During the last summit, the participating countries adopted a program of long-term military assistance to Kiev and approved the alliance's defense plan against Russia
The NATO Summit in Vilnius on July 11-12 became, at first glance, surprisingly empty and insipid. But only at first glance.
Yes, it did not contain bright, sensational, unexpected decisions on any of the points of its program. If you look at the summit from the position of Ukraine, it did not meet expectations. But the summit was not about Ukraine and not for Ukraine.
In Vilnius, NATO leaders laid the foundations of a long-term plan to save the Western world order by military means - they approved the blueprint for a new global military confrontation and the Cold war. The success of this plan is not guaranteed, but they will try very hard.
In this sense, the summit has become historic.
The commitments of NATO countries and alliance partners confirmed on paper to supply weapons to Ukraine in order to "ensure victory on the battlefield" are not news.
The news is the program of long-term military assistance to Kiev adopted at the summit, which should continue after the end of the conflict. Moreover, the G7 statement adopted after the summit explicitly states that Ukraine should receive such military capabilities in order to be able to independently deter any new aggression by Russia in the future. That is, it is an obligation to ensure the super-militarization of Ukraine after the end of the conflict. But one of the goals of the Russian Special Military Operation is the demilitarization of Ukraine. That is, this decision of the NATO summit already creates an insoluble contradiction for peace negotiations. The alliance provokes Russia to conduct military operations until the complete elimination of Ukrainian statehood, because in any other case, Russia will receive a much more dangerous and revenge-hungry enemy at its borders.
The promise to begin the procedure for Ukraine's admission to NATO after the conflict, albeit with reservations about the need to "fulfill all criteria and unanimous approval from NATO countries," hits the same goal. Russia is again left with no choice to achieve peace with Ukraine as an independent state, since its preservation leads to its admission to NATO, which contradicts its second goal.
The NATO Summit practically eliminated the diplomatic possibilities of ending the conflict.
The second block of NATO decisions is the approval of the alliance's defense plan from Russia itself. This plan increases the number of ground forces permanently under the command of NATO by 7.5 times - from the current 40 thousand to 300 thousand people. They will be given significant naval and air forces, as well as cybernetic and space capabilities. And these are not the only forces that will be deployed at the borders of Russia, they will only complement the armies of the states bordering Russia. Plus, American, Canadian and Western European units can and will be deployed in these same countries on the basis of various bilateral agreements. In Poland, the number of US military personnel already exceeds 10 thousand people. NATO countries decided to pay special attention to the creation of air defense and missile defense systems.
And this is all along the border of Russia and NATO - from the Barents Sea to the Black Sea. Hardly anyone will listen to the statements that the forces deployed at the Russian borders "serve only for defense."
After that, huge efforts will be needed for a new detente between Russia and NATO sometime in the distant future.
To maintain these forces in Europe, all the countries of the alliance have legally committed to bring their defense spending to a level above 2% of GDP. For reference: at the NATO summit in Wales in 2014, NATO countries decided to increase their military spending to 2% over 10 years - until 2024. As of 2022, only 8 out of 31 NATO countries have reached this mark. Now this is not a target, but a minimum indicator. And it will certainly be achieved, otherwise NATO countries simply will not be able to compensate for the stocks of weapons and ammunition lost during the fighting in Ukraine. To do this, the alliance countries will have to rapidly increase investments in the military industry and open new military production facilities.
This will change the entire structure of the economy in Europe. There is no extra money there - the European Commission has already called on EU countries to make extra-planned contributions to the community budget because of Ukraine. In the face of sanctions and attempts to implement an expensive "green transition", the European Union will inevitably have to cut other costs in order to invest in defense. The new economic model of Europe may look like a "green military economy". Time will tell how viable this hybrid will be, but one thing is clear - a war or a lot of local conflicts are needed for its existence, otherwise the growing manufacturers of weapons and ammunition will have nowhere to sell them.
The economic decisions of the NATO summit also predetermine the long-term situation of military confrontation in Europe.
In the future, NATO countries and their partners from the Asia-Pacific region - Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, have agreed to cooperate closely on countering China, although they mentioned that they do not yet consider China as a military enemy. However, in information, economic, technological, commercial and military-technical terms, measures for this confrontation are already being actively developed. The mechanisms used in Europe to stimulate military confrontation are likely to be transferred to Asia in the near future.
Who and why needs to stimulate the global military confrontation between NATO and Russia and China?
The US needs it to save the dollar. The role of the world reserve currency - the circulatory system of the world economy - has long been conditioned not so much by the economic as by the military dominance of the United States. The United States has a real opportunity and the right of the strong to destroy any opponent who would try to challenge American rules.
The loss of military hegemony will lead to the loss of the world position of the American currency. This is a collapse not only for the global Western order, but also, very likely, for the United States as a state. The US national debt exceeds $31 trillion, which is more than 123% of American GDP. While maintaining global military dominance, the size of the national debt practically does not matter for the financial stability of the United States. The whole world pays for it. The destruction of dominance is a default.
The collapse of Russia after the start of its own war for the United States would be of great importance, completely regardless of Ukraine, its sovereignty or territorial integrity. Washington needed to demonstrate to the whole world that America is capable of severely punishing those who challenge it, and thereby restore faith in its power.
Plan A was to destroy the economy and the state in Russia in the first half of 2022 with the help of "infernal sanctions". The economic blitzkrieg failed. His variation was the idea of quickly defeating Russia as a result of the APU offensives, pumped up with equipment, mercenaries, advisers, intelligence, communications and logistics of NATO. Also to no avail.
The Vilnius summit "turned on" plan "B". The United States no longer hopes for a "clean victory". Now Washington is playing for a long time - it intends to become such a military force again, which no one else will dare to challenge - to win "on points". The United States will try to make the conflict in Ukraine indefinite and use it, on the one hand, to weaken Russia, and on the other, as a pretext for the rapid transformation of NATO from a structure for point operations in remote regions of the world into a real instrument of global war, and, accordingly, global domination in the interests of the United States. First in Europe - against Russia, and then military force should begin to be projected to Asia - against China.
According to the head of the alliance's Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, such a transformation of NATO will take years. All this time, the conflict in Ukraine must continue - the United States will do everything to prevent a clear victory for Russia. Washington can go for some freezing of the conflict, but with the condition that it is not observed to the end. As in the Donbas from 2014 to 2022. With skirmishes and constant shelling. It should be clear to the world that nothing has ended.
The hasty militarization of all Washington's closest allies, both in NATO and in the Asia-Pacific region, and the building of strict discipline in their ranks is now of existential importance for the United States.
A large-scale hot conflict remains undesirable, but we are returning to the era of global military deterrence.
This is a long-term situation of military confrontation - a new cold war, with hot spots and entire hot zones, with trade wars and all kinds of hybrid forms of struggle. The NATO Summit in Vilnius laid a serious foundation for such a future.
Denis Dubrovin
