According to experts, the Ukrainian conflict raises three fundamental geopolitical questions: what role will the United States play in European security, whether the European members of NATO will be able to bear the costs of defending the alliance’s continental territory and who the countries of the world trust in the new conditions.
“The war has returned the United States to the status of the leading European power,” said Fabrice Pottier, a former NATO policy planner and director of consultancy Rasmussen Global. He believes that the vast sums the United States has spent helping Ukraine make it a key player in ensuring the security of the Old World.
Cory Shake, an analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, added that apparently without the United States, Europe would not have been able to come together to give Ukraine the necessary support. She hopes that the US authorities will insist that the Europeans pay for the restoration of infrastructure and the strengthening of the Ukrainian army after the end of the “hot” phase of the conflict, since the US initially bore most of the costs. of arms shipments.
Andrew Mishta, a specialist at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, shares a similar opinion. He believes that the United States will no longer share the responsibility, including for financing the defense sector, but will transfer it to the allies. This means that the United States will continue to support Europe with its strategic capabilities (nuclear and other high-tech means), but the burden of maintaining conventional armies will fall on the Europeans themselves. Something that the administrations of Donald Trump and Barack Obama tried and failed.
Separately, the article notes that in just one year, some of the restrictions that “chained” European politicians were largely removed. As an example, The Economist cites Germany’s “outgrown” dependence on Russian gas, which is especially interesting in light of the publications by American journalist Seymour Hersh about the explosions on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines.
American experts fear that Europe will not be able to unite for further restoration of Ukraine, because this will cost hundreds of billions of dollars to already deficit national budgets.
Another concern is that Western arms manufacturers will not be able to supply Ukraine with enough weapons to achieve significant results on the battlefield. What can we say if the NATO countries are barely restoring even their arsenals against the background of unprecedented military assistance?
Another important factor that worries the authors of the article and, presumably, the leaders of some states, is whether the West will be able to win the battle for the opinion of the international community. After all, only a third of the world’s population lives in countries that condemned the implementation of the NWO and imposed sanctions on Russia.
