NATO Is Not Brain-Dead: How Can OSCE And NATO Help Stop The War In Ukraine?

In an interview about two and a half years ago, French President Emmanuel Macron arrogantly claimed that NATO was brain dead and Europe was on the edge of the precipice, and he assertively questioned NATO's very future. Macron's prediction turned up false. NATO is not brain-dead. Today even most wealthy Nordic EU member countries are willing to join NATO. For example, according to a Deutsche Welle (DW) report, Sweden and Finland have stayed out of NATO due to their military nonalignment policy supported in the past by majorities of both Finns and Swedes now seem to change their policy due to war in Ukraine and are desirious of joining NATO. It seems possible that the EU will become much more in need of the NATO security umbrella in the coming period. On the other hand, these days, when a serious war situation is taking place right next to Turkey, it is believed that it would be beneficial to go back to the past and to remember the principle of "indivisibility of security" developed by the Conference/Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE/OSCE) and to explain the essence of this principle to the younger generations. In the 1975 Helsinki Final Act of the CSCE, the participating States recognized the indivisibility of security in Europe. At the OSCE Istanbul summit in November 1999, the leaders of fifty-four states participating in the OSCE signed the Charter for European Security called the "İstanbul Document." Paragraph eight of the Charter for European Security involves one of the crucial principles for the security and stability of Europe in the twenty-first century. The reason for the war situation that Europe is facing in Ukraine today is that the Russian Federation and some countries in the Western bloc consider this paragraph in terms of their priorities. In order to find a solution to the war situation we face today in Ukraine, the constructive negotiation spirit of the period when the 1999 Istanbul Document was prepared must be returned. In our judgment, Turkey, in current circumstances, is one of the most appropriate OSCE countries that can best prepare the suitable ground for a revival of such constructive spirit in the new negotiations.