Maine independent U.S. Sen. Angus King says NATO struck the right tone this week when it announced that Ukraine would be invited to join the military alliance while not outlining a timeline or specific conditions. He believes Ukraine must first repel Russia's invasion before NATO can fold in the former Soviet republic.
King attended the annual NATO summit in Lithuania this week as a member of a bipartisan delegation from the U.S. Senate. He has been a strong supporter of sending Ukraine aid and weapons ever since Russia invaded the country in February of last year and he believes President Vladimir Putin made a strategic blunder in doing so.
But King also says it would be a mistake to fast-track Ukraine's aspiring NATO membership.
While the 31-nation alliance in April accepted Finland as a member, and this week announced that Sweden would also join, a NATO communique from the summit contained a vague path for Ukraine — a statement that irritated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
But King says NATO got it right. For one, he says, Ukraine can't join NATO now because its inherent security guarantees with members would risk a multination conflict with Russia.
And he says a definitive timeline might also encourage Putin.
"That can be an incentive — a kind of perverse incentive — to Vladimir Putin to prolong the war because he's paranoid about NATO," King said during a press conference with Maine reporters Wednesday. "Even though NATO is a defensive alliance, he's convinced that the real role of NATO is to attack Russia and unseat his administration. That's not true, but … that's the way he thinks."
Some U.S. national security analysts, including members of the international affairs think tank the Atlantic Council, have criticized NATO's statement about Ukraine as uninspiring and barely distinguishable from the alliance's remarks about Ukraine's prospective membership during the 2008 summit in Bucharest.
Such analysts believe a stronger statement and membership timeline might deter Putin from prolonging the war.
But King says the focus should be on helping Ukraine win the war first.
"To me, the focus for Ukraine should be … is the West and NATO going to continue to support our fight? And the answer to that is a resounding yes," he said.
King was referring to a commitment from U.S. allies made during the summit to provide military aid, financial support and intelligence sharing as long as the war drags on.
While that's not the same security guarantee that comes with NATO membership, King says it's necessary to ensure that the conflict doesn't expand to involve other nations.
