Ukraine's inclusion into NATO will be a step of confrontation with Russia, warns Macron

French President Emmanuel Macron warned that Ukraine's accession into NATO will be seen by Russia as another step to confrontation amid the ongoing war. In an interview with France's Le Monde newspaper, Macron said that the security architecture of Europe should not be viewed only through the prism of NATO. He said that Ukraine must be granted security guarantees, hinting that NATO membership isn't necessary for security guarantees. Macron said that Europe must eventually provide security guarantees to Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Belarus as well. Belarus is a close ally of Russia, and Russian troops used Belarus' territory as a launchpad for the march towards Kyiv. 

NATO membership for Ukraine is an extremely controversial topic. During the 2021 annual press conference that Russian President Vladimir Putin conducts at the end of each year (something he skipped this year), Putin said, in reply to a question from a British journalist associated with Sky news, that the US is installing missiles on Russia's porch. Putin went on to ask how would the US feel if Russia installed missiles near the US-Canada border or the US-Mexico border. "Are we asking something excessive?" he asked the journalist. Why was he talking about missiles and what does that have to do with NATO? Well, when a nation becomes part of NATO, the US has the right to deploy whatever weapon system it choses, including nuclear missiles. The more closer these missiles are to Russia's border, the more threatening it is for Russia. 

Russia's threat perception 

Why? They are more threatening when they are closer because the only defence against missiles is intercepting them, and these missiles can be intercepted more accurately when they have a longer flight time. If a missile is being launched from a location which is close to the Russian border, it has a much shorter flight path and as a result Russia would have less time to intercept it. European security architecture has its roots in the end of the 2nd World War. When the allied forces won by defeating axis powers, the Red Army was in Berlin. Hence, Europe was divided between the West and USSR, with the line of that division going right through Berlin, which was marked by the Berlin wall. 

NATO expansion and the security dilemna 

Overtime, the power of the USSR dwindled and NATO kept expanding eastwards. This led to the classic textbook case of the security dilemma. Nations joined NATO because they felt threatened by Russia. They joined NATO to defend themselves. Russia, on the other hand, perceived these actions as aggressive and perceived NATO expansion as American attempts to threaten Russia's existence.

In international relations, a security dilemma occurs when an action a nation, say nation X, takes to defend itself, is perceived by the other nation, say nation Y, as an aggressive action instead of a defensive action. In response, nation Y carries out a defensive action, which is perceived by nation X as an aggressive action, which gives birth to an endless ecalatory loop. Many prominent thinkers of international relations, particularly the realists, believe that the Russia Ukraine war would not have occurred if the US, in the 2008 Bucharest Summit, did not talk about including Ukraine into NATO.