Are perfect democracies and i wouldn t say the united states is a perfect democracy either. so, just saying, i don t think the test is quite that. i think the problem is, as elizabeth said, and i said, that there is war going on, disputed boundaries and the goal is to get to a win for ukraine against russia and then obviously have ukraine become part of a 33-member alliance to block russian aggression ever again. peter, any other thoughts on that before i move on? no, no, i wouldn t disagree with any of that. i think that s right. there is going to be a test for ukraine in the next year because they are in a war state. and they have consolidated their media into a single state entity right now. the question is whether they re going to go forward with elections next year. no question zelenskyy made real progress, at least as judged by western analysts in terms of cracking down on corruption. it is just it is an endemic problem there and there is
Meantime. if you balance that, the nato allies should be considering how it will impact that outcome and putin s willingness to end the war. peter, beyond article five and this ongoing war and the thought being you can t allow ukraine into the war, because we re all at war, is it clear what else ukraine may need to prove to be allowed into the nato alliance? look, it is important you heard president biden talk about democracy as well as security because in fact ukraine is not a perfect moxie and doesn t have a long track record of european style democracy. it has been a pretty tumultuous place and a lot of corruption and still has a lot to prove. it is obviously proven its courage and its desire to be its own independent country and it impressed the world with that. but if it were not at war right now, the question is would this system as it currently stands in ukraine meet the standards that nato asks for in a democratic
Membership can t happen, but they made real progress and the alliance will lay out the further reforms, both in terms of their security work and their democracy that are necessary to keep moving down that path. elizabeth, how do you weigh nato s clear desire to protect ukraine but also try not to antagonize putin to the point where he may do something extreme? well, that seems to be what is the debate is focusing on a lot. the point we re missing is whether it is in ukraine s and nato s best interest, irregardless of the response by russia, for us to ukraine on a specific and clear path toward membership. from the ukraine perspective, we know there is very strong interest, i think there would be a big morale boost to be saying, yes, when the war is over, you will be on a path and here is the criteria and here is how it will work and there are a number of nato members who are interested in that. i think if we re considering now, we re not in the position where we were in 2008 when nato membership was first dangled in front of ukraine and georgia. the idea was how do you prevent