The conclusions began with the collapse of the powers of the West, after Germany decided to continue working with Russia to build a natural gas pipeline, and experts concluded France’s desire to secede from NATO and move forward as a separate political power, not committed to the European path.
Michael Kimmig, a professor at the Catholic University of America, said that Western differences over the issue of Russia and Ukraine are not new, and that differences were emerging between allies in the past.
“Previously, France formally distanced itself from NATO during the Cold War,” Kimmig said. “The early 1980s saw mass protests in Germany and elsewhere over the deployment of American missiles in Europe. The Vietnam and Iraq wars sparked major differences of opinion among many member states of the North. NATO. So there is nothing new about the differing agendas and approaches between the allies.”
Speculation has increased recently, about the “beginning of the end” for Western powers in the face of Russia, which Kimmig denied, stressing that NATO has shown great cohesion since the beginning of the crisis in Ukraine.
The political expert said: “NATO has done three things together: provided a measure of military assistance to Ukraine through training and provision of military components to Ukraine; secondly, he indicated in unequivocal terms that the war between Ukraine and Russia does not concern NATO directly, because Ukraine is not a member in the Alliance, and therefore NATO itself will not fight in Ukraine; and I took seriously the new set of concerns in Poland and Romania, some of which stem from the possibility of a wider war in Ukraine.”
In addition, NATO has told Russia that it will not make concessions, will not close its open-door policy on membership, and will not rule out the possibility of Ukraine being accepted into the alliance, all of which are messages Putin does not like, according to Kimmig.
Abandon Eastern Europe
The political expert hinted that the Allies “may abandon” Eastern Europe, in order to maintain their security and avoid a political conflict.
“The alliance has 30 members,” Kimmig said. “It has a huge and unstable eastern border. With each new addition to NATO (among Eastern European countries) new military commitments come, the alliance presents serious challenges ahead to defend those already member states.”
“The ‘rejection’ can be painful, it will come to friendly countries (in Eastern Europe). But it is time for NATO to limit itself – not for Russia’s sake but for its own cohesion and its own self-defense capabilities,” he added.