Deterring Armageddon: A Biography of NATO
Peter Apps (Headline, £25)
SPEAKING in Moscow on January 18, Sergei Lavrov, the formerly silky smooth Russian foreign minister, now menacing Putin henchman, warned that: ‘Ukraine must end its push to join NATO before any peace discussions can proceed.’ He made the case for NATO perfectly. If Ukraine were a member, Russia would have no chance of reintegrating the country by force into Putin’s vision of the old Russian Empire (or former Soviet Union). Such is the collective strength of the Alliance.
Mr Lavrov would argue, of course, that further NATO ‘expansion’ would advance the encirclement of Russia, thus threatening her security. However, a defensive alliance does not expand; it enlarges. The point is not semantic. Laying aside the question of whether or not the organisation could ever be an offensive alliance, does Mr Lavrov really suppose that if all its members could resolve on attacking Russia, Ukraine as a
