Why do experts rule out America's approval to provide security guarantees to Ukraine?

WASHINGTON

- The United States and its allies are considering how the West could provide Ukraine with alternative security guarantees if it abandoned its bid to join NATO in a concession to Russia, in order to end the war and stop the fighting.

It is unlikely that the United States would ultimately provide any of the binding security guarantees that Ukraine would demand.

And US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan evaded answering a question regarding Washington's provision of security guarantees required by Kyiv as part of its efforts to reach a ceasefire with the Russian side.

And during his appearance on Monday at the daily White House press briefing, Sullivan refused to answer a question about what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on "Face the Nation", last Sunday, when he stressed that "with regard to any possible peace agreement, the important thing in this agreement is It is the security guarantees, and the United States has not provided anything yet."

“Personally, I am in almost daily contact with my counterpart in the Ukrainian government,” Sullivan responded. “We are constantly talking about how to support a negotiated solution that defends Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. We have told them that we are ready to do our part to support that, including enabling Ukraine to have the means to defend itself in the future.

Sullivan's evasion - from responding to the question of the Ukrainian government's request for security guarantees in which the United States participates - was not surprised by the experts following, as appeared in the conversations of a number of them to Al Jazeera Net.

American guarantees mean preparing for war with Russia

Alexander Downes, director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University and an expert in international conflicts, ruled out that the Biden administration would provide bilateral security guarantees to Ukraine, but - as he said - "it may be willing to provide such a guarantee in a multilateral framework in which other countries do as well." .

However, Downes argued, "it is hard to see how such guarantees can work if they do not include countries sympathetic to Russia, such as China."

Downs said - to Al Jazeera Net - "Any security guarantee for Ukraine must be strong and specific in terms of the types of threats that may lead to a reaction, and what are those measures to have credibility in deterring any Russian aggression in the future. But the stronger and more specific the guarantee, Countries (including the US) were more reluctant to sign it. After all, ensuring Ukraine's security makes you sign a possible war against Russia if deterrence fails."

Meanwhile, Dartmouth University professor and US foreign policy expert, Professor William Woolforth, emphasized that the security guarantees discussed by Ukrainian negotiators did not appear realistic.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera Net, Wolfforth indicated that "Ukraine hopes to obtain security guarantees equivalent to those contained in Article 5 of the founding document of NATO, which NATO has already refused to provide even before the Russian attack."

"Neutrality backed by credible security guarantees for Ukraine does not seem realistic at this point. It will require revolutionary diplomatic developments that no one expects to happen," he said.

NATO ships conduct military exercises with Ukrainian forces in the Black Sea during the month of March 2021 (Agencies)

Ghost of Budapest Memo

Some experts trace the dilemma of providing security guarantees to Ukraine to the experience of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, in which the United States, Britain and Russia agreed to respect Ukraine's independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity, and to refrain from the threat or use of force and economic coercion against Ukraine.

The only enforcement clause in the agreement was to seek Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine.

As Downs says, "This is, of course, useless if the aggressor is one of the council members with veto power. Hence, in the case of Russia, the new security guarantee must also be outside the framework of the United Nations."

Assuming that the Biden administration agreed to provide security guarantees to Ukraine, or that the United States was among a group of countries providing such guarantees, “it is doubtful whether Russia would agree to a treaty providing for US military intervention, and that sounds like something the Russians would want to avoid.”

Unenforceable guarantees

Steve Beaver, an expert on European affairs and disarmament at the Brookings Institution, spoke of the dilemma of Washington providing security guarantees to Ukraine, and said, "This is a very difficult question. On the one hand, the Biden administration wants to be supportive of Kyiv's efforts to negotiate an end to the war. On the other hand, it appears that Security guarantees require that the United States commit to going to war to defend neutral Ukraine in the future, if Russia violates that neutrality."

"Even if the Biden administration is willing to do so, can it obtain Senate approval for such a commitment," Beaver says to Al Jazeera Net.

While retired Colonel Mark Kansian, a former official at the Departments of Defense and the Treasury and an expert at the Center for Strategic and International Policy in Washington, doubted that Washington would give Ukraine guarantees along the lines of NATO's commitment under Article 5, "because that would require the deployment of military forces and coordinated command in order to be able to be credible.”

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, Kansian noted, “The United States does not want to be bound by guarantees that it cannot enforce. Instead, I would expect that there will be a set of principles and actions that NATO or the European Union will take to help Ukraine defend itself without making a commitment. official military.

Some commentators are surprised by Ukraine's determination to submit requests that the other parties know in advance that the other parties are unable to meet, as happened with the request to provide combat aircraft, or the imposition of a no-fly zone, and finally the request for security guarantees.

Prof. Downs concluded: “In short, I doubt that the United States will explicitly agree to provide guarantees for Ukraine's security, and Russia will not, and the parties will accept more vague language of providing all necessary military support to Ukraine, which can be interpreted in more ways than one. While they will not welcome Kyiv does that, but that may be all you can get."