Foreign Policy Scholars Who Opposed Iraq War Oppose Adding Ukraine to NATO

Foreign policy scholars who opposed the Iraq war said Wednesday they oppose adding Ukraine to NATO, saying that it could put the United States at war with Russia.

Dozens of foreign policy experts called on NATO members to avoid advancing toward Ukrainian membership at the upcoming summit in Washington, DC, next week. The scholars said that if Ukraine was admitted to the defensive pact, Russia attacking Ukraine in the future would trigger NATO’s Article 5, which would call for NATO allies to defend the member attacked.

The letter explained:

If Ukraine were to join NATO after the current war, the United States and its Allies would be understood to be making a commitment to fight Russian forces over Ukraine, should Russia invade again. Reflecting a broad political consensus, President Biden has ruled out the direct use of U.S. military force since the start of Russia’s deplorable full-scale invasion two years ago. As the administration recognizes, the security and prosperity of the United States are not implicated in the current war to the degree that would warrant direct U.S. military intervention. Indeed, both President Biden and former President Trump have warned that the conflict could escalate into “World War III.” For the same reason that the United States should not go to war against Russia over Ukraine today, it should not make a commitment to go to war against Russia over Ukraine in the future. [Emphasis added]

“The closer NATO comes to promising that Ukraine will join the alliance once the war ends, the greater the incentive for Russia to keep fighting the war. The challenges Russia poses can be managed without bringing Ukraine into NATO,” the letter read.

William Ruger, president of the American Institute for Economic Research, and Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, led the letter.

Many of the same scholars who signed onto a September 2002 letter urging the United States to avoid a war with Iraq signed the letter warning NATO against an escalation in the West’s protracted proxy war with Russia.

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These include:

• Robert J. Art at Brandeis University
• Stephen M. Walt at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
• John Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago
• Michael C. Desch at the University of Notre Dame
• Barry Posen at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

“As scholars of international security affairs, we recognize that war is sometimes necessary to secure our national security or other vital interests. We also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and that Iraq has defied a number of U.N. resolutions,” the 2002 letter read. “But military force should be used only when it advances U.S. national interests. War with Iraq does not meet this standard.”