{"id":1471784,"date":"2024-06-18T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1471784"},"modified":"2024-06-18T06:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T10:00:00","slug":"the-us-security-pact-with-ukraine-is-a-consolation-for-not-approving-its-nato-membership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/the-us-security-pact-with-ukraine-is-a-consolation-for-not-approving-its-nato-membership\/1471784\/","title":{"rendered":"The US’ Security Pact With Ukraine Is A Consolation For Not Approving Its NATO Membership"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US’ Security Pact With Ukraine Is A Consolation For Not Approving Its NATO Membership<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Zelensky celebrated his country\u2019s new security pact with the US on Thursday as \u201cbring[ing] our relations to the level of a true alliance<\/a>\u201d, but the reality is that it\u2019s just a consolation for the US not approving Ukraine\u2019s NATO membership, which would give it much more meaningful mutual defense commitments. The full text can be read\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0while the fact sheet can be read\u00a0here<\/a>, and upon doing so, the reader will learn that the US is simply formalizing the support that it\u2019s been giving\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0since February 2022.<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no obligation for the US to dispatch troops to Ukraine if it enters into another round of hostilities with Russia sometime after the ongoing one finally ends. To be sure, NATO\u2019s Article 5 doesn\u2019t obligate the same either, but the US would be under much more pressure to directly aid Ukraine if it were an official military ally, which is why Russia was always so strongly opposed to that country\u2019s membership. <\/strong>The latest pact therefore just maintains Ukraine\u2019s role as NATO\u2019s anti-Russian proxy.<\/p>\n

As was observed in mid-January after Ukraine reached its first such agreement with the UK, \u201cUkraine\u2019s Hoped-For \u2018Security Guarantees\u2019 Aren\u2019t All That They Were Hyped Up To Be<\/a>\u201d. The precedent established by that pact set the stage for all those that followed, including this latest one with the US. The bombshell that Biden dropped in early June about how peace in Ukraine \u201cdoesn\u2019t mean NATO, they are part of NATO<\/a>\u201d, leaves no doubt that the US prefers keeping that country outside of the bloc.<\/p>\n

From the American perspective<\/a>, Ukraine has much more strategic utility functioning as NATO\u2019s anti-Russian proxy than as an official military ally which the US would then feel pressured to directly support in the event of another conflict with Russia due to the public\u2019s interpretation of Article 5\u2019s commitments.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In other words, NATO\u2019s\u00a0proxy<\/a>\u00a0war<\/a>\u00a0on Russia through Ukraine would end if that country joined the bloc, but from Russia\u2019s perspective, Kiev could unilaterally resume it in order to provoke a serious crisis.<\/p>\n

Neither the US nor Russia wants Ukraine in NATO, each for different reasons, yet the US wants to continue militarizing Ukraine so that it can keep waging NATO\u2019s proxy war on Russia while Russia wants to demilitarize Ukraine in order to end Ukrainian-emanating NATO proxy threats to its security. <\/strong>It\u2019s the natural friction between these two\u2019s goals that\u2019s driving the ongoing conflict, which is expected to drag on since they\u2019re unable to achieve their maximum objectives but also don\u2019t want to curtail them either.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

NATO can\u2019t strategically defeat Russia through Ukraine due to its loss in the \u201crace of logistics<\/a>\u201d\/\u201cwar of attrition<\/a>\u201d, which now sees Russia\u00a0producing<\/a>\u00a0three times as many shells at one-quarter of the cost, so it can only settle for perpetuating the proxy war until Russia achieves a breakthrough. As for Russia, it can\u2019t fully demilitarize Ukraine since NATO could\u00a0conventionally<\/a>\u00a0intervene<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0asymmetrically partition<\/a>\u00a0the country if a breakthrough occurs, thus keeping part of Ukraine militarized under NATO\u2019s umbrella.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, the aforementioned scenario could lay the basis for a ceasefire agreement if NATO forces remain west of the Dnieper while Ukraine withdraws its heavy weaponry over the river to demilitarize the eastern bank that politically remains under Kiev\u2019s control. Russia might consider the\u00a0massive buffer zone<\/a>\u00a0which would be created in the latter\u2019s wake to be an acceptable compromise on its maximalist objective of demilitarizing all of Ukraine so long as NATO tacitly recognizes its new borders.<\/p>\n

Although NATO is loath to take responsibility for any part of Ukraine due to the US wanting to avoid creating the fait accompli of that country\u2019s membership in the bloc, it might settle for this \u201csphere of influence\u201d on those terms after all that it\u2019s invested thus far than risk losing it. The US\u2019 newly clinched security deal with Ukraine also increases the odds of this happening since there\u2019s now more pressure than ever on the US to prevent Russia from inflicting a strategic defeat on NATO through Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s de facto membership in NATO, which would occur if part of the country came under its control in the asymmetrical partition scenario that was described, would still pose the same strategic dilemma that the US and Russia both wanted to avert by keeping it outside of the bloc for different reasons. It would therefore be incumbent on the US to force its proxy to withdraw its heavy weaponry deeper inside Western Ukraine in order to reduce the chances of it unilaterally striking Russia to provoke a crisis.<\/p>\n

Returning to each side\u2019s perspective that was earlier touched upon, the US\u2019 compromise would be to abruptly halt its proxy war and tacitly recognize Russia\u2019s new borders, while Russia\u2019s would be to accept that part of Ukraine will remain militarized but only in exchange for a massive buffer zone. While this trade-off is rational and pragmatic, it can\u2019t be taken for granted that their policymakers have the political will to pursue it, let alone that they\u2019re even aware of this proposal to begin with.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the danger that\u00a0World War III could break out by miscalculation<\/a>\u00a0during the brief partition phase of this scenario if it\u2019s carried out ad hoc between NATO, Russia, and Ukraine<\/strong>. That\u2019s why it\u2019s imperative for a truly neutral third party like India to help coordinate the first\u2019s intervention up to the Dnieper, the second\u2019s restraint in not maximally exploiting the breakthrough that could trigger the aforesaid, and the third\u2019s withdrawal of heavy weaponry over the river in that event.<\/p>\n

Best-case scenarios rarely transpire so it would likely be that the sequence of events mentioned above would largely play out ad hoc, though with a select group of countries individually working to convey each side\u2019s red lines to the other in order to help control mutual escalations. If NATO crosses the Dnieper or Russia exploits its breakthrough to once again march on Kiev or even\u00a0Odessa<\/a>, then their counterpart might escalate in self-defense (falsely perceived in NATO\u2019s case) and thus provoke a serious crisis.<\/p>\n

It’s only if NATO-Russian tensions remain manageable in the breakthrough-intervention scenario that the Ukrainian part could come into play with the bloc then ordering Kiev to withdraw its heavy weaponry over the river in order to complete the country\u2019s asymmetrical partition by creating a massive buffer zone. That said, NATO might not make such an order or Kiev could refuse, in which case Russia would likely continue advancing until NATO crosses the Dnieper or Ukraine withdraws its heavy weaponry.<\/p>\n

Circling back to the lede, while the US\u2019 security pact with Ukraine is indeed consolation for not approving its NATO membership, this deal paradoxically increases the possibility that Ukraine will become a de facto NATO member despite the US wanting to avoid that through these means. The US would be more pressured than ever to approve a conventional NATO intervention if Russia achieves a breakthrough instead of risk losing all of Ukraine, which could result in part of it coming under NATO\u2019s control.<\/p>\n

By formalizing the US\u2019 existing support for Ukraine, which is aimed at perpetuating NATO\u2019s proxy war on Russia, the US raises its reputational stakes in the conflict to the point where it couldn\u2019t accept Russia inflicting a strategic defeat on it by fully demilitarizing Ukraine.<\/strong> It\u2019s therefore more likely than ever to either directly intervene if Russia achieves a breakthrough or at least authorize its NATO allies to so, thus escalating everything towards uncertain ends that can either result in a ceasefire or World War III.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nTue, 06\/18\/2024 – 02:00<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/us-security-pact-ukraine-consolation-not-approving-its-nato-membership<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US’ Security Pact With Ukraine Is A Consolation For Not Approving Its NATO Membership Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Zelensky celebrated his country\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1471785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1471784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1471784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1471784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1471785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1471784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1471784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1471784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}