Considering that Article 5 always left the option of armed force up to each individual member, which remains the case with each of the bilateral “security guarantees” that Ukraine reached with some of them over the past year, Meloni’s dramatic proposal doesn’t actually amount to anything new.
Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni made headlines after suggesting that NATO’s Article 5 should be extended to Ukraine even if it doesn’t formally join the bloc. In her words, “Extending the same coverage that NATO countries have to Ukraine would certainly be much more effective (than dispatching peacekeepers), while being something different from NATO’s membership.” What she didn’t mention is that Ukraine already kinda has these guarantees from some NATO countries, including Italy.
They were agreed to with Italy, the US, UK, France, Germany, Poland, and others throughout the course of the past year, which readers can confirm through each of the preceding hyperlinks that redirect to the full text of their respective pacts from official government sources. The common thread between them is that they all promise to resume their existing level of military-technical cooperation with Ukraine (ex: intelligence, arms, logistics, etc.) if another conflict breaks out after this one inevitably ends.
This is essentially the same as NATO’s Article 5, which obligates members to assist those of their allies that come under attack, albeit as each of them “deems necessary”. Although the use of armed force is mentioned, it’s ultimately left to individual members to decide whether to employ this option. Ukraine has arguably enjoyed the benefits of this principle for the past three years despite not being a NATO member since it’s received everything other than troops from the alliance as explained above.
Considering that Article 5 always left the option of armed force up to each individual member, which remains the case with each of the bilateral “security guarantees” that Ukraine reached with some of them over the past year, Meloni’s dramatic proposal doesn’t actually amount to anything new. It’s only newsworthy since Article 5 is commonly associated in the public imagination with employing armed force upon the request of those allies that come under attack, but this has always been a misperception.
The reason why Russia has consistently opposed Ukraine’s formal membership into NATO is because policymakers believe that this could increase the pressure upon the bloc to directly intervene in its support if Ukraine were to provoke Russia into cross-border kinetic action after joining. That could in turn immediately prompt a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis or even World War III, the latter of which might break out by miscalculation, both of which Russia obviously prefers to avoid.
Ukraine’s hypothetical NATO membership is assessed by Russia to be incomparably more dangerous than the Baltic States’ due to the former’s post-independence and Western-encouraged anti-Russian identity. The presence of such ethno-national radicals at the pinnacle of power in Kiev greatly raises the chances of them unilaterally provoking Russia into cross-border kinetic action in order to manipulate NATO, first and foremost its American leader, into either coercing Russia into concessions or waging war against it.
Nevertheless, it would still ultimately remain every member’s sovereign prerogative whether or not to support Ukraine with armed force, but public opinion in some of the European members might push their leaders to react in such a way that then escalates the crisis to the point of involving the US. For example, if the UK resorted to armed force in support of Ukraine per the way in which its leadership applies Article 5 in that scenario, then the US might feel compelled to protect it from Russian retaliation.
While the same dynamics would be present even in the case of countries reacting in the aforesaid way per their leaderships’ application of the “security guarantees” that they agreed to give Ukraine last year, there’d be much less pressure on them since it wouldn’t be through NATO. That applies even more to the US’ response to any allies unilaterally entering into a hot war with Russia outside of NATO’s ambit since it could argue that this wasn’t agreed upon so it’ll hang them out to dry to avoid World War III.
Returning to Meloni’s proposal, the most that she’ll likely manage to achieve is to assemble a “coalition of the willing” that would explicitly extend Article 5 guarantees to Ukraine with the knowledge of how this would be interpreted by the public, as in likely employing armed force in its support if requested. Poland already ruled out dispatching troops to Ukraine under any circumstances, though that could change after May’s presidential election, while Hungary and Slovakia are already dead-set against this.
Moreover, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth declared in early February that the US won’t extend Article 5’s mutual defense guarantees to any NATO country’s troops in Ukraine, which will likely deter many of them from considering Meloni’s proposal since they now know that America wouldn’t have their backs. Trump 2.0 has proven itself impervious to domestic and international pressure, the latter of which includes what it’s experiencing nowadays from its NATO allies, to risk war with Russia over Ukraine.
No realistic scenario therefore exists for expecting the US to intervene in anyone else’s support if they end up embroiled in a hot war with Russia, at least so long as Trump remains in office and provided that he’s succeeded by Vance or another like-minded member of his party. Even if the opposition returns to power, Trump plans to already lock in strategic resource deals with Russia before then in order to deter them from risking war with Russia over Ukraine due to how mutually detrimental that would be.
His planned “Pivot (back) to Asia” could also reshape global geopolitics by then too, thus leading to more pressure upon future administrations to responsibly manage relations with Russia no matter what so as ensure continued access to its strategic resources that the US needs for competing with China. Restoring and expanding the US’ complex interdependencies with Russia, which still exist in part to this day as proven by Russian uranium exports to the US, is Trump’s envisaged means towards the end of peace.
Reflecting on all the insight shared in this analysis, it can consequently be concluded that Meloni’s proposal isn’t anything new nor is it a game-changer, and it was likely shared to show that Italy shouldn’t be ignored amidst France, Germany, and Poland’s competition for leadership of post-conflict Europe. Ukraine already kinda has Article 5 guarantees from some NATO countries, but these won’t foreseeably manifest themselves through armed force so nothing serious is expected to come from this anyhow.
Source: author’s blog
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