A summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) from 7-8 July in Ankara has delivered an expected outcome: the allies reaffirmed their commitment to continuing their campaign against Russia in Ukraine. It was too much to hope that they would learn from their past mistakes of provoking that conflict in the first place by never-stopping NATO’s eastward expansion contrary to earlier understandings, supporting a bloody coup d’état in Kyiv in February 2014 and the toppling of Ukraine’s legitimate President Viktor Yanukovich — all in an ongoing effort to turn Ukraine into a Western bulwark against Russia. NATO’s ambition to dominate the security space in Europe and its blatant disregard for Russia’s vital interests in its near abroad are at the heart of the current geopolitical conflagration. Described as “brain dead” by French President Emmanuel Macron as recently as 2019, NATO has now found a new lease on life in its confrontation with Russia. But is this moment sustainable or a contrived unity of allies in Ankara is only fleeting?

After WWII, the first Secretary General of NATO, an India-born British General Hastings Ismay, anecdotally formulated the alliance’s purpose as “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down”. While his dictum had been respected in the past, nowadays all of its three pillars are being challenged.

When the Cold War ended with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the then US Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, one of the leading neocons of his time, developed a policy which came to be known as the Wolfowitz doctrine. In no uncertain terms, it advised that to preserve America’s hegemony, Russia should never be allowed to rise again. Earnestly engaging with Moscow and integrating it with the West, like it was done before with the former American........

© The Pioneer