the red lines
At the recent security conference in Munich, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky announced his country’s readiness for nuclear rearmament, which finished adding fuel to the fire that NATO had been fanning for some years: the probable installation of bases in Ukraine, a few kilometers from the Russian border. The permanent violations of the Minsk agreements gave Russia the perfect argument to mobilize troops to the borders and prepare the current operation.
The red line drawn by Moscow had already been crossed and Russia took a reckless step: advancing against military and strategic targets to reduce Kiev’s military capacity.
During the last decade, Russia strengthened its military capacity, not only in weapons but also in action: the intervention in Syria highlighted that its search has to do with recovering an international role of influence that has been severely damaged after the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. In addition, it strengthened its strategic alliance with China, the main global competitor with the United States for economic and technological hegemony.
The current conflict, in geopolitical terms, is also an open dispute with the United States for military and territorial supremacy in Europe.
For its part, Ukraine, after the coup (strongly suspected of being supported and financed by the US with Biden at the helm) deepened its closeness to Europe and began to apply to join the EU and NATO, while the war began in the Donbass.
The last months prior to the conflict, the US and NATO decided not to take into account Russia’s claims for its security:
- Adhere to the “Principle of indivisibility of international security”, according to which no country can strengthen its security to the detriment of others.
- Roll back NATO borders to 1997
- Commit not to incorporate Ukraine into the alliance.
With the military option in development and Putin’s call for the Ukrainian military to become his next interlocutors, it is impossible to venture what outcomes the conflict may have, meanwhile economic sanctions fly from the US and Great Britain towards banks, politicians and companies Russian, these days 18 countries have closed their air space to Russia; but the request to remove it from the SWIFT financial system divides waters in Europe: France and Germany -among others- depend on imports of Russian gas (although the latter put the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline on standby) and it is more expensive for them to liquefied gas that arrives from the United States. How long is Europe going to follow the US agenda in international politics?
Is a new multipolar world possible?
The world is heading towards an inevitable multipolarization and regional alliances; and the center of gravity is moving towards the East: China continues adding countries to the Belt and Road Initiative and its influence is also growing in Latin America. Russia is its strategic ally and together with other countries it forms the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and also the BRICS and the Development Bank. Russia also forms the Eurasian Economic Union.
Will it continue to be the US response to bring NATO in as gendarme to any border that is uncomfortable?
*Geographer (UBA)
Source: Ambito
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