NATO’s weaknesses, lack of coordination and lack of strategic foresight for an event like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were evident or surfaced, as analyst Simon Tisdall explained in an analysis published in ‘The Guardian’. Some allies stepped forward while other major European members hid behind an alliance they had previously despised and neglected; Several presidents of the European Union hesitated during the first months, they contradicted each other, the pronouncements were merely formal so as not to make commitments, and when the war escalated they moved eagerly but Western Europe was already destabilized.
Emmanuel Macrom, during his visit to China (April/2023), spoke with President Xi Jinping about the necessary respect for Ukraine’s sovereignty; He requested to resume peace talks to stop the deadly escalation and restore European stability, three essential aspects that Russia has not facilitated due to the continuity of the aggressions. Precisely the issue of sovereignty is the key to everything, but when international law is violated, everything else is altered. Jules Basdevant, quoted by the writer Valencia Restrepo, when referring to sovereignty, expresses that it can be defined as the set of legal powers or competences that international law grants to each State so that it fully, exclusively and inviolably exercises its functions over certain spaces. Territorial sovereignty is the most genuine manifestation of state sovereignty. (Valencia Restrepo, 2003).
Around those same days, Xi Jinping met with Úrsula Von Der Leyen (President of the European Commission), and they announced the necessary defense of the rules based on the international order, hence the urgency to resume the dialogue. But the interpreters captured that the Chinese president up to that moment had been ambiguous since he spoke out asking for a political solution to the conflict, avoiding the issue of war crimes; he has criticized the economic sanctions against Moscow, and when he refers to the respect for the territorial integrity of countries, he does not recognize the invasion as an unquestionable fact, being ambivalent when stating everyone’s territorial concerns.
On the use of cluster bombs delivered by the US for its “defensive” actions, a debate will be opened over these lethal weapons that the US kept but that Russia has been using, although now it reacts to question this supply, and other European countries remain silent or stand in profile, but human rights organizations severely criticize, this is an ethical issue that the prolonged war has been overshadowing.
On another occasion, I expressed a question in the following way: the worrying thing is this: The 12 nuclear states reached the top of their armaments. Due to the high tension and threats , they are getting closer to forming possible coalitions of nuclear states . And there the fatal conclusion: What will happen when everyone uses them. It must be avoided. The journalist, Alice Tidey, from Euronews, expressed in October 2022 that, “According to the Stockholm International Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI), Russia possesses 5,977 nuclear warheads, the highest number in the world, although some 1,500 are retired warheads waiting to be dismantled. Some 1,588 are deployed, meaning they have been placed on missiles or are on bases with operational forces. In Europe, France and the United Kingdom are the only countries with nuclear weapons. Together they have an estimated 515 nuclear warheads, of which 400 are deployed, according to SIPRI. The US also has an estimated 100 nuclear warheads stored across Europe at airbases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey, according to the Center for Weapons Control and Nonproliferation. And on the other hand, in the US, within its American territory it has 5,426 nuclear warheads, but only 3,700 are operational, the others can be dismantled. So, the balance is obvious, Russia has 4,447 nuclear warheads to operate; the European Union (EU) has 615 warheads including those of the USA in European territory; and the United States within American territory has 3,700 operable nuclear warheads.
If we add the warheads of the EU plus those of the US that cannot be dismantled, that is, those of NATO, it would give us a sum of 4,315 compared to the 4,447 of Russia, this would be the comparable fatal pulse, between both parties that are challenging each other for deterrence. The damages caused according to three factors, the size of the warhead, the height detonated and the local environment, cause total, severe or serious damage with mushroom clouds, shock waves, enormous radiation and electromagnetic points (damage of electronic objects several kilometers away), and radioactive fallout.
Peré Ortega, within the conclusions of an important investigation, stated that, “perhaps if NATO had not been created, the supposed “Soviet danger” would not have existed, the two systems would have “coexisted” without threats and a price as high as the division of Europe into two enemy zones would not have had to be paid. Neither would it have provoked an arms race, nor favored the nuclearization of European soil. The existence of NATO did not remove the danger of war from Europe, but increased it, establishing the possibility of a limited nuclear conflict. In addition, NATO facilitated the existence and growth of the so-called “military-industrial complex” and the increase in militarism, with oversized armies, excessive military spending, exorbitant investment in weapons, arms trade and the negative consequences that these factors generated in the economic and social development of both Europe and the rest of the planet. “(Ortega, 2022).
Other:
Ortega Peré (author). NATO facing global challenges (1987 / 2022), and Mesa Manuela (coordinator). «Change of times and critical situation in global society» Coordinated work for the investigations of the 2021-2022 Yearbook of the Center for Research and Education for Peace (CEIPAZ), «updated version. //, year 2022.
Valencia Restrepo Hernan. Public International Law. Book published by the Pontifical Bolivarian University. Faculty of law and political sciences. Integrated center for the development of research. CIDI. And the DIKE Law Library. First edition, Medellín, year 2003.