The Russia-Ukraine War has lasted for more than 21 months already. The situation on the Ukrainian side has appears to be getting harder and harder. Up till the current stage of the conflict, apart from huge material losses and human casualties, various parties including the Ukrainian public, the Ukrainian military, and a growing number of Ukraine’s supporters in the West have started to show a sign of fatigue toward the war.

At the beginning of the year, some had held high expectations to the long-prepared counteroffensive of Ukraine. Now, as a result of the failed counteroffensive so far, some of the Ukraine’s western supporters, especially those working on policies and measures related to the Ukrainian issue, have been facing an increasing domestic pressure. As driven by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, the domestic political environment of certain western countries has also been significantly affected.

After all, the current situation of the Ukraine crisis is not what many had anticipated. Then, how to understand the present scenario from a structural perspective; and what the main parties having a relevance to the conflict could possibly manage to do next?

As generally agreed among a wide variety of circles, the problems accumulated since the end of the Cold War in the changes of the European security structure had culminated in the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis.

With the Cold War approaching to an end in the late 1980s and the very beginning of the 1990s, the U.S.-led West and the former Soviet Union (Russia) had reached a series of arrangements on the European security structure including the limits set on NATO expansion. According to the relevant meeting memos and publications uncovered, western high level officials had for a few occasions affirmed their commitment of not seeking NATO eastward expansion in order to secure Soviet Union’s support to the unification of Germany. Nevertheless, in less than two years after the end of the Cold War, in Autumn 1993, the U.S. broke its commitment previously made to the Soviets by declaring NATO enlargement as a “principal pillar” of the U.S. foreign policy in Europe. Later, NATO expansion came into reality; and before the outbreak of the Ukraine crisis, NATO had been expanded for five rounds already. Along the same period, Russia’s warning and security concern had kept being ignored.

After the Cold War, the western world was overwhelmed with an atmosphere of victory, which motivated the U.S. to pursue more ambitious foreign policy goals toward various regions of the world including Europe. Generally, over the past three decades, the U.S. foreign policy has been driven by the goal of achieving and sustaining hegemony, in line with which, seeking domination from the security aspect across many parts of the world including the European continent has been one of the key foreign policy priorities of the United States.

The Ukraine crisis revealed that NATO expansion, as guided by the U.S.-led approach, led to the losing of balance in the European security architecture. It also manifested that Europe since the end of the Cold War for the first time has reached a new critical juncture, at which, the European security architecture is in need of being restructured. There should be a necessity for the U.S. and Russia to renegotiate some of the core security arrangements, which are significant for Russia, the U.S., and Europe.

After the Cold War, the U.S. generally has continued deploying a containment strategy toward Russia. Yet, given the geographic location of Russia, realistically and strategically, Russia cannot be expelled out of the broad European security structure.

Due to that the U.S.-led approach over the past decades has played a main part in contributing to the challenging security situation in Europe, then now, the U.S. also needs to take the responsibility for addressing it by applying a different approach from the one adopted by the country in the previous years. For the ongoing Ukraine Crisis, the major European powers at the current stage don’t seem to be ready for or capable of assuming the responsibility for managing the Ukraine crisis and further getting this issue settled. The settlement of the Ukraine crisis could be included in the negotiations between the U.S. and Russia by taking into account the changes in the European security structure over the past years.

Since the end of the Cold War, Russia has been striving to restore, enhance, and maintain the country’s position in Europe, in the Eurasian region, and on the global stage. From Russia’s perspective, NATO enlargement has posed the most serious threat to the country’s security. Then, to ensure the safety of the Russian Federation, apparently, it is now seeking to create a buffer zone, which would allow Russia to have a leeway to negotiate and act in a long-term future. 

All the new developments related to European security would be in need of taking into consideration when renegotiating the new European security framework, as well as in dealing with the Ukrainian issue, based on the assessment of the new situation, to see to what degree the main parties concerned would make concessions in order to partially meet each other’s interests and to maintain a long-term peace in Europe to a larger extent.