Ukraine in NATO?

Vincent J. Curtis

11 July 23

Ukraine in NATO?  What a dumb idea!

The latest, greatest, and dumbest idea for NATO expansion is to admit Ukraine into the alliance.  Never mind that Article 5 of the NATO pact - that an attack on one is an attack on all - would place the NATO powers, including Canada, at war with Russia.  What could go wrong?

Look at Ukraine’s pre-2014 frontiers.  The Russian city just across the eastern border is Rostov-on-Don, where the Don River empties into the Sea of Azov.  In 1941, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt drove Army Group South in Operation Barbarossa over 800 miles through modern Ukraine; and in mid-November, 1941, captured Rostov-on-Don.  Rundstedt assessed that his army lacked the strength to hold the city against Russian counterattacks, and ordered his army to withdraw to an excellent defensive position on the west bank of the Mius River, about 45 miles to the west, in Ukraine.

Hitler went nuts over Rundstedt’s withdrawal, sacked him, and replaced him with Walter von Reichenau who, agreeing with Rundstedt, persuaded Hitler to complete the withdrawal.  The next year, 1942, the main German offensive began from Army Group South’s winter position, and German armies advanced eastward to Stalingrad and southward into the Caucasus, the capture of the oilfields of which was the aim of the offensive.

Ukraine in NATO would enable the placement of German, American, and other forces at the starting position of Germany’s 1942 offensive.

Napoleon began his advance on Moscow in 1812 when he crossed the Niemen River, which runs near the modern Polish-Belarusian border.  Napoleon advanced 600 miles, roughly, to occupy Moscow.  Army Group Center, in 1941, advanced 750 miles from occupied Poland, and reached the outskirts of Moscow in one campaign.  It’s about 400 miles from Kharkov to Moscow.

Lenin sighed at the losses of territory in Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic States in the short-lived Treat of Brest-Litovsk.

Ukraine in NATO would give German, French, and American armies jumping off points that Russia has only seen deep in a war.  That Russia is unconquerable on account of space suddenly may not be true when the space between the enemy’s starting points and Russia’s vital political and economic centers are dramatically shortened.

It may be hard for us to understand, but Russian political leadership is suspicious of America’s good intentions; and having a senile, grinning sock-puppet as president does not inspire Russian confidence in American motives, or actions.  Imagine Russian President Vladimir Putin as a Russian patriot, and he’s confronted with the prospect of what, for hundreds of years, was Russian territory absconding to the empire of Western Europe.

In Barack Obama, Putin detected weakness, and immediately after the 2014 Sochi Olympics, he seized the Crimea, with its vital port and fortress of Sevastopol, from Ukraine.  America accommodated itself.  The prospect of Ukraine joining the EU or NATO began to percolate, until Donald Trump became president.

Trump offered American friendship to Putin, and raised Putin’s personal prestige.  Howling at the uselessness of NATO, Trump forced NATO countries to spend $100 billion more on defense.  Trump howled about the corruption of Ukraine - how it interfered against him in the 2016 election, and how Ukrainian interests paid off the Biden family.  But, Trump also gave Ukraine lethal aid in the form of Javelin missiles, which Obama never did.  Trump showed a dexterity in foreign policy not seen since the days of Nixon and Kissinger, embarrassing and offending the Washington foreign policy establishment.  Nothing happened while Trump was president.  Putin saw strength, was outmaneuvered, but Trump kept Ukraine out of NATO.

In Joe Biden, the weakness is palpable.  Facing the real prospect of Ukraine entering the embrace of the EU and NATO, Putin struck.  The Russian military let him down, and he was unable to install a puppet regime in Kiev; but he does possess a land bridge from Rostov to the Crimea, as well as the mineral rich Donbas region.

A status quo armistice would suit his purposes for now.

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