Rajan Menon
The Trump administration has put Europeans on notice: Postwar Ukraine’s security is their responsibility, and they should not expect the United States to help. As U.S. President Donald Trump put it, the war in Ukraine “doesn’t have much of an effect on us because we have a big, beautiful ocean in between.” Geography hasn’t been as kind to Europe; its leaders believe that a renewed Russian attack on Ukraine could threaten their countries’ safety and that bolstering Ukraine’s capacity for self-defense is therefore a matter of self-interest, especially given increasing doubts about the U.S. commitment to defending Europe.
Bringing Ukraine into NATO is not a solution for this problem. The alliance has been divided on Ukraine’s membership ever since it accepted the idea, in noncommittal terms, at a 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania. Trump effectively shut that door last month by affirming his defense secretary’s statement that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
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