Panel: ‘We Owe’ Ukraine NATO Admission

On April 4, Finland became the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the military alliance’s 74th anniversary during a ceremony held in Brussels, Belgium. Immediately after, ministers came together to address the issue of Ukraine’s pending admission into NATO, as it fights against Russia’s invasion which occurred in February 2022.

Although no immediate action is expected on Ukraine’s request for admission, which was first filed and tentatively approved in 2008, several experts during The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) forum held in Washington over a four-hour period on April 5, said that the war-torn nation should be enrolled swiftly even before it is accepted into the European Union (EU).

In June 2022, the European Commission recommended that Ukraine should be granted candidate status for accession to the 27-nation EU, provided that seven conditions regarding the rule of law and corruption are resolved.

According to German Marshall Fund President Heather Conley, a former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, “I believe what Vladimir Putin has done has set Ukraine on an irreversible course towards the European Union. I would think that NATO is a faster process than the EU and we know historically, typically, NATO has come first, before EU membership.”

“If a country is at war and it is a European country looking to EU and NATO, [there is] a clear way forward, which is the way the discussion needs to go,” said German Air Force General and NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Transformation Chris Badia.

French Navy Vice Admiral Hervé Bléjean, the director-general of EU’s military staff and director of EU’s Ukraine Assistance Mission, agreed.

“There is a kind of feeling that we owe them something,” he said. “They are defending our common values, the next EU borders, the next NATO borders.”

Although more than fifty countries provide military assistance to Ukraine, NATO’s direct support to Kyiv has been limited to only non-lethal aid. Ukraine requested “accelerated accession” to join NATO in September 2022, but some members are uncertain about enrolling it in the alliance while it is engaged in a war with Russia.

Bléjean expressed his personal view and said, “I have no doubt that Ukraine will become an EU full member”. He added, “I cannot put a date on it, but I would bet it would happen sooner than expected”.

According to Conley, “It’s very, very difficult to see it now but at the end of this, we are going to have a Ukrainian military that is one of the highest in NATO interoperability and one of the highest-performance militaries in Europe”.

Not all NATO members are part of the EU, such as the United States, and Canada. Similarly, not all EU countries are part of NATO, such as Ireland, Austria, Cyprus, Malta, and Sweden for the time being.

“It is not a beauty contest in terms of NATO and the EU,” said Bléjean before adding, “but it is in the interest of NATO to have as many of the allied nations being part of the EU and vice versa.”

What does Finland bring?

UK Rear Admiral Tim Woods, a defense attaché at the British Embassy in Washington, called Finland’s addition to NATO “fantastic news.” Finnish armed forces “are hugely professional, well-drilled so, yeah, a much-welcome addition to NATO,” said Woods.

Former acting and deputy director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), John McLaughlin, said that “sometimes the symbolism of an event in international affairs is as important as the fact of the event”. He added that Finland carries a symbolic meaning that exceeds the size of the country, or the fact that it has joined.

U.S. Navy Admiral Christopher Grady, vice-chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted that Finland has “one of the strongest militaries now in the NATO alliance.” He said that Finland’s NATO admission will “create dilemmas for a potential adversary. I think it is pretty exciting. Congratulations to Finland, and welcome aboard”.

According to Grady, with Finland as an ally in NATO, it creates a 360-degree operational capacity from North Africa to the Black Sea to the Arctic. He said that Finland gives NATO a vital resource in the region.

All experts agreed that Sweden’s request to join NATO will also be approved, despite objections from Turkey and perhaps Hungary.

“We only hope Sweden follows suit in the near future,” said Woods, noting that, with Sweden and Finland in NATO’s fold, Russia’s ambitions in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic can be checked.

“What [Finland and Sweden] can teach us, what the Baltic states and P