By Benjamin Friedman and Natalie Armbruster
At a recent virtual summit, NATO leaders reaffirmed their intent to admit Ukraine to the alliance.
In doing so, they indicated an odd preference to directly defend Ukraine at some point, just not now while it’s under attack. As the dominant power in the NATO alliance, this puts the United States in the familiar, but dangerous, position of vaguely and half-heartedly offering to defend a non-ally.
These states, which we call “quasi-allies,” in our recent report, are not true allies, in that the United States has no treaty commitment to defend them. But they hover in a kind of geopolitical purgatory, encouraged by Washington to believe that they might be under the U.S. defensive penumbra. Quasi-ally status creates danger, not only for the United States, but also for those states it feints at protecting. Washington should stop creating quasi-allies, with word and deed, and either commit to defending states or, as should be the case most of the time, be clear that we won’t.
Quasi-allyship is a murky status, created by official rhetoric, such as overzealous Congressmen or speechifying presidents talking falsely — calling states “allies,” speaking of “enduring bonds,” and “ironclad” commitments. Heavy arms sales and talk of formal commitments exacerbate the trouble. Quasi-ally status generally applies to states — Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Ukraine, Georgia, and Taiwan, and probably Israel, which is arguably so close to an actual ally that it is one — but can also describe relations with sub-state entities like the Mujahideen fighting the Soviet-backed government in 1980s Afghanistan or the Kurds in Syria today.
This piece was originally published in Responsible Statecraft on December 28, 2022. Read more HERE.