If a divided Germany could join NATO, why not Ukraine?

Though peace seems distant, the United States and Europe are discussing how to ensure Ukraine’s security once the fighting with Russia has ceased, even without a complete victory for both sides.

West Germany can supply a modela precedent for admitting a divided country into NATO.

Despite its division and unfortunate frontier role between nuclear-armed rivals during the Cold War, West Germany became a member of NATO. in 1955, benefiting from the protection of the alliance, without ever giving up its commitment to unification, finally realized in 1989.

For Ukraine, a lot will depend on what shape the battlefield takes after its next counteroffensive and whether the outcome leads to some sort of extended ceasefire, relatively stable border lines, or even peace talks.

As NATO’s annual summit in July approaches, its members are debating what they can offer to the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskywho wants more concrete guarantees that his country will join the alliance.

The West German model is gaining traction in some European capitals as a way to provide Ukraine with real security, even if it doesn’t immediately reconquer all of its territory.

Germany is an example of how NATO accepts a country with “significant unresolved territorial issues” and an enemy form of occupation, said Angela E. Stent, an expert on Russia and Germany and author of “Putin’s world“. (Putin’s world)

“When West Germany joined NATO, there was what you might call a monumental conflict freeze,” he said.

“And yet it was considered very important to anchor West Germany in the Western alliance, so West Germany joined. The Russians complained about it and said it was very dangerous, but they couldn’t help it.”

History

after himto World War IIthere, various options were considered on what to do with the occupied and divided Germany, similar to what is happening now with Ukraine.

Soviet leaders spoke of a united but neutral Germany, modeled on Austria.

Though tempted, the Western powers resisted. And indeed, Ukraine itself initially proposed neutrality soon after the February 2022 Russian invasion.

Conrad Adenauerthe first chancellor of West Germany, he preferred security to territory, and the Germans supported him, re-electing him until his resignation in 1963.

“Adenauer decided it was more important to have a strong defense agreement with the West and brought West Germany into NATO,” says François Heisbourg, a French defense expert.

“It was a courageous decision, as it meant unity was not going to be easy.”

Ukraine is obviously a different case.

When West Germany joined NATO, it was not at war with East Germany and both entities had been recognized as individual states in 1949, said ME Sarotte, author of a diplomatic history, “Not An Inch,” of the NATO enlargement. answers.

Although West Germany’s constitution supported the goal of unification, “the reality on the ground was that what had previously been occupation zones that emerged from World War II had hardened into state divisions,” Sarotte said.

“Although no one was happy about it, there was a clear and hard border, which provided a clarity that doesn’t exist in Ukraine.”

Not yet.

But as Charles Kupchan and Richard Haass suggest in a recent essay in Foreign AffairsFew expect the impending Ukrainian counter-offensive to completely drive the Russians out of sovereign Ukraine, including Crimea.

If battle lines harden, they suggest, the United States should press ahead with peace talks, even though neither Ukraine nor Russia appear willing.

It will not be easy.

Ukraine fears a ceasefire would strengthen Russian control over a significant part of Ukraine; Russia appears to believe it can survive Western support for Ukraine.

Neither side is now open to negotiations and Zelensky insists in his peace plan that Russian troops withdraw from all Ukrainian territory first.

But as the battle for Bakhmut, the city Russia claims it has captured after nearly a year of fighting, suggests, even modest changes to the frontline come at a huge cost in lives and material.

Few in the West want endless war, fearing a decline in popular support for unlimited funding and shortages in production of the tanks, air defenses and munitions Ukraine needs.

There have been various proposals to make Ukraine an indigestible hedgehog for Russia, so crammed with sophisticated Western weaponry that, even if it were not a member of NATO, it might discourage Moscow.

This is the core of a proposed idea first by a former NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and a senior adviser to Zelensky, Andriy Yermak.

Rasmussen’s idea, now favored by many in NATO, suggests that we do so Israel as a modelwhere Washington’s commitment to its permanent security is clear even without a specific mutual defense treaty.

But the problems are clear: Israel has nuclear weapons, while Ukraine doesn’t.

And even NATO members’ bilateral defense commitments to Ukraine could end up dragging the entire alliance into a future Russia-Ukraine war.

This is why many officials and analysts believe, as Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in a recent interview, that the only real security for Ukraine is NATO membership, “when conditions permit”.

At the Alliance summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July, Kallas said NATO must set a more concrete roadmap for Ukraine’s accession, thus reaffirming a promise first made in 2008 .

“The only guarantee of security for Ukraine is NATO membership,” he said, citing the protection NATO membership provides to his tiny country.

“There is no war here because we are members of NATO,” he said.

Another benefit, he said, is that having Ukraine in NATO would be “cheaper, much cheaper” than turning it into a militarized hedgehog for the next 50 years.

The counter-argument, widely circulated in Washington and Western Europe, is that NATO cannot accept a country at war over disputed territory and that such a move could push Russia into a situation of major climbingeven with nuclear weapons, before Ukraine could join the alliance.

But so far, Russian threats of escalation have proven hollow.

For now, ahead of the summit, NATO countries are preparing a medium-term plan for pragmatic military aid to Ukraine, including guaranteed arms supplies and further integration into the NATO world. But Zelensky wants a political promise he can take home.

In any case, if the war does not ultimately result in a full-scale Russian withdrawal and defeat, what might convince Zelensky and the Ukrainians – and what would give peace talks more strength – would be NATO entry. , behind established ceasefire lines, perhaps patrolled, as Heisbourg suggests, by a coalition of peacekeepers from NATO and other countries, such as India or even China.

This would be accompanied by a promise, as in Germany, that full reunification of Ukraine would remain a pending issue in the future.

NATO membership would consolidate the peace and allow for reconstruction, private investment and the return of many refugees.

If only there was a ceasefire, he said. Stent. “There is no real solution to this war, we don’t know when it will start again”.

“But the whole point of bringing Ukraine into NATO would be to make sure Russia doesn’t attack Ukraine again,” he said, “because what we’ve seen in this war is that NATO is the only form of deterrence that it’s worked so far against Russia.”

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