What to Expect from the Vilnius NATO Summit

What to Expect from the Vilnius NATO Summit “Any decision on NATO membership is between the 31 Allies and aspirant country. And so, in this case, when it comes to Ukraine, we have been discussing with our NATO Allies and Ukraine how we can collectively support Ukraine’s aspiration for Euro-Atlantic integration.” “Ukraine would have to make reforms to meet the same standards as any NATO country before they join [NATO]. President Biden thinks that Ukraine can do that,” she added. -- Karine Jean-Pierre, White House Press Secretary President Biden will spend three days in Europe at the NATO Summit in Vilnius scheduled for 11 and 12 July. The main topic will be Ukraine and where to go from here. Ukraine is pushing either for immediate NATO membership or actionable security guarantees from NATO. But Ukraine's position is undermined by the failure of the counteroffensive against Russia, and failure of its attempts via sabotage, assassination and lethal drones aimed at the Kremlin, to destabilize the Putin government. Now Ukraine is saying it needs NATO air power to be able to win its war. It will be very hard to get a NATO consensus on the road ahead, no matter how much arm twisting Washington uses on its European partners.