Commentary: The unanimity required to go forward with Ukraine’s NATO membership isn’t there. And it’s unlikely to be there anytime soon.
that enlarging NATO’s defense umbrella to Ukrainian territory wasn’t the priority.
Yet other members, France and Germany being the most significant, weren’t at all convinced about Bush’s sales pitch. The French were adamant that the balance of power in Europe would suffer if NATO permitted Ukraine to join, which after all would mean French forces now possibly being on the hook for defending Ukraine in the event of hostilities with Russia.
Bush couldn’t overcome the objections, so NATO settled on a compromise solution: Promise that Ukraine will become a NATO member at some point. The compromise,, was designed to kill two birds with one stone — assure Kyiv while acknowledging that the alliance was not prepared at that time to extend a security guarantee to Ukraine.
its original 2008 decision: Ukraine will become a member, eventually. Just don’t ask NATO officials when it will happen because it’s an open-ended issue that never gets wrapped up.NATO calls itself a friend of Ukraine. But being a friend also means not engaging in a geopolitical form of deceit by repeatedly insisting to a nation at war that membership — and all of the defense commitments attached to it — is still technically on the table.