Kissinger Is Crazy To Imply That Ukraine Might Invade NATO If It Doesn’t Become A Member
The scenario of Ukraine invading neighboring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and/or Romania is a political fantasy, especially since it would trigger Article 5’s mutual defense clause. Candidly speaking, this sequence of events is something that one would expect to hear from an anti-Ukrainian propagandist and not a guru of global affairs like Henry Kissinger.
Former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave an extended interview to The Economist about global affairs that was published earlier this week. Among the many issues that he discussed with them was Ukraine, which he implied might invade NATO if it doesn’t become a member. There’s no reason to expect that it would do this for the reasons that’ll be explained in this analysis, but before doing so, it’s important to cite Kissinger’s own words for everyone to read themselves:
“We have now armed Ukraine to a point where it will be the best-armed country and with the least strategically experienced leadership in Europe.
If the war ends like it probably will, with Russia losing many of its gains, but retaining Sevastopol, we may have a dissatisfied Russia, but also a dissatisfied Ukraine—in other words, a balance of dissatisfaction.
So, for the safety of Europe, it is better to have Ukraine in nato, where it cannot make national decisions on territorial claims.”
To be sure, he’s correct about Ukraine being “the best-armed country and with the least strategically experienced leadership in Europe” after receiving over $165 billion in military aid over the past 15 months, but that doesn’t mean that it might invade NATO if it became “dissatisfied”. This country is being exploited as a proxy by NATO to wage Hybrid War on Russia and is even poised to possibly invade parts of that targeted Great Power’s pre-2014 universally recognized territory at their behest.
It's not a subject of International Relations capable of making independent decisions but an object in the NATO-Russian proxy war that’ll go along with whatever its patrons demand. This includes agreeing to a ceasefire after the end of its upcoming counteroffensive if the West becomes financially, militarily, and/or politically fatigued by that point, albeit one that isn’t mediated by China. Politico and other outlets are already talking about precisely this scenario citing unnamed US officials.
Regardless of however “dissatisfied” Ukraine might be with that outcome, it isn’t going to turn its guns against NATO afterwards. The scenario of it invading neighboring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and/or Romania is a political fantasy, especially since it would trigger Article 5’s mutual defense clause. Candidly speaking, this sequence of events is something that one would expect to hear from an anti-Ukrainian propagandist and not a guru of global affairs like Kissinger.
As was assessed last December when he flipped from his prior stance of being against Ukraine’s NATO membership to all of a sudden supporting it, he seems to be thinking only about his own legacy ahead of his 100th birthday next week and is thus saying whatever he feels he should in order to be appreciated. His earlier position of being opposed to that bloc’s eastward expansion last spring saw him provoke Western perception managers into furiously condemning him, which seems to have left an impression.
Kissinger now knows better than to go against the narrative grain and has instead sought to lead their information warfare operations in this conflict by abusing his so-called “authority” in International Relations to argue for the same scenario that he used to be against. In pursuit of that end, he’s now resorting to shameless fearmongering to scare average Westerners into supporting this after many of them have become increasingly critical of their governments’ role in waging Hybrid War on Russia.
The reality is that NATO will continue backing Ukraine until it gets too exhausted from this conflict, after which it’ll order its proxy to agree to a ceasefire that’ll probably be mediated by anyone other than China such as the African Union and/or India. Once that happens, it’ll probably extend security guarantees to that country as a so-called “deterrent”, but that bloc is unlikely to invite it to join. In the far-fetched chance that it does, however, it won’t be out of fear that Kiev will invade existing members.
The Kissinger interview is a very interesting (long) read. I also found his NATO membership argument odd but I think you are misrepresenting what he said. As far as I remember, he nowhere claims that Ukraine will outright invade its NATO neighbors. He is pointing out that we will have a highly armed, unhappy Ukraine with an erratic leadership possibly running amok. This would be a threat to everyone around, including and foremost to Russia and Belarus. That's an analysis that the Russian elites can probably fully aggree with. However, he then draws a conclusion that is the exact opposite of what his Russian counterparts would think of in terms of how to prevent this from happening. He argues that NATO membership will in fact stabilize or rather forcefully discipline Ukraine. He explicitely argues that Ukraine NATO membership therefore would be in Russia's interest. It actually shows that he sees NATO as a power instrument that can forcefully bend member states to the will of the US. It also suggests that NATO (the US) can find an agreement with Russia and that NATO (the US) is the only one who could, in fact, enforce and guarantee this agreement.
I don't think this is a convincing argument given how the US and NATO have helped escalating the conflict at every stage -- but for Kissinger, this was not the doing of "the US" but of the neocon clique within that he clearly despises. Nevertheless, one would think that, however unhappy, post-war Ukraine would totally depend on Western financing, which should be a pretty good disciplining tool by itself. But the "Kissinger plan" is still an interesting attempt to sketch out a solution that, first of all, realizes US interests but packaged up so that it is acceptable (or without alternative) also to the Russian side: you give us Ukraine, in return you can keep Crimea and we guarantee peace.
Perhaps the more interesting is what Kissinger didn't say: He never uses the standard formulas about Russia's "unprovoked" "war of agression". On the contrary, he almost literally repeats the old William Burns argument about Ukraine NATO membership crossing the "brightest of red lines" for Russian elites. He refrains from any Putin-bashing, and is, between the lines, completely exhausted by the Biden team's incompetence. In fact, he forcefully singles out the very same William Burns as a potential leader for settling the conflict between the US and China. I think that in itself is a quite strong message also with respect to team Biden and the Ukraine war.