Thread by @bctallis

The #NATOSummit failed to meet the historical moment - its heartbreaking for Ukraine, but makes all Europeans less safe & makes it more difficult to make the world safe for democracy.
There were positive steps which we must now transform into a platform for what we need
Short🧵

Washington & Berlin have chosen to make Ukraine's victory more costly in terms of money but also in terms of Ukrainian lives. It sends a weak deterrence signal & seems to concede (on spurious grounds) that Moscow has a veto on NATO enlargement.

Now, allies who want to do more and who understand that Ukraine's fight is our fight too need to step up and make a more meaningful security offer - such as extending the Joint Expeditionary Force to Ukraine once hostilities cease - announcing that now would help shorten the war.

Moscow would have an incentive to prolong the fighting to stop the expansion kicking in BUT as the Kremlin’s theory of victory is based on outlasting western support, extending the JEF would render their effort futile.

This would need to include a mutual defence element - not just providing weapons- and boots on the ground, as @BWallaceMP said their would be after the war.
Extending to Ukraine & Poland is the minimum but we should work to include France as well (&others if they want)

This Joint European Defence Initiative (#JEDI) would deter Russia, protect Ukraine, underwrite the investment needed for recovery, pave the way to strengthen as well as enlarge NATO & bolster European security.

@SCClemons comment last month on CEE having ‘massive gratitude to US for they’ve done & massive resentment for what they won’t do’ remains valid.
Ukrainian ‘gratitude’ has already been expressed in lives lost - they alone are fighting our fight for us & that can’t go on.

It’s also a ridiculous debate. Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat are in the interest of all democracies. Especially NATO states. We should be jumping at the chance to do what we can not criticising Ukraine - they are dying for our free common future.