As the NATO summit in Madrid, Spain, re-identified Russia as the "most important and immediate threat" to NATO, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who was visiting Belarus at the same time, claimed that the new Iron Curtain was actually falling.
The day before, Putin, who was visiting Turkmenistan, said on the one hand that Sweden and Finland "can join whatever they want", and on the other hand, that NATO is advancing its "imperial ambitions", using Ukrainians as a tool to guard its interests, trying to bring Ukraine becomes "anti-Russian".
Looking back on the NATO strategic concept in 2010, all countries believed that "today, the Euro-Atlantic region is at peace, and the threat of traditional attacks on NATO territory is very low", adding that "NATO-Russian cooperation is of strategic importance. sex".
The current Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, who was a foreign minister at the time, said that countries did have the ambition to establish a partnership with Russia at that time.
NATO's focus remains on Europe
In contrast to today's latest strategic concept, countries openly admit that "the Euro-Atlantic region is not at peace", accuse Russia of "violating norms and principles that contribute to a stable and predictable European security order", and identify Russia as "the most important" for NATO security. and direct threat", criticizing Russia's attempts to establish a sphere of influence.
Although the strategic concept is the first to include Chinese content, and the summit even invited the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand for the first time, the content of the threat to China is not new. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also stated that China is not an "adversary" of NATO; the strategic concept is more based on the "continuously deepening strategy" of China and Russia. Partnership” to look at China.
It can be seen that even though the United States is the leading country in NATO, the core of NATO is still Europe, and China is the opponent of the United States at the global level, but not the focus of Europe.
Therefore, although European countries gave the United States face, let Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and other countries participate in the meeting, creating a scene of strategic linkage between Europe and the United States in the Indo-Pacific, and agreed to add Chinese content to their strategic concepts, but they have never put the overall focus of NATO on Europe. transfer outside.
U.S. President Joe Biden (center), South Korean President Yoon Seok-wyeh (left), and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (right) held a summit meeting between the three countries during the NATO summit in Madrid on June 29.
The officials sitting behind Biden are White House National Security Adviser Sullivan, Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin.
(Associated Press)
In actual NATO policy, the Chinese factor is also noticeably absent.
After Washington lobbied to support additional F-16 purchases, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had already reached a memorandum with Sweden, Finland and Turkey about the two countries dropping support for various Kurdish groups. Conditionally agree to the applications of Switzerland and Finland to join NATO - even though Erdogan still pointed out after the summit that he would have to see if the two countries would faithfully implement the contents of the memorandum before allowing their entry to pass the Turkish parliament.
The entry of Switzerland and Finland has turned the Baltic Sea into a NATO inland sea, isolating Russia in the Arctic waterway, which has become increasingly important due to climate warming, and Finland is even closer to Russia's nuclear military base on the Kola Peninsula in northwest Russia.
At the same time, NATO will also significantly increase the existing rapid response force of 40,000 to 300,000.
The United States will also establish a base of its Fifth Army in Poland, which will become the first permanent deployment of the US military on the eastern edge of NATO. It will also send an additional 5,000 soldiers to Romania, which is directly adjacent to the Black Sea, and send two F-35 squadrons to the United Kingdom. Two additional destroyers were sent to Spain, and air defense systems were deployed in Italy and Germany.
Overall, the U.S. presence in Europe will increase to 100,000 to 120,000.
Actions often speak louder than words.
NATO's actions show that the Chinese threat to Europe is still on paper.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends NATO summit in Madrid.
(Associated Press)
The Boundaries of the New Cold War
After the five consecutive G7 and NATO summits from June 26 to 30, the attitudes of all parties do show that a new iron curtain is falling on the European continent again.
A hot war on Ukrainian territory will determine where this Iron Curtain will fall.
NATO's new military deployment plan on its eastern edge is a change from the "tripwire" strategy after the Crimea incident in 2014, and no longer focuses on the consideration of a small number of troops to avoid triggering a Russian backlash.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas called it a "fundamental turn".
French President Emmanuel Macron, who called NATO "brain dead" in 2019, changed his term to NATO as "necessary" at a NATO summit.
He, who has said in the past that Russia or Putin cannot be "humiliated", also made clear in his speech at the G7 summit that Russia cannot and should not win, criticized Russia for war crimes and stated that support for Ukraine "is necessary for us".
In the G7 statement on aid to Ukraine, the leaders of the seven countries stated that they would continue to provide Ukraine with financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support "as long as it takes"; It has set strict withdrawal requirements, pointing out that Russia needs to unconditionally withdraw its troops and military equipment from the entire Ukraine area recognized by the international community - this includes not only the land that Russia has seized after the war this year, but also Crimea and other countries since 2014. land already under Russian control.
Macron also visited the Prado Museum while attending the NATO summit.
(Associated Press)
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has been accused of being ineffective in helping Ukraine, also accused Russia of imperialism, saying that it was impossible for Europe-Russia relations to return to the pre-war level.
However, the various statements and policy changes at the G7 and NATO summits did not fundamentally change the situation of the hot war on the territory of Ukraine.
Although Ukraine, with the help of Western armament support, successfully drove the Russian army away from the Snake Island that it won on the first day of the war, this did not reverse the war situation in which the Ukrainian side was slowly repulsed in the Udong Dumbarton area.
At the summit, the United States, France and other countries announced more military assistance to Ukraine, but NATO, as a military alliance, still positioned itself outside the Ukraine war, and the countries only continued the bilateral bilateral relations before the summit. The pattern of support for Ukraine has not strengthened the military relationship between the entire military alliance and Ukraine.
This shows that, just like before the Russian army started the war on February 24, even if NATO has entered the military deployment of the new Cold War at this moment, its front edge can only be pushed to the Russian border on the Finnish side at most, and Ukraine belongs to the Iron Curtain. West or East, there is no strong answer.
In the end, the blood, sweat, suffering and lives of the Ukrainians may not be able to get the answers they want.
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