This week, President Joe Biden was at the NATO summit in Lithuania, where the topic of Ukraine being a future member of the 31-member alliance was front and center.
The 2024 presidential candidates are split on that possibility.
Mr. Biden, a Democrat, told CNN that Ukraine is not ready to join the Brussels-based group.
“I don’t think it’s ready for membership in NATO,” he told Fareed Zakaria in an interview that aired on July 9.
“But here’s the deal. I spent, as you know, a great deal of time trying to hold NATO together because I believe Putin has had an overwhelming objective from the time he launched 185,000 troops into Ukraine, and that was to break NATO,” continued Mr. Biden. “He was confident, in my view and many in the intelligence community, he was confident he could break NATO.”
Mr. Biden went on to say that NATO membership for Ukraine now would present an undesirable reality.
“So holding NATO together is really critical,” he said. “I don’t think there is unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now, at this moment, in the middle of a war.
“For example, if you did that, then, you know, and I mean what I say, we’re determined to commit every inch of territory that is NATO territory as a commitment that we’ve all made no matter what.”
Nonetheless, during the NATO summit, Mr. Biden expressed that Ukraine would one day join the alliance.
“Your resilience and your resolve has been a model for the whole world to see,” he said. “I look forward to the day when we’re having the meeting celebrating your official, official membership in NATO.”
Meanwhile, the 2024 GOP candidates displayed divergent views on whether Ukraine should be part of NATO.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said she is for Ukraine being a NATO member.
“The key is, there is no reason Ukraine should not be part of NATO,” she said on Fox News on July 11.
“NATO has been a 70-year success story at keeping Russia out. They’ve been a 70-year success story, there’s been no inner conflict between all of those countries,” continued Ms. Haley. “Ukraine has shown their military might, they’ve shown their power, and they’ve shown they would be a fantastic asset to the alliance.
“But more than that, Russia has never invaded a country that is part of NATO. They invaded Georgia; they invaded Moldova; they invaded Ukraine. Those were not countries that were part of NATO. This is when the alliance should have gotten together and said, ‘Yes, we’re going to bring Ukraine in,’ because the way we end this war is for Russia to get out. That’s it.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, expressed opposition to Ukraine being a NATO member.
“To say that we should be adding countries like Ukraine into NATO, you know, that’s a non-starter for me,” he told Blaze TV-Radio.
“Because all you’re doing is, you’re putting more obligations on us to be able to defend [it],” continued Mr. DeSantis. “Why would we want to do things that are going to make it more likely that we’re going to get dragged into a war?”
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy shut the door on Ukraine joining NATO were he to enter the Oval Office.
“It’s shameful that even Republicans like [Lindsey Graham] are now pushing for it. Stop marching us to the brink of nuclear war.
“For all the hand-wringing about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum (on which the [United States] has more than fulfilled its commitments), the neocon-Democrat establishment is shockingly silent on James Baker’s famous 1990 ‘Not-One-Inch’ commitment to Gorbachev that NATO would never extend east of Germany,” he continued, referring to the 1994 agreement where Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees.
“NATO was created to deter conflict with the USSR, yet NATO has expanded most rapidly *after* the fall of the USSR [and] is now *worsening* the risk of nuclear war with Russia itself. This is sheer lunacy,” Mr. Ramaswamy also posted on Twitter.
Former Vice President Mike Pence did not rule out the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO but said it should not be contemplated during its war with Russia.
“I honestly believe that it’s important as the leader of the free world and the arsenal of democracy that America continue to provide the Ukrainians what they need to fight and win and repel that unprovoked Russian invasion. But the question of NATO membership—and I spoke about this with President Zelenskyy—I think should all wait [until] after the war is won,” he said on CNN on July 11.
The campaign of former President Donald Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
