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What to expect from NATO Summit 2023

Thus, it is slowly emerging that there shall not be a NATO membership for Ukraine — now or ever.

The bottom line is that the Vilnius summit will sound the bugle to let the manor know that an orderly NATO pullback from Ukraine is in the cards.

India Punchline, JULY 11, 2023 BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

The trajectory of the Ukraine war hangs in the balance. All eyes are on the US President Joe Biden’s arrival in Vilnius for the NATO summit meeting .

………………………………………………………………………………………….this will virtually put out the flicker of hope among the NATO Allies about political uncertainties within Russia hampering the Kremlin’s war effort. Quite obviously, there are no “cracks” to be seen anywhere on the Kremlin wall. Putin remains firmly in charge and the military operations to scatter the month-long Ukrainian offensive are succeeding beyond expectations. 

Correspondingly, there is bound to be a greater sense of realism amongst the NATO Allies. Alas, momentous political decisions concerning European security were riveted on flawed intelligence. 

The Americans had no idea about the capability of Russian weaponry or of the country’s defence industry, its seamless capacity to mobilise for a continental war, the mood of the Russian people, Putin’s strong power base with a consistent rating at 80% (more than double that of Biden), the Russian economy’s resilience to withstand sanctions, or the blowback from sanctions that eventually would devastate the European economies. 

……………………………………………………….. the NATO summit will factor in the geopolitical reality, howsoever unpalatable, that the war in Ukraine has far from isolated Russia but on the contrary, helped invigorate and expand Moscow’s orbit of diplomatic and political influence in the vast majority of the world community. 

At the same time, on the military front too, the delusional hopes of NATO countries defeating Russia have withered away and the Vilnius summit’s decisions will reckon with this ground reality.

Already, the Biden Administration admitted that the Pentagon has run out of ammunition to supply Ukraine and the industrial capacity will have to be strengthened. But that is a medium term objective whilst the war has its immediate requirements. And to meet the current requirements, Biden has decided to instead supply Ukraine with cluster bombs, a dirty weapon that is banned under international law by the UN. 

Thus, it is slowly emerging that there shall not be a NATO membership for Ukraine — now or ever. Yesterday, Richard Haas, president of the council of Foreign Relations and a hugely influential opinion maker of the US foreign policy establishment, wrote in Project Syndicate (with an eye on the European audience) a forceful critique titled Ascending the Vilnius Summit: “Offering NATO membership in principle, as was done when NATO leaders met in Bucharest in 2008, seems hollow…” 

Haas elaborated that the NATO countries can instead bilaterally “extend a security commitment to defend Ukraine’s right to exist… without reference to precise territory…comparable to what the US has long done for Israel.” 

Haas believes that such a formal, open-ended commitment backed up with “the arms, intelligence, and training it requires” would signal that America “will not allow any entity to threaten” Ukraine’s existence, but without linking it “to any specific map” of the territory of Ukraine.

Interestingly, when asked about it during the press gaggle on Sunday, Sullivan also confirmed that such a concept is on the table whereby the US, its allies and partners “within a multilateral framework, will negotiate bilateral security commitments with Ukraine for the long term… to provide various forms of military assistance, intelligence and information sharing, cyber support and other forms of material support so that Ukraine can both defend itself and deter future aggression.” 

The bottom line is that the Vilnius summit will sound the bugle to let the manor know that an orderly NATO pullback from Ukraine is in the cards. Unlike in Afghanistan, the US will no doubt keep the allies in the loop, since this primarily concerns European security — and importantly, it should not turn out to be another chaotic retreat that Kabul or Saigon witnessed in yesteryears. That, in turn, demands absolute NATO unity. ……………..

Evidently, the nuts and bolts of an orderly withdrawal will need to be painstakingly worked out within the framework of a ceasefire in the war. This means engaging with Russia in a near future and discouraging it from pressing ahead forthwith with any major offensive to end the war conclusively in its favour.

Meanwhile, according to the grapevine in Kiev, the commander-in-chief of  armed forces General Valeri Zaluzhny has recommended to his president Zelensky that the current month-old Ukrainian military offensive is simply not sustainable against the overwhelmingly powerful Russian forces and should be called off.  https://www.indianpunchline.com/what-to-expect-from-nato-summit-2023/

July 13, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics international