Wednesday 12 July 2023

Zelensky bites his tongue

Wisely and after a night's sleep President Zelensky has realised he made an error by castigating Nato for failing to offer his country full membership of the alliance. He was angry if not petulant. But today he has returned to his normal charming self and has thanked Nato leaders for their continuing support and looks forwrd to joining the western club in due course, or at least sometime after the war with Russia is over. There is such a thing as realpolitik, and someone must have pointed this out to Zelensky. While bringing Ukraine into the alliance sounds like a good idea, both for helping and protecting the Ukranian people and for two-fingering Moscow, that's not the way the world necessarily works. A million other things have to be taken into account, not least of which is that Russia is a country with around 6,000 nuclear warheads and we don't want or need to piss Putin off to such a degree that he claims his nation is facing an existential threat to its existence and starts loosing off the odd nuke. That's not to say the West should give in to Putin's nuclear blackmail card but it has to be a factor. The world is in enough trouble, climate-change-wise, without having the threat of a nuclear war hanging over its head. So Zelensky has to be patient. Ukraine's moment will come. The war will come to an end although right now I don't see how, and then alliance membership will be the talk of western capitals. I don't see this happening under Joe Biden's presidency, at least not by the time he completes his first term of office. If he wins in 2024, then maybe a year or so after that. If he loses in 2024 it could be Donald Trump making the decisions. Perhaps this is why Zelensky is so desperate to grab Nato membership as soon as possible. Can't say I blame him!

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