Security fragmentation of the Post(modern) World (Military alliances and the balance of power)
Security fragmentation of the Post(modern) World (Military alliances and the balance of power)

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses the modern and current military alliances which have been forged following the collapse of a short-lived US-led unipolar world order. In addition to an overview of the genesis of the existence of NATO, the largest and the longest-standing military alliance in the history of modern Europe and the West, the author highlights NATO’s inherent vulnerabilities which have become obvious during the war in Ukraine. They are reflected in a massive bureaucratic apparatus, guided by self-sufficiency, inflexible military-industrial complex, as well as doctrinarian short-sightedness due to upon air forces and units specializing in swift interventions against inferior adversaries. Indirect proof of this is ever more rapid forging of bilateral security treaties between major European members of NATO (France, Germany, Great Britain), which are no longer certain about the Alliance’s leading player’s willingness to provide direct military engagement in the event of a potential conflict with Russia. At the same time, solid bilateral and collective military alliances are being created throughout the world (Russia–North Korea, Pakistan–Saudi Arabia), but also somewhat softer “security partnerships” (AUKUS: the USA, Great Britain, and Australia; the USA, Japan, and South Korea), with multiple “security declarations” of situational character and for one-off use (a typical example of this being: Croatia–Albania–Kosovo*). All these bear witness to the metastable condition in which a polycentric, in all likelihood for a long period to come, haphazard world “order”.

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