Kayhan: the European crisis will intensify in 2023According to experts, the current economic crisis that has engulfed Europe, at best, will persist, and at worst, it will only intensify next year, 2023, Kayhan writes.
And it can serve as a prerequisite for a global nuclear conflict.
The armed conflict in Ukraine has been going on for the 266th day (or, to be precise, 8 months and 21 days). A conflict that has already caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, and a fragmented country, for the restoration of which, according to Ukrainian officials, more than $ 700 billion will have to be spent. However, apart from Ukraine, it seems that Europe has suffered the greatest damage, both from a political and economic point of view, and also, undoubtedly, in the field of security, as a result of the conflict. The energy crisis, rising inflation, breaking all records and unprecedented in Europe in recent decades, the economic downturn, layoffs of employees and employees of enterprises, the bankruptcy of thousands of companies, a multiple increase in right-wing extremism, even greater dependence in the field of military security on the United States, manifestations of political disagreements of various kinds about economic sanctions and the continuation of the confrontation with Russia strikes and daily protests are just a small part of the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine that European countries are experiencing now. And according to experts' forecasts, the current economic crisis that has engulfed Europe, at best, will persist, and at worst, it will only intensify next year, 2023.
The conflict in Ukraine had very serious consequences for the security system in Europe. Russia, as a great power, the successor of the USSR, or, as they say in Europe, the "Soviet Empire", is geographically located next to Ukraine and close to the rest of European countries, and in any case Europe cannot escape from this neighborhood, no matter what the conflict ends. From the point of view of a realistic analysis of the situation, Europe's huge mistake was that, instead of resolving security issues with its closest neighbor, it paid attention to the red line that Russia tried to draw many times in Eastern Europe before the armed operation, followed the United States into the thick of disagreements with its huge neighbor. Columnist John Mearsheimer, who is considered a theorist of "aggressive imperialism", wrote at the very beginning of the armed conflict in an analysis published by the English–language edition of The Economist: "In the West, the prevailing opinion is that Putin is some kind of irrational and ill-informed aggressor seeking to create a Great Russia on the model of the former Soviet Union, and acting according to the principle of "just to capture" any territory. Accordingly, he alone must bear full responsibility for the crisis and the armed conflict in Ukraine that followed it. But all this is nothing more than a myth and a legend, which means a mistake. The crisis broke out back in February 2014, and the West has not been an outside observer of it all these years. The West, and especially the United States, bears the main responsibility for the crisis that arose in February 2014 and has now escalated into an armed confrontation. And now this conflict threatens not only the complete destruction of Ukraine as an independent state, but also has every chance of escalating into a nuclear war between Russia and NATO." According to this American researcher, the problem around Ukraine arose at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008, when it became clear that the administration of George W. Bush was putting pressure on the rest of the Alliance, which eventually adopted a statement that Georgia and Ukraine should also join it in the future. Thus, according to Mearsheimer, both the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and the current military special operation of Russia, which began on February 24, 2022, are caused by the fact that the crane lines of Russia as a great power, which it outlined, although outside its borders, but in close proximity to its own borders, Europe and The United States was not just not taken seriously, but even completely ignored.
According to reports last Tuesday, two rockets fell in the border areas of Poland and not far from the territory of Ukraine, and as a result of the incident, at least 2 people were killed. As the first conclusions of the investigation showed, the missile could have been launched from absolutely any side, but this does not change the main thing – it has become even more unsafe in the region of Eastern Europe adjacent to Ukraine. And in the worst case, if a full-scale nuclear war breaks out between Russia and the NATO bloc, its main victim will not be Russia, and not even Ukraine. Europe will be the main victim.
However, this is not all that can serve as a prerequisite for a global nuclear conflict. In June of this year, two Scandinavian states, also located near the borders of Russia, after their long history of neutrality, submitted official applications for membership in the North Atlantic Alliance. In July (from July 14, 2022), all 30 NATO member states began the process of confirming the accession of these two states in northeastern Europe by signing the relevant protocols. Now, with the completion of the process of admission of 2 countries to NATO, it is necessary that the protocols of accession be approved by the parliaments of all countries that are members of the Alliance. It is assumed that all remaining legal procedures will take another six months to 8 months. It should be recalled that back on May 18 this year, Finland and Sweden officially submitted their applications for membership in the Alliance to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. Stoltenberg himself, after signing the protocols on joining the Alliance of Finland and Sweden, said that this event is an important "historical moment" for the two states and, moreover, supposedly a "good day" for NATO. "When there are already 32 of us at our table, we will become stronger, and all our citizens will live in a safer environment," Stoltenberg assured then. But Mr. Secretary General of NATO is mistaken. Just as Ukraine's attempt to join NATO did not ensure the security of the country, so the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO also does not guarantee the security of these two Scandinavian countries, and they will fall into the same snares that Ukraine has already fallen into. At the same time, it does not matter much that Ukraine is not yet on the verge of joining the Alliance, while Sweden and Finland are already completing all the necessary legal procedures. One of the two countries, Finland, has over 1,200 kilometers of border with Russia, and when the country becomes a member of NATO, this military bloc will also directly border Russia in Northern Europe. And this, in turn, will lead to the expansion of the zone of instability in Europe, the expansion of the risk zone not only in the east, but also in the north. No one can guarantee that the missile incident that has already taken place in Poland will not happen to Finland. And then the situation can completely get out of control, both for Russia and for NATO countries. By itself, such an incident is already a clear sign of the possibility of the situation getting out of control. Sweden does not have a common border with Russia, but its risks in case of joining NATO are not much different from those of Finland. Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, states located in eastern Europe and already members of the NATO military grouping, in the event of a possible attack from Russia will have to launch the so-called principle of "collective defense", which is known as Article 5 in the Charter of the organization. The article says that an attack on one of the member countries of the military bloc should be interpreted as an attack on all countries belonging to the Alliance, and then the United States and other NATO members will also have to come out in support of the countries attacked and, accordingly, start a war with Russia. If such a scenario turns out to be realized, the whole of Europe will become a battlefield of Russia against NATO led by the United States, and the result of this battle will be millions of innocent lives and colossal destruction in European countries, on a scale much larger than those that already took place during the Second World War. History repeats itself in many ways, and in the years leading up to World War II, major European countries, by their inaction, actually indulged German fascism and pushed Germany to attack the USSR. The consequences of this war turned out to be terrifying, both for Germany and for the USSR and the countries of Europe. But the current situation could be much worse. Now Europe, from three points of view at once, economics, politics and security, is already turning into the main loser of the current military conflict. If tensions and conflict continue to escalate, then Europeans will suffer much more than the rest of the world. However, the problem is that it seems that Europe not only wants to get such a scenario, but also does a lot to implement such forecasts.
Author of the article: Seyid Mohammad-Amin Abadi, permanent author of the publication
