FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The world's most powerful military alliance failed to protect a neighboring European democracy and an independent sovereign state from the illegal, unprovoked, precedent-setting invasion, devastating destruction and war crimes committed by a less powerful and authoritarian aggressor.
NATO's grand 75th anniversary celebration in Washington in July will ring hollow in Kiev. The alliance has failed miserably in its biggest post-Cold War test – the battle for Ukraine. Alas, it cannot be denied: Vladimir Putin is doing whatever he wants.
The advanced Russian forces in Kharkiv benefit from the slow supply of weapons from the west to Kiev and its leaders' chronic fear of escalation. Ukraine gets enough support to survive but never win. But now even survival remains in doubt.
"Ukraine is Europe's war. It's the global fight for freedom, a fight for democracy ," says Joe Biden. " Our support cannot and will not waver. Britain is with you as long as it takes" , Rishi Sunak vows. However, on the ground, Ukraine is largely left to fend for itself.
NATO should have intervened strongly to deter Russian aggression from the start, as is repeatedly called for here. No-fly zones could have prevented thousands of civilian casualties and limited damage to Ukrainian cities.
Restrictions on Kiev's use of Western-made missiles to attack military bases and oil refineries inside Russia were and are self-defeating. NATO naval forces should have placed protective cordons around Black Sea ports that export wheat. Putin needs to be shown where to push his despicable efforts at nuclear blackmail.
All this can still be done, if there is a will. General Richard Shirreff, a former senior NATO commander, calls for a "fundamental shift" to a more activist strategy. He is right. But there are few signs that politicians are listening.
Biden and Germany's Olaf Scholz allow excessive, myopic caution to obscure military and moral imperatives. France's Emmanuel Macron, abandoning appeasement, now claims that only the defeat of Russia will save Europe. A little late now, Manu.
In Britain, Sunak speaks candidly about unprecedented security risks. He may scare voters in the UK – but he doesn't scare Putin or his "borderless" oppressor, China's Xi Jinping, as Beijing's defiant love demonstrated last week. That's because, for all their talk, like NATO as a whole, neither Sunak nor the hawkish Foreign Secretary David Cameron, the Cotswolds scoundrel, are prepared to intervene directly to help Ukraine win. Thus, they make the loss more likely.
NATO should accelerate Ukraine's full membership in July. But no, the United States has already decided against it – and the rest is quiet. Kiev is told in no uncertain terms that it must wait until "the conditions are right". The actual, discrediting reason is Biden's outdated, Cold War-era fear of Russian retaliation. Does he really believe that Putin would attack the 32-nation NATO group, a vastly superior force? More likely, the cowardly Putin would back down.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former secretary general of NATO, has the right idea. He wants Ukraine's membership talks to start immediately – and Scholz to stop blocking supplies of long-range Taurus missiles.
" If you argue that you cannot extend an invitation to Ukraine as long as a war is going on, then you give Putin an incentive to continue the war, to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO ," he said.
The EU should also stop worrying and upload Kiev's membership application to next month's summit. The frontline situation becomes critical, in part because Russia has taken advantage of a delay, caused by Donald Trump's allies, in the delivery of a $60 billion US arms package. Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted as much in Kiev last week. Ukraine also has a shortage of soldiers. Macron's latest thoughts on sending in ground troops were dismissed with unbridled anger in Washington and Berlin. However, this option requires serious consideration. The US is reportedly now considering deploying troops as trainers.
" European leaders cannot allow American political dysfunction to dictate European security. They should seriously consider deploying troops to Ukraine to provide logistical support and training, to protect Ukraine's borders and critical infrastructure, or even to defend cities of Ukraine. They should make it clear... Europe is ready to defend Ukraine's territorial sovereignty ," argue analysts Alex Crowther, Jahara Matisek and Phillips O'Brien.
More and more it depends on Europe, which has more to lose. Apart from the dire consequences of Ukraine's permanent partition or total subjugation, success for Putin's neo-imperial project prospectively endangers the EU and European security.
Trump is a wild card. If he beats Biden in November, former advisers are convinced he will pull the rug out from under Ukraine and cozy up to Putin. They also believe he will move to leave NATO, first by sabotaging or blocking operations. July's birthday party may be NATO's last. At that point, Europe would be truly alone.
" If Trump is re-elected and follows his anti-NATO instincts, the first victim would be Ukraine. The catastrophic consequences would only begin there ," wrote Alexander Vershbow, former US ambassador to Russia and NATO.
" Why is it so difficult for Western politicians to understand the broader, existential nature of the Russian threat? Repeated incidents of espionage, sabotage, assassinations, arson and cyber hacking show that Moscow is waging war on European countries. How is it that Russia, a country with an economy the size of Italy, is able to attack the entire West with impunity? The answer is that Russia does not take us seriously" , warned Russian expert Edward Lucas.
Imagine how future historians might see all this. The world's most powerful military alliance failed to protect a neighboring European democracy and an independent sovereign state from the illegal, unprovoked, precedent-setting invasion, devastating destruction and war crimes committed by a less powerful and authoritarian aggressor. Extraordinary.
A poorly led NATO cannot be relied upon to avert widespread catastrophe in Ukraine. So, the question arises: what is NATO for? It's not just Trump who's asking. If they don't raise their game, soon, alliance leaders should pop the champagne - and hang their heads in shame./ Adapted "Pamphlet" from "The Guardian"
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