Russia comes out of today's talks threatening to "eliminate unacceptable threats to our national security"; Polish FM warns danger of war highest for 30 years... do you feel, as a citizen, involved in this crisis? I don't... 🧵1/ reuters.com/world/europe/r…
2/ The threat of Russian aggression vs Ukraine is real. Even with talks in Geneva etc under way, RU continues to move significant conventional forces towards UA... eg: meduza.io/news/2022/01/1…
3/ It seems clear, from the readouts, that the USA has (rightly) refused to engage with Putin's laughable demand for NATO to rewind history back to 1994 and cancel Ukraine's effective sovereignty, but... socialeurope.eu/putin-pugilism…
4/ If NATO is - as it should be - a defensive-only alliance, then the "open door" policy is a fiction. No electorate in Western Europe would voluntarily include Ukraine under the Article V guarantee in the current situation... - ie pledge war in its defence...
5/ But the electorates of NATO countries are effectively shut out of this debate - as are Russia's. What we need is a cross-border confidence building body, focused on human rights under the ECHR, to start talking to each other...
6/ It's in the interest of military/industrial/oligarchic complexes on both sides to depict internationalism as "foreign influence" - just as Kaiser Wilhelm did in 1914... but we need the peoples of Europe to speak to each other beyond the megaphones of Biden, NATO, EU, CSTO etc.
7/ The USA - and the UK independently of Biden - could and should declare a No First Use of nuclear weapons policy - reversing the dangerous policy changes Johnson made last year...
8/ Without altering the constitution of NATO it's entirely logical for lawmakers across the NATO parliaments to state that they would require a vote on any Ukrainian application to join. As a supporter of NATO's defensive mission, I would vote against...
9/ The route to geopolitical stability, democracy and human rights - from the Baltic to the Black Sea - is the democratic overthrow of Putin and his oligarchs. That's what the Western govts will never say, but the left must say...
10/ In reality there is zero chance that EU govts whose militaries could actually deter Putin committing to a defence pact with UA. It's off the agenda - so we need to a) deter b) find compromises that stabilise the situation. More here medium.com/mosquito-ridge…
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