NATO Expansion: Russia's Dilemma and China's Vigilance.
With Hungary's consent, Sweden has completed all the procedures for joining NATO, which is about to welcome its 32nd membership.
After Finland's recent accession, NATO's expansion has turned the Baltic region into a "NATO lake", pushing Russia into a difficult situation. NATO, originally a product of the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, has evolved unusually. Although the Cold War has ended, the pace of NATO's expansion has not stopped, and it can even be said that NATO's expansion has planted the fire of today's conflict in Eastern Europe. Putin has proposed that the solution to the "Ukrainian crisis" is premised on the exclusion of NATO expansion.
NATO began in 1949 and initially consisted of 12 countries that established the "Common Defense Principle". In 1995, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact to compete with NATO. During the Cold War, NATO successively absorbed Turkey, Greece, West Germany, Spain and other countries as its members. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, NATO continued to expand with an increasing number of member states, which was known as NATO's eastward expansion. Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has completed six eastward expansions. For the first time, in 1999, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic became members of NATO.
At the beginning of the 21st century, NATO was involved in global military activities such as the war in Afghanistan. In 2004, NATO admitted Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Slovenia and other countries, which was the largest expansion. However, Russia once applied for NATO membership, but was rejected.
As NATO expanded, Russia realized that the threat from NATO had reached deep into the heartland, leading to the Russo-Georgian War in 2008 and the Crimean crisis in 2014. In 2009, Croatia and Albania joined NATO, achieving their third eastward expansion.
In 2017, Montenegro joined, and in 2020, North Macedonia joined, respectively.
Fourth, the fifth eastward expansion. Now, in the context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Finland and Sweden have joined NATO and completed the sixth eastward expansion. NATO's eastward expansion has not only expanded its scale and absorbed member states, but it has also been accompanied by a strong political intent and confrontational mentality. NATO must create an enemy and make it a "centripetal force".
NATO's eastward expansion will not stop. Countries including Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Georgia have also expressed their willingness to join NATO, and Russia will continue to face the challenge of NATO's eastward expansion.
It is worth noting that NATO has listed China as a "systemic challenge" and in 2022 included Japan and South Korea in the center of cyber defense. The move hinted at a possible shift in NATO's attention to Asia. The confrontational nature of NATO is gradually detached from the needs of today's world. Although the United States has provoked conflicts around China, it has not been successful for a long time. China must be wary of NATO's actions, but at the same time realize that NATO's bloc confrontation has gradually lost its legitimacy.
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