The recently concluded NATO summit in Vilnius gave political support and arms commitments to Ukraine, but did not set a path toward Ukrainian membership. At the same time, the Group of Seven gave security guarantees and started moves for permanent institutional support for Ukraine, premised in part on Ukraine’s strengthening of its own democracy. This combination of steps and non-steps makes sense for the U.S. now, and suggests a direction for the future.
Americans generally support NATO, but display diverse opinions on America’s role and purpose in the world. We will be called on to make choices about our alliances at some point.
NATO’s major issue other than Ukraine itself was Turkey’s blockage of Swedish membership. Turkey has long been a NATO member, alongside its traditional rival Greece, reflecting the alliances’ original mission of containing the Soviet Union. Through the 1980s, almost all NATO members developed into, or toward, democracy. Today, Turkey’s backsliding in democratic governance, along with Hungary’s, and to an extent Poland’s, calls out any assumptions that NATO’s mission now is to protect democracy.
The question arises: is the alliance primarily an institution of hard power defense against Russia, or does it serve a positive value, namely democracy and its protection? The newer, ex-Soviet bloc members may see the alliance more as the former, though some of them are now models of democratic governance.
For the U.S., the rationale for alliances once rested on Containment, the restraint of Soviet Communist expansion. With the demise of the Soviet Union, that rationale lost its point. NATO as an institution floundered to find a purpose, which now takes definition from Vladimir Putin. But does an alliance truly oppose Putin if we accede to Turkey’s Erdogan in his restrictions on democracy and impartial rule of law, and particularly his blocking of membership for democratic Sweden? If NATO’s purpose is to protect democracy, Erdogan’s status would be reduced and Sweden would be in. If NATO is not committed to democracy, then it is committed against Russia as much as against Putin. That stance corroborates claims, if not actual fears, that Putin cited in invading Ukraine.
Furthermore, while the G7 declaration of support called Ukraine to improve its democracy, NATO has imposed no conditions on Erdogan. The fact that he recently won re-election means he is not truly a dictator, but leaves doubts about where he will take Turkey. If we let his election serve as unquestioned “moral cover,” for us to acquiesce to Erdogan’s arm-twisting of Sweden to abet his internal repressions – and to give him F-16s – we treat our values as a matter of checklist compliance rather than as our true motivation.
Such fudging can look like hypocrisy, even if the best intentions would still end up in a messy compromise. At the very least, the optics call for full assessment of, in this case, Turkey’s likely course going forward. More generally, the question of projecting our values needs to be addressed systemically, starting with underlying rationales for any alliances we keep.
The issue of hard power versus value-driven motives applies to our relations with China. Right now, the U.S.-Japan alliance, AUKUS and ANZUS, and the U.S.–South Korea pact all involve deeply democratic nations. This is particularly important, as our commitment to Taiwanese independence rests, and must rest, on Taiwan’s own democracy and internal freedom. So a “Quad” arrangement with India runs into the question of Narendra Modi’s support for impartial rule of law and democratic integrity, just as NATO’s purpose runs into Erdogan’s politics.
It is probably time for Americans to start naming our reasons for military alliances. And the bedrock for any rationale really must refer back to our national founding on rights and government that serves to secure those rights. Our closest associations, and any hard and fast commitment such as NATO’s Article 5, should serve to protect those societies where rights are securely enshrined through true democracy and rule of law.
Of course we could not confine foreign relations to these few dozen countries. As nations develop into greater freedom, it serves our interests and our values to reach out, nurture development in freedom where people want it, and preserve conditions for that development. Those conditions include the post-1945 norm that naked armed force is not a legitimate tool to seize territory or other interests. Might cannot be allowed to confer right if freedom is to grow. That rationale fits our ethos to the facts of Ukraine’s governance and Putin’s aggression, to explain our support of Ukraine.
The G7 declaration regarding Ukraine might, in this light, carry the seed of an approach to other nations that are not yet fully democratic but have reason or desire to move in that direction. In Ukraine’s case, we have reason to support their independence from an aggressor-neighbor, and many Ukrainians have shown a desire to grow into a modern free society. Pledging support but calling for that development, the G7 has both committed to stop aggression, and kept faith with our shared values.
Common Conviction 