A top NATO military official said that NATO forces would have deployed to Ukraine to drive Russian soldiers from the country if Russia did not have nuclear weapons. 

Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Dutch Admiral Rob Bauer, explained to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Prague Defence Summit in the Czech Republic that Russia’s nuclear weapons are deterring a NATO deployment to Ukraine. “I am absolutely sure if the Russians did not have nuclear weapons, we would have been in Ukraine, kicking them out,” he stated. 

Bauer said the challenge for the West is finding where Russia’s redlines on nuclear use are, noting that Washington mistakenly miscalculated that sending tanks and F-16s to Ukraine were the Kremlin’s redlines. 

Admiral Bauer was discussing the difference between the Ukraine conflict and other NATO wars such as the Afghanistan occupation. He stated the main difference between Moscow and Kabul is Russia’s nuclear stockpile. In Afghanistan, American and NATO forces quickly forced the Taliban from Kabul in 2001. Then, the Western alliance engaged in a two-decade nation-building project while the Taliban fought using insurgent tactics. 

The top NATO official went on to say the Afghan War was not of strategic importance. “Afghanistan was never of strategic importance. If we’re really honest Afghanistan was not of strategic importance.” He continued, “We spent 20 years there and we did a lot of things and people lost their lives but if you ask the question, ‘was it of strategic importance?’ In Afghanistan, the answer is no.”

Bauer argued that Ukraine is strategically important to NATO because the bloc is defending the “rules-based international order.” While the alliance has denounced Moscow for invading Ukraine, it has been silent as its core member has lavished Israel with arms as it conducts a genocide in Gaza and invades Lebanon.