Yesterday President Barack Obama and Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves met in Tallinn on the eve of the NATO summit in Wales today. Obama visited Estonia to convey US support for its long-time ally and reiterate US commitment to NATO’s Article 5 , which means that if any one member of the Alliance is attacked, the others will consider this an attack on themselves and will “take the actions it deems necessary, including the use of armed force.”

Yet both leaders made it clear that we cannot expect NATO, individually or collectively, to provide substantial military aid to Ukraine, as this would involve direct military confrontation against Russia.

Obama spoke of initiatives to bolster the Baltic states as a front line in Europe against Russian aggression:

“On my visit to Warsaw this spring, I announced a new initiative to bolster the American military presence here in Europe, including in the Baltics, and we’re working with Congress to make sure that we deliver. Today, I can announce that this initiative will include additional air force units and aircraft for training exercises here in the Nordic-Baltic region. And we agree with our Estonian allies that an ideal location to host and support these exercises would be Amari Air Base here in Estonia. With the support of Congress and our Estonian friends, I’m confident that we can make this happen. And I look forward to discussing this further when we meet with Presidents Bērziņš and Grybauskaitė this afternoon.



As President Ilves indicated, we spend a great deal of time on Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. I’ll have much more to say about this in my speech today. For now, I just want to commend Estonia — including President Ilves — for being such a strong voice both in NATO and the EU on behalf of the Ukrainian people. Estonia has provided assistance as Ukrainians work to strengthen their democratic institutions and reform their economy. And because we’ve stood together, Russia is paying a heavy price for its actions, and NATO is poised to do more to help Ukraine strengthen its forces and defend their country”.



President Ilves for his part looked for credible deterrence from NATO:

“We are grateful to the United States for sending troops here and for actively participating in the Baltic air policing mission. Your presence underlies the credibility of NATO’s Article 5. Without a doubt, your bilateral contributions have helped set an example for other NATO Allies. A robust and visible Allied presence here in Estonia is the best way of discouraging any possible aggressors. We look forward to the NATO Summit confirming this.



But we face a completely new security situation in Europe, and we are pleased that this is reflected in many of the summit’s documents. We expect the NATO Summit in Wales to adopt the readiness action plan that will guide allied nations for years to come through a set of practical steps and measures of reassurance and deterrence.”



While NATO is unlikely to take any robust action to defend Ukraine or fast-track it to membership, many observers have pointed out that it could do the minimum, which is to cancel the NATO Partnership Agreement with Russia. Ilves took a question from a reporter on this issue:



“Well, from our side, first of all, NATO did decide to freeze its relations with Russia several months ago. But on the issue in terms of what is the — what are the implications of the NATO-Russia Founding Act, I suggest all those who say we can’t do anything because of the NATO-Russia Founding Act read the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which says that these conditions hold — to quote — “in the current and foreseeable” future, or “the security environment of the current and foreseeable” future. That was the security environment of 1997, when Boris Yeltsin was President, and there had been no violations of either the U.N. Charter or the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, the 1990 Paris Charter.





So I would argue this is an unforeseen and new security environment, and therefore one has to hold on to certain provisions. It does not mean we have to give up the whole act, but certainly when an agreement in certain parts no longer holds, well, then it’s time to make a change.”



Obama responded that “the circumstances clearly have changed” but believed “there was a complacency here in Europe about the demands that were required to make sure that NATO was able to function effective”. He noted that former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had made some “fairly sharp speeches” in this regard.

Asked by a reporter to explain what could be done directly to help Ukraine, Ilves replied:



“Well, most importantly, Ukraine needs above all continued political support. And from that support comes decisions that involve everything else — economic aid, humanitarian aid, and also military aid. And from that come also decisions on equipment.









In Wales, the NATO-Ukraine committee will gather and will decide how to increase NATO defense cooperation with Ukraine. This is the kind of decision that we in NATO take together. On the humanitarian side, we have doubled our humanitarian and development assistance in looking for what more we can do. We have already brought wounded, seriously wounded Ukrainian soldiers to our top-notch rehabilitation center here and will continue to do so. That is certainly one thing that is — we know the Ukrainians lack that and we have it at a superbly high level, and also, I should add quickly, that with the assistance with the United States and the Walter Reed Hospital that we have this here.”



So Europe and particularly Estonia are standing by to help the wounded. What about helping to fight the war?

Obama’s reply indicates that he continues to have faith in Western sanctions as forcing Putin to stop his war on Ukraine:



“Political support is absolutely vital. And one of our goals at the summit over the next several days is to once again project unity across NATO on behalf of Ukraine’s efforts to maintain its sovereignty and territorial integrity.









The sanctions that we’ve applied so far have had a real effect on Russia. And I think it’s important for us to continue to impose costs on Russia so long as it is violating basic principles of international law. And so far at least we’ve been able to combine efforts between Europe and the United States and some of our allies around the world, and the results are a Russian economy that is effectively contracting, capital flight putting a burden on the Russian economy that at the moment may be overridden by politics inside of Russia as a consequence of state-run propaganda, but over time will point to the fact that this is a strategy that’s not serving Russia well, in addition to not serving Ukraine, obviously, well.”



Obama also sees direct economic aid to Ukraine as vital, while identifying the problem clearly as induced by Russia:



“The military efforts that have been required to deal with Russian-financed, Russian-armed, Russian-trained, Russian-supported and often Russian-directed separatists has meant that — has meant a drain on the Ukrainian economy, not to mention the fact that you have major industrial areas inside of Ukraine that obviously have been impacted by the conflict there.









So we’re going to have to make sure that the international community stands behind the Ukrainian economy in the short term, even as we encourage and advise and work with Ukraine to carry out some of the basic reforms that are going to be required in order for them to achieve the kinds of models of success that we’ve seen in Estonia and Poland and other places. And that’s a tough row to hoe. It took a couple of decades for some of the countries who are currently in the EU to achieve the sort of market-based reforms that have led to such great prosperity.”



The NATO summit is thus unlikely to produce any surprises regarding defense of Ukraine; the question is how much credible deterrence NATO will muster for Europe.