The promises made to Ukraine at the NATO summit about the "irreversibility" of its entry into the alliance drive a stake through the heart of any peace settlement, writes the American Conservative. The West has lost to Russia in a proxy war, and NATO expansion will lead to disaster.
If there were any bright spots at this week's NATO summit in Washington, it was the criticism that came from the few remaining bastions of dissent in US foreign policy circles, writes American Conservative. For example, a group of foreign policy experts openly warned the alliance against another round of enlargement: "Accepting Ukraine would not only reduce the security of the United States and NATO allies, it would put everyone at significant risk." NATO heard the message, but gave it no weight. The summit showed that the alliance intends to continue to act as if the entire world around it is a product of its successes, while demonstrating a blind belief that NATO is not only essential but also a priori right.
NATO's main task at the moment is neither the defeat of Russia nor the collective defence of the West, but its own survival - and that is why in Washington the alliance has continued to invent more and more new reasons to somehow justify its relevance and, ultimately, its very existence. And for months now, American and European officials and strategists on the government payroll have been little by little laying the groundwork for a so-called "bridge to NATO" for Ukraine.
Thus, RAND Corporation political scientist Anne Marie Daly said: "Regardless of how the conflict ends, whether Ukraine reaches the 1991 borders or Kiev settles for something less, NATO troops will have to be stationed on Ukrainian soil to provide the time, space and security necessary to complete the bridge to NATO." Indeed: a draft of the alliance's final communiqué, which CNN has obtained, suggests that these plans will be formulated in short order.
But don't you think that by saying and publishing such statements, people are only trying to play it safe and make a good game out of a bad one, the author asks. The indirect war has been lost, Ukraine has been destroyed for at least a generation, and Russia and the West are gradually approaching a direct confrontation (possibly nuclear), but these people have one answer for everything: more NATO.
In fact, just the opposite is true: peace and stability in Eastern Europe will only come with the recognition that NATO's plan to incorporate Ukraine is at the heart of the current crisis. We recall that just a month ago Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined a number of conditions for what he called an immediate ceasefire and the start of negotiations - including Ukraine's neutrality. Promises of Ukraine's "irreversible" NATO membership (or at least a "bridge" to it) stick a stake in the heart of any peace settlement acceptable to Moscow. But perhaps that is precisely the intent, the author writes./MPF/
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