As all eyes are focused on Ukraine’s place in the “Washington Summit Declaration issued by the Heads of State and Government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. 10 July 2024,” the most important parts actually concern Russia.
The document is striking in its straightforward and repeated recognition of the immense existential threat that Putin’s Russia poses to Ukraine, NATO, and the world. Russian apologists and Putin sympathizers will find no comfort in the Declaration, which squarely identifies Putin Russia as “the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security.” Indeed, “Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has shattered peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area and gravely undermined global security.”
Note the choice of verbs to describe Iran’s and China’s behavior: “Iran’s destabilising actions are affecting Euro-Atlantic security. The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) stated ambitions and coercive policies continue to challenge our interests, security and values.” Iran affects, China challenges, but Russia shatters.
Later in the text NATO’s charges against Russia become specific:
-Russia bears sole responsibility for its war of aggression against Ukraine, a blatant violation of international law, including the UN Charter. There can be no impunity for Russian forces’ and officials’ abuses and violations of human rights, war crimes, and other violations of international law. Russia is responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians and has caused extensive damage to civilian infrastructure.
-Russia seeks to fundamentally reconfigure the Euro-Atlantic security architecture. The all-domain threat Russia poses to NATO will persist into the long term.
-We condemn Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and coercive nuclear signalling, including its announced stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus, which demonstrate a posture of strategic intimidation.
-Russia has also intensified its aggressive hybrid actions against Allies, including through proxies, in a campaign across the Euro-Atlantic area.
The consequence of Russia’s behavior is that “We are determined to constrain and contest Russia’s aggressive actions and to counter its ability to conduct destabilising activities towards NATO and Allies.”
“Constrain, contest, and counter” sounds remarkably like the containment policies pursued against the Soviet Union by the United States during the Cold War.
In a word, NATO has effectively labeled Russia as its enemy. Which Russia is, both objectively, as NATO admits, and subjectively, as Russian policymakers repeatedly state.
Stopping Putin Russia is thus not only desirable. It’s imperative, above all for the security and survival of NATO and the West.
This conclusion immediately transforms Ukraine from a target of Russian imperialism and a victim of genocide to an essential—perhaps even the essential—component of any effective Western defense against Russia. This shift is huge. It means that supporting Ukraine isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the only practical way of defending the West against Russia’s warmaking and land grabbing.
Russian policymakers have long since emphasized that their war against Ukraine is both existential and ultimately about the West. They know and admit that Russia’s fascist regime can survive only if Russia doesn’t lose. They also know and admit that Ukraine is a metonym for the West and that losing to Ukraine means losing to the West.
The former Russian president and prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has stated as much in his latest embarrassingly unhinged rant on Telegram, in which he argues that the only long-term partial solution to the Ukraine problem is Ukraine’s destruction and incorporation into “the bosom of Russian lands.” The solution is partial, however, inasmuch as “Russia’s enemies won’t disappear thereafter.” Instead, they will “wait for another convenient excuse to destroy our country.”
Medvedev may be bonkers, but his views are not antithetical to Putin’s. In essence, Russia’s war against the West will continue even after Ukraine’s destruction.
The conclusion for Western policymakers should be obvious. If you want to prevent the Russo-Western war that Medvedev and his comrades rabidly desire, stop Russia in Ukraine. Fortunately, that’s exactly the conclusion that the NATO Summit has drawn.
About the Author: Dr. Alexander Motyl
Dr. Alexander Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia, and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires, and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, including Pidsumky imperii (2009); Puti imperii (2004); Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires (2001); Revolutions, Nations, Empires: Conceptual Limits and Theoretical Possibilities (1999); Dilemmas of Independence: Ukraine after Totalitarianism (1993); and The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of Ukrainian Nationalism, 1919–1929 (1980); the editor of 15 volumes, including The Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2000) and The Holodomor Reader (2012); and a contributor of dozens of articles to academic and policy journals, newspaper op-ed pages, and magazines. He also has a weekly blog, “Ukraine’s Orange Blues.”
