine?
My hope was that the West would give Ukraine the weapons it needed to win on the battlefield. And I think we didn't do that, we were too slow and too cautious.
We're also seeing some of the new technologies, like drones, favouring defence, so it seems unlikely that Ukraine is going to make any major moves in terms of a counteroffensive this summer. Unfortunately, Russia is starting to take back some territory. If Ukraine can hold in 2024, that would be a success and then maybe try a new counteroffensive in 2025.
But then if that doesn't work, I do think that we need to think about a strategy that would wind the conflict down, bring the western part of Ukraine into NATO, and then work diplomatically to bring the rest in later.
Do you see a lack of a coherent strategy in the West about what can be achieved in Ukraine?
Even within the United States, there's some confusion about the strategy.[US President Joe] Biden should have given a major speech saying here's why this is important to the United States and here's my strategy: Congress, the American people, give me the resources to support it. But he never really did that. Instead, you had people like Tucker Carlson fill the vacuum and inform the way a lot of Americans think about it.
Finally, after the October 7 attacks in Israel, Biden gave this speech where he kind of tied Israel and Ukraine together, but it was confusing. I don't think we've even really had a very clear statement from the White House about its strategy and what success would look like.
Why do you think there is a lack of strategy?
On one hand, there's a sense that it would be justified for Ukraine to take back all of its territory. On the other hand, I think there is this fear, a fear of Ukrainian victory. What does Russia do before it gets there, does it use nuclear weapons, for example?
Matthew Kroenig
Matthew Kroenig / E. Genys/LRT
We did see in October 2022, when Ukraine was making the greatest battlefield advances, the nuclear threats were highest and some US officials estimated that the risk of nuclear war at that time was something like 50:50.
So I think there are differences within the administration, and I'm not sure what a successful endgame for Biden would look like.
Do you imagine a very concrete goal emerging and the necessary means to achieve it?
Let me partially contradict what I just said. I think there is agreement that Ukraine should emerge from the war independent, capable of defending itself and anchored in the West. But the disagreement is over how much territory they need to take back to do that. Some think let's just wind the conflict down now on the current lines and call that a success, while others are saying, no, they need to take back everything, including Crimea.
I think there is a strategy in place that could get us to a place where, if the goal is a Ukraine independent, maybe not with all of its internationally recognised territory, but then the war winds down and we can bring it into NATO and the EU, I think many people would consider that a success.
Russia's war against Ukraine
Russia's war against Ukraine / AP
Do you imagine it would be possible to bring parts of Ukraine into NATO?
I think so. We've already said that Ukraine will join NATO one day, so there's agreement on that is the end state.
There are also historical examples, like South Korea. It was brought into an alliance with the United States, even though it was still technically at war with its neighbour, North Korea. In fact, the Scowcroft Centre at the Atlantic Council that I manage was [trying] to understand what lessons learned might apply to Ukraine.
But I do think a necessary condition is getting the current conflict to wind down. I think as long as there's this active fighting, the White House, the Germans and probably others are going to be unwilling to bring Ukraine into NATO because they would see it essentially as a declaration of war against Russia.
But if the conflict could wind down, if the Ukrainians dig in the way the Russians have with dragon's teeth and other things, maybe with better air defences, when there aren't major attacks inside Kyiv and other things, then I could see the political will to bring Ukraine into NATO.
Russia's war against Ukraine
Russia's war against Ukraine / AP
How could that process look? We see these bilateral security agreements that multiple countries have given Ukraine, do you think they're a sufficient stepping stone before Ukraine joins NATO?
I think they are useful, but ultimately for Ukraine to be secure and for that part of Europe to be stable it will either need to be in NATO or have bilateral security guarantees with the United States. With all due respect, I don't think [Vladimir] Putin is that afraid of Estonia. I think US security guarantees would make the biggest difference.
These bilateral security guarantees that are short of that are useful steps, but on their own won't be enough. In the meantime, I think we should do things that are going to help Ukraine prepare for eventual NATO membership, like more military interoperability, [...] maybe invite Ukrainian officials to participate in NATO meetings the way we did with Finland and Sweden before they joined the alliance. So essentially do everything short of article five that would get them ready for NATO.
A shortcoming of our strategy is that if we want the conflict to wind down, we've got to give Putin some incentive to stop fighting. Giving him a sanctuary in Russia right now doesn't make any sense. He's able to amass forces in Russia to attack Ukraine and the West is putting these restrictions on the weapons, If we lifted those restrictions and Putin started to feel a little bit more of the pain of the war in Russia itself, it might be one of the things that convinces him.
I don't think he's going to give up his dream of reconquering Ukraine as long as he's in power, but I think we could maybe get him to pause the war enough that it could create the space to bring Ukraine into NATO.
