Security Guarantees: The Two Words That Spark a NATO vs. Russia War

There is a mounting campaign by Ukraine and its Western supporters to make certain that any peace accord ending NATO’s proxy war against Russia contains reliable “security guarantees” for Kyiv.  A settlement without such binding assurances, they argue, would amount to a surrender that rewarded Russia’s aggression against its neighbor. 

Security Guarantees, Donald Trump, and the Ukraine War 

However, the insistence on security guarantees is an insidious scheme that the United States should spurn. Going down the path that Kyiv and its backers suggest would substantially heighten the risk of a direct U.S. military confrontation with Russia—one that automatically has nuclear implications.

Thanks to the Biden administration’s reckless decision to use Ukraine as a military proxy to weaken Russia, our country is already incurring an unnecessary, alarming level of risk. Being a party to explicit security guarantees to Kyiv would be even more perilous.

This is a path the new Trump Administration must avoid. 

Security Guarantees for Ukraine: A History 

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Munich Security Conference in February 2007, Moscow has repeatedly warned that Ukraine’s participation in NATO would cross a “red line” as far as Russia’s security was concerned. 

Making Ukraine a NATO military asset (whether as a formal member of the Alliance or as a de facto member) would be viewed as an existential threat. 

When the United States and key allies ousted Ukraine’s elected, pro-Russian president in early 2014, Moscow struck back by annexing Crimea, thereby securing Russia’s crucial naval base at Sevastopol. Washington and its allies foolishly continued to ignore the Kremlin’s warnings, and Moscow escalated matters with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

Since Russia was unwilling to tolerate a NATO military presence on its border before the current war with Ukraine, it is highly improbable that Kremlin leaders will now accept such a presence as a “peacekeeping force” to enforce an accord ending the conflict. Americans and Europeans who believe otherwise are being delusional. 

As I have written elsewhere, the most likely outcome to the current war is either a continuing meat grinder of a conflict that ultimately produces a Russian victory, or a Korea-style armistice that freezes the opposing forces in place indefinitely, with a token peacekeeping contingent comprised of troops from genuinely neutral countries to discourage a resumption of the fighting.  

Let NATO Make Promises to Ukraine Without America

Security guarantees to Ukraine by Europe’s NATO members would almost assuredly be a nonstarter as far as Moscow is concerned. 

Having the United States as a guarantor power, with U.S. forces stationed along the cease-fire line, would likely be even more unacceptable. 

Moreover, trying to issue a security guarantee to Kyiv without a formal peace accord with Russia would cause the risk of an armed confrontation between NATO and Russia to soar.  

Suppose Ukraine and its European backers insist on giving Kyiv a security guarantee. In that case, Washington should make it emphatically clear that the United States will have no part of such a provocative stance. Clarity means letting the European members of NATO know that if they extend such a guarantee to Kyiv, the North Atlantic Treaty’s Article 5 pledge that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all would not apply in this case. 

U.S. leaders must not let the European allies drag the United States into a catastrophic war with Russia simply because they want to escalate their foolhardy backing for Ukraine.  Hawks in European capitals need to understand that they are on their own if they venture down this path.

Europe’s Changing Military Outlook 

Even the hypothetical danger that NATO’s European powers could drag the United States into war with Russia through the back door of a security guarantee to Ukraine underscores that the fundamental interests of the United States and Europe are increasingly divergent.  It is a realization that appears to be growing on both sides of the Atlantic.  Not only have European leaders condemned major features of Donald Trump’s foreign policy, they are looking more seriously at the need to develop a robust, independent military capability for the European Union. 

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has proposed a plan to “re-arm Europe” by boosting EU defense spending to approximately $840 billion. At that point, EU military spending would be nearly as significant as Washington’s annual outlays.  Adding Non-EU member Britain’s spending would narrow that gap even more.

French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed a willingness to consider extending his country’s nuclear deterrent to cover France’s neighbors—a step that would ease, if not eliminate, democratic Europe’s longstanding reliance on the U.S. nuclear deterrent.  

Such changes are long overdue. Europe’s security dependence on the United States began in the aftermath of World War II, when the continent’s democratic countries were still recovering from the devastation of that conflict and were confronting a totalitarian superpower, the Soviet Union.

The initial arrangement to deal with that emergency situation morphed into decades of shameless free-riding on Washington’s protection, long after the European allies had recovered economically and could build whatever forces they needed for deterrence and defense. That point became even more evident when the Soviet Union dissolved and a much weaker Russia emerged from the debris as the USSR’s principal successor state.

Although the decades of free-riding were a financial bonanza for Washington’s European allies, there was a cost in another way.  U.S. leaders called the shots on all important issues.  European leaders and their publics have chafed regarding their policy impotence for decades.  U.S. administrations always resisted or outright sabotaged independent European security initiatives, even as they lobbied for greater financial “burden sharing.”  In other words, U.S. leaders wanted the European allies to pay more for policies that overwhelmingly remained under Washington’s control.

It is increasingly apparent that such an arrangement no longer is acceptable to the principal European powers.  Discontent with the Trump administration’s apparent desire to cut Ukraine loose and terminate NATO’s proxy war against Russia has brought those policy differences to a head.

No Backstop, Either 

Europe’s concerns about Moscow’s intentions are understandable, although giving a security guarantee to Ukraine seems excessively risky and unwise. Nevertheless, it is a decision that the EU and Britain have the right to make. 

A U.S. M1 Abrams engages a target during the final event on Feb. 17, 2025 as part of the U.S. Army Europe and Africa International Tank Challenge at 7th Army Training Command’s Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany. The USAREUR- AF International Tank Challenge builds tactical skills and enhances esprit de corps across the 11 teams from five participating allied and partner for peace nations. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Collin Mackall)

What the European powers do not have the right to do is trap the United States into absorbing the possible negative consequences of their decision. Given the diverging interests (especially security interests) between Washington and the European metembers of NATO, the time has come to consider dissolving the Alliance. 

At a minimum, U.S. leaders must eliminate any notion that their country will backstop a European security guarantee for Ukraine.  

About the Author: Dr. Ted Galen Carpenter

Dr. Ted Galen Carpenter is a contributing editor to 19FortyFive and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute and the Libertarian Institute.  He also served in various senior policy positions during a 37-year career at the Cato Institute.  Dr. Carpenter is the author of 13 books and more than 1,300 articles on defense, foreign policy and civil liberties issues.  His latest book is Unreliable Watchdog: The News Media and U.S. Foreign Policy (2022).