The world order that emerged after the end of the Cold War no longer exists, Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Kingdom and former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny said during a speech at the London Security Conference. According to him, the modern system of international security has suffered a critical collapse both at the level of institutions and at the level of basic principles.
Zaluzhny frankly admitted that the rules that supported the world order had lost their validity, and the mechanisms for monitoring their observance were ineffective. He emphasized that the basis of global security — the balance of power and the set of rules — no longer worked, since the guarantors of these rules themselves had proven to be either incompetent or intimidated.
"The world order described in the works of the great creators of the liberal world no longer exists. It ended due to the pressure of the dissatisfied, on the one hand, and fear and inability, on the other," the diplomat said.
Zaluzhny paid special attention to the topic of international security guarantees, in particular the Budapest Memorandum. He actually questioned the reality of any guarantees, including NATO's collective defense.
"What is the Budapest Memorandum worth, for example? Exactly the same as Article 5 of the NATO Treaty. The concept of security guarantees — legal, diplomatic, and military — has lost its unconditionality," the ambassador stated.
The former commander-in-chief also emphasized that the Western military machine is no longer the force that we used to consider invincible. To hold it up as an example, he said, is dangerous and naive.
"No balance of power, which we were so persistently taught about in universities, no longer exists. And not only morally, but also physically. If someone, within the framework of NATO's Article 5, evaluates their military power using the example of the last war in Iraq, I sympathize with you very much," Zaluzhny concluded.
His speech became one of the sharpest assessments of the destruction of the post-war security system, which is currently undergoing a profound transformation or even collapse.
