NATO's dilemma: Whether to further invest in Ukraine crisis

Ukraine once again occupied a substantial part in the annual report of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as its conflict with Russia entered the third year.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged NATO members to step up military aid to Ukraine while releasing the organization's annual report for 2023 on Thursday.

Ukraine is running out of ammunition in its conflict with Russia and NATO members are not doing enough to help Kyiv, Stoltenberg said, adding that the allies had the capacity to provide more to Ukraine but needed to show the political will to do so.

But it's the political will that is much doubted. Earlier this year, Rustan Umerov, Ukraine's defense minister, said at an event that half of all Western military support promised to Ukraine fails to arrive on time, complicating the task of military planners and ultimately costing the lives of soldiers in its fight against Russia.

A leaked recording in February, where German military officials discussed things ranging from the possible delivery of Taurus cruise missiles to Kyiv to British personnel deployed in Ukraine, caused an outcry.

While Moscow claimed the discussion "clearly demonstrates the involvement of the 'collective West,' including Berlin, in the conflict around Ukraine," Berlin said the leak was a Russian "hybrid disinformation attack" that aimed to sow discord within the country and with allies.

One thing that is clear is that Berlin is reticent about promoting an escalation of the Ukraine crisis.

French President Emmanuel Macron opened the door to European nations sending troops to Ukraine on February 26, but what he said drew denial from Stoltenberg, who said "there are no plans for NATO combat troops on the ground in Ukraine," one day later.

Michael Maloof, a former Pentagon senior security policy analyst, said in an interview with China Media Group that the West's continuous military support to Ukraine might backfire.

Taking the German military recording as an example, Maloof said it not only failed Germany's plan to supply Ukraine with Taurus cruise missiles, but also made the West realize that if they continue "playing with fire" in the Ukraine crisis, they would face a potential response from Russia.

Moreover, Maloof added the West's "playing with fire" would not only affect their own economy, industry and people's lives, but also bring them terrible geopolitical consequences.

Dong Yifan, a research fellow with the Institute of European Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told CGTN that NATO's pursuit of absolute security will not work.

Reinforcing one's own security on the basis of matching security threats from other countries will ultimately lead to an unbalanced security architecture prone to collapse, Dong said.

According to the annual NATO report, 11 member states met the standard of spending two percent of their GDP on defense in 2023, and this number increased to 18 by the beginning of 2024.

The Ukraine crisis is one of the reasons behind NATO's increased military spending in recent years.

The report also said two-thirds of allies will meet the two percent target in 2024. However, it seems a long way to go to achieve the goal.

A report released by Institut de Relations Internationales et Strategiques, a French think tank on geopolitical and strategic issues, said that no major budget increase in defense equipment can be expected from the countries of southern Europe, in particular Greece, Italy and Spain, in the next few years, given both their distance from the frontline of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and their relatively fragile economic conditions.

Nonetheless, in comparison to the increasing military spending in NATO member countries, Ukraine's military has recently been grappling with significantly reduced weapons supplies from the West, including NATO.

(Cover: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg (L) shakes hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the end of a joint press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, April 20, 2023. /CFP)