Ukraine, NATO and a Zeitenwende
(my add: Zeitenwende means a watershed event, a turn in the times, the change of an era. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz used the term to describe the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a February 28th special address to the Bundestag)
Russia has upended the old rules-based order, Paul Mason writes. Europe needs to shape a new one.
https://socialeurope.eu/ukraine-nato-and-a-zeitenwende
While western capitals scramble to send supplies of arms, munitions and aid to Ukraine, the strategic choices looming over the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are becoming clearer. NATO’s ‘strategic concept’—a 12-year-old guidance document—is due to be upgraded at a summit in Madrid in June. Yet few of the foreign ministers meeting at the alliance headquarters in Brussels last week wanted to be frank about the choices they face.
Much, of course, depends on the final outcome of the war. Realistic scenarios range from operational defeat of the Russian forces, leading to a frozen conflict in the Donbas and the armed neutrality of Ukraine, to partition—with in the Russian-controlled zone a regime of ‘de-Ukrainisation’, massacres and forced population movements, as the west looks on helplessly.
The variables include what happens to western public opinion. Will Sweden and Finland join NATO? Will, more immediately, Emmanuel Macron defeat the Putin-sympathetic Marine Le Pen in the French presidential election? And will the United States presidency remain in the hands of politicians committed to the NATO project?
All these questions are in doubt. But if the answer is ‘yes’ in each case there is an opportunity to make big changes in military spending, posture, force structure and technology—with a clear pathway outlined before Madrid.
No more rules........
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