Finland and Sweden joining NATO is good news for investors in American arms manufacturers and NATO, bad news for Finland and Sweden's taxpayers, and otherwise seems to be unnecessary unless you think Russia is planning to zip up its Western frontier this side of Eastern Europe ie back to pre 1991.
Doubtless the Americans helped along the collapse of the Soviet Union in many ways, not least by promising Gorbachez and Yeltsin it would not expand NATO "one inch East". But the Soviet Union was destined to collapse from the get-go as those in the Politburo truly and sincerely believed in Communism - collective ownership by the state and a fully planned economy - was the next step in human evolution. It wasn't and the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of its own inefficiencies and attempt to reshape human nature.
Does Putin nonetheless want to recreate the empire of the Czar or the Soviet Union? My reading is that he is not interested in taking control of the fringe former Soviet states but rather he is interested in securing Russia's Western borders against further Western attack by neutralising in some way those countries where NATO wants to, or has, lodged its nuclear weapons.
Some of Putin's utterances that may help us understand his mind:
"We have every reason to assume that the infamous policy of containment, conducted in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, continues today. They are constantly trying to sweep us into a corner because we have an independent position"
"If you compress the spring all the way to its limit, it will snap back hard. You must always remember this."
“The demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.”
“Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”
This makes him a nationalist in the geographic sense of the Russian Federation, although he supports Russian ethnic minorities living outside Russia, in former Novorossiya for instance.
Personally, I am a realist who believes that the peace is kept by a balance of power; and thus someone who thinks that peace and security in Europe can be obtained by our negotiating a fresh security architecture with Russia, for Europe, rather than conducting a war which the West unfortunately cannot win.
Defeat of the West in Ukraine was - and still is for many - once unimaginable, in spite of all the historic precedents from Vietnam onwards. This is because Nationalism, or the fight for survival, is the strongest force in politics. Should either side have to face defeat, ie its very existence or world primacy is threatened, there would be consequences that today for most people are unimaginable.
We in the West can either accept that risk of nuclear war, or we can refuse to take that risk and instead step back and negotiate a new security architecture. The benefits that would flow to Europe and Eurasia in almost all domains of human endeavour would be absolutely immense.
