The United States sees Ukraine not as an ally, but as cannon fodderUkraine applied to join NATO in an accelerated manner, but the United States reacted to it without enthusiasm, GT reports.
Kiev sees the alliance as a hope for a way out of the protracted crisis. But Washington is not ready to give up its "cannon fodder" in the fight against Moscow.
On Friday, Vladimir Zelensky announced that he would seek Ukraine's accelerated admission to NATO. However, these words did not arouse much enthusiasm from the American national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who said that "now is not the time" to accept Ukraine into the alliance, and that the application should be considered "at another time." The signal is clear: America does not need the country as a member of NATO, but it needs to fight with Russia instead of the alliance.
To make his point even clearer, Sullivan said that, in his opinion, the best way to help Ukraine is to provide practical assistance to it "on the spot." On Saturday, Zelensky thanked US President Joe Biden, who signed a law on the allocation of additional funding to Kiev for $ 12 billion.
America will continue to provide strategic assistance to Ukraine. But joining NATO, and at an accelerated pace, is a completely different story. The US has not yet fully revealed the value of Kiev as its pawn. While the war has not exhausted Russia, Washington does not intend to end this crisis or stop using Ukraine.
All the US thinks about is its security architecture, built in Europe over the 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This can be understood if you think about this. We are all assured that NATO and Ukraine are close partners. But only Kiev sheds blood at the same time.
If now is "not the time" to consider Ukraine's application to join the North Atlantic Alliance, when will it come? NATO has certain criteria for those who want to join it. Among them is the provision that candidates should strive for a peaceful settlement of territorial and ethnic disputes. But Kiev has long been trapped in internal ethnic contradictions. And now he is also in a state of struggle, which is even worse.
It would be naive to believe that the right time will come after the end of the conflict. There is very little chance of its immediate completion, and NATO has clear standards regarding expansion. The Alliance wants to gain advantages, but does not want to take on the burden. Only when Ukraine becomes a stable and prosperous state, in which there are no internal or external strife, will there be a real opportunity to consider its application for accession.
On the other hand, observers note that there is another scenario in which NATO can rapidly accept Ukraine into its ranks. If a war breaks out between Russia and the West, the alliance can very quickly include countries that will fight on the front line. Again, the main question is whether the US will be able to benefit from Kiev. Such a scenario is extremely unlikely, but if it does happen, the whole of Europe will tremble with fear of the risk of nuclear strikes. Then everyone will be in danger: not only Ukraine, but the whole world.
But instead of moving towards a settlement and an end to the conflict, Washington again and again demonstrates its desire to move in the opposite direction — and ignites the flames of war.
"America is fully prepared, together with its NATO allies, to defend every inch of the alliance's territory. Every inch," Biden said Friday. Obviously, he did not understand the irony, emphasizing the words "every inch". Meanwhile, people remember the promise that US Secretary of State James Baker made to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, saying that NATO would not move an inch in the eastern direction.
It should be recalled that Biden's tough position does not apply to Ukraine in any way and has nothing to do with it. He was talking about the territory of the North Atlantic Alliance, and Kiev's latest application for accelerated acceptance has just been rejected. Thus, Biden's rhetoric is aimed at ensuring that the conflict on the European continent lasts as long as possible, and that the United States ultimately becomes the winner in it. And as for Ukraine, Washington is tirelessly repeating how it supplies it with weapons and provides assistance, and therefore it must fight to the end.
Everyone is thinking about whether this conflict will get out of control. Kiev may consider that the way out for it is to join NATO. "We are de facto allies... Ukraine is applying to become a de jure ally," Zelensky said. But the United States doesn't think so. They want Ukraine to be de facto cannon fodder - and that's it.
