Rüdiger König made his big, albeit unintentional, appearance on Thursday morning. Germany’s permanent representative at NATO was allowed, no: had to be included in the family photo of the heads of state and government. He was even greeted with a powerful handshake by Boris Johnson. When the bosses lined up for the photographers shortly after ten, the German diplomat was in the second row, next to Emmanuel Macron, behind Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He didn’t look like he was particularly comfortable in his own skin: as a placeholder for Olaf Scholz, the Federal Chancellor, who was said to be “on the way”. Scholz was the only one who was late on that day of the three summits. The nightly coalition committee in Berlin had lasted until eight o’clock.
NATO in the morning, G-7 in the afternoon, EU summit in the afternoon – that was the monster program. Not only for the chancellor, but also for the American president, who had landed in Brussels with Air Force One the evening before. The questions to be addressed in all three sessions were shouted to Joe Biden as he strode to Alliance headquarters. Where is the red line for America? Are there new sanctions? How to react to a chemical attack by Russia in Ukraine? Biden stalked past the reporters with a frozen smile. “I think it’s a real threat,” he said before flying to a chemical weapons operation. That would “fundamentally change the nature of the conflict,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.
But not the nature of the NATO response. The alliance still does not want to go to war with Russia. One has a “responsibility to ensure that this conflict does not escalate beyond Ukraine,” said Stoltenberg. “It would cause more suffering, more deaths, more destruction.” Some allies think that’s over-caution. Poland, for example, whose President Andrej Duda once again wanted to promote a “peacekeeping mission” by NATO troops in Ukraine. They should protect transports with humanitarian aid, according to the idea that had already been cleared up at the meeting of NATO defense ministers a week earlier. One diplomat said there was an election campaign in Poland, and that’s why Warsaw isn’t resting. It doesn’t change anything about the line of the alliance.
NATO is primarily concerned with protecting its own members
Volodymyr Zelenskyj, who joined in from Kyiv for ten minutes, asked for larger weapons at the meeting: combat aircraft and 200 tanks. So far he had fallen on deaf ears. “I ask you to change your assessment and think about security in Europe and in the world,” Zelenskyy appealed to the heads of government, according to information from Kyiv. The promises they came with were one size smaller. Prime Minister Johnson promised another 6,000 “defensive missiles”. Scholz was able to promise 2,000 rocket-propelled grenades, which the Bundeswehr had surprisingly found in their stocks. The arsenals are “empty,” Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Monday. Strela anti-aircraft missiles from the GDR era are still there and are said to be on their way. In the event of an attack with chemical weapons, Ukraine will also receive NBC protective equipment and treatment drugs from several allies.
NATO’s energy is primarily focused on protecting its own members. This has several dimensions. In the short term, the alliance has doubled the number of its soldiers in the reinforced battalions in the north-east, the so-called battlegroups. In addition, 130 interceptors have been placed on high alert, allowing NATO to conduct constant patrols throughout the airspace on the eastern flank. There are currently 140 ships in action at sea, including four aircraft carrier groups – an unprecedented number.
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