Josh Rogin: This entire issue [of NATO membership] is a red herring — a distraction, and a silly one at that. We knew that the United States was always going to oppose real signs of speeding Ukraine’s membership and that they were just going to come up with some nonsense language that everyone was going to be equally unhappy with. All of the resulting controversy seems to be completely unnecessary.
Zelensky made a mistake. He built this into a big issue by being so public about his criticism, when he should have known that this is how it was going to turn out.
And for the Biden administration, all the focus on this is a useful distraction from what are the real problems with its Ukraine policy. Which is the issue of military support for Ukraine that Max mentioned: the Ukrainians are not getting as much as they need, not as much as they want, not as much as they’re calling for. And the United States is trailing behind European partners, including some NATO partners, on some key things.
We spent three days talking about the language of the NATO communique. I couldn’t think of something less consequential to the result of the counteroffensive — and the most important goal: winning the war.
