Eric Ciaramella is a senior fellow in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His work focuses on Ukraine and Russia.
Prior to joining Carnegie, Ciaramella served for twelve years in the U.S. government as an intelligence analyst and policy official. He was a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council, where he helped lead the Intelligence Community's strategic analysis on the former Soviet Union. He served on the National Security Council staff, first as director for Ukraine and then as acting senior director for Europe and Russia. He was also a senior political analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where he specialized in Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Podcast host Alex Gabuev is joined by Sophia Besch, a fellow at the Carnegie Europe Program, and Eric Ciaramella, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia and Eurasia Program, to discuss the outcomes of the NATO summit in Vilnius.
Framing Ukraine’s long-term security solely around the rigid binary of NATO membership is unnecessary at this stage in the war. It would set unrealistic expectations for what is possible in the near term and put both Ukraine and NATO in an avoidable bind.
With Ukraine’s membership in NATO still a distant prospect, Kyiv and the West must reach consensus now on a realistic long-term security arrangement. Codified multiyear commitments to train and equip Ukraine’s military, support for the country’s indigenous defense industry, and clear links to its EU accession process will be key.
NATO membership might not yet be in the cards for Kyiv, but leaving Ukraine without a reliable security arrangement would be a grave mistake. The United States and Europe must begin now to devise a workable plan, even as the war rages on.
Mariana Budjeryn’s “Inheriting the Bomb” tells the story of how one of these new countries, Ukraine, came into possession of the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal—larger than the combined stockpiles of China, France, and the United Kingdom at the time—and decided to disarm peacefully a few years later.