Extract from ABC News
It's become one of the most desirable clubs in Europe — the NATO Club.
This week's NATO summit in Lithuania has highlighted how in a troubled world it's a heavily sought-after membership. This has been one of the strongest themes of the second and final day of the NATO meeting.
The summit also highlighted the power of "the Zelenskyy Factor". The hosts proved how strong their support is for NATO – a support which can be understood, in part, by an extraordinary museum in Vilnius – the KGB Museum.
And what was the outcome of the summit? Here are the highlights of the final day of the NATO summit.
The NATO Club
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proved the best recruiter NATO has ever had.
NATO — the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation — was formed in 1949 in response to what the US and several European countries saw as the threat from the Soviet Union. The US and its European founders conceived it as a counterweight to the Soviet empire.
NATO's website says it all:
"The North Atlantic Alliance was founded in the aftermath of the Second World War. Its purpose was to secure peace in Europe, to promote cooperation among its members and to guard their freedom – all of this in the context of countering the threat posed at the time by the Soviet Union. The Alliance's founding treaty was signed in Washington in 1949 by a dozen European and North American countries. It commits the Allies to democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law, as well as to peaceful resolution of disputes. Importantly, the treaty sets out the idea of collective defence, meaning that an attack against one ally is considered as an attack against all Allies."
But the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991, breaking up into 15 separate countries.
With its collapse the NATO club lost much of its raison d'etre and lustre. Some of its own members wondered what was the point of funding an organisation formed to counter something that no longer existed.
Donald Trump, when he became US president, made clear he thought NATO was an indulgence for European countries funded by Washington.
Then along came Vladimir Putin. He began a long-term project to re-capture what his generation of former KGB officers saw as the glory days of the Russian empire.
Mr Putin's aggression, typified by the invasion of Ukraine last year, has unintentionally translated into a one-person NATO membership drive.
Attending the NATO conference in Vilnius this week I was struck by the fact that those countries who are already part of NATO are delighted with their membership – and it would appear the smaller the country, the greater the delight.
Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are good case studies. Their populations are 2.8 million, 1.8 million and 1.3 million respectively.
To put that into perspective, that means Estonia only has a population three times the size of Newcastle — it would have no chance of defending itself against Russia the way Ukraine has been able to, the latter with about 44 million.
Speaking to Lithuanians this week, it's clear that they have a sense that without the protection of NATO they would not stand a chance should Russia invade. A common sentiment is that were they unaligned nobody would come to their defence.
Their view – which I found was also widespread during a month I spent recently in Ukraine – is that had Ukraine been a member of NATO then Russia would not have invaded.
The strong view among many people in NATO countries, and Ukraine, is that while Mr Putin may be a bully they don't think he would want to pick a fight with the US and its 30 NATO allies.
Another example is Finland which is delighted that it was admitted to the NATO club earlier this year. And then there's Sweden – relieved that after months of lobbying it has been admitted. Turkiye's Recep Tayyip Erdogan had resisted their entry.
But after negotiations with Sweden he relented. The case of Sweden shows how NATO is working at the moment – in return for entry, Erdogan was able to extract from Sweden a commitment that it will overhaul its counter-terrorism structures.
How extraordinary is this? So keen was Sweden to enter that it allowed the leader of another country to lay down the terms by which it runs its counterterrorism operations.
In reality Sweden may not make significant changes, but to get NATO entry it has had to commit to President Erdogan that it will do so.
That says something about how NATO membership is being viewed. Sweden has long been a non-aligned country, so joining NATO is a major departure.
The Zelenskyy Factor
He's one of the most high-risk individuals in the world but also one of the most powerful.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy's power comes from several sources. One is that every word he utters is amplified around the world.
And so when he took to Twitter to deliver a broadside against NATO he knew it would have an impact. NATO delegates here panicked – for the sake of a unified front against Russia, the last thing they wanted right now were cracks in NATO's edifice.
Mr Zelenskyy was angry that the wording of a draft communique about Ukraine's bid for membership was discussed without him or his delegation having arrived at the conference. Referring to what he had heard that NATO was proposing not to put any time frame on Ukraine's membership, Mr Zelenskyy wrote that it was "unprecedented and absurd" that a time frame was not set.
"For Russia this means motivation to continue its terror," he wrote. "Uncertainty is weakness and I will openly discuss this at the summit."
Within hours of that verbal missile Mr Zelenskyy was showing one part of his power – his ability to rally public support. Word went out in the Lithuanian media that he was going to turn up to a concert in the centre of Vilnius.
Thousands of people made their way there. A group of Australian journalists who'd been travelling with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese decided to make our way to the venue just in case he showed. It was clear from the way the crowds were rushing that something was on.
Mr Zelenskyy then received the sort of welcome one would normally expect for a rock star. His tone was much softer than the one he'd used only hours before on Twitter – NATO would be stronger with Ukraine, he told the crowd, and Ukraine would be safer with NATO.
Over the next 24 hours Mr Zelenskyy would go from one bi-lateral meeting to another with world leaders as they pledged, one after another, more military assistance. Cluster bombs from Joe Biden. Long-range missiles from Emmanuel Macron. Thirty more Bushmasters from Anthony Albanese.
The Zelenskyy Factor was on display. Unloading on NATO leaders one day. Receiving a shopping list of military hardware the next.
The KGB Museum
To understand why Lithuanians are so enthusiastic to lock in with NATO as insurance against Russia, one local told me, I needed to visit the KGB Museum in the centre of Vilnius. And so I did.
This truly is an extraordinary museum – a must for anyone visiting Vilnius.
It's a grand building in the centre of the city. But walking through is a tour through the dark and cruel minds of the KGB leaders. For Lithuanians, of course, it has a particular resonance as Vladimir Putin, their neighbour, is a former senior officer of the KGB who had a successful career in one of the most ruthless intelligence services imaginable.
The horror of the KGB and their behaviour while Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union is apparent the moment one walks down the stairs into the basement. The first thing you see are tiny solitary confinement cells – the entire space is about the size of an economy aircraft seat. One can only sit – it is not possible to sleep.
But as one continues through this dungeon of horrors things get worse. The diseased creativity of the KGB is on display. If the initial solitary confinement cell is bad enough, the KGB came up with a worse one. They built and used cells that they filled with water, which, in winter, would be ice-cold.
In the middle of the cell is a small circular platform – about the diameter of a basketball — on which the prisoner stood, or sat. It meant that the prisoner needed to concentrate at all times on not losing balance or else they would fall into the freezing water.
But of course it's impossible to go forever without sleep. So that when the prisoner finally fell asleep they would fall into the water, which instantly woke them.
The basement gets even worse. As one continues through this dungeon one eventually comes to an execution chamber.
The museum draws on KGB records to document the organisations methods. Exhibitions say that the leaders of the Soviet Union realised that the regime could exist safely only if the country was isolated from the democratic world.
In Lithuania the KGB had a massive program to put any foreign visitors under surveillance. Visitors were allowed to stay only in hotels that had secret cameras and bugged telephones.
The documents show that in 1975 and 1976, the 7th Division of the KGB took more than 5,000 photographs and installed television cameras in the Neringa Hotel in Vilnius, alone.
The KGB Museum is opposite the park in which President Zelenskyy rallied Lithuanians this week.
On one side of the road was someone at war with Russia. On the other a building which serves as a constant reminder to Lithuanians what the KGB, which helped produce Vladimir Putin is capable of doing.
The Result
Finally, after all the posturing, Twitter attacks and negotiations, what did this two-day meeting of NATO actually decide?
One of the most meaningful decisions came regarding what Ukraine most wants – fighter jets. Mr Stoltenberg said a new initiative with training for F-16 jets to begin within two months. Ten NATO allies were part of this training, he said. "The most urgent task now is to ensure enough weapons."
As the summit wound up, After his angry twitter outburst, President Zelenskyy accepted that membership would occur "when security matters will allow".
The same sentiment was expressed by Mr Stoltenberg: "When NATO allies agree that conditions are met … After this war ends."
Mr Zelenskyy stood alongside Mr Stoltenberg who described the new commitment as "a security umbrella" involving guaranteed military and financial assistance if required. He said air defence, military aircraft would be considered on a bilateral level with individual countries.
Mr Zelenskyy, asked what would make a difference for Ukraine, said: "This guarantee will remain valid as long as Ukraine is not in NATO … on our way to NATO we would like to have these security guarantees. They would make our relationship with other (NATO) countries even more powerful."
Of all the options NATO considered, Mr Stoltenberg observed: "There is no risk-free option for NATO." He added that Moscow could not be allowed to decide who could or could not be allowed to join NATO – NATO had ensured that has not happened.
But what NATO was not able to do was determine the timing of Ukraine's membership.
There was truth to Mr Zelenskyy's argument that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO until the war is over gives Russia the motivation to prolong the war.
While the NATO meeting has agreed to fast-track Ukraine's membership, the key issue is still in the hands of Vladimir Putin – when the war ends.
From Moscow's point of view, knowing that Ukraine will join NATO soon after the war is over, is surely a reason to keep the war going.
In my assessment it would have been more effective for NATO to have come up with a compromise – that Ukraine would not be admitted immediately but if the war is not over in one year then Ukraine will be admitted. That would have taken the power out of the hands of Mr Putin.
Vladimir Putin cited NATO's growing influence on Russia's doorstep as a key reason for his invasion of Ukraine – by prolonging the war he has a way of keeping NATO, at least formally, from his border with Ukraine.
Nonetheless, despite this genuine concern the 31 NATO members were never going to agree to Ukraine joining while a war with Russia is happening.
None of those 31 countries wants to suddenly be at war with Russia.
Ultimately, it seems inevitable that this conflict will get worse before it gets better.
Those NATO countries look certain to be pumping much more military support to Ukraine before it sees Ukrainian officials walk in as the organisation's newest members.
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