22 Dec 2022 - Robert C. Castel Zelensky's trip to Washington and the threat of NATO intervention Weeks Originals
Weekly Originals guest Robert C. Castel, security policy analyst and senior fellow at Neokohn
Robert C. Castel's new website: https://robertccastel.hu/robert-c-castel-fuggoleges-koporso
Signed books available for order: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
A new government has been formed in Israel. Who in the coalition can be satisfied with the result? What can be expected on security and foreign policy? Will Israel's views on the Ukraine-Russia war change? How can Israel preserve its national character in the face of pressure from the "Hellenising" outside world?
Zelensky in America
The United States will give Ukraine a long-range Patriot anti-aircraft missile system, US President Joe Biden announced on Wednesday at the White House in Washington, D.C., while receiving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
You have already listed the practical objections to Patriot, why did America decide to give it to Ukraine?
What narrative does the visit reinforce? "Europe has put all its eggs in one basket" - we were talking about this a week ago, yet Zelensky went to America first. What message does this send to Europe, to Russia? Putin has been saying that he has to make a deal with Biden, does this now seem to be confirmed? Is this closer to a truce/peace? Or does it reinforce the possibility of escalation, perhaps a NATO intervention? How can the latter be modelled?
"At the same time, the West has already achieved its strategic goal of weakening Russia and thus making NATO's eastern flank more secure. Moscow cannot swallow Ukraine under the current circumstances", but the continuation of the war will harm the West. That's pretty much what Kissinger says. Is that what they want Zelensky to understand?
Western involvement distracts attention from China and significantly reduces its ability to wage war elsewhere," the expert added.
The duration of the war is starting to show the small cracks within NATO: there are many differences of opinion between Europeans and Americans, and the cold winter is only exacerbating these transatlantic tensions.
Putin in Belarus
How are relations between Putin and Lukashenka? Does the Belarusian president have any leeway? What can Moscow expect from Belarus?
Technological cold wars
"In parallel with the technological sanctions against Russia, the West has imposed wide-ranging technological sanctions on China. Arnold Toynbee, in his monumental work on the rise and fall of civilisations, distinguishes between two types of challenge. Those that break the rise of a civilization and those that spur it to adapt and innovate and thereby strengthen it in the long run."
In which group will future historians classify the West's technological sanctions? Is it possible that in the long run we have merely created a more effective competitor? Or perhaps two at the same time?
Iran
Biden says Iran nuclear deal is 'dead', but Europe is negotiating with Iran in Jordan. Which then is the real intention? What can be effective against the Iranian nuclear bomb? A military strike? A nuclear deal? Regime change? Cyber war? Saudi nuclear bomb?
Viewer questions
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