NATO: Facing off against Russia over Ukraine
Vladimir Putin wants the impossible of the West, said The Times (U.K.) in an editorial. The Russian president marched more than 100,000 combat-ready troops, along with tanks and artillery, up to the Ukrainian border before “publicly announcing his maximalist demands” last month. His want list includes an end to NATO expansion—in particular, the alliance must deny membership to former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia— and a halt to all NATO military activity in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. These ultimatums are so “outrageous, one-sided, and unfulfillable” that many fear Putin “is simply courting rejection, creating a pretext to once again invade Ukraine” as he did in 2014, when he stole Crimea. But his demands have at least had the positive effect of giving new purpose to NATO and focusing “American minds on the danger of wandering away from European security.” U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened debilitating economic sanctions should Russia invade its western neighbor, and this week the U.S. and Russia held a series of bilateral talks ahead of separate NATO sit-downs with both Ukraine and Russia. To give Putin something he could present as a win at home, it might be prudent for both sides to agree to talks on, say, a new arms-control treaty that would require both Russia and the West to limit missile deployments and military exercises.
Russia’s desire to tweak European security structures “is not in itself absurd,” said Le Monde (France) in an editorial. The architecture we inherited from the Cold War “is partly obsolete,” given the collapse of the Soviet Union, the admittance of former Warsaw Pact nations to NATO and the European Union, and the development of powerful new weapons. Many treaties that once helped keep the peace have also been scrapped by the U.S. over the years. That is why France and other European countries have, in fact, called for negotiations. But “talking with a gun to your head” isn’t what we had in mind, and any concessions made under the threat of war will only encourage further belligerence. The U.S. has already made a key concession, said Franco Venturini in Corriere della Sera (Italy). Invoking the formulation “nothing about you without you,” Biden had promised Ukraine that its fate would not be decided in secret by superpowers. Yet this week’s bilateral talks excluded not only Kyiv but also every other European power. Putin demanded one-on-one negotiations with the U.S.—a spectacle he can use as propaganda at home and abroad—and Biden simply nodded and agreed.
Yet the Kremlin could find it has already pushed NATO too far, said Marián Repa in Pravda (Slovakia). Nonmembers Sweden and Finland are fed up with repeated Russian encroachments into their airspace and waters, and they’re furious at the idea that they could be barred from joining the transatlantic alliance. Both neutral countries are now “rethinking their defense policies” and strongly considering signing up with NATO. Putin’s overreach may end up creating an alliance that’s larger and more determined to face down Russian aggression than ever before.