Ukraine and the NATO bluff

The dangerous foreign policy gamble that the blob can't admit it's making.

Antiwar graffiti in Kyiv. Photo by author.

Debates over a potential war with Russia have gravitated, among academics and sundry wonks, towards the question of whether or not Ukraine should be admitted into NATO. Opponents of war almost universally argue that it should not; meanwhile, blob academics like Ulrich Speck argue that

taking Ukraine's NATO membership off the table won't solve the problem. It might instead encourage Putin to push harder, believing that the West is weak. Only thing that might work: deterrence.

There are all kinds of simple problems with this argument, but what I find particularly maddening is that it’s all based on a lie.