What follows is the most peculiar, and even borderline surreal, development of the entire Russia-Ukraine war.
Yesterday, Sweden’s defense minister, Peter Hultqvist, met with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Washington, D.C., for an hour. After the meeting, Hultqvist announced that the Pentagon will be providing an assortment of "security measures" to both Sweden and Finland to enhance their defense capabilities as their NATO memberships are being considered by the Western alliance.
The security measures, said Hultqvist, will include (in the words of The NY Times) "U.S. Navy warships steaming in the Baltic Sea, Air Force bombers flying over Scandinavia, Army forces training with Swedish troops and American specialists helping to thwart against any possible Russian cyberattacks."
The U.S.'s double standard is striking. It has agreed to fly American bombers over two nonmember nations of NATO and sail American warships in their waters, should Vladimir Putin decide to do something warlike. The U.S. will also place American troops on Swedish ground, who would be caught in the crossfire of any Russian incursion — which is to say, they would be forced to fight back against Russian troops.
The American promises of Sweden and Finland's security during the waiting period of their NATO memberships are perfectly sensible. Russia has proven itself an erratic, irrational and unpredictable player in the world order. In behaving like a wild animal, it cannot be trusted.
Just ask Ukraine. It too was a nonmember of NATO — although it yearned to join — when three months ago Putin's armed forces crossed into Ukrainian territory and began slaughtering its citizens by the thousands. Understandably, the Ukrainian leadership has since begged for American or allied NATO air power to help protect its skies from Russian bombers and fighter planes, as well as Western sea power to help free Ukrainian waters from Russia's economically strangling blockade.
Yet, although the United States is willing to defend Sweden and Finland from Russian aggression, it has denied Ukraine the same guarantees. This dereliction (as some would call it) is especially awkward since Ukraine at least had some legitimate grounds to expect bold, U.S. military assistance. The 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by the U.S., the U.K. and the Russian Federation, prohibited each signatory from using military force against Ukraine. In return for Ukraine's relinquishment of nuclear weapons, the three powers granted "security assurances" to Ukraine.
If any European country of non-NATO status deserved America's military protection from Russian aggression, as America is now doing for Sweden and Finland, it was, and is, Ukraine. Yet no such protection has been forthcoming. The U.S. and its NATO allies have provided only military hardware to Ukraine — and that, only after weeks of self-torturing meditation. Ukraine got a raw deal.