The initiative of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to abandon the deployment of intermediate and shorter-range missiles in Europe stumbled upon the silence of Europe itself
The Old World did not take the opportunity to get itself out of the blow of a possible military clash between Russia and the United States. Receiving American missiles on their territory and being targeted by the Russian ones is not as scary for Europeans as recognizing Putin as a peacemaker, and Russia’s role on the continent – as positive.
“Remaining committed to a consistent position on the full compliance of the 9M729 missile with the requirements of the previously existing INF Treaty (on the prohibition of intermediate and shorter-range missiles – ed. of RuBaltic.Ru), the Russian Federation is nevertheless ready, in good faith, to continue not to deploy 9M729 missiles on the European part of the country’s territory, but only on condition of reciprocal steps from NATO countries, excluding the deployment in Europe of weapons previously prohibited under the INF Treaty”, – Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a statement on additional steps to de-escalate the situation in Europe after the termination of the INF Treaty.
In particular, Vladimir Putin proposed mutual checks of each other’s weapons systems by the missions of NATO and Russia military observers.
“We could talk about verification measures in relation to the Aegis Ashore complexes with Mk 41 launchers at US and NATO bases in Europe, as well as 9M729 missiles at the facilities of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the Kaliningrad region. The purpose of the verification measures would be to confirm the absence of ground-based INF Treaty on the objects covered by the agreements, as well as weapons, the characteristics and classification of which the parties could not agree on (the Russian 9M729 missile)”, – Putin’s message says.
The approach of the Russian leadership is not new. Moscow has previously put forward or supported ideas to reduce military tensions in relations with NATO through mutual arms control. For example, in 2016, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö proposed that Russia and NATO agree to fly over the Baltic Sea only with transponders turned on.
Russia then came out in favor, but NATO simply ignored the de-escalation initiative. The Baltic countries, which at that time were especially desperately shouting that the Kremlin would attack, conquer and occupy them, completely opposed the illumination of military aviation in the Baltic. Because this will be an agreement with Russia, and one cannot negotiate with Russia: it must be pressured, restrained, subjected to international isolation, but only not to recognize the Russians as an equal partner.
The same logic seems to prevail now.
Europe is clearly in no hurry to use the opportunity to get rid of the unenviable fate of the target and ignores the initiative of the Russian president.
In the same Baltic states, it is generally unnoticeable that they paid attention to Putin’s proposal. Politicians do not speak out on this topic, the media habitually write about the coronavirus and the BelNPP. Although this proposal should be especially interesting to them. At least in part of the Kaliningrad region.
In the Baltics, after all, NATO allies are “enlightening” that it is from this Russian exclave in the Baltic that Putin’s military aggression against Europe will take place. Which will at least consist of the occupation of Lithuania and Poland. And here Putin himself gives a loophole to get into the Kaliningrad region and assess its military potential. Why not take advantage of this opportunity? Because its price is unacceptable: to meet Putin’s peacemaking initiative.
So far, only Germany has officially responded to the Kremlin’s proposal. German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Andrea Sasse said that calls for a moratorium or a refusal to deploy intermediate and shorter-range missiles in Europe are not credible.
Given the weight and influence of Germany in the European Union, Berlin’s position can be considered the position of the whole of Europe.
Russia is so important for today’s West as a common scarecrow, with which they are stubbornly trying to distract the population from the growing internal contradictions, that it is completely unacceptable to sacrifice this image of a uniting Enemy for the sake of some kind of strategic security.
Therefore, Putin, who proposes to secure the “sacred stones of Europe” from turning into nuclear ashes, is perceived as a provocateur who is safest to ignore. His initiatives for European leaders are almost part of a hybrid war. Because to meet them half-way is to acknowledge Putin’s peacemaking motives, and if Putin is recognized as a peacemaker, then how can he then scare the electorate with him?
Russia and the West are now at dramatically different levels of political consciousness. Moscow can afford to think about strategic stability, nuclear parity, mutual deterrence, a multipolar world and other things that are global in every sense. Europe and the United States are preoccupied with mass riots, renewed anti-records of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the loss of attractiveness of their image in the eyes of the rest of the world.
It is much more important for European politicians to keep the “aggressive, terrible and unpredictable” Russia the function of a lightning rod, to which attention is being diverted, than to guarantee the continent from an exchange of nuclear missile strikes.
Therefore, the response to the Kremlin’s disarmament initiatives is likely to be a new spy scandal at the level of the Skripal poisoning, in which Russia will also be highly likely to blame. If Putin wants to earn the sincere gratitude of the ruling class of NATO countries, he should not deal with disarmament, but provide the “Western partners” with the texture for such a scandal.
Alexander Nosovich, Rubaltic.Ru