Paul Goble
Staunton, May 20 – The decisions of Finland and Sweden to join NATO and of Turkey to oppose them call attention to a far broader development: the impossibility of neutrality for second-tier states and the possibility of maneuver only for countries with their own imperial projects, Vitaly Grankin says.
For two hundred years, neutrality was an attractive option for many of the smaller powers precisely because they knew that the more powerful ones would respect their status. Now, with Putin’s action, no one of them can be sure that is the case; and therefore, they are having to choose sides (rosbalt.ru/world/2022/05/20/1958811.html).
Sweden, for example, remained neutral in both world wars and during the Cold War, confident that all the combatants would respect its position. But now it can have no such confidence that Putin’s Russia will respect neutrality or anything else; and so it has decided to ally itself with an imperial project that can defend Sweden against that possibility.
Other countries now neutral are going to follow, and at the same time, Grankin continues, that will elevate countries like Turkey which decided to launch their own imperial projects and challenge existing alliances in the name of their own interests rather than being willing to stay within them.
Both these things will mark a change in the international order, one that is now dominated not by one or two powers but by five – the US, China, Russia, Turkey and Iran – who have their own aspirations and the resources to pursue them. How others will navigate this world remains to be seen, but neutrality is an ever less attractive option.
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