María G. Zornoza Brussels
Brussels
Updated Wednesday, April 3, 2024-18:49
Five
years
and
total war in Europe. The
Russian invasion of Ukraine
has caused a
paradigm shift
in the European security architecture and given the world's largest military forum a new reason for being. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Atlantic Alliance has experienced milestones that were unthinkable before the tanks stalked kyiv.
NATO, which blows the 75 sails of the North Atlantic Treaty, was born in the winds of the Cold War with the objective, in the words of its first secretary general, Lord Ismay, of "keeping the Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down." Today we face the
most volatile, complicated, hostile and unpredictable context
since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Since its founding, the Alliance has gone from 12 members to the current 32.
"We have the most powerful and successful Alliance in history. Over the past 75 years, NATO's open-door policy has helped bring democracy and prosperity to all of Europe. But while we celebrate its achievements, we are not complacent.
Europe is facing a war on a scale that we thought was a thing of the past
," said its Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, during the first day of the foreign ministers' summit in Brussels. The expansion of NATO has been one of the direct consequences of Vladimir Putin's war, but that is not going to translate into welcoming Ukraine in the short term.
The short-term objective, the priority, is for Ukraine not to lose the war. Allied countries have contributed 99% of military donations to the ranks led by Volodimir Zelensky. "A stronger role for NATO in
coordinating and providing support
is one way to end this war," stressed the former Norwegian prime minister. But the headquarters in Brussels and the command centers in Kiev recognize that
it is not enough
. And the Baltics are pulling out their teeth to redouble military spending and aid to their neighboring country. Stoltenberg takes this witness: "Support for Ukraine is not charity, it is an investment in our security."
Ukraine reaches its 26th month of confrontations in a difficult context. The conflict has entered a phase of stagnation. The lines of the battlefield barely move. "It is not good news. It is possible that this will be a year of 'impasse'. Everything indicates that it will be a long-term conflict," allied sources analyze.
The current war is an artillery war
. And Ukraine is complaining about the shortage and delay of Western material on the battlefield. "Ukrainians are not lacking courage, they are lacking ammunition," the former Norwegian prime minister acknowledged.
War in Ukraine
Ammunition returns to kyiv and Ukraine stabilizes fronts
Editor: ALBERTO ROJAS
Ammunition returns to kyiv and Ukraine stabilizes fronts
Russia launches biggest attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure of entire war
Editor: ALBERTO ROJAS
Russia launches biggest attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure of entire war
During the early stages of the fight, joy spread among Ukraine's partners. Their base scenario was that Putin had planned to take the capital in days and wage a fleeting war that would lead to a puppet government as occurs in Belarus. But the Ukrainian Army resisted as few anticipated.
Two years later, the x-ray is different. The Kremlin's strategy has undergone a metamorphosis. It involves forcing a long, attritional guerrilla war that demoralizes Western public opinion and degenerates into a loss of support for Ukraine. The current electoral 'macro year' enters into this calculation. The
European Parliament elections
in June predict a
greater presence of pro-Russian forces
and the
November elections in the United States
may mark the
return of Donald Trump
, who threatens to cut off Kiev's financial bazooka.
Record defense spending
In 2016, the arrival of Hurricane Trump caught its European partners off guard. The Republican described the Alliance as "obsolete", blew up allied summits and questioned the collective defense clause, wondering why his soldiers should die for Montenegro, the smallest country in the forum. Now, with a war on the borders of Europe,
Trump has suggested that Russia had free rein to attack countries
that do not meet Wales' goal of
allocating 2% of spending on security and defense
. His former national security advisor John Bolton regularly states that if he renews his mandate, he will remove the country that is the core and pocket of the Alliance. But the fear of that hypothetical stage is being tried to be tempered with action.
The Atlantic Alliance is not the one he left after his first term. At that time, the objective of investing 2% in security and defense items was the ceiling. Now it's the ground. The war in Ukraine has brought about an awakening in Europe.
Large-scale conflicts were no longer something that occurred in distant territories
. All of this has translated into the largest rearmament and investment in war material since the Second World War.
This 2024,
18 allies will reach or exceed that 2% threshold
. One of the paradigm changes is that European countries, which all US Administrations have reproached for not assuming their responsibilities in terms of military spending, are no longer considering whether or not to achieve that goal, but rather how. Europe will invest 380 billion euros in defense this year alone.
However, the history, sensitivities, geographical priorities or risk perception are different in each capital. Recent calls for the possibility of a direct war between the West and Russia are having a pronounced impact in the East and are seen at a distance in the south. While Estonia will allocate 0.25% of the country's GDP to the defense of Ukraine, Spain is at the bottom of the 32 and plans to reach Wales' goal in 2029.
In parallel, the allies are preparing to shield aid to Ukraine from future storms. They are currently debating an unprecedented proposal to create a
macro package of military assistance to Kiev for the next five years
. "The Secretary General has made a proposal to create 100 billion in five years," confirmed the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hadja Lahbib. The initiative is still very immature. But the objective is to close it at the July summit in Washington with the dual intention of protecting the flood of aid to Ukraine and doing it on an annual and predictable basis. "The reality is that if we want this war to end, we have to convince Moscow that it will not win on the battlefield," warns Stoltenberg.