Since its formation in 1949, with 12 member states uniting as a bulwark against the Soviet Union, NATO has grown to include 32 nations, most recently with the addition of Sweden and Finland. And it seems likely to grow further still.
Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea – all heavily dependent on the US for security – have become de facto NATO members sending high-level delegations to Washington this week, including Defence Minister Richard Marles.
The three-day summit will be replete with self-congratulation and platitudes about how NATO underpins world peace and democracy. But it’s worth asking whether too much of a good thing is possible, especially in relation to Ukraine.
Consider this modest proposal: putting Taiwan on the path to NATO membership. All the same arguments in favour of Ukrainian membership apply in much the same way to Taiwan.
True, Taiwan is not in the North Atlantic, but neither is Ukraine. Both countries are democracies. Both populations would likely be in favour of a formal Western security guarantee. After all, why should Beijing be allowed to dictate the foreign affairs of neighbouring countries?
‘Spheres of influence’ is 19th century thinking, so the argument goes. Similarly, previous historical relations between China and Taiwan should not matter a jot, either.
Admitting Taiwan into NATO surely would make Beijing think twice before acting on its long-stated desire to draw the former back into its orbit.
Of course, we can’t know for certain how China would respond to such a prospect, much less the likelihood of US forces being permanently stationed on the island.
But who cares what Beijing thinks anyway? We know NATO is a peaceful alliance and means no harm. Only someone on President Xi Jinping’s payroll or a Chinese Communist Party apologist could possibly argue against putting Taiwan on track to join. After all, we’re the goodies.
If doesn’t make sense to offer Taiwan a path to NATO membership, then how does it make sense to do the same for Ukraine?
In September last year, outgoing NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said Vladimir Putin had presented a draft treaty to NATO before the war that demanded Ukraine be refused entry. “That was a precondition for not (invading) Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that,” Stoltenberg told reporters.
The treaty between Russia and Ukraine was almost agreed to in Istanbul, which the US and Britain helped torpedo. The discussions, according to The New York Times, revolved almost entirely around keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Putin continues to insist a neutral Ukraine is a precondition of any peace.
The popular counterargument, which has emerged only in the past year or so, is that the Kremlin is lying and actually wants to take over Europe — an extraordinary conspiracy theory given there is zero evidence or even logic behind it. Insisting Ukraine be included in NATO would not only be a disaster for Ukraine but ultimately could undermine NATO itself.
Justin Logan, an international relations expert at Washington think tank the Cato Institute, pointed out last year that alliance commitments have been honoured only 22 per cent of the time since World War II.
“A treaty commitment to Ukraine would be especially dubious because the US has revealed that it does not believe Ukraine is worth fighting over. Russia has revealed that it does,” he writes. Would the US and its allies be willing to conscript their citizens in a bid to force Russia to accept NATO troops permanently in Ukraine?
Even pre-eminent neo-conservative scholar Robert Kagan, a longstanding proponent of an aggressive US foreign policy, in early 2023 at the Brookings Institution said the idea that a neutral Ukraine could undermine US security was “kind of ludicrous”.
“There is no way that Putin’s conquest of Ukraine (would have) any immediate or even distant effect on American security,” he said.
NATO is already so large it’s unclear whether all the nations would honour the article five commitment to rush to each other’s defence in the case of attack. Would Turkey, for instance, easily one of the most geopolitically influential members of NATO, really go to war with Russia over Ukraine?
Once one nation refuses to fight, the credibility of the alliance – which to be sure looks very powerful on paper – collapses.
Any decent economist unfamiliar with foreign policy could easily have predicted NATO expansion: the smaller joining nations save a fortune on military expenditure while increasing their security under the US nuclear umbrella.
In return, the US gains more power and influence with the new members, including the opportunity to station troops and build bases, as any powerful empire quite understandably wants to do.
But all this was dependent on rising US living standards, which have ground to a halt for the large, poorer segment of the US population for the best part of a decade.
However much NATO bolsters the power and influence of the Washington elite, ordinary Americans appear to be tiring of paying for the defence of other nations. The vast military expense necessarily means the US can’t afford the public spending voters in other Western nations take for granted – a political phenomenon Donald Trump has only too readily tapped into.
Bringing Ukraine into NATO might not only cause further damage to Ukraine but unravel the alliance itself.
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