... previously controlled by the Soviets, simply came under NATO control.
The USSR suggested that Germany remain outside the blocs, its neutrality reassuring everyone. But this did not suit the Western allies at all.
To persuade the Kremlin, the Americans and Europeans argued that NATO would prevent possible relapses, especially if the Germans some day reacquired their inconvenient historical memory. NATO simply would not allow them to get rolling. And NATO, in any case, was no longer hostile to Russia, since the Cold War was over… ...
... comparable to that which was in Central Europe in the 1950s–1980s: a direct confrontation between two blocs, not separated by any buffer states or neutral zones.
Currently, all countries of the Baltic Sea region, except Russia, are members of the EU and NATO, but their internal situations are varying and changeable.
U.S. President Donald Trump has shifted the U.S.’s focus from Europe to China and the Pacific, and revised key elements of European policy.
For decades, relations between the U.S. and European ...
... colonialism, racism, and many other detestable “isms,” including recently the liberal totalitarianism that is based on transhumanism, LGBTism, denial of history, and essentially anti-humanism.
First, about the prospects for our relations with Europe (the EU and NATO), then about what is to be done.
Our relations with Europe are the worst they have been in history. The level of Russophobia and anti-Russian sentiment is unprecedented not only among European elites but also among a growing share of the masses, ...
... the situation in Central Europe in the 1950s–1980s, where two military-political blocs directly confronted each other, without any buffer states or neutral zones.
Currently, all the countries of the Baltic Sea region except Russia are members of the EU and NATO, but this does not mean that the situation within them is static. Moreover, we can speak with a high degree of certainty about some shifts. First of all, we are talking about US policy under President Donald Trump, who intends to shift the focus ...
... particularly amid recent European crises. But can an institution forged in a bipolar world adapt to the multipolar disorder of today? History suggests otherwise. Most institutions created in the mid-20th century have lost relevance in periods of upheaval. Even NATO and the EU, long considered pillars of the West, face mounting internal and external pressures. Whether they endure or give way to new, more flexible groupings remains to be seen.
The fundamental problem is that the idea of European security itself has changed ...
... force’ for Ukraine. The idea is laughable. Moscow would never allow it, and everyone knows it. Yet these leaders continue to perform, hoping performance alone will pass for policy.
Now Trump has called their bluff. He wants cash, troops, commitment. NATO’s new secretary-general, Mark Rutte – now reborn as an American loyalist – welcomed the idea enthusiastically. But key European capitals balked. France, Italy, and the Czech Republic refused to participate in the new American initiative. France, despite loud rhetoric, has provided only token military aid to Kiev – ten times less than Germany. Italy has given even fewer ...
... the first step. The fact that countries such as China, Russia, India, and indeed all the BRICS states are now stepping onto the world stage is a completely normal development. The hegemony of the US is not the only thing that has come to an end. The EU and NATO, both relics of the post-war era, have also become obsolete.
Europe, but only with Russia
The only thing that will ensure prosperity in Europe is peaceful political and economic cooperation, mutual consideration for each other's interests, and peaceful ...
... internal threat. Perhaps even an internal one, since the real meaning of a country’s participation in NATO is the immutability of its political system and the irreplaceability of its elites. All the nationalist forces that came to power in Eastern Europe after 1991 entered into NATO, and they fear losing this more than anything else. It is precisely this role of NATO in their fate that is associated with the panicked moods among the European elites, given certain domestic political changes: the United States may reduce its participation ...
... international position is defined by its crushing defeat in the Second World War, which ended any hope of determining its own future. Germany, like Japan and South Korea, is a country with a foreign occupying force on its territory, albeit under the NATO flag. The German elite, both political and economic, is, with few exceptions, even more integrated with the US than the British elite. To say nothing of those running France, Italy or other European countries.
Germany has no autonomy in determining its foreign policy, nor does it aspire to have any. It’s no coincidence that over the past two and a half years of the Ukraine crisis, it’s been Berlin that has provided the largest amount ...
... Influence Transparency Law,” adopted in early June, which requires organizations that receive funding from abroad to register as foreign agents.
The law’s passage was accompanied by months of protests, visits by Western European officials and a condemnatory EU resolution. Parliament even had to override a presidential veto to make the final decision. The main thing that has become clear in the course of this whole campaign is that the Georgian government is quite capable of controlling its own security agencies....
