318 - The NATO Option: Rescuing Ukraine from Trump/Putin

In addition to sending as much war materiel -- missile launchers, air defense installations, land mines, night vision glasses, and the like -- to Ukraine before the Trumpers arrive next month, the Biden administration should firmly cast the NATO card. If NATO admitted Ukraine now, doing so could provide a significant layer of protection for the embattled Ukrainians. Further Putin attacks along the eastern front, or anything enabled by Trump's failures to back Kyiv, would become attacks on all of NATO.

Enveloping Ukraine with the NATO mantle would be impossible without U.S. agreement, impossible after Jan. 20. It might also be impossible now to obtain Hungary's agreement, and Turkey could also balk, but providing Ukraine with the support of NATO would throw a major obstacle or two in front of any pro-Putin deals that Trump tries to cut.

An emergency accession to NATO, which is what such an overture would be, has become more and more essential as a result of the Biden administration's excessively slow granting Ukraine permission to obtain and use the West's most powerful artillery and missiles against the Russians. The enormous battle against massive Russian drone and missile attacks cannot be countered effectively without destroying (or at least threatening) its assembly and launching sites. For too long, the U. S. has effectively been asking Ukraine to defend against the Russian assault without long-range weapons and, critically, without the air power that could deter Russian glide-bombings and more.

Winter is arriving. The Russians have been relentless at destroying Ukraine's electrical generating capacity by bombing power stations; Ukrainians will be very cold this winter and civilian morale, already low, will keep sliding downward. Only a counterattack on the Russian launching pads could give Ukrainian civilians some respite, and repairing damaged infrastructural installations some rationale. Hustling Ukraine into NATO could bolster morale but, more critically, would demonstrate that the U.S. and the West were not giving up on Ukraine. Trump's plan to bulldoze President Volodymyr Zelensky into accepting some pro-Putin deal that would mortgage Ukraine's existence and its future, could also be influenced for the better if Ukraine were securely inside NATO.

Since there may be too little time between now and Jan. 20 to usher Ukraine into NATO, and too little will as well, are there any viable options capable of ensuring the continuing freedom and security of Ukraine? Trump says that he can end the invasion of Ukraine within a day of assuming the presidency. Only by ordering American involvement on Ukraine's side (wildly unlikely) or unleashing nuclear weapons against Russia (even more unlikely) could Trump intercede successfully to accelerate the war's end in a manner that would secure Ukraine from dismemberment.

More likely, all observers fear, is a decision to cease arming Ukraine until Zelensky submits to Putin's wildest demands. Doing so would mean the loss of the nearly 20 percent of Ukraine that Putin now holds (including Crimea and all of Donetsk) and a prohibition against Ukraine ever being admitted into NATO or the European Union. In other words, a Putin-Trump axis would deny Ukraine its existential right to be free. Putin also wants to try to re-introduce Russian as a major language within Ukraine. He will want to restore the Ukrainian Orthodox Church's subservience to Russian orthodoxy. Most of all, Putin wants to decide who can make decisions affecting the future of each Ukrainian individual, thus wiping out the sovereignty and resolute self-image that Zelensky and others have now restored to every Ukrainian.

Trump is erratic, but he wants to be close to Putin (and other dictators) and gain their support and affection. He is as apt to sell out Ukraine in order to sustain his promise to end the war quickly, and to do so because he fancies himself a big dealmaker whom Putin will respect.

Our president, however, as these last few weeks since the election have demonstrated, is neither smart nor shrewd. Putin and Xi Jinping must be laughing up their sleeves at the hubris and sheer vainglorious foolishness that -- thanks to misguided American voters -- has led to a phalanx of unqualified, even manifestly poisonous, nominations. The foreign policy realm is now peopled with at best marginal characters, criminals who hope to become ambassadors, intelligence chiefs who are not, defense nominees who drink and womanize, and trade officials determined to start all-consuming economic wars.

A successful invasion of Taiwan becomes much more likely, despite corruption within the Chinese military establishment, the more Trump demonstrates an inability to think strategically -- to think beyond maximizing the financial returns that could flow to him personally and to his corporate organization. The more Trump leans heavily on Ukraine or, more likely, blackmails Zelensky and undercuts his war effort, the sooner Xi will advance plans to re-capture Taiwan.

The NATO option could provide a helpful obstacle in the way of a total, Trump-inspired, sell out. The big question then becomes: Does Biden have the fortitude and the wisdom to urge NATO to be decisive in Ukraine's favor? Doing so could also support the freedom of the entire world, as this column has very often remarked.

A final point: Time is running out. Positive assistance for embattled Ukraine is urgent. As the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria has shown so dramatically, fateful change sometimes accelerates well beyond expectations. Selling out Ukraine and Zelensky would destroy global freedom and undermine the rule of law everywhere. Washington cannot wait to act.