With the Ukraine conflict set to enter a second year, there is still no sign that the hostilities that erupted in Europe on Feb 24, 2022, will cease. On the contrary, the pledge by NATO defense ministers to provide more and continuous military assistance to Ukraine in their meeting this week only guarantees that the fighting will be more bloody.
Addressing the opening of the meeting on Tuesday in Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said NATO allies, working closely with the European Union, will continue supporting Ukraine "for as long as it takes", with the relentless warmonger disingenuously claiming that was so Kyiv can "uphold its right to self-defense".
New arms provisions to Kyiv, increased production for ammunition and Finland and Sweden's bid to join the alliance top the agenda of the two-day gathering. After getting more than 300 tanks from Western countries last month Ukraine is now concentrating its appeals on Western fighter jets, which the NATO countries that have otherwise been willing to bend over backward to accommodate Ukraine's appeals for military aid have been hesitant to provide, knowing it will risk escalating the conflict beyond Ukraine's borders.
A message of peace from NATO is the last thing the outside world should expect from this week's meeting in Brussels. After all, ways to broker peace are apparently not on the table for the NATO defense ministers to discuss. Yet for the entire world, NATO members and European countries included, peace is the only way out of the vicious mess that Washington has long "set the theater for". The year-long conflict in Ukraine has torn the fabric of Europe's security and stability apart and dimmed the hopes for the world's post-pandemic economic recovery.
The Ukraine conflict has shown the extent to which Western countries are still caught in the grip of a Cold War mentality that sees international relations as a zero-sum game. NATO has blindly followed the United States' lead in waging a proxy war against Russia and is doing its best to create bloc confrontation in the Asia-Pacific region. Its security perspective, which is fundamentally driven by the Anglo-Saxon countries seeking strategic gains, runs counter to today's interconnected world.
The other NATO countries should take a moment to reflect on where they are being led by this divisive vision of the world. Fueling the conflict in Ukraine will only result in more bloodshed and more adverse impacts on the whole world. What is needed is a greater international consensus to push for negotiations and talks between the two belligerents.
The conflict in Ukraine should serve as a wake-up call to the world that reliance on the US for security is a surefire way to get dragged into Washington's games. Allowing one's security concept to be shaped by Washington means potentially being the stage for its theater of engagement.