The Russian-Ukrainian issue issued a major joint statement on January 26 between the US State Department and NATO Headquarters, the main content of which is willing to negotiate on disarmament and the downsizing of missile quantities, and to expand the transparency and mutual trust exchange mechanism of military exercises in the follow-up. However, on the issue of "Ukraine not joining NATO", which Russia attaches the most importance to, NATO countries are unwilling to make concessions.
On the surface, NATO rejected Russia; but in reality, as can be seen from a few key words, there are many political doorways.
I. "Consultation"
Face is important!
The key to NATO's rejection of Russia lies in "the initiative cannot be handed over to Russia", after all, if it is agreed, it is tantamount to tying one's own hands, losing its international discourse power and status in the future, and will also be affected in the subsequent game with Russia.
However, it can be seen from the attitudes of NATO countries that there is still room for discussion with Russia, such as disarmament mentioned in the news, "consultations" on missile drawdowns, and other acts of concession.
Note that NATO's word is "consultation"! The counterpart is "coercion", which cannot be said by Russia!
II. "Refusal"
Russia's proposal that "Ukraine should not join NATO" was rejected.
Although NATO has repeatedly emphasized that the written pledge to refuse Ukraine to join NATO violates the "core principles" in this game, if NATO has the intention to admit Ukraine to join NATO, it can accept it as early as 2008.
In April 2008, the heads of NATO member states held what was then claimed to be the largest summit ever held in Bucharest, the capital of the new country of Romania (which joined NATO in 2004). In the theme of that summit in Bucharest, the so-called NATO "Member States Action Plan" applications of Georgia and Ukraine were mentioned.
At that time, Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries opposed the United States' proposal to speed up the admission of Georgia and Ukraine to the treaty, but Poland and the Baltic states pressed then German Chancellor Angela Merkel to talk about Germany's moral responsibility for atonement. Later, Merkel changed the rhetoric to bring the United States and Eastern European countries to a compromise, and he wrote in the final resolution document: "These countries (Ukraine and Georgia) will join NATO", but did not specify the time. This is actually another expression of procrastination. At that time, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed this approach and suggested that Bush sign it.
If Ukraine is really joined to NATO, it is equivalent to forcing Russia to go to war directly with NATO, and then the European countries and the United States, which are allies of NATO, will have no excuse to send troops to help.
It is foreseeable that NATO will retain the "possibility" of Ukraine's accession, but will not really allow Ukraine to join. In order to realize their core principles, it may eventually be possible to give Ukraine the opportunity to join NATO "nominally", but in fact set an impossible threshold: such as high military spending.
During the Trump administration, the argument that "the United States spent too much money to protect Its European allies" was endorsed by the US Congress, when the United States demanded that NATO countries increase military spending, and even threatened to withdraw from NATO, until NATO countries increased their budgets for military purchases from the United States. Judging from this historical case, Ukraine really wants to join NATO, and the huge threshold of "protection fees" must be crossed.
"There is no room for concessions in Moscow's demands"
Before NATO's formal reply, the Russian government had repeatedly stressed that "there is no room for concessions to Moscow's demands." Putin also said bluntly: If the position is rejected, it will be forced to take "military technical actions."
Behind Russia's tough stance is that there is no retreat.
As Putin said at the end of December last year, "Western countries have deployed weapons to Russia's doorstep", the United States continues to sell missiles and weapons against Russian troops, but accuses Russia of intending aggression, this double standard behavior has seriously endangered Russia's national defense, if the attitude is not tough, it will become more and more passive strategically.
But being tough doesn't mean you want to go to war, after all, going to war is really expensive!
Modern warfare is about economy and technology, economically, whether it is artillery, missiles, tanks, military aircraft are money, taking the US war in Afghanistan as an example, a total of 5.8 trillion US dollars of military expenditure, an average of 300 million US dollars a day. Russia's GDP in 2020 is only $1.48 trillion, and all of them will not last for a few days.
Economic sanctions in Europe and the United States after the start of the war are also a problem, although Putin has worked in recent years to make the Russian economy free from the control of the us dollar, but the energy transactions with Europe still need to be denominated in dollars. If SWIFT is cut off, The Russian trade could be shut down, making it worse for Russia.
However, from putin's still to participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics on February 4 and the "Olympic Truce Agreement" signed a few days ago, it can be seen that Putin's willingness to go to war is not high, unless someone shoots the first shot first!
Who will shoot the first shot?
August 2008 was the Summer Olympics in Beijing, putin also signed the "Olympic Truce", and on August 8, when Putin participated in the activities in Beijing, Georgia took the initiative to launch a large-scale attack on South Ossetia. Then-President Sakahivili said afterwards that before the attack, the U.S. military had unofficially promised that nato would provide military assistance to Georgia if Georgia confronted Russia. In the end, however, NATO did not deliver on its promises.
On August 9, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin left Beijing and flew to the South Ossetia front, the Russian army quickly defeated the Georgian army in the next five days, and invaded Georgia on August 12, during which time the Georgian U.S. military remained observer and did not provide military assistance, until August 14 U.S. President Bush publicly expressed support for Georgia, but only provided "humanitarian assistance" (non-military support).
So, this time, will Ukraine be the new "black swan"?