Ukraine will have a deterrent

Swift NATO membership is the less risky option

One of the great betrayals of Ukraine since 2014 was the complete failure by the West to uphold the Budapest Memorandum. Negotiated and signed in the wake of the end of the USSR and the creation of a variety of successor states, the Memorandum was designed to centralise the control of former Soviet nuclear weapons under Russian control. Russia, as the biggest successor state and the one who held onto the permanent UN Security Council seat, was to play the role of responsible guarantor of nuclear safety and of nuclear disarmament treaties between the US and the USSR.

The other countries – Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan – were to hand over whatever nuclear weapons they have inherited and become non-nuclear states, signing up to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In exchange, the other parties involved (the US, UK, France, Russia and China) were to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of these three newly independent states, ruling out any aggressive military actions against them.

Ukraine, which, unlike some other countries leaving the control of the Warsaw Pact, had no pathway to the EU or NATO, was left to be a neutral state, relying solely on Western security guarantees against its only realistic potential aggressor – Russia. That bargain was already broken when the West completely failed to drive out Russian proxies in 2014. Since 2022, with the West endlessly prevaricating over whether and how to actually defend Ukraine, it has become a bad joke.

In the wake of the sizeable and growing sacrifice by Ukrainians in this war, Kyiv’s patience is running out.

That is one of the main messages we are meant to draw from the presentation of Ukraine’s ‘Victory Plan’ by President Zelenskyy over the past week. While only part of it is public, we know that a rapid invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is central to the plan.

On the surface, that’s nothing new. Kyiv has been arguing constantly for the importance of giving Ukraine a real security guarantee by bringing it into NATO. Only through such a guarantee can there be any hope that a peace might hold and that Russia won’t simply invade again once it has had time to regroup and replenish.

What has changed is that Ukraine is now explaining to Western partners that if NATO membership is not put on the table, then Ukraine won’t sit by and leave itself open to more aggression from Moscow. If pushed, Ukraine will have to take its defence into its own hands and find a force strong enough to deter Russia from launching another invasion. In other words, it will have to acquire a deterrent, not born of the overwhelming capacity of NATO, but from nuclear weapons.

To be clear, Ukraine does not want this to happen. Indeed, it has walked back this position somewhat, perhaps after spooking certain Western partners. Ukraine’s goal is NATO, not nukes. But it is an important reminder that the Ukrainians are neither Western proxies nor idiots. If other paths are closed, then Ukraine will do what it must to secure its own freedom, with or without external help.  

There are two lessons to draw from this.

First, any ‘peace plan’ that revolves around leaving Ukraine defenceless is little more than a fantasy. Even if you could force Ukraine into an effective surrender, denying the country further weapons supplies and steadily draining Ukraine of its capability to fight, this will only be a short-term situation. If we get an end to the fighting and Ukraine is not admitted to NATO as part of concessions to Russia, then Kyiv will simply develop its own defence through a nuclear deterrent.

The world that Putin’s friends in the West imagine, where Moscow is permanently satisfied because Ukraine is reduced to a puppet state that Russia is free to invade at any given moment in order to impose its desires, will never materialise. Ukraine will always prize its freedom and independence and will take the appropriate measures, even extraordinary measures, to guarantee those. With nuclear weapons in its possession, Ukraine would become a more real threat to Russia than it has ever been before, only heightening the sense of paranoia in Moscow and raising the likelihood of another war, only this time with the much more real possibility of nuclear escalation.

Second, a fixation from the West on nuclear escalation will only serve nuclear proliferation. In the case of Ukraine specifically, the dynamic is clear: a number of countries (and electorates) oppose bringing Ukraine quickly into NATO because they fear Ukraine’s presence would lead to a Russia-NATO war that would turn nuclear. But if Ukraine has no other way of preserving itself from Russian aggression, then it will be forced to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. After all, the West would be signalling very clearly that possession of nuclear arms is the only form of strength that really counts.

That message would have a terrible ripple effect throughout the world. In the face of nearby dictators who have nuclear weapons, smaller non-nuclear states would learn that getting their own nuclear capacity is the only way to be certain of their defence. Relying on the West to rescue you will have been exposed as a risky gamble that would likely backfire. And as more states acquire nuclear weapons, the likelihood for any given state that a nearby rival or aggressor will be nuclear-armed will rise, in turn further incentivising more countries to level the playing field. Such a nuclear proliferation would then, ironically, make it more likely that any given conflict would result in a nuclear exchange. The fear of nuclear escalation above all else would, in the end, be self-defeating.

Ukraine will not be left defenceless and the West should stop planning around the idea that it can truly control what Ukraine does or does not do. The most stable outcome for the world and for peace in Ukraine is one where Kyiv’s independence is backed up by sufficient conventional forces to deter Russia. NATO membership is an essential part of that. If the West fears escalation, they should hear Ukraine’s calls and answer without any more delay.