Open letter of scientists supporting Ukraine's NATO membership

 From the Guardian:

Should Ukraine join NATO?

Open letter

 

On 8 July, the eve of NATO’s 75th anniversary summit, a Russian missile struck Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital, destroying, among other sections, its cancer center, hematology lab and surgical transplant unit. Russia launched 40 missiles at cities across Ukraine that day, killing more than 40 people, wounding numerous others, and demonstrating yet again that there are no legal, political or moral lines it won’t cross in its determination to conquer Ukraine.

As Ukrainian doctors, rescue workers and volunteers evacuated child patients, many of them still in hospital gowns and attached to IVs, from the bombed-out hospital, heads of state from NATO’s 32 member countries arrived in Washington DC to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine and how to strengthen Ukraine’s defense. Although they affirmed that “Ukraine’s future is in NATO”, and that the country’s path to the alliance is “irreversible”, Ukraine’s potential membership was once again deferred: the Washington summit declaration stated that an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO would come “when Allies agree, and conditions are met”.

The allies do not yet agree. NATO membership for Ukraine is supported by some European member states – in particular, the Baltic and Nordic states and Poland. At the same time, key powers like the US and Germany remain opposed. The arguments against Ukraine’s NATO membership, which have been proffered repeatedly since Russia’s attack on Ukraine began in 2014, ultimately reiterate the same concern: that any step, however small, would be seen as threatening Russia’s security, and would therefore provoke greater conflict. In reality, Russia’s calm acceptance of Finland and Sweden, two of its neighbors who joined NATO in 2022, has put the lie to the claim that Russia is on a hair trigger about NATO drawing any closer. It is time to acknowledge that Russia opposes Ukraine’s NATO membership only because it would obstruct Russia’s continued aggression against that country.

The focus on Russia’s alleged “NATO expansion anxiety”, and attempts to appease it, ignore Russia’s genocidal propaganda and systematic war crimes in occupied territory of Ukraine, including massacres, mass rape and torture. Russia’s actions demonstrate a clear intent to destroy Ukraine as a nation, rather than to alleviate its own security concerns. The idea that extending security guarantees to Ukraine would further incentivize Russia’s brutal prosecution of this war is unfounded, since Russia is fully determined to destroy Ukraine and needs no additional motivation to do so.

Secondly, it is a fact that Russia has not attacked a single NATO member. Instead, it has threatened, invaded and occupied non-member countries: Georgia, Moldova and now Ukraine. The territorial boundary between NATO and non-NATO countries has so far proved the only red line that Russia has (however warily) respected, even as it breaks numerous other international treaties and agreements. Russia’s resurrected imperialist militarism can only be contained by the existence of a much stronger military alliance.

Finally, attempts to appease the Kremlin fail to address Russia’s determination to secure anti-western global power. Russia already fully controls Belarus and has been actively forming its own alliances with China, North Korea and Iran, which stand for the destruction of the democratic order. Russia bombed Syrian cities to keep Bashar al-Assad (a dictator who used chemical weapons against civilians) in power. Russia supports terrorist organizations globally, including the Taliban and Hamas, and may soon send missiles to Yemen’s Houthis.

Assuming that appeasing Russia’s demands will resolve the war, or somehow de-escalate it, is naive. Impunity for Russia’s war crimes in Syria, Georgia and Ukraine has only emboldened the Kremlin. The question of Russia’s escalation is thus not “if”, but “how far?” How far will its escalation be allowed to go before democracies muster the political backbone to halt it? Western democracy must stand in unity and determination against the growing threat to global security represented by the Kremlin.

There is still time for the most powerful military alliance in the world to make a historically and politically justified decision to neutralize the existential threat posed to Ukraine by Russia. Sacrificing Ukraine in the interest of avoiding a NATO-Russia war only increases the likelihood of such war, and of further wars, as Russia will conclude that NATO’s vaunted article 5 may be negotiable, if a broader war can be averted.

Inviting Ukraine to join NATO would mark a definitive step away from the politics of appeasement and back to the rule of international law and protection of human rights. A decision to extend security guarantees to Ukraine would not only safeguard the Ukrainian state, via the only means yet shown to be successful, but would also reassert NATO and the western democracies as effective political agents on the world stage. 

Victoria Somoff, Dartmouth College

Sarah D Phillips, Indiana University

Sophia Wilson, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, president, AAUS

Oxana Shevel, Tufts University

Maria Popova, McGill University

Vitaly Chernetsky, University of Kansas/University of Basel, president, ASEEES

Amelia Glaser, UC San Diego

Emily Channell-Justice, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University

Yuliya V Ladygina, The Pennsylvania State University

Giovanna Brogi, University of Milan (Italy)

Marci Shore, Yale University

Jaryna Turko Bodrock, Harvard University, Slavic bibliographer

Andreas Umland, analyst, Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies

Natalie Kononenko, University of Alberta, emerita

Ani Kokobobo, University of Kansas

Yuriy Gorodnichenko, University of California, Berkeley

Victoria Donovan, University of St Andrews

Katerina Sviderska, Université de Montréal

Anastasia Fomitchova, University of Ottawa

Otari Gulbani, Central European University

Abigail Scripka, Leibniz Center for Contemporary History, Potsdam

Michael Alpert, US National Heritage fellow

Mayhill Fowler, Stetson University

Kristina Hook, Kennesaw State University

Olga Bertelsen, Tiffin University

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, the Crown Family professor, Northwestern University

John Vsetecka, Nova Southeastern University

Nataliia Goshylyk, University of California, Berkeley

Oksana Lutsyshyna, University of Texas at Austin

Jonathan Stillo, Wayne State University

Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, University of Alberta, Canada

Jessica Robbins-Panko, Wayne State University

Halyna Herasym, University College Dublin

Ivan Kozachenko, University of Warsaw

Polina Vlasenko, University of Oxford

Valeria Sobol, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Anna Chebotarova, University of Oslo

Robert Romanchuk, Florida State University

Oksana Malanchuk, University of Michigan

Sofiya Asher, Indiana University, Bloomington

Olga Kostyrko, independent researcher

Ievgeniia Kopytsia, University of Genoa

Kseniya Oksamytna, City, University of London

Mariya Lesiv, Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador

Jars Balan, University of Alberta

Steve Swerdlow, University of Southern California

Jessica Storey-Nagy, Indiana University Bloomington

Marko Pavlyshyn, Monash University

Ilona Solohub, VoxUkraine

Maria Rewakowicz, University of Washington

Yuliya Komska, Dartmouth College

Olena Nikolayenko, Fordham University

Svitlana Melnyk, Indiana University

Markian Dobczansky, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Roman Ivashkiv, University of Alberta

Oleksandra Wallo, University of Kansas

Tatyana Deryugina, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Jurij Dobczansky, Library of Congress

Ana Rewakowicz, Université du Québec à Montréal, Canada

Serhii Plokhii, Harvard University

Ainsley Morse, University of California, San Diego

Bohdan Klid, University of Alberta

Mischa Gabowitsch, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

Viktoriia Biliaieva, University of Tartu

Anselm Schmidt, University of Tartu

Sanshiro Hosaka, International Centre for Defence and Security (Estonia)

Mart Kuldkepp, University College London

Giorgi Cheishvili, Tbilisi State University

Kaarel Vanamölder, Tallinn University

Abigail Karas, University of Nottingham

Grigore Pop-Eleches, Princeton University

Jennifer J Carroll, North Carolina State University

Ioulia Shukan, University Paris Nanterre

Nadiia Koval, Kyiv School of Economics

Franziska Davies, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Paweł Dobrosielski, University of Poland

Anete Ušča, European University Institute

Yuliya Yurchuk, Södertörn University

Olena Palko, University of Basel

Hana Cervinkova, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Yaroslav O Halchenko, Dartmouth College

Lia Dostlieva, independent artist

Fabian Baumann, Heidelberg University

Dmytro Khutkyy, University of Tartu

Jonathon Turnbull, University of Oxford

Yuriy Kruchak, Platform for Interdisciplinary Practice Open Place, Kyiv

Julia Sushytska, Occidental College

Sasha Dovzhyk, Index: Institute for Documentation and Exchange

Stefano Braghiroli, University of Tartu

Kateryna Botanova, Culturescapes, Basel/Kyiv

Marnie Howlett, University of Oxford

Michael Rochlitz, University of Oxford

Anastassia Fedyk, University of California, Berkeley

Yuliia Chystiakova, Université Paris Nanterre

F Benjamin Schenk, University of Basel

Marcin Jarząbek, Jagiellonian University in Krakow

Ada Wordsworth, University College London/Kharkiv and Przemysl Project (KHARPP)

Andrii Smytsniuk, University of Cambridge

Bohdana Kurylo, University College London

Zbigniew Wojnowski, University of Oxford

Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences

Michał Murawski, University College London

Olesya Khromeychuk, Ukrainian Institute London

Uilleam Blacker, University College London

Viktoriya Sereda, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (VUIAS)/Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Oleksandr Zabirko, University of Regensburg

Elżbieta Kwiecińska, Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences

Gražina Bielousova, Vilnius University Institute of International Relations and Political Science

Kateryna Volochniuk, University of St Andrews

Vlada Vazheyevskyy, University of St Andrews

Anne Lange, Tallinn University

Martin Aust, University of Bonn

Filip Kostelka, European University Institute

Oksana Prokhvatilova, VN Karazin Kharkiv National University

Olga Onuch, University of Manchester

Daria Mattingly, University of Chichester

Mišo Kapetanović, Austrian Academy of Sciences

Emily Finer, University of St Andrews

Liliya Morska, University of Rzeszow, Poland

Matthew Kott, Uppsala University, Sweden

Margus Ott, Tallinn University, Estonia

Eugene Finkel, Johns Hopkins University

Emma Mateo, New York University

Marc Elie, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, France

Henry Hale, George Washington University

Rory Finnin, University of Cambridge

Nicola Camilleri, German Historical Institute, Rome

James Hodson, CEO, AI for Good Foundation/Economists for Ukraine

Kataryna Wolczuk, University of Birmingham/Chatham House

Jody LaPorte, University of Oxford

George Soroka, Harvard University

Ksenya Kiebuzinski, University of Toronto

Panayiotis Xenophontos, University of Oxford

Tetyana Lokot, Dublin City University

Jan Kubik, Rutgers University

Heather Fielding, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Alexandra Pavliuc, University of Oxford

Hanna Oliinyk, University College London

Victoria Juharyan, Johns Hopkins University

Shaun M Byrnes, retired US senior foreign service officer, deputy chief of mission, US embassy Kyiv, 1992-94

Michael M Naydan, The Pennsylvania State University

Olena Synchak, Ukrainian Catholic University

Mark Beissinger, Princeton University

Inna Melnykovska, Central European University

Alyssa Dinega Gillespie, independent scholar

Joanna Niżyńska, Indiana University

Pavel Khazanov, Rutgers University

Mykola Riabchuk, PEN Ukraine

Karsten Lunze, Boston University

Jesse Driscoll, University of California, San Diego

Matthew Pauly, Michigan State University

Iwa Kolodziejska, University of Warsaw

Elise Giuliano, Columbia University

Yana Prymachenko, Princeton University

Mikhail Alexseev, San Diego State University

Oksana Nesterenko, executive director, Anti-corruption Research and Educational Center of National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), Kyiv, Ukraine

Nicola Camilleri, German Historical Institute, Rome

Oleh Kotsyuba, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University