The NATO Summit, which took place in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius, close to the Russian border, on July 11-12, is considered significant in the context of Eurasian geopolitics for three fundamental reasons.
These are:
- Despite persistent demand from Ukraine, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) denied membership to Ukraine
- Ukraine has to satisfy itself with the message that “we agreed to bring Ukraine closer to the Alliance”, which emanated from the Summit. This means that Ukraine has to engage itself with the NATO-Ukraine Council and it will not be a full-time member any time soon.
- On the other hand, Finland, despite hostile opposition from Turkey, secured its membership in the Euro-Atlantic body. Similarly, reports suggest Sweden will get its full membership soon.
The Vilnius Summit has also provided a new kind of opportunity to NATO to re-strategies its policy in the background of present Russia-Ukraine war.
All these developments in the aftermath of the Vilnius Summit provided an opportunity to relook at the course of the Russia-Ukraine War. At the same time, a question naturally arises whether the Summit provides a blueprint for the future direct involvement of NATO in the war against Russia. The second issue which needs to be explored into is whether Turkey, which has so far provided proxy support to Russia in the present war, has changed its position and is going on for an all-out onslaught against Russia by bandwagoning with NATO. The third important issue that needs to be addressed here is whether NATO will be able to achieve a consensus on action against Russia.
These three aspects need to be discussed at a greater length to determine the potential role of NATO in the present Russia-Ukraine War. It is in this context that one has to locate the discourses on the role of NATO in the future Euro-Atlantic security system. The Vilnius Summit, as expected, brought out a clear-cut policy statement against Russia. As the Summit Declaration indicted Russia for the present war by stating that “the Russian Federation is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area”. Through this statement, the Summit only provoked to adopt counter-measures, including the use of nuclear weapons in the strategic heartland of Eurasia by Russia. As reports emanating from various quarters suggest, both Moscow and Kyiv are accusing each other of nuclear risks.
Similarly, Moscow also responded to the NATO statement on Russia by underlining that the greater involvement of NATO in the war would escalate the crisis further. Maria Zakharova, Official Spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said: “We categorically reject the West’s logic that military aid to Ukraine is intended to bring a political and diplomatic settlement close. Inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and maintaining influence in the international arena is the main goal of the US and its satellites. Similarly, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, at the sideline of the Russia-ASEAN Conference in Jakarta, also took a strong position against Ukraine and NATO. At the same time, Lavrov also criticised the move on the part of certain countries like “Japan, South Korea, and Australia” to deploy “American weapons” as “ dangerous moves”.
On the other hand, the NATO Summit in its Vilnius Declaration deplored the move on the part of Russia to deploy its missiles and high-end weapons near NATO member countries as highly “Provocative”. What one can infer from the strategies adopted by Russia as well as NATO is that slowly the war is turning into a war between Russia versus NATO, thus impacting the security of Eurasia. It has also been noticed that in future, in case of direct conflict between Russia and NATO, the war may shift to the Indo-Pacific. The greater engagement of Russia with ASEAN in recent years in the framework of “Greater Eurasian Policy” can be considered as part of strategy to counter NATO in case of a spillover of the war into the Indo-Pacific. Similarly, after the joining of Finland and the imminent joining of Sweden in NATO, the war has already expanded into the Nordic and Arctic frontiers. What one witnesses is that if the strategic developments continue, one cannot rule out the Third World War.
Another important aspect that needs greater attention is Turkey’s double game: engaging with Russia but at the same time joining the Western chorus against Russia as a NATO member. Despite criticism from the West regarding Turkey’s pro-Islamist agenda in its domestic and foreign policy, which irked them, it’s still used as a potent weapon against Russia. The Russian administration is also reposing too much faith in the Erdogan regime of Turkey —for mediation with Ukraine— in the current war without understanding the fact that Turkey is more interested in weakening Russia. Turkey, by taking advantage of its geographical positioning, is bargaining both with the West and Russia.
The third issue that needs to be addressed here is that though at the broader level, there is a greater consensus among the NATO countries regarding a common position against Russia. At the same time, it has been observed that there has been a lack of consensus on a number of issues within the alliance. This can be evident from the fact that, yet again, NATO dashed the hope of Ukraine to become a member. This prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to criticise NATO for the lack of sincerity in granting Ukraine’s membership in this security body.
Zelenskyy tweeted, “It seems there is no readiness neither to invite Ukraine to NATO nor to make it a member of the Alliance."
Similarly, the United States has already snubbed Ukraine over the question of not delivering weapons to Ukraine in the past. As reported recently, the United States has rejected the Ukrainian request related to F-16 fighter planes. This shows that Washington DC is keen to achieve its own geopolitical agenda rather than supporting Ukraine.
All in all, as far as assessing the Vilnius Summit is concerned, though the Summit served as a means of power projection for NATO in an adversarial situation, at the same time, the Summit reflected a lack of cohesion in the bloc on many issues — including the questions of membership of Ukraine and military aid to the war-torn country.
However, one thing is clear. The security situation in the “heartland” of Eurasia following the outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine is becoming murkier day by day. This is going to pose a substantial challenge to global security, which may, in fact, leads to the Third World War.
(Nalin Kumar Mohapatra is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. The views expressed are personal.)
