Nato is a defensive organization. If any member is attacked, every other member has to come to their aid. You can't join if you're currently being attacked. That's a pretty fundamental assumption. Nato exists to prevent future wars by acting as a bloc, not to force their members to join existing wars.

To join nato, ukraine needs to win the war and recover all their territory, release their claims on any russian occupied territories, or get enough of nato's membership on their side to be agree to be forced into the war. None of these are possible anytime soon.

[–] iii@mander.xyz 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

If any member is attacked, every other member has to come to their aid.

They don't have to. It stipulates that a war on one member is viewed as a declaration of war on all members. But there's no protocol that forces members to act.

For example when the Cypriot war broke out between Greece and Turkey, both NATO members.

[–] Pika@rekabu.ru 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Then it would make such membership meaningless and will only undermine collective action within NATO?

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 days ago

Yeah, in practice this is interpreted as as everyone must join to retaliate, except maybe in niche cases like the aggressor also being in NATO.

[–] iii@mander.xyz 5 points 4 days ago

It is what it is