Joe Biden’s Bogus Charge that Ukraine Is Too Corrupt for NATO

Too often, as Ukraine faces Russia’s onslaught, the Biden administration undermines it publicly. In the days prior to the 2022 invasion, for example, White House officials urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to flee his country. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan has repeatedly sought to manage when and where the Ukrainian military struck at their Russian counterparts. Slow-rolling delivery of certain weapons systems in order to Ukrainian compliance with U.S. demands further undermined Ukraine as did the tendency by top U.S. national security authorities to question Ukraine’s strategy or battlefield tactics, never mind that few Biden officials had any military experience. Joe Biden had five student draft deferments followed by medical disqualification to avoid the Vietnam War. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s entire career has been as a Democratic Party activist or aide. The same is true for Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer. Director of Central Intelligence Bill Burns was born into a military family, but avoided military service in favor of an exclusively diplomatic career.  Only Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has a military background, though Biden’s team keeps him at arm’s length. 

Ukraine and Corrution: An Overblown Concern

Both Republicans and progressive Democrats prone to treating Ukraine as a political football, meanwhile, argue against assistance due to Ukraine’s corruption and its alleged inability to keep track of major weapon systems. Such concerns, too, are overblown.

After all, it was not Zelensky but rather Biden who forfeited more than $7 billion in military hardware to a sworn enemy due to his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Iraq, too, demonstrated how even the United States, in the heat of battle, sometimes fell behind in its record keeping. 

The NATO Summit Offers Hope

As Biden weathers questions after his disastrous debate performance about whether he has the mental fortitude to continue as president, the July 7-9, 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, DC, offers him the chance to take center stage and display leadership. Asserting leadership is not an end into itself if the positions leaders take are self-destructive. It is against this background that the Biden team’s willingness to throw Ukraine under the bus publicly is so problematic. 

On July 2, 2024, the State Department leaked that, in its final communique, NATO will reject Ukraine’s efforts to start the accession process because its government remains too corrupt. Corruption does undermine Ukraine, but both Democrats and Republicans who are serious about national security should call nonsense on using that corruption as an excuse. 

According to Transparency International that measures annually perceptions of corruption, Ukraine scores 36/100, leading it to rank 104th out of 180 countries. Importantly, its trajectory over recent years show Zelensky’s reform efforts are already bearing fruit. 

The Turkey Test

If Ukraine’s corruption ranking leaves it unfit for NATO, then how to explain the inclusion of Turkey that Transparency International ranks as more corrupt than Ukraine and with a negative trajectory? The Biden administration not only defends Turkey within NATO, but also orchestrated the sale of advanced F-16 and F-16 upgrade kits, even as Turkey violates its obligations to return the F-35 schematics it has held since its exit from the Joint-Strike Fighter program. 

Major Non-NATO allies like Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, Egypt, Kenya, Colombia and Argentina all fall below global corruption averages. Corruption may be a problem globally, but Biden embraces the excuse only selectively. If concern about Ukraine’s corruption is genuine, publicly undermining Kyiv and its leadership at a high profile international summit is not the cure. As a rule, states that Russia conquers or transforms into vassals do not embrace transparency.

Ukraine deserves a path to both European Union membership and NATO partnership. Russia’s occupation of Crimea and Donbas should not be reason to reject such membership, any more than Soviet occupation of East Germany was reason to hold West Germany at arm’s length during the Cold War.

If Biden is serious about tying corruption to military cooperation, however, he should be consistent, and send Turkey packing.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum.