The Vilnius Summit: All NATO For US – OpEd
The history of mankind is full of images and portraits of rulers who led their armies to triumph and domination. But a recent photo from a NATO summit revealed a different scene: a lone man in a military outfit, looking unhappy among the NATO leaders in suits. This photo did not convey any message of victory or domination. It showed how Zelensky and Ukraine are treated by NATO and its influential members.
As Ukraine faces death and destruction, and bears a great burden for its resistance, NATO members offer vague promises of support and assistance, pretending to be generous and benevolent. The reality, however, is that the West is exploiting this crisis as a proxy war to debilitate and annihilate Russia, by forfeiting Ukraine and its people. This logic may explain why the war in Ukraine has lasted so long. Zelensky still does not realize that he is a pawn in the US’s proxy war against Russia.
The war in Ukraine is still ongoing, despite some attempts to resolve it diplomatically by the US and some European countries. These countries have chosen to prolong the war instead of joining Ukraine as a NATO ally, a decision that was announced by the US and Germany just before the Vilnius summit. This decision was made to avoid a possible war with Russia, which would have been obliged to defend its interests in Ukraine if NATO intervened. Such a war could have escalated into World War III, which neither side wants. However, some people think that NATO’s intervention could have ended the war and made Russia back down and that Russia would not dare to start a large-scale war. But this view ignores the fact that a direct confrontation between America and Russia would mean nothing less than a large-scale war in Europe. Therefore, NATO thinks it is better not to accept a country that is at war as its member, something that it was not ready to do even before the war began.
The swift denial of Ukraine’s NATO accession and the postponement of its admission to an unspecified date reveal the concealed reality of the West’s support for Ukraine and the conflict with Russia. Previously, at the Vilnius Summit on July 11, 2023, held in the capital of Lithuania, Ukraine’s NATO membership request was expected to be approved. This was advocated and endorsed by the small Baltic republics and Poland.
However, this did not happen and raised doubts in the minds of NATO members. These doubts were present before and during the clashes between Turkey and Russia, which resulted in the shooting down of the Russian fighter, but the war in Ukraine accentuated these doubts. The question was, whether NATO and the US have genuine willingness to fight and defend other members or not. By denying Ukraine, NATO essentially demonstrated that it lacks internal cohesion to support the alliance members or at least the countries that are on the same side. It is not surprising that NATO does not want to fight for Ukraine or Turkey, as it is an organization that has no will to fight. However, the European countries that are members of NATO should participate in endless wars without outcomes under the command of the United States in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan and return with billions of dollars in losses.
At the recent NATO summit in Lithuania, the US revealed its unilateral will on NATO and its European partners by promoting the continuation of the war and hindering the resolution of the Ukraine crisis. In fact, Washington expects unconditional compliance from other NATO member states in order to defeat Putin and restrain Beijing. Interestingly, at the Lithuanian meeting, Biden again referred to China’s containment strategy as a “systematic challenge to the security of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean” and showed that NATO ultimately cannot serve the security of its members. In other words, NATO is acceptable only when it is in the service and under the command of the United States. In this situation, it is probable that Taiwan will be the next target if the strategy of proxy war against Russia succeeds. It seems that a multi-stage combined strategy can undermine Moscow and contain Beijing. The US is aiming to weaken Russia through a proxy war in Ukraine until it collapses or surrenders and at the same, sends weapons to Taiwan to counter China’s influence.
The world today is facing a situation similar to the fascist strategy in the Spanish Civil Wars, where they backed one faction of the conflict to create a pro-fascist regime. This is what the US is doing in Ukraine, where it has ignored diplomatic dialogue with Russia and has instead instigated war. The US plans to use NATO as a proxy to challenge Russia in Ukraine, without getting directly involved. The issue is whether the European members of NATO will understand their role as an organization that protects the rights of all members and global peace and security, or whether they will remain American puppets. Putin is aware that NATO’s already weakened trust and credibility will be further tested in Vilnius, where a NATO summit will take place in September 2023. A NATO that does not fight and only worsens the conflict is unlikely to win a costly war of attrition with Russia.
