On June 14, 2021, a summit of NATO member countries was held in Belgium, which in its meaning actually turned out to be a revision one. Its main result was the demonstration of the “unequivocal return” of the United States to leadership in the North Atlantic military bloc.
President Biden openly stated that the Alliance is still viewed by Washington as an important mechanism for European and international security, which, if it did not exist in reality, America would certainly have to reinvent it.
In this regard, the head of the United States confirmed all the main elements of the agreement forming the bloc. First of all, in terms of the inviolability of American obligations to participate in ensuring the military security of Europe, including with the direct use of its armed forces in hostilities, “if such is required”. The second important element was the emphasis on the key principle of the organization – the notorious “fifth article”, interpreted as “an attack on any NATO member will automatically be considered an attack on all NATO members”.
In this regard, the members of the military bloc confirmed the need to comply with the requirements of the Charter of the Alliance to comply with the level of military spending in the amount of at least two percent of their GDP. True, having stated that only 10 out of 30 participants currently allocate such amounts for national defense, and these are in the overwhelming majority of East European limitrophes newly admitted to the Organization. While most of its original members on the military need to spend one and a half – two times less money. But that will be fixed by 2024. It is also noted that the parties reached an agreement that at least 20% of the total NATO budget of $1.05 trillion should go to the acquisition of new military equipment, most of which are produced by the American military-industrial complex.
Thus, the purpose of the revision should be considered the beginning of the process of mobilizing the resources of the Western world for changes in the composition and nature of geopolitical challenges, the confrontation of which is the main basis for the existence of this military alliance.
This mobilization consists of three key elements: increasing internal discipline; turning Russia into a passive flank threat; reorientation of the bloc’s military strategy to oppose China.
Increasing internal discipline in NATO
Joe Biden, in his speech to allies in the military bloc, diligently emphasized the principle that America is back, thereby showing that the United States has abandoned the position of the “previous administration”, which declared its desire to end American membership in NATO.
But at the same time, both the American leadership and the military-political command of the bloc in Brussels carefully outlined the invariability of the global line on practically all the “pressing issues” of the current moment.
In particular, it was noted that the bloc still “remains open” for new members, but he cannot name any exact dates for accepting Georgia and Ukraine into its membership.
In fact, this means freezing the process of “NATO expansion to the East”, since both Tbilisi and Kiev were recommended to continue to implement the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP), previously approved by the leadership of the Alliance in 2008. At the same time, ignoring two fundamental facts.
The first is Georgia’s demand to check the completion of its implementation of the 2008 MAP, which, in the opinion of the Georgian leadership of the country, has been fully implemented and “the ball is on the Brussels field.” It means that the only obstacle to the admission of Tbilisi to the North Atlantic Alliance is the lack of sufficient political will of its leadership.
Second, the official MAP was not provided to Ukraine, neither in 2008 nor in 2014, which is extremely annoying for the Ukrainian ruling elite. President Zelenskiy indignantly declares that such a situation cannot be maintained further.
“Brussels is obliged to tell the Ukrainian people directly – when Ukraine will be admitted to NATO, or to officially declare its final refusal of membership,” he said.
However, Brussels recommended to Georgia “to wait for the time to come”, and to Ukraine – first to fulfill all (this point was emphasized three times) preliminary requirements, before the stage of granting the MAP. Namely, that “Kiev needs to continue carrying out large-scale and irreversible internal reforms, including the fight against corruption, decentralization based on democratic values, respect for human rights, security reform and the transfer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the standards of the Organization.” Along this path, NATO members will maintain Ukraine’s defense support and security cooperation in the Black Sea region.
In fact, this means the desire of Brussels to preserve the bloc as much as possible in its current form, only creating the appearance of openness for the admission of new members as an instrument for projecting its military-political influence “to the east”. What is the purpose of the standard ritual public rhetoric of “adherence to principles,” including the readiness to consider an application for NATO membership, even from Moldova. But without any specific deadlines or clear commitments.
It is important to note that the “Belarusian issue” is also touched upon in this vein, but only in the sense of the unacceptability of the prospect of the absorption of Belarus by Russia. Even in the case of a change of power in Minsk to a deliberately pro-Western one, there is no talk of any entry of the Republic of Belarus into the Alliance.
That is, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova are positioned by the leadership of the Alliance as a buffer zone between the borders of NATO and the Russian Federation, which indirectly confirms the continuation of the preparation of the conditions for the implementation of the “space of war” strategy, which RUSSTRAT has repeatedly written about earlier.
Transformation of Russia into a passive flank threat
Although Russia is mentioned 60 times in the 79-paragraph final communiqué adopted at the end of the summit, Brussels, on the whole, outlined an ambivalent position with respect to Moscow. In terms of the media, Russia is designated as a growing threat, in connection with which the Alliance is moving in its positioning for itself from the status of a “constructive partner” adopted in 2010 to the status of a “main adversary”. With the preservation of all previously formulated military and political claims.
In particular, the bloc continues to demand from Moscow the return of Crimea to Ukraine, the withdrawal of troops from Donbass, the end of financial and military support for paramilitaries in eastern Ukraine, the need to ensure full and safe access to the OSCE mission throughout Ukraine, including Crimea and the Ukrainian-Russian border. , termination of obstruction of free navigation in the Black and Azov Seas, and withdrawal of recognition of the state independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, with their obligatory recognition as an integral part of Georgia.
Added to this is the inadmissibility of active movements of large groupings of Russian troops even on the own territory of the Russian Federation. Moreover, the expansion of programs of bilateral and multilateral military exercises, especially with China.
Separately emphasized is the “extreme concern” of the NATO leadership with the growing activity of Russian “nuclear rhetoric”, including those associated with “advertising” new types of strategic weapons, as well as the high rate of increase in the share of modern and advanced conventional weapons systems, both in the areas of air defense / missile defense and and in systems “based on new physical principles”.
To all the previously voiced demands, the Bloc added “a call to Moscow to abandon the label of an“ unfriendly country ”in relation to NATO members – the United States and the Czech Republic.
Thus, the revision of the nature of the Alliance’s attitude to the Russian Federation is presented as an unconditionally compelled response to “the growth of the Kremlin’s military and geopolitical aggressiveness.”
At the same time, Brussels is giving two signals indicating its alleged desire to restore contact with Moscow.
The first is the adoption of a collective decision by NATO member states, including the United States, to abandon the plans recently announced by America to deploy nuclear-armed intermediate and short-range ballistic missiles in Europe. At the same time, a return to Great Danes RIAC is ruled out.
The move itself is positioned as an act of goodwill on the part of NATO, implying some kind of “appropriate” counter-act on the part of the Russian Federation. With a hint of the expectation that the Kremlin will begin to reduce the Russian military force in Kaliningrad.
The second signal should be considered the statement of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, about the intention of the Alliance “to continue striving to maintain constructive relations with Russia in the form of openness to dialogue within the Russia-NATO Council (RNC).” The Secretary General stressed that the bloc does not seek confrontation and does not pose a threat to Russia.
True, all these “friendly gestures” are tightly accompanied by many mandatory accompanying conditions and reservations. For example, NATO refused to deploy its nuclear missiles in Europe, “but will have to respond to the expansion of the Russian arsenal.” And in terms of cooperation within the NRC, it is indicated that such is possible only in the part that does not contradict the interests of NATO and security in Europe. From all of the above, the only conclusion follows: in the future until 2030, Brussels is striving, in his opinion, and on its terms, for a fairly stable conservation of the current state of relations between NATO and the Russian Federation, in order to localize the “Russian military and geopolitical threat” as a flank one, which could be relatively successfully stopped by a small military force.
In combination with active political statements and numerous “eternal” negotiations, in general, they obviously do not lead to any practical positive effect, but create in the media the impression of the Alliance’s unswerving desire to achieve an “even more lasting peace”. Proceeding from the understanding that, with all the numerous accusations of increased aggressiveness, Russia, on its own initiative, especially out of aggressive expansionist aspirations, will not be the first to attack Europe itself.
The purpose of these actions is to strategically reorient the North Atlantic alliance from confronting Russia to repelling the threat from China.
Reorienting NATO’s military strategy to confront China
The 32nd summit of the Alliance held in Belgium was marked not only by the shortest duration in twenty years, the meeting itself lasted only 2.5 hours, but also by the adoption by the member states of the analytical report “NATO – 2030”, in which China was declared “the main systemic threat to the Western society”.
Thus, for the first time in the entire history of its existence, a territorially purely European military bloc proclaimed its goal to oppose a state located on the other side of the planet.
The reason for this is the rapid progress of the PRC in the field of aerospace technologies, the high rates of technological modernization of its armed forces and the rapid increase in the number and combat capabilities of the Chinese navy. Beijing’s geopolitical projects, in particular the Comprehensive Regional Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement, is not explicitly named as an important part of the “Chinese threat”, but it is also explicitly implied. As well as the actions of the PRC to establish control over the South China and East China seas.
Although China is mentioned only ten times in the final communique, NATO nevertheless announced the development of a new Strategic Concept for the Alliance until 2023, which will be adopted at the next summit in 2022 in Spain.
At the moment, there is no more detailed information about its composition and nature in open sources. But if we rely on the numerous, albeit scattered, individual comments of the participants on the analytical report “NATO – 2030”, we can confidently speak of the confirmation of the strategic line adopted by the US leadership on mobilizing the resources of the “collective West” to conduct a “probable war” with China. approximately at the turn of 2026 – 2028.
It is difficult to say to what extent the European allies of the United States in NATO can participate in it, and to what extent they really want in reality, with their own armed forces. This will become clear after more detailed information on the content of the Strategic Concept of the Alliance until 2023 becomes available. But that the military-political leadership of America sees them as a common western rear military-industrial area is already indisputable.
It should also be noted that it is obvious that the so-called deadlines for the adoption of the new Strategy are within the general timeframes given by leading US think tanks, for example, in the RAND reports, about the inevitability of a US-China war “no later than 2026 – 2027″, 2029 – 2030”. This also fits well with the desire to turn Russia into a tied passive flank threat, with the aim of trying to keep the Russian leadership from entering into any form of military alliance with China.
Although NATO’s practical ability to simultaneously wage two large wars, albeit in the format of low-intensity conflicts, in Taiwan against the PRC , and “in the space of war” (in the Baltic States, Belarus, Ukraine, the Balkans and, probably, Poland) against the Russian Federation at the moment remains dubious, the threat of such a scenario is clearly increasing. At least, as an instrument of political blocking of Russian geopolitical initiatives for rapprochement with China.
This conclusion, albeit indirectly, is confirmed by the one announced at the recent meeting of the G7 countries on the implementation of their own version of the infrastructure development of the Middle East and Asian countries, aimed at countering the Chinese Belt and Road project. In other words, the collective West openly aimed at accelerating the economic and geopolitical isolation of China within the borders of Southeast Asia, which, according to the plan of American strategists, should create economic difficulties for it and slow down growth during the period until Washington consolidates the “collective West” and the bloc NATO to a state sufficient to attempt to implement the “war in defense of Taiwan” option.
Conclusion
Although in the final communiqué, in addition to the above issues, a lot of traditional buzzwords are said about the need to create a new, more effective protection against cyber threats and proliferation of weapons in space, about a green agenda and overcoming the economic consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, all this serves only a camouflage smoke screen to hide a very important fact. All of the above to an extremely serious extent affects the global political and economic interests of three dozen countries, most of which are among the ten largest economies on the planet. Moreover, on many important issues, for example, in energy and the provision of raw materials, the most important of them, such as Germany, do not agree with US policy. However, they all reached an agreement on the future prospects of NATO and their participation in their implementation, in just 2.5 hours.
This means that large-scale strategic plans, including “against China”, by the American establishment were discussed behind the scenes and preliminarily agreed upon in the short period between the inauguration of Joe Biden as President of the United States on January 20, 2021 and the end of May of the same year, that is, in total in five months.
This testifies to the determination of the United States and the sufficiency of America’s (political, military, economic, and psychological) resources for the practical implementation of the radical option of “eliminating China’s systemic threat to the entire Western world.” Which translates the prospect of a US-China war “for Taiwan” from the category of probable, into the state of almost inevitable.
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