This is a speech given by the new NATO Chief, former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The main point of the speech is to urge Western leaders to vastly increase the orders for arms they place with Western arms companies in order to be prepared for the new threat from Russia. One winner of the situation in Ukraine is obviously the shareholders of Western arms companies.
But before making the case for a vast militarisation of the West Rutte has to justify this. Of course; the immediate threat is Russia. Let’s consider some of the claims:
Putin is trying to wipe Ukraine off the map.
No. He is not. The “invasion” force in February 2022 was nowhere near big enough to take over the whole of Ukraine. This was not the plan. It isn’t now. Putin does want to neutralize Ukraine so that it is not a threat to Russia. It is seen as a threat to Russia because it is controlled by extreme nationalists with a very anti-Russian agenda who were/are being armed by the US and which was planning to join NATO, (which until relatively recently was not even the will of the majority of the people of Ukraine). Making Ukraine not a threat to Russia means obtaining a guarantee that it will never join NATO and preventing it becoming a powerful military force tooled up with US, (or NATO), weapons. There is a side-conflict around Donbas – an area which even some Western media concede may well have wanted to join Russia before 2022. [1] Since the war Russia has increased their territorial demands.
He [Putin] is trying to fundamentally change the security architecture that has kept Europe safe for decades.
Here Rutte unintentionally reveals the problem. “the security architecture that has kept Europe safe for decades” was, of course, the Cold War. The US had a large presence in Europe and balanced against the USSR. The US and NATO saw the USSR as a strategic opponent and war-gamed against them. There was a global struggle involving proxy conflicts. In 1991 the USSR collapsed. The leaders of the new Russia could have been forgiven for thinking that the Cold War had ended. It seems it had not. For Rutte the Cold War security architecture, with its built-in hostility towards Russia, the inheritor state of the USSR, remains operational. The problem is extensively analysed by Richard Sakwa in his book The Lost Peace – How the West failed to Prevent a Second Cold War. [2] His thesis is that the present crisis results from a strategic failure by the West, (he mostly, but not entirely blames the West), to develop a new security architecture for Europe after the collapse of the USSR. One can see very clearly why Putin was not willing to accept this NATO which, by the admission of its current chief is still fighting the Cold War against Russia, to set up camp in Ukraine! It would have been irrational of Putin to have acted otherwise.
And he [Putin] is trying to crush our freedom and way of life.
This is really meaningless. Putin is not attacking Europe or the US. He has simply no capacity to “crush our way of life” (short of global nuclear holocaust, in which case he will also destroy Russia’s way of life). It is absurd. Rutte lists some alleged (probably real up to a point) sabotage operations by Russia against the West; but these may have something to do with the fact the Western missiles, apparently in some cases directed by American operators and/or using American satellites, are raining down on Russia. Even if you believe that your side is “right” someone whose job it is to think strategically should be able to see we are in some kind of escalation spiral where each side sees its attacks on the other as a response to attacks on them.
His pattern of aggression is not new.
But for too long, we did not act.
Georgia in 2008.
Crimea in 2014.
And many did not want to believe he would launch all-out war on Ukraine in February 2022.
They still trot out this one about the Russian – Georgia war. However; the simple fact is that this war was started by Georgia. [3] One can further argue that the specific cause of the war was the promise to take Georgia into NATO. Like Ukraine they took this too seriously and thought that NATO would come sailing to their aid if they attacked Russia.
The annexation of Crimea can be seen as an act of aggression. But the context was a Western backed coup against an elected President in Ukraine which left a far-right regime in power. Even given an opportunity for a managed process involving new elections – an agreement sponsored by European nations – the new regime forces couldn’t wait, and simply seized power. [4] We can add that there is a majority Russian ethnic population in Crimea, and that the results of the referendum – widely mocked by Western media and leaders – have indeed been confirmed by subsequent Western polling. [5] The West has also set a precedent at the end of the 1990s by allowing Kosovo to break away from Serbia. (In order to produce this outcome NATO conducted an illegal bombing campaign against Serbia including against civilian targets such as a TV station. Talk about aggression).
This all points in one clear direction:
Russia is preparing for long-term confrontation.
With Ukraine.
And with us.
This concerns Russia putting its economy onto a war footing and ramping up production of military material. But; perhaps Rutte hasn’t noticed? For the last two years Western leader after Western leader has been declaring that they will send money and arms to Ukraine “for as long as it takes” – even if that means eternity. Who is preparing for a long-term confrontation? If the West is doing that it would be more than irrational if Russia was not.
Putin believes that “a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new world order.”
These are his own words.
Others share his belief.
Not least China.Russia, China, but also North Korea and Iran, are hard at work to try to weaken North America and Europe.
To chip away at our freedom.
They want to reshape the global order.
Not to create a fairer one, but to secure their own spheres of influence.
Surely someone in Mr Rutte’s position should have some grasp of International Affairs? After the collapse of the USSR the USA was, for a while the world’s sole superpower. (John Mearsheimer calls this the “uni-polar moment”). China’s economic and military power is growing at a fast rate and, barring a serious slow-down in their economy, they are on track to becoming a peer competitor of the USA. Russia, as Putin fully understands, is no match for NATO in conventional terms. but Russia is one of the world’s two major nuclear powers and together with its vast landmass and resources is still a Great Power, even if not a peer competitor to the USA. After a period of disorganisation in the 1990s Russia has consolidated and has become more assertive about what they see as their national interests. There are many other indications that the unipolar world is giving way to a multipolar world; for example another major growing economy, India, is certainly taking decisions independent of the West. There is a Great Power (China-US) competition and a developing multipolarity. This is not simply a “belief” of Putin and Xi. Rutte is certainly right (if we follow a realist position) that China is a potential adversary whom the West should be prepared to fight. But Great Power competition is a reality which can, and should, be managed, to avoid war if at all possible. What we see here is not a statesman considering how to steer his side through a tense confrontation between rival Great powers, but a person with very limited ability to think rationally who, appears to believe, that he is involved in some battle of “fairness and freedom” against dastardly enemies who, “want to reshape the global order for their own selfish purposes”. There is the inevitable belief/delusion that the Western desire to “shape the world” and maintain spheres of influence all over the place is somehow an intrinsically more noble and valid aim than the aims of our competitors. Thus he frames a Great Power competition as as confrontation between Good and Evil. This is not a framing which is likely to lead to good decision making. Mearsheimer analyses this delusion in his brilliant book, The Great Delusion – Liberal Dreams and their International Realities. [6] Rutte doesn’t say it but he is in effect nailing his colours to the mast of maintaining the West’s unipolar moment at all costs. That probably means WWIII, or at least some serious skirmishes.
In preparation for that, the rest of Mr Rutte’s speech is dedicated to urging a massive arming of the West. Something like the Crusades.
Notes
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/12/new-survey-ukraine-russia-conflict-finds-deeply-divided-views-contested-donbas-region/
- The Lost Peace – How the West Failed to Prevent a Second Cold War. Richard Sakwa
- https://www.reuters.com/article/world/georgia-started-war-with-russia-eu-backed-report-idUSTRE58T4MO/
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/ukraine-president-says-deal-has-been-reached-opposition-bloodshed this agreement was broken 2 days later.
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2015/03/20/one-year-after-russia-annexed-crimea-locals-prefer-moscow-to-kiev/
- https://thenewobserver.co.uk/the-great-delusion-liberal-dreams-and-international-realities-john-mearsheimer/