One of Donald Trump’s former officials has warned that inviting Ukraine to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) could risk nuclear war.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, Robert O’Brien, who served as Trump’s national security adviser between 2019 and 2021, said Ukraine could not join the alliance without a significant risk of an escalation of tensions with Russia.
“To bring a country into NATO and the alliance that’s in a war with Russia is very provocative to the Russians, and could lead to escalation, even nuclear war,” O’Brien said.
Insisting that Ukrainian NATO membership was “too provocative at this point,” O’Brien suggested that as alternatives the U.S. could give Kyiv security guarantees or put more eastern European troops in Ukraine after any peace deal is brokered.
Former national security adviser Robert O’Brien speaks to reporters outside the West Wing at the White House in Washington, D.C., on November 17, 2020. O’Brien has warned that allowing Ukraine to join NATO could risk nuclear war with Russia.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Newsweek has contacted Robert O’Brien, through representatives at American Global Strategies, for comment.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has renewed calls for Ukraine to join NATO as it continues its war against Russia.
During an address to the Ukrainian parliament on October 16, Zelensky pitched a “victory plan” that involved Ukraine joining NATO and replacing some U.S. troops in Europe with Ukrainian ones following the end of the war.
There are currently 100,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Europe.
Zelensky made a similar bid to the European Council in Brussels the following day, saying that Ukraine will seek to pursue nuclear weapons if it is not allowed to join NATO.
“The outcome is either Ukraine will be a nuclear power—and that will be our protection—or we should have some kind of alliance. Other than NATO, today we don’t know of any effective alliances,” Zelensky told the European Council.
NATO has so far been noncommittal as to when it would allow Ukraine to join its ranks.
Rather than NATO membership, O’Brien told Fox that imposing harsher sanctions on Russia, especially on the Russian Federation Central Bank, was the way to bring about an end to the war.
Describing the sanctions on Russia as so far “relatively minor,” O’Brien said: “They haven’t kicked folks out of SWIFT. They’ve taken a few oligarchs’ yachts.”
“Ukraine is going to be in real demographic trouble if it doesn’t stop the war. We’re going to leave it to Ukrainians to decide what they’re willing to trade for peace,” O’Brien added.
O’Brien, who has been out on the campaign trail for Trump, told Fox he would “of course” accept a job in Trump’s administration should the former president win next week’s election.
“It’s always an honor to serve the country and to serve the president. But I’m not campaigning for a job,” he said. “There are a lot of really great people who’d like to work for the president.”
Trump has repeatedly said that, if reelected, one of his first priorities would be to negotiate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine—something he claims he could do “within a day.”
The former president has criticized Zelensky, whom he has dubbed “one of the greatest salesmen” and the level of aid Kyiv has received from Washington.
