....this is an excellent article with some valid points. But I think that it goes farther than it need to go.
1) Closing NATO to new membership is a larger decision than simply saying no membership for Ukraine. Such a broad decision to exclude all new members could come back to haunt NATO allies should the East form a more organized alliance. It is easy to say that NATO could just reverse its' decision someday, but its' management requires consensus that could prove problematic. It also sends a potentially deleterious message to other friendly nonmember nations that could open up a lot of other issues unnecessarily. It could also push those countries away toward our enemies.
2) I am concerned about the appeasement aspect of this move with Putin. he rattles his saber, NATO jumps to exclude Ukraine, and in a few years, Putin takes back the rest of Ukraine (or as much territory as he wants and thinks that he can hold). In some ways, this decision to exclude Ukraine from NATO to appease Putin simply kicks the can down the road and announces to the world that the Ukrainian people are on their own, and its territory belong to Russia someday at the time of its' choosing.
FWIW, I wonder if the best solution at present is to make no announcement on Ukraine (but if NATO does exclude them - make it just them, not a broad "closed to new members" for the above reason), and simply let Putin know that we plan to arm the Ukrainians copiously if he invades. We will give him a new Afghanistan in an even larger country (I know there are big cultural differences between Ukraine and Afghanistan, but there are many, many Ukrainians who hate Russia.....let's not exclude them publicly and make them hate us too).
If the decision is to exclude Ukraine from NATO, then do it down the road when it isn't a gesture of appeasement to Putin.
Your thoughts?