Europe’s step back into the Cold War

Yesterday [11 July 2024], the United States, together with France, Germany, Italy and Poland, launched an initiative to deploy ground-based cruise missiles with a range of more than 500 kilometres. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz stated that the plan to deploy such medium-range weapons in his country was a very good decision, as an incredible arms build-up was taking place in Russia that threatened European territory. The Chairman of the Russian Senate, Valentina Matviyenko, replied that Germany had no right to possess such weapons on the basis of the post-war treaties it had signed.
  These developments and the delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine by various NATO states represent a new dimension in the escalation of military tensions in Europe. It is no exaggeration to say that tensions on the old continent have reached a level close to one of the most dangerous phases of the Cold War in the 1980s, when NATO and the Warsaw Pact deployed ballistic and cruise missiles on the territories of their respective member states.
  At that time, NATO responded to the deployment of medium-range missiles in Europe by the USSR by deploying hundreds of more than equivalent projectiles. The elimination of these weapons on both sides was made possible by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty [INF Treaty] signed in 1987, and their complete destruction culminated three years later in an atmosphere of thaw and détente between Washington and Moscow.
  Today, however, the confrontation between NATO and Russia is dominated by the war in Ukraine, in which Western governments have intervened by their own volition and in which they have found a huge market for their arms industry. Each turn of this new arms spiral leads to steps that are very difficult to reverse as long as the conflict continues, and each military system deployed increases the risk of a catastrophic mistake that could trigger a war that would engulf the whole of Europe and possibly the rest of the world.
  Scholz’s irresponsible jubilation over the transformation of Germany into a US military base – and thus a potential target for Russian attack – should open the eyes of people in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway and Poland to the fact that their governments’ arms supply to Ukraine increase the risk of the war spreading to their respective countries.
  Moreover, in this new arms race, every step irreversibly leads to a higher level of warlike tension, a tension that could be overcome more than three decades ago - an extremely threatening time for humanity, which now does not deserve such a new step backwards.  •

Source: https://www.jornada.com.mx/noticia/2024/07/12/editorial/europa-vuelve-a-la-guerra-fria-9127
 of 12 July 2024

(Übersetzung Zeit-Fragen)