Putin and NATO
The invasion of Ukraine on February 24 by Putin’s war machine is a unique criminal act. No potentate in history beginning with Nebuchadnezzar who led the Jews into Babylonian captivity, Alexander the Great, and all the emperors, conquistadores, and colonizers, none of them began a war with the declared main target of eradicating the enemy. Even Adolf Hitler, evil as he was, began World War II with the aim of conquering the fertile land of the East for the “German master race”. So to say in the wake of his invasion he killed six million Jews. But Putin deliberately invaded Ukraine with the only goal to kill 44 million Ukrainians. The act is clearly a genocide.
In his warped view of history, that the Ukrainians are the small Russians and he and his compatriots are the big Russians, Putin concludes that the former live on the land of the latter. Consequently the Ukrainians have no right to be an independent nation.
But since 1991 on the occasion of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Ukrainians eventually formed their own nation. In Putin’s logic it was time to correct that “mistake of history”. But in the logic of the international community Ukraine had all the features of a nation: A territory with defined borders, a people, and a government. The last feature angered Putin most: The government was elected by the Ukrainian sovereign people. For Putin, who despises any people including his own as a mob, this was not acceptable. In addition that government had dared to orient themselves towards the European Union and even had the temerity to write in their constitution the intention to become a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The western alliance is regarded by paranoid Putin the archenemy. He holds that the Americans have lured all the satellite states of the defunct Soviet Union into NATO.
The contrary is true. Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria all had suffered from gruesome bullying, exploitation, brainwashing, torture, and deportation to Siberia by the Russian-dominated Soviet Union and wanted in no case getting subjugated again. They all chose freedom over servitude and fled under the protecting shield of NATO. And now with the application of Sweden and Finland for NATO membership the defense line is much longer. In order to deter bellicose Russia the 30+2 member states must bring a surplus of weapons along the ‘new iron curtain’. Knowing that spending 2% of General Domestic Product of each nation for defense reduces the quality of life, western democrats must admit that it is the price for continued freedom and prosperity.
Never did, does, and will NATO threaten Russia, let alone invade its territory. It is purely defensive. All democratic states recognize the inviolability of national borders. Apart from that Putin should know that his country is invincible for its huge size and inclement weather. Swedes, French, and Germans who tried all got lost in the endless icy expanses of Russian land.
It is Russia that will collapse a third time. With its bellicosity gone, NATO can disarm to a certain extent as it did after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1990 NATO could have easily invaded bankrupt Russia. The officers of the disintegrated Red Army had to humiliate themselves begging the farmers for a potato or two. The Westerners sent care parcels to the suffering people. Everybody wanted Russia back as a peaceful trading partner. But Putin betrayed his people by investing all the money from exports in his oligarchs and weaponry intended from the very beginning to extinguish Ukraine. Chechnya and Syria were just rehearsals for the real war. Fortunately he was awfully wrong. The brave Ukrainian people foiled his plans. Ukraine will survive and live in safe borders guaranteed by NATO.
Erich Wannemacher Lapu-Lapu City