The famous words of former US President Barack Obama were taken as an insult by Russian politicians: namely that Russia was only a “regional power”. It fits in with President Vladimir Putin’s complaints that the West does not take its country and its security interests seriously.
At the latest with his speech on Monday evening, which followed the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and the dispatch of Russian troops there, Putin made it clear that his country claims to be a world power. And at the same time he launched an all-out attack on Ukraine and especially on the USA. They would manipulate the neighboring country, and Ukraine would have allowed itself to be turned into the “puppet regime” of the USA.
Putin left no doubt that he sees the United States, NATO’s leading power, as a threat and as an enemy. For the United States, this means that it now has another open flank that it would actually prefer to keep closed. Because of Russia’s behavior, they are now more closely tied to Europe once more. The US wanted to withdraw here and concentrate on China, which the US has identified as the greatest strategic challenge to its own global hegemony and the currently established world order.
Even if Russia is a long way from playing in the economic league in which the United States and China are – militarily the nuclear power has upgraded enormously in recent years. With its modernized army, Russia is becoming more and more involved in international conflicts, which shows not least its support for the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. And now Putin, who is also demanding that the US withdraw all US troops from Eastern Europe, is challenging Washington more and more every day.
strengthening NATO
In the specific case of Ukraine, this means for the time being that the options of the USA – despite all expressions of sympathy for Kiev – are limited. Military support is out of the question. Not only would two nuclear powers fight each other on European soil, which would have unforeseeable consequences. In addition, Biden cannot justify a military intervention following the Iraq and Afghanistan missions to his own war-weary population. That’s why Biden didn’t even try to create a military threat. Rather, Russia should be deterred by the threat of sanctions. An invasion of Ukraine was repeatedly seen as a red line. The reaction over the next few days will show to what extent, from Washington’s point of view, Putin has exceeded this limit by sending troops to the two people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
However, the United States has already made it clear that the withdrawal of US soldiers from Eastern Europe is out of the question for them – on the contrary, they have sent more soldiers there. In addition, many larger NATO countries have supplied arms to Ukraine – but Germany was an exception.
In any case, with his aggressive approach, Putin might ensure that NATO moves closer together and that European NATO countries now do exactly what the USA has been demanding for a long time: that they take defense policy more seriously and spend more money on their armed forces in the future.(klh)
