It had been forgotten that the powers, which form the Western Alliance as a military strategic and ideological design, are formed from countries that had choked one another in history. Although, the Western Alliance design, which stands like strategic irony, had held two elements together until today; a common enemy threat and the U.S.A’s de facto hegemonic power. Meanwhile, recently we had experienced that the necessary system demands like democracy, human rights, capitalist system, which are becoming prominent as the Western values, have a weight at the rate of strategic priorities.

Because of the strategic priorities of the Cold War period, in other words, as one of the sides of the global sharing, the West was forced to leave the hostility between them and the U.S.A under the NATO umbrella, which is carried out under the U.S.A’s leadership. They had learnt what historical hostility costs them with the technologic opportunities in hand, in a painful way. Because of a common enemy, NATO was only protecting Europe military wise, but also providing the sustainability of capitalism.

When the Cold War came to an end, the old system was destroyed but a new world order wasn’t established. The U.S.A’s short-term factual single polar world order was nothing more than a de facto transition regime. At the same time, by making changes in the NATO strategy, the Islamic world, which had been criticized for terrorism, had been announced as a threat, and this formed the only common enemy perception of that period.

However, an asymmetric threat perception, which cannot be compared to the Cold War period, had appeared. Islam and a terror threat didn’t possess a reality, which will get rid of all the differences of Europe or act as strategic cement. It would threaten capitalism, its system conception and the military strategic benefits, and thus, a perception gap, which will hold the alliance together, would be revealed necessarily. The temporary shock effect of the U.S.A’s intervention in the Middle East wasn’t sufficient for combining the Western Alliance’s benefit differences and strategic priorities in a common line. The priority and benefit differentiations of the regional rivalry would be appearing in different ways. Europe’s differentiation from the U.S.A as EU and Europe’s ancient internal conflict would unavoidably become an indicator.

Russia’s activity in Eastern Europe had been the factor, which revealed this situation most clearly in the recent times. While the West’s, who seems ready to give Ukraine as the down payment, unwillingness in protecting their eastern borders was revealed, the historical and geo-strategic properties of the Germany – Russia relations had especially become the topic of the agenda again.

There was an apparent Russian threat, but this was a type of threat that cannot be compared to the Cold War period. First of all, Russia is not threatening the capitalist system; at most, it was entering a competition between the capitalists. As for its military threat aspect, it was carrying different meanings between Europeans. Russia, which is integrated to global capitalism, wasn’t threatening the system, but rather was asking for more share from the market, and was giving signals that it could actualize this with sheer strength. In this case, the old rivalries and benefit differentiations in Europe would become apparent once again.

On the other hand, as for the ideological threat perception, it had started to be extended in Middle East. Even though the appearance of the radical Muslim elements in the region as a military is irritating, this was helping reinforce the imaginary enemy threat, more than effecting the West’s benefits. It was acting as the U.S.A’s de facto dominance legitimatization function over the oil resources in Middle East.

The recent NATO summit being actualized under the shadow of ISIL and Russian threats is interesting in many aspects. This is a summit, where the reel threat and imaginary threat concept are being synthesized and the military alliance was put to test in order to see whether it would be enough to sustain its mission. ISIL is insignificant enough to be unable to fear anyone military wise, but it famous enough to get media coverage with the perception operation. As for Russia, they are a reel power/threat that is enough to reveal military and strategic benefit differentiations; but they are not a matter to be avoided in a political and ideological sense. Even the ideological closure between the U.S.A and Russia against ISIL is a matter in question.

On top of all these strategic and political contradictions, reaching a mediocre point, where even the U.S.A’s hegemonic power is not enough to cover this deep disintegration created by strategic contradiction, is making this situation more interesting. The ideological threat is not scary enough in a military sense; as for the military threat, it is a political and ideological shareholder. In this case, the Western description and NATO are becoming functionless.

Ýlgili YazýlarEnglish