![]() The EU’s Strategic Compass is due this month, while NATO’s new Strategic Concept will be adopted in June. One would assume that everyone’s most pressing concern now is to stop the fighting in Ukraine, and not the geopolitical aggrandisement of their own institutions.Īs it happens, both the EU and NATO are in the process of writing new strategy documents. Vice-President Borrell, the Union’s chief diplomat who a year ago still volunteered to receive a public dressing-down by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov in Moscow, has linked the earmarking of modest European Peace Facility funds for supplying weaponry to Ukraine to the awakening of a ‘ slumbering giant’. It seems she and like-minded advocates have learned little from NATO’s ill-advised decision in 2008 to extend membership guarantees to Ukraine and Georgia without bothering to effectuate this commitment. Especially European Commission officials, eager to fulfill their promise of geopolitical relevance, are getting ahead of themselves.Ĭommission President’s Von der Leyen’s call to fast-track Ukrainian membership (prompting immediate requests by Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova to join the EU) is reckless because everybody knows it won’t happen anytime soon – if at all. But this sense of unity, which may not last forever, is at best a by-product of this crisis and should not be framed as its dominant feature. The EU has responded resolutely by imposing unprecedented sanctions on Russia and is facilitating the intake of Ukrainian refugees. NATO countries, until recently still reeling from the Trump years, have announced dramatic increases in defence spending, the alliance’s presence in Eastern European member-states is being upgraded and the prospect of Swedish and Finnish membership seems no longer out of bounds. Indeed, so far this war has had a unifying effect on organisations like NATO and the EU. ![]() Still, after some two weeks into the fighting, while Russian forces lay siege to Ukrainian cities, massive refugee flows are forming and several mediation efforts are under way, it may be worthwhile to formulate (in a non-hierarchical order) a couple of early observations. All wars develop their own dynamics and often unexpected trajectories. ![]() Since the apparently anticipated blitzkrieg victory didn’t materialise, this war enters a more complex and potentially even more devastating phase. Russia has launched an exceedingly cynical war of aggression against Ukraine. ![]()
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