The annual report "To the brink - and back?", which was published for the Munich Security Conference, states that the danger of an involuntary military conflict between Europe and Russia has increased due to the erosion of the arms control agreement, the deployment of additional weapons and tensions due to NATO-Russia military exercises. . The current dangerous situation could lead to a further deterioration of security in Europe, and "miscalculations and misunderstandings could easily lead to an unintended military conflict," the report said.
Since the outbreak of the Ukrainian crisis, this tension between the West and Russia has only grown. Activities on both sides on land, in the air and at sea have increased. Great Britain warns of increased Russian navigation routes that take place near its territorial waters. Representatives of Western commands have repeatedly complained about Russian incident flights with their air and naval forces in the Baltic.
Under these circumstances, it is not difficult to imagine what that unintentional conflict would look like. But would it just be the firing of one or two rockets and the tragic downing of some military aircraft, or is the risk of Russian military intervention along South-Eastern Europe (from the Baltic to the Black Sea) really so serious, as they say in the West, that it can turn into something more than a local armed conflict? Who, in fact, wins and who loses in military tensions between the West and Russia?
The war has been going on for a long time
In recent years, a very heated cold war has been going on between Russia and the West. First, the USA and the EU supported Maidan and the overthrow of V. Yanukovych in Ukraine. Then Russia moved into the Western "backyard", supporting populist, right-wing, anti-European, anti-democratic and anti-system political forces. It is still difficult to assess the consequences of Russian "interference" in political processes in the West, but US President D. Trump in that story could be Russia's greatest gift to the West.
Russia could not directly influence the British to vote to leave the EU, but Brexit and the severing of trans-Atlantic ties are very beneficial to Russia in the long run. The "inadvertent" downing of a Russian plane over the Baltic would certainly not make Europe Donbas, but the concept of a real war would enter the consciousness, the home, the thoughts before the dreams of every inhabitant of the Old Continent. And that means - a new fear.
Russia knows that panic in the democracies of the EU, lulled for decades, is the most effective weapon against the West. To show that NATO, as the last thread that unites and protects allies from Washington to Istanbul, is worm-eaten and unreliable in defending its own interests would be a shot at the core of the Western order. The citizens of Western Europe have already been scared enough by immigrants, terrorist attacks, and the uncertainty of new crises in recent years. They are increasingly afraid of public places, airports, strangers. Russia still does not.
That is why an accidental military conflict in Europe suits Russia best. Until recently, the lulled EU, which was only briefly shaken from the atrocities in its neighborhood in the former Yugoslavia, is now waking up scared because of its own security. It is difficult to say how a European citizen will react to all these challenges and paranoia. For now, he is xenophobic, Islamophobic, elects soft-spoken populists in elections, opposes EU expansion...
While in Russia the anti-Western atmosphere is a historical constant, and political mobilization for conflict with the West is already an important part of V. Putin's policy and the campaign for the upcoming presidential elections in March this year, in Western Europe populists are not yet thinking about anti-Russian mobilization of their voters. Rather, it will be that they are currently more inspired by Putin (like the Alternative for Germany), because many of them get not only ideas about the "hard hand", but also directly Russian dirty money. Well, I guess that's better than going to war...
In Europe, they still remember the consequences of the "Russian boot" from World War II, they still depend on Russian energy sources... That's why every thought in Western Europe of a war with Russia is associated not with victory, but with defeat and complete ruin. That is why the EU, led by Germany, will make concessions to Russia, even if it has its own army separate from NATO, the possible formation of which was also discussed at this year's Munich conference. Moscow is aware of this, which is why it is tactical in Ukraine and keeps the crisis on a "quiet fire", knowing that the EU, without the US, will turn a blind eye to the annexation of Crimea, and put the conflict in the east of Ukraine under the rug with various peace agreements.
The tense situation in Europe for Russia is a kind of new uncalled conference in Yalta, which draws the boundaries of the division of influence between Brussels (Washington) and Moscow. That "fear of fear" could guarantee that NATO will not expand to the east and the former socialist republics, and the EU to the republics of the former USSR. However, while the US still has influence in Europe, an involuntary armed conflict could become very unfavorable for Russia as well.
The leader of the political pressure on Russia due to the Ukraine crisis is precisely Washington. Even Trump is powerless to ignore the finger pointed at Moscow from various branches of the US government. Decisions to arm Ukraine from the US can be considered not only as a defense of US allies (read interests) in Europe, but also as Washington's retaliation for Russian interference in their presidential elections.
Waiting for the new 'Silk Road'
Putin and Russian politicians have previously announced several times that arming Ukraine will lead to direct, more decisive and aggressive Russian intervention in Ukraine. It was announced that in that case Ukraine would be "trampled". In that case, the conflict in the east of Ukraine could realistically take the form of a war testing ground between the USA and Russia for influence in Europe.
However, the West also solves a lot of things in tensions with Russia. First of all, stopping the influence of illegal Russian capital, which entered the USA and Europe through various offshore and obscure projects, and which Western puritans were not at all squeamish about until recently. Russian tycoons, grown out of the state, bought real estate, companies, yachts and football clubs en masse throughout Western Europe. Those state-blessed Russian financial schemes were the basis of conspiratorial financing of political activities in the West, including gas pipelines. One of such giant corruption networks was supposed to be South Stream. The personal sanctions that the EU, and especially the USA, have imposed on Russian companies and individuals because of Ukraine is a good opportunity and reason to close ranks in the West as well. Because, at the door of the EU, exhausted by economic and political crises, sanctions and austerity, Chinese capital is accumulating for the new Silk Road, which will become a great challenge for the West.
(Al Jazeera)
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