Delusional To Believe NATO Article 5 Protections Will Be Provided To Ukraine.   Even If Provided, Does Not Mean What Advocates/Politicians Want It To Mean. Read It. A Test That Might Fail

Delusional To Believe NATO Article 5 Protections Will Be Provided To Non-NATO Member Ukraine.   

Even If Article 5 Protections Are Provided To Ukraine, Does Not Mean What Advocates And Politicians Want It To Mean 

Read Article 5 

NATO Members Do Not Want To Sign Up For A Test That Might Fail 

Courage Of Italy When Not Meeting Minimum Annual Defense Spending

Extending NATO's Article 5 to Ukraine seems to be the simplest and most effective proposal of all, also because it would help call a possible bluff.  If Russia does not plan to invade its neighbors again, it is not clear why it should not accept security guarantees that are only defensive… easier and more effective than the other ideas that are on the table”  Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of Italy (2022- ) 

  • North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Albania, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Slovenia, Hungary, Spain, Turkiye, Latvia, and North Macedonia, Sweden. 

This suggestion by Prime Minister Meloni will not obtain required unanimity by the thirty-two NATO members and an important consideration is Article 5 does not require any NATO member to militarily defend another NATO member.  Article 5 continues to be misunderstood because too few have read the text.  The complete text is at the end of this analysis.  

NOTE: The government of Italy in 2024 spent approximately 1.5% of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on military-related expenditures.  The government of Italy plans to spend 1.61% in 2027.  The minimum NATO benchmark is 2% with some members near or above 3% with plans for 5%.  The Trump-Vance Administration (2025-2029) advocates for NATO members a 5% of annual GDP commitment to military-related expenditures.

  • “Italian Prime Meloni is leading the way, proposing Article V protection for Ukraine.  This means NATO would defend Ulraind against a future invasion. This would be considered a “real guarantee” something Ukraine did not get with the Budapest memorandum which as a “fake” guarantee that President Bill Clinton now regrets.”  President/CEO, American University Kyiv 

  • This is the best idea to come out of Italy since Pizza! Italian Prime Minister Meloni suggests extending article V of NATO to defend Ukraine (post conflict). Article V is the key to NATO (an attack on one- is an attack on all). This could granted without FULL NATO membership, and would test Putin to see if his objections to Ukraine are really that NATO is “encroaching on Russia”. Brilliant. This would give Ukraine real security. As another invasion would place all NATO countries at war to defend Ukraine. These would be the type of security guarantee that should have been put in place in 1994 by President Clinton and NATO under the toothless Budapest Memorandum signed by U.S., UK and worst of all: Russia. This is the type of real security guarantee that President Obama and NATO should have put in place after the 2014 Russian invasion when Russia violated the 1994 Budapest Mwmorandum. This is a great dialogue. This should start the dialogue going into the NATO June meeting at The Hague- the same Hague where Putin has been charged with war crimes. How are we negotiating with a war criminal? Every one of the 16 new NATO members should start a coalition to support Ukraines entrance into NATO. All 16 are closer to Russia than the original 16. Russia did not get a vote on their admission to NATO. Because the whole reason for nato is to defend against Russia.”  President/CEO, American University Kyiv 

Article 5 does not require any member to invoke a military response.  The government of Ukraine presents that had the government of Ukraine been a member of NATO prior to 2008, prior to 2014, and prior to 24 February 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation would not have invaded because Article 5 would have been dissuasive.  The government of Ukraine may be correct.  NATO’s mandate is focused upon defensiveness rather than by force identifying opportunities to obtain new real estate for its portfolio. 

One of the reasons that some members of NATO have been reluctant to provide NATO protection to the territory of Ukraine from 2014 and then again from 2022 is a fear the armed forces of the Russian Federation would test the text of Article 5- and the result would likely be not all members of NATO would immediately engage operationally a dissuasive military response.   

The result could be fatal to NATO has it would puncture the “all for one and one for all” marketing that has been the hallmark of the alliance since its creation in 1949. 

From NATO- Article 5 

  • “With the invocation of Article 5, Allies can provide any form of assistance they deem necessary to respond to a situation.  This is an individual obligation on each Ally and each Ally is responsible for determining what it deems necessary in the particular circumstances.” 

  • “This assistance is taken forward in concert with other Allies. It is not necessarily military and depends on the material resources of each country.  It is therefore left to the judgment of each individual member country to determine how it will contribute. Each country will consult with the other members, bearing in mind that the ultimate aim is to “to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”” 

  • “At the drafting of Article 5 in the late 1940s, there was consensus on the principle of mutual assistance, but fundamental disagreement on the modalities of implementing this commitment. The European participants wanted to ensure that the United States would automatically come to their assistance should one of the signatories come under attack; the United States did not want to make such a pledge and obtained that this be reflected in the wording of Article 5.”

LINK TO COMPLETE ANALYSIS IN PDF FORMAT 

Links To Related Analyses 

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