On May 27, it was confirmed that NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg would retire in September, after nine years in office. Although the reaction of many will be “good riddance”, his departure offers little hope of an early end to the Ukraine conflict, now in its 16th month. While he was never little more than a Washington puppet, he is a Cold War throwback in his own right, and his legacy is one of heightened global tension.

By using his position to diminish Russia, Stoltenberg contributed to the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, and his only vision now is for ongoing conflict, a world away from NATO’s original objectives. Whereas the alliance was founded in 1949 on the lofty ideals of collective security in the North Atlantic Area, it morphed, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, into a US foreign policy instrument.

It is now even seeking, at Washington’s insistence, to expand its operations into the Far East (with Stoltenberg courting both Japan and South Korea), thereby also incensing China.

Whereas apparatchiks like Stoltenberg are only too happy to do Washington’s bidding, he relishes nothing more (as a small-town politician) than his periodic visits to the White House. On his latest visit, on June 13, President Joe Biden spelled out for him the US plans for next month’s NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, and he duly fell into line.

Having obsequiously thanked Biden for his leadership and the US commitment to NATO, Stoltenberg said the alliance had provided “tens of billions of dollars” in military, financial and humanitarian support to Ukraine, and that it would “step up” that support “for the long haul”. He may be retiring shortly, but he clearly wants to be remembered, not as a man of peace, but as “the warmonger’s warmonger”.  

In Estonia, for example, Russia’s tiny Baltic neighbor (and previously a Soviet socialist republic), NATO is currently deploying hundreds of British, Danish and French troops in its “Operation Cabrit”

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On Stoltenberg’s watch, moreover, Russia endorsed the Minsk Agreements of 2014-15, designed to bring peace to the Donbas region. It signed up after Ukraine agreed, with Western oversight, to grant greater autonomy to the people of the Donbas, many of Russian origin, and to respect their rights. There was, however, as Stoltenberg should have known, a covert agenda, which was exposed on Dec 12, 2022, when the former German leader, Angela Merkel, spilled the beans.

The West’s real intent at Minsk was not, as Russia imagined, to secure regional peace, but, as Merkel put it, an “attempt to give Ukraine time”. The plan, quite simply, was to lull Moscow into a false sense of security, while allowing Kiev “to become stronger”. This explains why it subsequently reneged on its Minsk commitments, with no kickback from the West, and failed to respect the autonomy of its Russian-speaking border areas.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, not surprisingly, described Merkel’s disclosures as “completely unexpected and disappointing”, not least because “it has turned out that no one was going to implement the agreements”.

On March 8, moreover, Singapore’s Home Affairs and Law Minister, K Shanmugam (who was also its foreign minister when the Minsk Agreements were signed) explained that Russia could not be solely blamed for the conflict, and how, following Merkel’s revelations, it viewed the West as “duplicitous”. Although NATO’s propaganda machine has incessantly portrayed Russia as the villain of the piece, its narrative, he explained, “too conveniently absolves the West of any responsibility for the way events have unfolded.”

In fact, said Shanmugam, the “West and NATO, in my view, were not uninvolved bystanders who had no role to play in the current situation.” As an objective observer, his analysis is invaluable, not least because it shows that not everybody in authority has been hoodwinked by NATO’s propaganda.     

Although Ukraine is not a NATO member, Stoltenberg insisted on the alliance getting fully involved (albeit from the back seat) once fighting erupted over the disputed Donbas region. This should have surprised nobody, as NATO, by recruiting states that border Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, has deliberately stoked Moscow’s security concerns and exacerbated its fears of hostile encirclement. By using its local proxies, NATO is now doing its level best to encompass Russia’s humiliation, such being one of its longstanding objectives. 

On Jan 30, Stoltenberg announced, “we have been providing Ukraine unprecedented assistance”, and “we must keep supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes”. He was not bluffing, and his policy, from the outset, has prioritized belligerence over diplomacy. Instead of trying to allay Russian concerns and de-escalate the conflict, Stoltenberg, with Washington’s complicity, has endorsed a series of calculated provocations, each designed to exacerbate the situation and prolong the fighting. 

In Estonia, for example, Russia’s tiny Baltic neighbor (and previously a Soviet socialist republic), NATO is currently deploying hundreds of British, Danish and French troops in its “Operation Cabrit”. The deployment, although wholly unnecessary, is part of NATO’s “enhanced forward presence” (meaning encirclement), which is supporting armies not only in Estonia but also in neighboring Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and Moscow naturally feels threatened. 

Even though, moreover, Sweden has not yet joined NATO, given the objections of at least two of its member states, Reuters reported on June 9 that it is planning, for no convincing reason, to start basing its troops there.

When Ukraine launched its recent counter-offensive, it was spearheaded by NATO-supplied Leopard tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. The US, moreover, announced on May 19 that it will allow its NATO allies to supply Ukraine with advanced fighter jets, including American-made F-16s, and it will also train Kiev’s pilots to fly them. Although it is the Ukrainians who are doing all the fighting (notwithstanding the reported presence of Western special forces), it is NATO that is calling the shots.

What, however, the likes of Stoltenberg fail to appreciate is that there is no way that Russia will ever allow itself to be defeated on the battlefield. By constantly upping the ante, they are not bringing peace any closer, but inviting harsher responses from Moscow, perhaps even including the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Instead of trying to broker a lasting peace deal, NATO is now flirting with Armageddon, and everybody must hope that Moscow’s patience does not finally snap.   

It was, therefore, no surprise that, when China released its 12-point peace plan for Ukraine on Feb 24, Stoltenberg immediately poured cold water on it (echoing Washington’s line). He wants not only to see Russia humiliated, but also to capitalize on the situation by expanding NATO yet further, by incorporating not only Finland and Sweden, but also, ultimately, Ukraine. 

If anything is calculated to kill off any hopes of Russia ending the conflict in Ukraine, it is the prospect of Kiev being recruited into NATO. This scenario, for historical, cultural and security reasons, is anathema to Moscow, and, while this remains a possibility, the war will continue. Nobody understands this better than Stoltenberg, which is why he never misses an opportunity to throw oil on the fire.

On April 3, for example, Stoltenberg announced that, once Russia was defeated, “Ukraine will become a member of the alliance.” In other words, a peaceful resolution is the last thing that NATO, or the arms manufacturers who are doing so well out of the conflict, want to see. In acknowledging Washington’s role, he said “the first step toward any membership of Ukraine to NATO is to ensure that Ukraine prevails, and that is why the US and its partners have provided unprecedented support for Ukraine.”

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Although the departure of a warmonger like Stoltenberg should be a cause for celebration, the belligerent culture he has engendered within NATO will, unfortunately, outlast him. One rumored successor is the British defense secretary, Ben Wallace, who has carved out a reputation for bombast and Russophobia, and he would be simply Stoltenberg Mark II. As its biggest donor, the US plays a key role in deciding who should be NATO’s secretary general, and, when asked on June 8 if it was time for another Briton to hold the post (there have already been three out of 13), Biden replied “maybe”.

Whoever is chosen will be expected to do Washington’s bidding, not exercise independent judgment. Wallace’s mindset, like Stoltenberg’s, is myopic and visionless, and none of the likely candidates offers any hope for a better world. If Wallace succeeds Stoltenberg, the Ukraine conflict will continue indefinitely, which is precisely what the US and its military-industrial complex want to see, and this is why his candidacy may well succeed.   

This, however, must not deter China and other peace-loving nations from doing all they can to end the conflict. At some point, war fatigue will set in, and the warmongers will find their support ebbing away, with the early signs of this already evident in the US. Once this happens, the voices of reason can hopefully make themselves heard, and global peacemakers will then have a chance of succeeding where NATO has so signally failed.      

The author is a senior counsel and law professor, and was previously the director of public prosecutions of the Hong Kong SAR.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.