NATO strong now, invasion of Ukraine united members

Ever since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, many analysts have worried about the durability of Western support for Kyiv. Not a week goes by without new reports of weakening resolve, war fatigue, or cracks in the coalition. Yet a year into the conflict, the West’s commitment to Ukraine is undiminished—and, measured by aid delivered, stronger than ever.

This unity is unprecedented and underappreciated, and it far surpasses the strongest periods of transatlantic cohesion during the Cold War. It runs across states, societies, and companies. Every EU and NATO member state except Hungary has rallied behind Ukraine, despite deep divisions that preceded the war—over Poland’s authoritarian drift, for instance, and the United Kingdom’s ill-tempered exit from the European Union. Troubled economies roiled by war-fueled inflation have not led any major political party to argue that the costs of backing Ukraine are too high or that it is time to accommodate Russia’s demands. Pro-Ukraine policies have passed electoral tests in Italy and Sweden, where governments have turned over but support for Kyiv has endured. French President Emmanuel Macron beat off a challenge from far-right opposition leader Marine Le Pen, who came to see her long-standing ties to the Kremlin as a liability and destroyed thousands of leaflets picturing her with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This overwhelming official support for Ukraine reflects widespread popular sympathy across Western society, visible in the Ukrainian flags, stickers, and badges displayed in homes and businesses. Many retail outlets now invite customers to donate in support of Ukraine. Thousands of families have taken in refugees. The war has produced almost none of the polarization, conspiracies, or willful disregard for evidence that have beset other major events, such as the outbreak of COVID-19 or the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Russia’s narratives about the war have gained no real purchase. Among the wider public, empirical truth and moral clarity have returned to political discourse.

Most remarkable of all, Western support for Ukraine has spread across the private sector. Companies from industries as varied as oil and tech began to withdraw from Russia within days of its invasion. In the past, the private sector complied with sanctions regimes but privately argued for their easing. Now they voluntarily reinforce such restrictions. Those companies that remain in Russia face growing pressure to follow suit.

The extraordinary breadth and depth of Western unity is a product of a rare alignment of threats: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine challenges the West’s security and sense of morality in equal measure, something that no conflict has done since World War II. This alignment has enabled Western countries to act faster and take greater risks in defense of Ukraine—and offers hints about how such cohesion and resolve can be maintained.

COLD WAR, LUKEWARM ALLIANCE

Throughout the Cold War, divisions within and between NATO countries strained the alliance. At no point did Western states, societies, and companies share a common view of the Soviet threat or the appropriate response to it. This was true even in the Cold War’s most dangerous phase in the early 1980s. Initiatives such as the Reagan administration’s antimissile defense program openly alarmed Western Europe. Even Washington’s closest ally, the United Kingdom, resisted U.S. extraterritorial sanctions to prevent the building of the Siberian gas pipeline to Europe. Millions of Europeans marched against the deployment of U.S. intermediate-range nuclear weapons in their backyard. Major European political parties adopted antinuclear policies. And many observers worried that these divisions could decouple Western Europe from the United States, splitting the Atlantic alliance.

Intra-Western divisions since February 2022 pale by comparison. They are spats, not splits—mostly disagreements over tactics, timing, and rhetoric—that are amplified by social media but quickly resolved. The controversy over whether to send tanks to Ukraine is a good example. In January 2023 Germany refused to provide Leopard 2s but changed its mind within days. Several other states have committed heavy materiel to Kyiv. In a pattern repeated since the start of the war, the unthinkable became doable.

The West has stayed unified even as it has radically hardened its position. It has escalated military support to Ukraine and economic coercion of Russia and has devised new policy instruments, such as a price cap on Russian oil, to do so. The EU is weaning itself off Russian energy. In December 2022, Germany announced that it would stop buying oil from Russia in 2023—an astonishing about-face for a country that had made gas imports from Russia a central part of its economic strategy.

The West is also locking in its hardened position by permanently changing its institutions. Finland and Sweden are set to join NATO, which has adopted a new Strategic Concept that will increase the alliance’s rapid-reaction force from 40,000 to 300,000 troops. The EU has accepted Ukraine’s candidacy for membership and is arming Ukrainian troops through the European Peace Facility fund. In addition, Western countries are preparing major new demands on Russia, including accountability for war crimes, reparations for Ukraine’s reconstruction, and the return of millions of abducted Ukrainians. Any postwar settlement will have to go far beyond answering the question of how lines are drawn on the map.