The failure of this week’s meeting in Washington to move the needle forward toward peace hinges, in my opinion, on the failure of the participants to properly understand the security dilemma they are facing.
Rather than seeking security for all, Europe is still seeking partial security, only for Ukraine. This short-sightedness stems from the desire to punish Russia, which argues that it is only defending its national interests.
It is telling that, toward the end of their joint press conference, Putin said he agreed with Trump’s claim that this war could have been prevented if Trump had been president. Many saw this as a throw-away line designed to ingratiate himself to Trump, but I believe that Putin was remarking on how different Trump’s approach to the conflict is from that of his predecessor. While Biden saw NATO as an unvarnished force for good; Trump appears to appreciate that it can also be seen as a threat, especially by those who have been excluded from it.
The arguments in favor of NATO expansion are all about the way the world “ought” to be. To understand why NATO can be seen as a threat, however, we must distinguish between what “ought” to be, and what “is.”
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