I mean yeah, but that’ll never fly because that’s the main goal of joining NATO.
Plus a security guarantee from the west would be as useful as a promise from my wife that we’ll definitely have sex after the kids are in bed. We both know what the reality is.
Yeah, about as useful and reliable as the Budapest Memorandum.
They’re not asking all of NATO for security guarantees, just the US. I think they should look for the “coalition of the willing” to base tripwire forces in Ukraine post-war. That will make a more credible deterrent for Russia than “we promise to help you if Russia attacks”. That credibility is exactly why Russia is against European forces permanently based in Ukraine.
US: we legally guarantee you we will put troops in ukraine to defend it if Russia starts another war.
Russia next year: invades ukraine in a special military operation 2.0
US: sorry, you arent at war, it’s a special military operation. Just like how we aren’t at war with Venezuela even with 50,000 troops deployed in their borders.
It’s a trap.
Anyway, Ukraine joining NATO would benefit NATO at least as much as it would Ukraine. Ukraine would effectively become the armoury of NATO, at the cutting edge of weapons and tactics development. (Similarly, if Russia were to win, it would find captured Ukrainian technologies very useful in Moldova/the Baltic States/Finland, and NATO would find having allowed this to happen to be a very false economy.) Ukraine is anything but dead weight, and we need to recognise this.
Security guarantees have always been and will always be worthless.
Same as NATO in that Russia has already attacked NATO countries via sabotage operations, having drones, planes and missiles in their airspace, and hacking, among other things, but never been met with any equal response.
