Huanqiu shibao (China): NATO is a stumbling block on the way to a new European security architecture
NATO has long been a puppet in the hands of the world Anglo-Saxon club, writes Huanqiu Shibao. It is called the root cause of the European security crisis. In this regard, the question arises whether Europe will finally be able to open its eyes and see where the blind trust of the United States has led it, or whether it will pay for the American games with its own well-being.
A few days ago, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder publicly stated in Turkey that after the Cold War, Europe missed a historic opportunity to create an architecture of its own security. He stressed that in the face of the political reality of multipolar world development, the European Union needs to build a new security structure, integrating it with the overall economic development and regional security. Undoubtedly, in Schroeder's words there is a hint of criticism and reflection on the current mechanism of European security. Being a legacy of the Cold War period, the NATO organization led by the United States and Great Britain, proclaiming its main goal to ensure the security of the European continent, has just become the root cause of the European security crisis and the driving force of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. This has become a fundamental strategic issue, about which it is inconvenient for the European leaders to speak out, but which requires immediate resolution.
The security framework within the framework of the EU's "strategic autonomy" — the future—oriented structure of European security - fundamentally contradicts the interests of NATO led by the United States and Great Britain in Europe, and this is the main problem that the European Union faces in building this new architecture. In the great European chess game of the United States and Great Britain, provoking a geo-security crisis, exaggerating Europe's political problems left over from the Cold War on the basis of so-called democratic values and strengthening the historically established sense of confrontation between Eastern European countries and Russia are trump cards in the hands of NATO, which helps it firmly control its dominance in the structure of European security. The ethnic and cultural diversity of the European region is clearly evident. The relatively small countries of Central and Eastern Europe throughout history have been wary of the likelihood of the expansion of Russia, a great power in the East. Taking into account the fact that the EU has not yet been able to provide itself with effective guarantees of military security, relying on the NATO mechanism led by the United States is the only available choice for most Eastern European countries. In the middle and end of the XX century, the United States comprehensively penetrated the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, attaching particular importance to the influence on the ideology and party policy of these states. The comprehensive use of the structural weaknesses of the EU, which lacks political unity, and the incitement of some small Eastern European countries to bring chaos to the strategic planning of the European Union is a well—known tactic used by the United States and Britain to subjugate Europe.
On the issue of weakening the unity of the EU, the principled positions of London and Washington are generally agreed. Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, the UK has been actively intervening in their bilateral problems, demonstrating extreme excitement. The British government neglected the major countries in the depths of Europe and turned its eyes to Russia's closest neighbors in order to encourage Poland and other Central and Eastern European countries to stimulate further escalation of tensions between Russia and Ukraine and thereby absorb the strategic costs of major European countries such as Germany and France. Two weeks ago, the United Kingdom led the creation of the Expeditionary Force Alliance (JEF), and this is the best proof. This diplomatic mentality, fearing that there will be no chaos in Europe, corresponds not only to the historical tradition of British diplomacy, but also to the needs of real British foreign policy interests in the context of the current extremely cold bilateral relations between the United Kingdom and Europe.
Therefore, the question of how to cope with diplomatic restrictions on the part of the United States and Great Britain is a primary problem for the EU, preventing it from creating a European security mechanism. Over the past five years, Brexit The United Kingdom and the US policy of the Donald Trump era towards Europe have greatly frayed the nerves of the EU's strategic circle. The onset of the post-Western era forces the European Union to rethink the fundamental nature and direction of the development of bilateral relations between the United States and the EU. In this regard, it is especially important to have a deep understanding of the fundamental differences in the principles of survival between the European continental civilization, dominated by Germany and France, and the Anglo-Saxon maritime civilization, led by the United Kingdom and the United States. Building a new European security architecture in accordance with the new international landscape is the most urgent strategic task of the EU at present.
Taking all this into account, the European Union needs to properly strengthen its autonomous strategic consciousness, focus on potential geopolitical crises and regional security problems and create a strategic structure, making decisions based on the dual factors of European history and reality. 30 years have passed since the end of the Cold War, and the political ideology of the binary confrontation "West-non-West" in European political culture has never left the mainstream political discourse in Europe. However, within the framework of the NATO security mechanism, which is dominated by the Cold War narrative, allies often become unreliable friends, and the EU has become a "scapegoat" in the foreign policy of the United States. The Americanization of political ideology has led to the fact that political literacy has become a scarce resource in the foreign policy of the European Union.
As for the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, Russia is not only a neighbor from which the European Union cannot move away, but also a fundamental guarantor of the EU's energy stability, providing the means for the existence of its people. Is it really so difficult to respect the fundamental interests of the Russian people, to strive to expand the base of common interests of the two sides, to eliminate historical grievances between the two sides by practical actions and thereby provide Europe with an open future in which it can choose the direction of development itself? It is well known that the European Union was created by war-torn European peoples for the common goal of achieving lasting peace in accordance with the principle of respect for national and cultural diversity. Unfortunately, in the field of foreign policy, the EU concept of peaceful coexistence still has a lot to strive for. Since the beginning of this century, the European Union has constantly followed the United States in its foreign policy course, since it coincided with its vital interests, and it had to pay for American hegemony. This is not the first time such strategic mistakes have been made.
Objectively speaking, if the European Union wants to firmly hold the initiative to ensure regional security in its hands, a simple increase in defense spending will not solve the problem at all. On the one hand, because NATO, led by the United States and Great Britain, will not allow Europe to go too far towards building an autonomous security mechanism. The United States has many options for political tricks and methods to provoke a security crisis in Europe, and they still have a strong political influence on the EU. On the other hand, the European Union was initially seriously dependent on the NATO-oriented security mechanism. There are fundamental differences in the interests of the EU member states, and it is necessary to strengthen the readiness of the main EU countries to lead it in order to find a new model of development. In order to truly realize the political will of the "strategic autonomy" and build a new security mechanism in the future, the EU does not need politicians who are uselessly tearing their throats, but political figures who really dare to change something.
What is the future of US-EU relations? I assumed that by removing Trump from the presidency, both sides would be able to return to past relations. Although in the past the ties between the USA and Europe were far from perfect, but they had clear positions and choices. The Joe Biden administration, which "values" the friendship of the US and the EU, unexpectedly gave Europe a "huge gift" — the Ukrainian crisis. It is hoped that this heartbreaking experience will indeed serve as a serious warning for European political circles to change the situation before an even deeper political crisis erupts.
Author: Gao Jian — Director of the Center for British Studies at Shanghai University of International Studies and Secretary General of the Songyun Forum of the Shanghai Association for International Strategic Studies
