NATO is doing everything it can to prevent peace in Ukraine
The Swiss peace summit was a farce
Jens Stoltenberg seems to be aiming for the title of the world’s foremost warmonger as he pushes for NATO to have more nukes on standby. Stoltenberg is the one who was pushing for NATO weapons to be used on Russian soil - and now the guy who honestly isn’t trying to provoke Putin is saying, “Look, we’re gonna point even more nukes at you!” He just won’t say how many because he’s being vague on the details.
A single missile is capable of destroying Moscow and that in itself is surely all the deterrent you need, but it makes Jens feel big and strong to show the world we can end it several times over. Jens insists his cataclysmic dick-sizing contest is necessary in the face of “a growing threat from Russia and China”. What he actually means is NATO must maintain control of the world’s strategic resources at all costs. We could easily end tensions with Russia and China by not beating the war drum and not expanding NATO and not piling weapons into Ukraine and Taiwan and not surrounding them with missile bases, but we can’t help but do the opposite. If you’re unclear why, this might help:
The Ukraine proxy war has finally motivated NATO members to meet the commitment of spending at least 2% of their annual budget on defence. This is brilliant news for arms manufacturers because they will see the benefit long after the war is over. Not only is NATO ensuring that commitments to Ukraine are Trump-proof, but Stoltenberg is demanding the UK Labour Party be a staunch ally of NATO.
This brings us back to the Corbyn years when Labour wasn’t allowed to be anti-NATO because the last thing the world needs is peace. Former CIA director Mike Pompeo even said they would not allow Corbyn to become prime minister! It looks like Stoltenberg is reminding Starmer to know his place, but he should have no worries about Mr Trilateral Commission who has already shown his loyalty through his unwavering commitment to the genocide in Gaza.
Stoltenberg has warned that China is investing heavily in weaponry and growing its nuclear stockpile, but that might be something to do with the US building a “kill chain” in the Indo-Pacific and spending more money on its military than the next 12 biggest spenders combined.
Stoltenberg called on China to stop sending weapons to Moscow, but it’s a matter of days since Zelensky said they’re not doing that! He could easily have said we will stop surrounding your countries with missile bases as part of a deal, but, of course, he did not.
While other NATO countries might not have their own nuclear stockpiles, they are nuclear powers because they host US nukes and are responsible for building and maintaining nuclear facilities. “We, of course, are a nuclear alliance,” Stoltenberg said at the Swiss peace summit. Ukraine would become a nuclear power if plans to fast track NATO membership were to go ahead. NATO has agreed to send Ukraine F-16s which are capable of carrying nukes so the idea Russia would have nothing to worry from Ukraine joining NATO is frankly insulting.
I recently saw an interview where Colonel Douglas McGregor said he’s been told Ukraine has maybe 30,000-60,000 reserve troops left, and if so, this war is over, regardless of how many years Biden has committed himself to Zelensky. If McGregor’s information is correct, the only way this war continues is if it’s expanded. There are worrying rumours that’s what’s being planned and Sunak called an election because he didn’t want to be a wartime prime minister.
If the decision is being made to start World War III, we should surely at least have some say. Imagine a referendum on whether it’s a good idea to attack Russia so Zelensky can have Luhansk and Donetsk back! It would be the first ever referendum where 100% of people said “no”, and yet the “yes” is where we’re headed. 94% of Americans and 88% of Europeans want an immediate negotiated ceasefire, but anyone who says this publicly is labelled a “Putin sympathiser”. There is no serious appetite among our leaders for peace.
In an absurd spectacle, 92 countries have attended a summit in Switzerland discussing peace in Ukraine without inviting Russia. It was the most Orwellian peace summit where everyone in the room was determined to do everything they could to derail peace, apart from the representatives of the BRICS nations who refused to sign a declaration at the end.
The media would have you believe the international community supports the declaration, but only half of UN countries took part in the summit. Last year, 141 countries backed a non-binding UN resolution for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine, but now only 80 countries in blue are backing the declaration. Outside of Europe and North America there is not much support at all, presumably because these countries could see this was not a serious peace summit.
To be fair, there were at least some reasonable points made in the declaration such as:
“… any use of nuclear energy and nuclear installations must be safe, secured, safe-guarded and environmentally sound.”
“Any threat or use of nuclear weapons in the context of the ongoing war against Ukraine is inadmissible.”
“… global food security depends on uninterrupted manufacturing and supply of food products. In this regard, free, full and safe commercial navigation, as well as access to seaports in the Black and Azov Seas, are critical.”
“Food security must not be weaponised in any way. Ukrainian agricultural products should be securely and freely provided to interested third countries.”
“… all prisoners of war must be released by complete exchange. All deported and unlawfully displaced Ukrainian children, and all other Ukrainian civilians who were unlawfully detained, must be returned to Ukraine.”
It’s not going to be hard to achieve food and energy security for Ukraine if you’re willing to negotiate in good faith, and the best way to eliminate the threat of nukes is to remove the possibility of Ukraine striking Russian soil. That includes scrapping the idea of supplying nuclear capable F-16 fighter jets. If you agree to a ceasefire, all of those prisoners can come home to their families. If the price you pay for peace is accepting you’re never getting back the sliver of territory you’ve lost, it’s surely a no brainer.
No serious person disputes that Russia is likely to gain more ground this summer, so why would you wait until you’ve lost more territory? Sometimes you have to know when you’re beaten. Kamala Harris is sadly incapable of this. “This war remains an utter failure for Putin,” she said. What planet is she living on? She even tried to take the moral high ground by saying, “Russia’s aggression is also an attack on international rules and norms,” with a weird confidence for someone participating in a genocide while undermining the UN, ICC and ICJ.
Jens Stoltenberg laughably insisted: “NATO’s aim is, of course, a world without nuclear weapons,” and absolutely no one at the summit believed him, but he felt the need to say it anyway. Such spectacles are only necessary because our leaders have to maintain the pretence they want peace to avoid alienating the public.
The summit itself was a damp squib with a watered down declaration that did not lay down the steps towards peace. However, Ukraine has laid down a bunch of conditions that there is not a chance in hell Russia will accept. Talk about living in cloud cuckoo land.
Zelensky’s plan is basically to keep fighting for the next four years, lose more men and more territory with each passing year, and demand every year that Russia capitulates to all of his demands, or else… Or else what? It will be a miracle if this war lasts another year without NATO intervention.
The declaration stated Ukraine’s territorial integrity should be the basis for any peace deal, meaning there is no negotiation unless Ukraine gets all of its land back. Ukraine had a deal in place that guaranteed its territorial integrity with the Minsk agreements. Former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko openly admitted they never had any intention of respecting those agreements and were biding time while they armed for war. Just don’t mention this next time someone says Putin’s invasion was unprovoked and came out of the blue.
After breaking the Minsk agreements, Ukraine still had a much better deal on offer in 2022 than what is on the cards today. So now we’re in a position where we’re making unachievable demands, having spent two years achieving nothing apart from losing Ukrainian territory and lives. Call me crazy, but I’m seeing a pattern where every country NATO touches turns to rubble.
NATO has made it abundantly clear that whatever happens next, we have no intention of doing anything other than militarising eastern Europe’s border with Russia. We are offering zero incentive for Putin to negotiate and instead demanding that he capitulate when he’s on the brink of victory. It’s all so bizarre. There have even been demands that Xi Jinping stop Putin as though China is going to do our bidding when they know they’re next in the firing line. The irony is that China is planning credible steps towards peace and the west is accusing Beijing of “plotting”. Plotting what exactly? An end to NATO’s gravy train?
Putin’s offer to immediately order a ceasefire has been dismissed as “a hollow attempt to seduce the west”. He wants a guarantee of Ukraine’s non-nuclear status and assurances Kyiv will stop bombing ethnic Russians in the Donbas, which it has been doing since 2014. He also wants Ukraine to cede the territory that has been captured and abandon the goal of NATO membership.
Zelensky, on the other hand, is demanding Russia give all of the territory back and pay for Ukraine’s rebuilding effort, and he wants a special tribunal to prosecute Russians for war crimes. In other words, Putin has to agree to go to prison! This is not sounding realistic, is it?
While it’s being reported that Putin is demanding Ukraine cede more territory than Russia has captured, he is actually willing to cede territory himself as long as Russia keeps Luhansk and Donetsk and a reasonable land bridge to Crimea. In other words, he is showing a willingness to compromise which might not be much, but it’s more than Ukraine is willing to compromise.
In a negotiation you have to ask yourself what you are offering the other side. How would they benefit from the deal? If your answer is that you are giving them no incentive and the only party to benefit would be yourself, you are not seriously negotiating.
From the Russian standpoint, there is nothing to gain from capitulating to Zelensky’s demands and everything to lose. From the Ukrainian standpoint, they would avoid fighting to the last man and save 80% of their country. There is no third option, unless you consider bringing NATO into the fight and starting World War III a sensible option. I don’t know about you, but I prefer peace to either the destruction of Ukraine or the destruction of the planet.
Of course, when Putin refuses to capitulate, we will be told this is proof he’s the next Hitler and we have no choice but to send in the troops. Embarrassingly, there will probably be a two to three year delay because logistically, we are almost certainly not ready to fight Russia today. Also, it’s going to be legitimately funny when gen Z get conscription letters and they say fuck off, we’re too busy dying our hair and playing videogames!
If we don’t agree a peace settlement, the alternative to World War III is that Europe does nothing, Ukraine collapses and NATO faces humiliation as its proxy war ends in failure. Something tells me these egomaniacs are not going to accept humiliation. NATO’s reputation has already been shattered by the Gaza genocide and defeat in Ukraine could mean its influence on the global stage is over. The world would likely turn to China for leadership and the NATO empire would be dead, but empires do not go down without a fight.
The president of Serbia believes we are just three to four months from a “big confrontation”, but not necessarily World War III. However, it’s difficult to see how a big confrontation would develop into anything less than World War III. President Vučić has made it clear Serbia will not participate in any war, but no country would be unaffected by such a war, even if it didn’t go nuclear. The effect on the world economy would be devastating. I’m finding it draining waiting to see if our leaders opt for insanity while we are seemingly powerless to stop them. Surely we can do something?
Thank you for this very cogent assessment of current situation.
When the aims are to make money for the MIC and crash the economies of the west, then a slow grind war in Ukraine seems obvious. NATO can't win against Russia and they know this. But fighting a forever war is good for business and also has the benefit of keeping the populations scared. The only silver lining seems to be that these current western governments are deeply unpopular. A change of the guard might lead to a change in policy.