The current stage of the crisis in Ukraine, with Vladimir Putin issuing ultimatums that NATO will not comply with and raising the risk of conflict in Eastern Europe, has one big absentee: the continent on which an eventual war would be fought.
Not that NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance in its English acronym, has not spoken out. Its general secretary, the Norwegian Jens Stoltenberg, spoke loudly on Friday (10) when rejecting the terms placed by the Kremlin to end the expansion of the military alliance to the east.
But that says little or nothing. European governments, from the strident Frenchman Emmanuel Macron in the middle of the electoral campaign to the unknown Olaf Scholz in his first days at the head of Germany, had really little to say about the unfolding of the crisis.
The Russian president is known as a great tactical player, seizing opportunities, rather than a leader with clear strategic thinking. This was proved in 2014 in Ukraine itself, when Putin snapped up the historically Russian territory of Crimea and wreaked havoc with civil war to prevent a pro-Western Kiev from becoming truly Western.
Read that joining NATO rather than the European Union. It has been a known game since 2008, when Russia took advantage of the voluntarism of the Georgian government, which sought to integrate ethnic Russian areas under its yoke, and subjected it to military defeat.
As uncertain as Putin’s final strategy is, it respects one prerogative: minimally restoring the buffer borders of the times of the Tsars and the Soviet Union to drive opposing forces from its territory.
The weapon is clear: to threaten Kiev with the use of force, even if it is a bluff given the high risk a war would bring. On Kremlin-dominated Russian TV, it’s more important to look strong than to be.
This does not mean that the available musculature is negligible. The 100,000 troops on standby in the Western Military District may not be enough to conquer Ukraine, but rather to secure the security of pro-Russian areas held by rebels autonomously since 2014 in Donbass, eastern Ukraine.
The European Union, beset by the refugee crisis Poland blamed Putin on Belarus’s friendly dictatorship, has barely had time to release a stilted note of support for Kiev. The Russian leader, aware of his position of strength, took the issue to the table of Joe Biden, the recalcitrant US president.
Until then, Ukraine was treated in the so-called Normandy format: Moscow, Kiev, Paris and Berlin sat at the table. From that came the Minsk accords, ultimately rejected by the Ukrainians for maintaining rebel autonomy and jettisoning the country of its desire to be part of NATO — the group’s 30 members cannot have serious territorial issues outstanding.
With the virtual dome held with Biden on Tuesday (7), Putin buried this model. It took the pineapple for the American to peel, effectively taking the Europeans out of the equation — of course, the White House announces extensive consultations with allies on the mainland, but it’s their problem now.
It’s a move that explores the divisions and suspicions of NATO members about Biden’s commitment. The Democrat is not his predecessor, Donald Trump, who basically declared the transatlantic dialogue mechanisms obsolete during his term.
For all his histrionics and lack of strategic vision, the republican lanced an uncomfortable tumor: European dependence on the United States in terms of defense. As a result, more countries in the military bloc sought to approach the goal of spending 2% of GDP in the sector.
Indeed, most of them are made up of Eastern European nations, jealous of Russian history and vision regarding the geostrategic function of the neighborhood. But their efforts are limited: Poland has relatively capable forces, but the Baltic countries rely on outside planes to patrol their congested airspace.
But Biden is also more Trump than Trump, in his moves to direct American efforts towards the Cold War 2.0 feud against China, leaving Europe insecure about his designs.
In addition, there is a collection of infighting within the bloc, Greek and French against Turks, to begin with.
To stay with the European giants, Macron will seek re-election in 2022, so some public noise can be expected. But French expeditionary forces in Kharkiv, that would be a novelty. Scholz, on the other hand, may tighten Putin’s energy neck, hindering the start of operation of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but the fact is that the work is a project that has been of interest to Berlin for decades.
Boris Johnson’s Britain, for all its bravado of “Global Britain” and the tour of its new aircraft carrier, has so many internal problems that anything more assertive than catchphrases about Moscow’s favorite villain seems unlikely.
With Putin’s ultimatum taking the form of a self-fulfilling prophecy, in which the Kremlin says it tried to negotiate and the West rejects knives in the neck, Europe will be left with a position of subordination to what is decided in Washington.
So far, the letters have been given by Moscow, leading to the possibility that Kiev will be served at the altar of European accommodation.”
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