Opinion | What NATO should do now to help protect Ukraine in the long-term

Ukraine’s answer is direct, and also unrealistic for now — it wants the gold-plated security guarantee of full membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which commits its 31 states, including the United States, to the defense of any member that comes under attack. In fact, Ukraine was promised eventual admission to the NATO club in 2008, at the urging of the George W. Bush administration.

That pledge has been reiterated often, including by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a visit to Kyiv last month; some alliance nations, especially in Eastern Europe, are pressing hard for NATO to take concrete steps toward fulfilling it at the alliance’s annual summit, in July. Yet for now the promise exists in a state of suspended animation, and several key members, including the United States, are blocking steps toward a timetable or benchmarks that would provide a definite path to membership.

Their logic is sound as long as the war rages. Extending NATO’s collective security guarantee to Ukraine while Moscow continues to occupy swaths of its territory — including Crimea, which Mr. Putin illegally annexed in 2014 — could trigger a war between the alliance and Russia, which has the world’s biggest nuclear arsenal.

Yet officials in Washington and European capitals also fully grasp that Mr. Putin launched his war largely to prevent Ukraine from moving further into the West’s ambit, meaning not just NATO but also membership in the European Union, for which Kyiv was made a formal candidate last year. They are rightly loath to reward the Russian dictator’s aggression by retreating from the promise of Ukraine’s full membership in NATO.

Now, ahead of NATO’s annual summit, officials at the alliance’s massive headquarters in Brussels are engaged in thorny negotiations. The goal should be to devise measures to tighten Kyiv’s bonds with the alliance, and to chart a long-term plan to thwart reruns of Russia’s invasion.

Short of full membership, there is plenty NATO and its member states can do to draw Ukraine closer and start preparing its postwar defense. Some officials, including in Washington, advocate what diplomats call a “porcupine strategy,” by which the bloc or member states would formulate long-term plans to arm Ukraine so heavily that future Russian attacks would be unlikely. A similar approach to Israel’s security, mainly by the United States, has helped keep the Jewish state’s enemies at bay for the past 50 years.

That would be an expensive project, though probably less pricey than helping Ukraine repel repeated Russian invasions. It could be an effective blueprint if adopted in conjunction with further moves to deepen ties between Ukraine and the alliance.

Ukraine has a mission staffed with diplomats at NATO; has provided support for NATO operations in Afghanistan and Bosnia; and, especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion, makes frequent presentations to the alliance. Since 2020, Kyiv has also had special access to NATO exercises and training — a status similar to Finland’s before it joined the bloc last month.

The alliance should now improve coordination and support, including by doubling a NATO fund for Kyiv that provides about $275 million annually in nonlethal military aid — a move under consideration — and by formalizing more regular consultations. There are also sensible proposals to improve interoperability of Ukraine’s own weapons stocks and NATO’s, many of which Kyiv is already using against the Russian invaders. The Ukrainian government’s defense procurement policies can also be aligned with NATO’s.

Admittedly, those are mainly incremental steps that will be unsatisfying to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and many of his countrymen. Ukrainians and international officials are correct that the country’s postwar reconstruction — potentially a $1 trillion project — is unlikely to succeed without credible Western security guarantees. What U.S. or European firm would risk sinking millions in a new manufacturing facility that might be the target of a future Russian missile strike?

Yet with Russian troops occupying 17 percent of Ukrainian territory, it is premature to lay out detailed plans for Kyiv’s accession to NATO. Full membership would likely mean maintaining several thousand combat-ready NATO soldiers in Ukraine. That would be in addition to roughly 40,000 soldiers deployed elsewhere along the alliance’s eastern flank as well as Ukraine’s own troops, plus additional forces under member states’ command that could be quickly mobilized.

Preparing Ukraine for eventual NATO membership could be the right strategy after the war — especially if it ends with Russian troops driven out of Ukraine. To the United States and some of its European allies, the more pressing task now is to equip Ukrainian forces so they can retake as much Russian-occupied land as possible, in hopes of enhancing Kyiv’s muscle in eventual peace negotiations.

That’s a sensible ordering of priorities. It need not preclude concrete steps now to draw Ukraine more closely into the West’s security embrace. Without real deterrence, a future of repeated Russian invasions looks all too likely.