The greatest of Vladimir Putin’s many failures in the Ukraine war so far is his aim to seriously weaken NATO.

Far from creating greater disunity between member states, the Russian president gave a new vocation to NATO, just as its role was beginning to be questioned. Its unity has even been strengthened, and Sweden and Finland have now asked to join.

This can have dramatic global consequences.

The Russian view was, and still is, that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was clearly understood that NATO would not expand. This is disputed by NATO states, who claim there was never a formal agreement. That may be the case, but for Putin, what made matters worse was that the expansion came at the end of a decade in which Russia had been treated with near contempt. as an economic hopeless case. What is even more infuriating is that the collapse resulted from the rapid transition to American-style market fundamentalism.

The current war would fix all that, Putin thought, correcting a historic wrong. The weakening of NATO also looked good for Beijing, almost certainly influencing President Xi’s full support for Russia just before the war.

So, while Putin may have started with a “special military operation”, even the term “war” being taboo, he now presents the war in Ukraine as a direct confrontation with NATO. This means that nuclear escalation remains a risk unless and until the war is settled through negotiation, however long that may take.

If such a peace is achieved, what will it mean for a post-war NATO?