Now is not the time for NATO to grant Ukraine emergency membership, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt told Newsmax on Monday morning.
During an appearance on "Wake Up America," Holt was shown a video of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg discussing Ukraine's right to "seek its own path," and the fact that 30 allies would need to approve a new member to the alliance.
"I do appreciate the general secretary's measured diplomatic words about what can happen. But on the technical aspects of this let's play it out a little bit," Holt told host Rob Finnerty. "If Ukraine were to be granted emergency membership status right now, you essentially pull the entire alliance to an Article 5 commitment and then we have an Article 5 war going on with Russia which is, in effect, the precursor to World War III.
"It would be far better, and I think it will happen, that Ukraine can be a NATO state one day, but not until after this conflict."
Holt discussed several items, including Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech on Friday when, while signing multiple treaties formally annexing four Ukrainian regions, he accused the United States of forwarding "satanism."
"He refers to the West as Anglo-Saxons. He's using historical arguments that go back to Peter the Great," Holt said of Putin. "He's airing every single Russian grievance that ever existed between East and West. That does not sound like a person who is looking to end a conflict anytime soon. In fact, it sounds like one who's about to ratchet one up."
Asked about Putin's mental state, Holt told Finnerty that "we can't know for sure."
"There's obvious measures of irrationality with the stuff that he is saying," Holt told Finnerty. "I'm more concerned that he's actually speaking to informed things that are being said to him. The inner circle is starting to break apart, and they're getting very nervous."
Some Putin allies have been encouraging the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
"Golly, let's back up seven months, and if we could play this broadcast then, wouldn't we be shocked at the language we're using about tactical nukes, nuclear weapons, World War III," Holt said. "We really are in a very bad place absent diplomacy, which I don't see any.
"To Sen. [Marco] Rubio's point, NATO war planners and American war planners at U.S. European Command, they have been planning for decades for all eventualities. So, it's not we start to plan in an attack scenario on Poland. We know very well what we'll do in those scenarios."
Holt began his appearance by addressing the apparent stoppage of leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines.
"I think that means just to clear up valves, midstream pipeline type things — things that the Russians actually cut the artery and turn it off. That's good news. That's actually encouraging," he told Finnerty.
"My understanding over the weekend is that to get the proper equipment in there, to repair both pipelines could take as late at May because you're getting into sea states and weather patterns in the Baltic that are very, very tough to deal with anyway, so it may take quite some time."
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