If you don’t know the name Jens Stoltenberg, it’s about to get a lot more significant in your life than he was just days ago.
Jens Stoltenberg is more formally NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
The reason he matters is that he is presiding over an expansion of NATO that even our side used to warn could be provocative to Russia — especially since they already see NATO as some kind of a defacto colonialism effort by the West.
Finland was just welcomed into NATO membership this week, Sweden is waiting for two holdout member states to approve their membership, and Stoltenberg isn’t done with the expansionist project yet.
In a meeting with other NATO leaders on Wednesday, he announced NATO’s plans for Ukraine.
Ukraine, he says, is now officially on the long road toward membership!
“We agreed to start work on developing a strategic multi-year assistance program for Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said.
He said that Allies are currently providing assistance to Ukraine to meet immediate needs. The program is designed for a long period and is about building institutions, helping with transition, interoperability, standards and doctrines on the path to membership in NATO. Stoltenberg reiterated NATO’s position that Ukraine will become a NATO member, but later.
Stoltenberg said it was a clear demonstration that NATO’s support will continue for the long haul.
“We do not know when this war will end, but when it does, we must ensure that President Putin cannot continue to chip away at European security,” he said.
This means the need to ensure Ukraine’s ability to deter and defend against future aggression from Russia, he said. This includes strengthening Ukraine’s Armed Forces, increasing Ukraine’s interoperability with NATO and bringing it up to NATO standards. This will assist Ukraine on its path to Euro-Atlantic integration because Ukraine’s future is in the Euro-Atlantic family, Stoltenberg said. — UKRINFORM
Why should any of this matter to us while we sit here on the other side of the planet?
Simple. We’re part of NATO, and NATO made a promise.
War with ONE member is war with EVERY member.
Putin isn’t likely to go away. And if he does, it’s unlikely he’ll slink away without demanding Ukraine give up something they don’t want to give up as a concession.
Which country/culture this patch of land truly belongs to is an old problem going back centures… just like so many of Europe’s other borders.
We are recreating the conditions of WWII with a network of alliances where one local dispute will bring in one ally after another until the whole world wakes up one day to discover they are at war.
It’s ‘noble’ to wear a yellow and blue flag.
It’s patriotic to stop an authoritarian like Putin.
That’s easy to say when you’re just sending supplies over. But don’t forget what Zelensky said about sending our sons.
Because we just moved one step closer to doing exactly that.
Sources Cited:
UKRINFORM
