"Double standards" in international affairs has always been the usual tactic of NATO led by the United States, and the occurrence of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is both a tragedy in Ukraine and a tragedy in Europe, behind which is the geopolitical conspiracy of NATO led by the United States .
"NATO expansion" is the bane
After the end of the Cold War, the international balance of power changed in favor of the United States.
In order to adapt to this situation, on April 23, 1999, the NATO Washington Summit adopted the document "Strategic Concept of Alliance", which proposed a strategy for the new century, which was adjusted and supplemented by the NATO Prague Summit in 2002.
The introduction of the new strategic concept shows that NATO's military role has begun to change, and its mission has changed from defending territorial security to defending the common interests of the contracting parties. The fact that NATO's defense area can extend beyond the scope stipulated in the convention to any area in the world that it considers itself has laid the foundation for the eastward expansion of NATO and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
On May 2, 1998, the US Senate formally approved NATO's eastward expansion.
At that time, George Kennan, 94, who proposed the idea of containing the Soviet Union, immediately made the following comments: "I think this is the beginning of a new Cold War. I think Russia will slowly react quite adversely, which will affect them. The founder of the Cold War theory believes that this is the most catastrophic mistake of the United States in the post-Cold War period. A return to the Cold War atmosphere is driving Russian foreign policy in a direction we don’t want.
It's not just Kennan who is a prophecy.
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said very early that if Ukraine wants to survive and develop, it should not choose between the West and the East, and should not become an "outpost" that opposes the other, but should become a "bridge" connecting the two sides. Should not join NATO.
John Mearsheimer, a well-known international relations scholar and a professor at the University of Chicago who wrote the book "The Tragedy of Great Power Politics", pointed out that successive U.S. presidents underestimated the resilience of the Soviet Union after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and self-destructed the promise of NATO not to expand eastward. The result is an enemy that works against the United States.
For more than 20 years, NATO has not considered Russia's security concerns, but has forced Russia to accept the "new reality" of geopolitics step by step by "cutting sausages", and extremely squeezed and emptied Russia's strategic security space.
Russia's once "pro-Western" and even "de-Cold War" efforts to integrate into the West have ultimately failed.
Facts have proved that the West does not need a strong Russia, but only a "fragmented" Russia, and NATO's eastward expansion can compress Russia's "living space".
"New York Times" columnist Thomas Friedman believes that the United States has created a crisis in Ukraine, and the eastward expansion of NATO has caused a strong rebound of public opinion in Russia, which has also caused Moscow to "deadly fight" with the United States on this issue, which has brought great harm to Europe. huge crack.
Hypocritical double human rights standards
The US-led NATO has used the so-called "human rights" and "democracy" to carry out "Westernization" and "differentiation" strategies for a long time.
After the Cold War, the United States further raised the banner of "humanitarian" intervention with its Western allies, constantly creating color revolutions in other countries and subverting the regimes of other countries. The world order under the leadership of the West maintains hegemony.
Counting it down, since 1994, NATO has successively fought the Bosnian War, the Kosovo War, and has been deeply involved in the US-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria.
It can be seen from this that these wars have a common feature: under the guise of "freedom and democracy" and "protection of human rights", they ignore international law, ignore the authority of the United Nations or abuse Security Council resolutions, and conduct political and military interference in other countries' internal affairs. Promote Western democratic values and transform NATO from a defensive military organization into an offensive military bloc.
The Kosovo war is an illegal war of aggression launched by NATO against a sovereign country without the authorization of the United Nations and without legal basis.
Under the banner of preventing the "humanitarian disaster" in Kosovo, the United States and NATO brazenly launched the Kosovo War in March 1999 without the authorization of the United Nations under the pretext of "humanitarian intervention", and carried out a long-term attack on the Yugoslav military and economic facilities. 78 days of indiscriminate bombing forced the Milosevic regime to submit, followed by a ground invasion of Kosovo and the dismemberment of the Yugoslavia.
It is estimated that the bombs dropped by NATO on the Yugoslavia were several times the yield of the atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, causing a large number of casualties to the Yugoslavia.
NATO brazenly bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia, causing serious damage to the premises, killing three journalists and injuring more than 20 people. It seriously violated the principles and rules of international humanitarian law for the protection of human rights in war or armed conflict, and it still owes China to this day. A blood debt of the people.
NATO tries to put its own will above the United Nations and seek hegemony for the West. The subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have all confirmed this.
After the "9.11" incident, the coalition led by the United States invaded Afghanistan under the banner of "war on terror".
Since then, the nearly 20-year conflict has had a devastating impact on the lives of Afghan civilians.
According to Fortune magazine, an estimated 75,000 Afghan soldiers and police were killed in direct fighting, and 71,334 civilians were killed.
According to Al Jazeera, nearly 1,600 children were killed in NATO airstrikes between 2016 and 2020.
Hujatullah Zia, a senior writer and political analyst at Prospect Afghanistan Daily, believes that the NATO-led Afghan mission has recklessly trampled on the human rights of the Afghan people under the "war on terror" narrative.
The Iraq War launched by the US-British coalition forces in March 2003 was also a war of aggression that was not authorized by the Security Council.
The then US Secretary of State Powell took an unknown can of white powder and made the lie that "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction".
NATO also intervened in the Iraq war.
From Yugoslavia and Iraq to Afghanistan and Syria, the United States and NATO have used the same methods to bring endless suffering to the people of these countries.
Cold War mentality is backlashing against NATO countries
The expansion of NATO during and after the Cold War was dominated by the Cold War mentality.
Thanks to European geopolitics, the secret of NATO's ability to lead the security mechanism in Europe lies in the fact that the United States, an "exquisite egoist", can take advantage of the historical grievances and actual conflicts of interest between Russia and European countries. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict is proof of that.
Only by creating a crisis can NATO have legitimacy.
From a broader perspective, the turmoil and unrest in the world are largely due to the US-led NATO's adherence to the Cold War mentality.
NATO, which is on the wrong side of history, has long since lost its legitimacy.
Unilateralism, hegemonic politics, and the Cold War mentality should have been thrown into the pile of old papers long ago. It is the general trend that the world political landscape will develop towards multi-polarity.
The Cold War mentality with the fundamental purpose of pursuing American hegemony is destined to be a short-sighted pattern.
Within NATO, the interests of Germany, France and other EU countries and the United States are not consistent. Whether it is geopolitical or economic and energy cooperation, only in terms of natural gas and food, European countries have become the biggest victims of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
If the sanctions against Russia continue, most European countries will face the pressure of inflation and people's livelihood, and the resulting social crisis will eventually have to be paid by Europe itself.
The crux of the Russia-Ukraine conflict lies in the eastward expansion of NATO. The rational way out is to abandon the old Cold War mentality, cherish the future of mankind, build a community with a shared future for mankind, focus on the security concerns of all mankind, and jointly promote global peace and development.
(Author: Wang Yuting, special researcher of Xi Jinping Thought Research Center for Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, associate researcher of China Frontier Research Institute, master tutor of University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)