Although peace seems distant, the United States and Europe are debating how to ensure Ukraine's security once fighting with Russia ceases, even without a total victory for either side.
West Germany can provide a model, a precedent for admitting a divided country into NATO.
Despite its division and its unfortunate role as a border between nuclear-armed rivals during the Cold War, West Germany became a member of NATO in 1955, benefiting from the protection of the alliance, never renouncing its commitment to unification, finally realized in 1989.
The Ukrainian city of Bakhmut after almost a year of fighting. Photo Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
For Ukraine, much will depend on what form the battlefield takes after its next counteroffensive, and whether the outcome leads to some kind of expanded ceasefire, relatively stable border lines, or even peace talks.
As NATO's annual summit in July approaches, its members are debating what they can offer Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who wants more concrete guarantees that his country will join the alliance.
The West German model is gaining traction in some European capitals as a way to provide Ukraine with real security, even if it does not immediately recover all its territory.
Germany is an example of how NATO accepts a country with "significant unresolved territorial issues" and a form of enemy occupation, said Angela E. Stent, an expert on Russia and Germany and author of "Putin's World." (Putin's World)
"When West Germany joined NATO, there was what we might call a monumental frozen conflict," he said.
"And yet it was considered very important to anchor West Germany in the Western alliance, so West Germany joined. The Russians complained about it and said it was very dangerous, but they couldn't help it."
History
After WorldWar II, several options were considered for what to do with occupied and divided Germany, similar to what is happening now with Ukraine.
Soviet leaders spoke of a united but neutral Germany, modeled after Austria.
Although tempted, the Western powers resisted. And indeed, Ukraine itself initially proposed neutrality right after the Russian invasion of February 2022.
Konrad Adenauer, the first chancellor of West Germany, preferred security to territory, and the Germans supported him, re-electing him until his resignation in 1963.
"Adenauer decided it was more important to have a strong defense agreement with the West and brought West Germany into NATO," says François Heisbourg, a French defense expert.
"It was a brave decision, because it meant unity wasn't going to be easily achieved."
Ukraine is, of course, a different case.
When West Germany entered NATO, it was not at war with East Germany and both entities had been recognized as individual states in 1949, said M.E. Sarotte, author of a diplomatic history, "Not an Inch," on NATO enlargement, German reunification and Russian responses.
While West Germany's constitution maintained the goal of unification, "the reality on the ground was that what had previously been the occupation zones coming out of World War II had hardened into state divisions," Sarotte said.
"Although no one was happy about it, there was a clear and hard border, which provided a clarity that does not exist in Ukraine."
Not yet.
But as Charles Kupchan and Richard Haass suggest in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, few expect the next Ukrainian counteroffensive to completely drive Russians out of sovereign Ukraine, including Crimea.
If the battle lines harden, they suggest, the United States should push for peace negotiations, even if neither Ukraine nor Russia seem willing to do so.
It won't be easy.
Ukraine is concerned that a ceasefire will endorse Russian control over a significant part of Ukraine; Russia seems to believe it can outlast Western support for Ukraine.
Neither side is now open to negotiations, and Zelensky, in his own peace plan, insists that Russian troops first withdraw from all Ukrainian territory.
But as the battle for Bakhmut, the city Russia claims to have taken after nearly a year of fighting, suggests, even modest changes to the front line come at a tremendous cost in lives and material.
Few in the West want an endless war, fearing declining popular support for unlimited funding and shortages in manufacturing the tanks, air defenses and munitions Ukraine needs.
There have been several proposals to make Ukraine an indigestible hedgehog for Russia, so crammed with sophisticated Western weaponry that, even if it was not a member of NATO, it could deter Moscow.
This is the core of an idea first proposed by a former NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, and a senior adviser to Zelensky, Andriy Yermak.
Rasmussen's idea, which many in NATO favor for now, suggests Israel as a model, where Washington's commitment to its permanent security is clear even without a specific mutual defense treaty.
But the problems are clear: Israel has nuclear weapons, while Ukraine does not.
And even NATO members' bilateral defense commitments to Ukraine could end up dragging the entire alliance into a future war between Russia and Ukraine.
That is why many officials and analysts believe, as Kaja Kallas, Estonia's prime minister, said in a recent interview, that the only real security for Ukraine is NATO membership, "when conditions allow."
At the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in July, Kallas said NATO must establish a more concrete roadmap for Ukraine's accession, reconfirming a pledge first made in 2008.
"The only security guarantee for Ukraine is NATO membership," he said, citing the protection NATO membership provides to his small country.
"There is no war here because we are members of NATO," he said.
Another benefit, he said, is that having Ukraine inside NATO would be "cheaper, much cheaper" than turning it into a militarized hedgehog for the next 50 years.
The counter-argument, widespread in Washington and Western Europe, is that NATO cannot accept a country at war over disputed territory, and that such a move could push Russia into further escalation, including with nuclear weapons, before Ukraine could join the alliance.
But so far, Russian threats of escalation have proved hollow.
For now, ahead of the summit, NATO countries are preparing a pragmatic medium-term plan for military aid to Ukraine, which includes guaranteed arms supplies and further integration of NATO into the world. But Zelensky wants a political promise he can take home.
In any case, if in the end the war does not result in a large-scale Russian withdrawal and defeat, what could be convincing for Zelensky and the Ukrainians – and what would give more strength to the peace talks – would be NATO membership, behind consolidated, perhaps patrolled, ceasefire lines. as Heisbourg suggests, by a coalition of peacekeeping forces from NATO and other countries, such as India or even China.
This would be accompanied by the promise, as in Germany, that the complete reunification of Ukraine would remain an outstanding issue in the future.
NATO membership would consolidate peace and allow for reconstruction, private investment and the return of many refugees.
If there is only a ceasefire, he said. Stent. "There's no real resolution to this war, there's no telling when it's going to start again."
"But the whole point of bringing Ukraine into NATO would be to make sure that Russia didn't attack Ukraine again," he said, "because what we've seen in this war is that NATO is the only form of deterrence that has worked so far against Russia."
Steven Erlanger is the chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, based in Brussels. He previously reported from London, Paris, Jerusalem, Berlin, Prague, Moscow and Bangkok. @StevenErlanger
c.2023 The New York Times Company
See also
