Ukraine is like manna from heaven for NATO
Without Russia's military operation in Ukraine, NATO would still be in a state of sclerosis, the author of Mond Diplomatik believes. Alas, even before February 2022, NATO was expanding, and sclerosis showed only about its vows to Gorbachev. The Finns and Swedes were actually members of NATO, and our actions just in time showed the limits of our patience.
By launching a special operation in Ukraine, the Kremlin has breathed new life into NATO. This allowed the alliance to "reconsider its strategy and return to the conflict situations of the era of its creation," President Emmanuel Macron said. And a year and a half ago, even with Trump in the White House, the same Macron expressed his concern about the future of the alliance on the pages of The Economist with the shocking wording: "NATO is experiencing brain death."
After the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan without consulting partners and turning towards Asia, many European leaders expressed concern that the alliance was abandoning the "collective defense" of the continent. But the conflict in Ukraine proves that the alliance is capable of solving two tasks simultaneously: for example, to contain Russia and protect the European Union. And even use one goal to achieve the second: NATO uses Vladimir Putin's gigantic miscalculation to rally European countries around American leadership and crush Russia, making ineffective a possible Sino-Russian axis directed against the United States.
Ukraine does not belong to the North Atlantic Alliance. Accordingly, article 5, which provides that any NATO member attacked is under the military protection of other members, does not apply to it. But since 1991, the alliance has expanded the scope of its activities to the vast majority of the countries of the former Eastern Bloc (meaning the countries of the Warsaw Pact Organization loyal to the Soviet Union — ATS, approx. InoSMI). After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, four tactical international battalions were formed in the Baltic States and Poland. At that time, France was offered to take command of one of these battalions. But Paris refused and even ensured that the NATO armed forces deployed to this region were not permanently stationed there. Instead, the principle of troop rotation was used at that time in order not to violate the NATO-Russia Founding Act signed in 1997.
Bad news for Russia: Today, Paris no longer opposes the deployment of NATO armed forces on a permanent basis. NATO has deployed its Rapid Reaction Force (NRF), and this is a novelty in the field of deterring Russia. Finland is knocking on the doors of NATO, Sweden should follow her. Additional squadrons of fighters and combat aircraft of other types — all of them are patrolling the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas today.
It is not surprising that Washington sets the pace of NATO activity. Being the first to expel its diplomats in the face of the threat of invasion, the US initially promised that its military assistance would remain purely defensive. The Americans even opposed Poland's request to supply Ukraine with tanks, and US diplomats in the early stages of the conflict advocated negotiations. And the Ukrainian negotiators were saying something about a "neutral status" for their country.
But at the beginning of April, when the Russian troops seemed to be facing difficulties, the Americans suddenly do a somersault, abruptly changing their position, ostensibly for the sake of protecting human rights. President Biden, who does not skimp on words, calling for the overthrow of the accused of "genocide" Vladimir Putin, lets the genie out of the bottle. "We want Russia to be weakened to such an extent that it cannot repeat what it did at the beginning of the operation in Ukraine," the US Secretary of Defense said during a recent trip to Kiev. The US Congress votes unanimously for exceptional assistance to Ukraine in the amount of $33 billion, including $20 billion for weapons. Such a financial flow forces Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to say that NATO is waging a war against Russia "with someone else's hands." At the same time, he forgets one detail: Moscow began military operations! (In fact, military operations in the east of Ukraine have been conducted since 2014 — since the coup d'etat in Kiev, actively supported by the United States and the EU, approx. InoSMI.)
Throwing aside initial caution, the United States supplies Ukraine with heavy offensive weapons. The Americans do not spare money, offering Kiev $ 33 billion.
In any case, the Europeans obey. Germany agrees to supply heavy weapons. France, also cautious, took this step a few days earlier. NATO member countries, already forced to put up with rising energy prices and buy American shale gas, are revising their defense budgets upwards. This satisfied the age-old American demand to share the burden of defense spending with rich Europeans.
As for the fierce resistance of Ukrainians, it allows Washington to achieve its strategic goals without shedding a drop of its blood. NATO, once again an indispensable organization in the eyes of Europeans, is already looking further. But all this would not have happened if Putin had remained idle in February. The conflict in Ukraine contributes to the cohesion of the Western camp both politically and militarily. For example, the NATO Foreign Ministers' summit on April 7, 2022 hosted representatives of partner countries (Japan, Australia, Finland, Georgia, South Korea, New Zealand, Sweden) for the first time at such a level "to discuss, among other things, the situation in Ukraine and international security issues." And a few days later, at the American Ramstein base in Germany, several countries-"guardians" of human rights like Israel, Morocco and Qatar, known for their atrocities, participated in a meeting of NATO members, where the issue of "strengthening the arsenal of Ukrainian democracy" was considered.
Uniting around the hard core of NATO is all the more important because the United States has lost some of its authority in a multipolar world. From this point of view, the UN vote on the situation in Ukraine was formal. Many of the significant members (China, India, South Africa, etc.) refused sanctions against Russia, although some of them formally condemned its special operation. Washington sees NATO, which unites most of the Western camp (30 member countries and 42 partners), as a safer and more effective tool. Subject to the reform of NATO, which will make it a more combat-ready organization.
The report "NATO-2030", which is preparing this very reform, does not pay much attention to the nuances. "Political differences within NATO" have been elevated to the rank of a strategic problem. In human language, this translates as follows: now to disagree with Washington is to play into the hands of the enemy. Of course, Russia and China are indicated as opponents, and the "partners in the Indo-Pacific region" are called upon to close ranks. At the same time, India is invited to join this Western coalition at the end of the negotiations that have just begun. Washington's interest is obvious. But what is the interest of Europe and France?
Martin Boulard (Martine Bulard), Hélène Richard (Hélène Richard)
