BRUSSELS, April 10. /TASS/. Going to war with Moscow would be a crazy step for Washington as Russia could destroy the United States, Ivo Daalder, former US ambassador to NATO, wrote for Politico Europe.
"It would be crazy to go to war with Russia, a nuclear power that could destroy the US — and the rest of the world — if it wished to do so," Daalder maintained. According to him, the point of NATO "isn’t to go to war against Russia — it’s to prevent war in the first place," a job he said the alliance has done "more successfully than any military alliance in history."
Also, the former official criticized the position of ex-US President Donald Trump toward NATO allies. The New York Times reported that at a February 10 rally in South Carolina Trump said that, while president, he had told NATO leaders that he would "encourage Russia to do whatever they want." Daalder argues that, after two bloody wars, the ultimate security of Americans "depended on the security of Europe," and that therefore it would be far better "to prevent wars in Europe by committing to defend allies from the start," according to Politico.
At the same time, the former envoy acknowledged that "European dependence (on NATO membership - TASS) frequently fed doubts about America’s commitment to the Continent’s security." "There is, after all, something quite unnatural about the US being willing to go to war an ocean away in order to defend another country — especially when this might ignite a nuclear holocaust in response," Daalder explained.
At the Vilnius Summit in July 2023, NATO leaders called Russia "the most significant and direct threat" and approved the first defense plan since the end of the Cold War era for a conflict with Russia, which provides for putting up to 300,000 high-readiness troops under the alliance’s command. There was also a commitment to bring the minimum level of military spending to 2% of GDP, to increase air defense and missile defense forces in Europe, and to expand defense procurement. With regard to Ukraine, the alliance decided to abolish the bloc’s Membership Action Plan and promised to invite Kiev to join the alliance "when conditions are met," and also held the first meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council, thus upgrading the status of partnership relations (previously, such an agency existed only for maintaining a dialogue with Russia).