Hume's idea of inherent national rivalry highlights the security dilemma in international relations, exemplified by NATO’s Cold War role against the USSR and its post-Cold War expansion. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict underscores the challenge of resolving core issues like NATO’s expansion through diplomacy and addressing security concerns.

The philosopher David Hume once remarked that nations by nature are each other's enemies. What he meant was that each nation is actuated to impose its will over the rest or, to put it differently, stave off being stampeded by others. The inherent will to power is bolstered by the absence of hierarchy (relationships of authority and subordination) and the presence of anarchy (no such relationships) in inter-state relations. Contrary to domestic affairs, in international relations, there’s no central authority whose commands are binding—both legally and in fact—leaving the states to fend for themselves. National security logically becomes of paramount importance in such a world. 
Relativity of Power and National Security Dilemma
National security imperative dictates that the states are more interested in the relativity of power than absolute power. Facing an unarmed man, a pistol is powerful enough. However, the same pistol will provide little safeguard against a tank. By the same token, a state’s defense capability may be greater than another’s but less than that of a third nation. The strength of others—especially of great powers—is always a threat in the absence of an international government to turn to. In a bipolar world, the rest of the states, especially those that feel threatened by either of the principal powers, will find it prudent, if not necessary, to align with one of them. On its part, each principal power will seek to balance the other internally by reallocating resources to national security and externally by forming alliances with like-minded states. 

National security imperative dictates that the states are more interested in the relativity of power than absolute power. Facing an unarmed man, a pistol is powerful enough. However, the same pistol will provide little safeguard against a tank. 

The alliances and counter-alliances give rise to security dilemmas. The security measures taken by one actor are seen by the other as a threat to its security, prompting it to take steps to shore up its security. Those steps are perceived by the first actor as threatening, necessitating a further increase in its security, and so on. Such circumstances fathered the rise of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Cold War and the Rise of NATO
NATO is one of the two flagship collective defense organizations of the Cold War era (1945-1989), based on the maxim, “One for all; all for one.” The Cold War era was characterized by intense rivalry between the United States (U.S.) and the USSR, representing not only the two leading world powers but also two mutually antagonistic systems, namely liberal capitalism and communism. Washington suspected that the USSR was committed and, in large measures, capable of conquering Europe and the world both for itself and for communism. Moscow nourished similar suspicions. Therefore, each side set about arming itself to the teeth to win a war it suspected the other to start.
Not surprisingly, the two prime expressions of the Cold War were the arms race between the U.S. and the USSR and security pacts on both sides of Germany, which itself was bifurcated into eastern (pro-USSR) and western (pro-U.S.) parts. NATO, the Western alliance to wage the Cold War, was set up in 1949. In the beginning, it comprised 12 members, including the U.S., Canada, and ten Western European countries, who declared that an armed attack on any one of them would be regarded as an invasion of all of them. Greece and Turkey joined the alliance in 1952 and the German Federal Republic (West Germany) in 1955. The alliance was a defensive initiative by the Western bloc founded on fear of USSR aggression. 
As late U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once put it, Europe never fully recovered from world leadership after the catastrophe of the First World War. In fact, the American intervention tipped the scales in both World Wars. World War II left Germany, the biggest and the most powerful of Western European countries, in tatters, while it sucked almost dry the United Kingdom’s (UK's) conventional military might. Hence, for European countries, no anti-Moscow alliance was viable, or even conceivable, without Washington, given the military capability and ambitions of the USSR and its weaknesses.      
In 1955, Moscow created NATO’s counterpart, named the Warsaw Pact. Led by the USSR, it comprised Central and Eastern European socialist states. Earlier in 1949, the USSR exploded its first nuclear weapon, the biggest step in its efforts to achieve parity with the U.S. in military capability. The more powerful the Russians grew, the more dependent the European states became on the U.S. for their integrity, as dictated by the security dilemma.
NATO guaranteed European countries' independence and integrity against a Russian attack by institutionalizing American commitment to remain in Europe and act as a European power. The arrangement was thus a contrivance to utilize American air capability and nuclear weapons to prevent the use by Russia of its massive land power against European countries. Although on paper, NATO was a collective security pact, in reality, it was more like a protectorate treaty of earlier times when a major power would protect weaker territories. The European members accounted for 80 percent of the NATO forces deployed in Europe. Yet they remained wholly dependent on the U.S. shield, without which their contributions would be of no consequence. Not only that, the bulk of the finances were borne by Washington. 
The USSR's power reached its peak in the 1960s and then began to wane. By the mid-1980s, it no longer looked like a match for the U.S. Its empire in Central and Eastern Europe was unsustainable, and the gigantic country faced disintegration left, right, and center. In the following two years, the Soviet economy crumbled. The Cold War, which was already fizzling out, ended before the end of the decade. In 1991, the USSR broke into pieces; with that, the Warsaw Pact, which had already become irrelevant, ceased to exist. 
NATO Expansion and Moscow’s Concerns
For almost half a century, NATO remained a key Western instrument in the Cold War. Once the Cold War was over, the relevance of the anti-Soviet, anti-communist alliance came into question. However, the U.S., the architect of NATO, had a different plan: to enlarge the alliance without any defined limits, as the architecture of European security. But security against whom? Evidently, it was against Russia, the successor to the USSR, who had inherited most of its territorial power and defense, including nuclear capability. 

The U.S., the architect of NATO, had a different plan: to enlarge the alliance without any defined limits, as the architecture of European security. But security against whom? Evidently, it was against Russia, the successor to the USSR, who had inherited most of its territorial power and defense, including nuclear capability.

Washington’s plan struck at the core security interests as perceived by Russia. Being a European power, Moscow was keen to have considerable influence upon the continent’s security comparable to that of Washington, which seemed too much to ask for. It also wanted a security buffer in East and Central Europe, which had remained under the USSR sphere of influence during the Cold War. In particular, Russia insisted that no former constituent of the USSR should join NATO. However, it’s doubtful whether Russia was ever given any legally binding commitment to that effect. 
At any rate, as Moscow wasn’t a member of NATO and wasn’t likely to become one any soon, the enlargement of the alliance left it out of the European security system. Additionally, the eastward expansion of NATO meant that Moscow’s security buffer would diminish over time. The states that Russia wanted to constitute a security buffer would now have a NATO umbrella of protection against Russians. As a result, Russia was left with the perception that the alliance’s enlargement was meant to encircle it.
As dictated by the security dilemma, Moscow became increasingly distrustful of Washington and European capitals, hostile towards Eastern European NATO members, and inclined towards strengthening relations with Beijing, which accused the U.S. of trying to obstruct its economic rise and technological development and supporting Taiwan in violation of the One-China Policy to which Washington also subscribes, at least on paper. On the other hand, the U.S. became increasingly committed to defending countries across Europe, overstretching its military and financial powers. In 2014, pushed by Washington, NATO members agreed to allocate a minimum of 2.0 percent of their national gross domestic product (GDP) to defense. Defense expenditure is defined by NATO as “payments made by a national government (excluding regional, local, and municipal authorities) specifically to meet the needs of its armed forces, those of Allies or the Alliance.” However, most European members have been unable to fulfill this commitment—an act of omission for which Donald Trump would chide them from time-to-time. 
Article 10 of NATO’s Charter states that the alliance is open for membership to any European country which is in a position to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic area. Not surprisingly, NATO membership increased from 15 during the Cold War era to 32. Except Finland and Sweden, which joined in 2023 and 2024, respectively, all the other post-Cold War era members are drawn from Central and Eastern Europe. In addition, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Ukraine are membership candidates. At the 2008 NATO summit, the alliance announced that Ukraine would become a member once the membership criteria were met, a commitment renewed occasionally. Since Ukraine's possible membership in NATO and Moscow's reaction to it has given rise to more turmoil in Europe than in the case of any other state, it’s to that country that we may turn to.
Russia-Ukraine Tensions and War
Ukraine was part of the former USSR. After the USSR’s demise, Ukraine became the largest country wholly situated in Europe. It is strategically important to be the conduit for more than 80 percent of the gas supplies from Russia to Western Europe. Not only that, Ukraine inherited a part of the nuclear weapons left behind by the USSR. These two factors prompted Moscow and Washington to seek a deeper engagement with Kyiv. Shunning Moscow-led blocs, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Eurasian Economic Union, both of which include federating units of the deceased USSR, Ukraine made overtures to the West. Apart from being a NATO candidate, Ukraine, since 1992, has been a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the largest security-related regional organization in the world comprising 57 member states from North America, Europe, and Asia including, among others, the U.S. and Russia, both being its founding members since 1973 (Russia as USSR). Ukraine also desires to join the 27-member European Union (EU), the world's largest and most successful economic bloc.
Tensions with Kyiv led Moscow to take control of Crimea in 2014, where the majority of the population speaks Russian, without a scrap of resistance Although Washington and European capitals imposed sanctions on Moscow, they did not formally challenge the move, which was described as one of the most significant East-West crises since the end of the Cold War. Partly encouraged by the West’s acquiescence to the Crimean situation and chiefly pushed by security concerns should Ukraine become a NATO member, Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. A year before the invasion, Moscow called upon NATO to suspend all activities in Eastern Europe and ban Ukraine and any other former USSR constituent republic from joining the alliance. Both the demands were predictably turned down by the West, together with the warning of stringent sanctions should Russian troops choose to cross its borders with Ukraine. 
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been described as the most serious conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War. The U.S. and European countries clamped stringent sanctions on Russia to “degrading” the “Kremlin’s future ability to project power” and “threaten the peace and stability of Europe.” U.S., EU, and UK nationals were prohibited from doing business with the sanctioned financial institutions. The Russian central bank’s assets in these countries were frozen. Some Russian banks were ejected from the Brussels-based Society of Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift) system, the most widely used channel by commercial banks for international transactions. The Western powers have also prohibited Russian aircraft from using their airspace. The sanctions also conveyed a discreet message to Beijing, whose relations with Moscow meanwhile have been on an upward trajectory, that should it try to take Taiwan by force—which it isn’t likely to do—it would have to face similar consequences. 
Reference may be made here to NATO’s 2022 Strategic Concept, which defines the challenges the alliance faces and the military and political tasks that it will carry out to address these challenges. It states, "Russia is the most significant and direct threat to Allies' security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area. Russia wants to establish spheres of influence and control other countries through coercion, subversion, aggression, and annexation.” In the same vein, the Strategic Concept denies that NATO seeks confrontation with Moscow, poses a threat to it, or aims at encircling it, though it emphatically adds that the alliance will continue to beef up its deterrence and defense capability and would protect and defend every member. 
Despite the sanctions, the war in Ukraine continues. But would the sanctions be instrumental in causing a shift in Russia’s stance on NATO’s eastward expansion, which it sees as a ploy to encircle it and deter it from “threatening” peace and security in Europe—the issues at hand? 
Pakistan’s Principled Stance
Pakistan has maintained a principled stance on the Ukraine issue. Before the war, Pakistan had considerable defense ties with Ukraine. Islamabad also considers Moscow a potentially credible trade partner, particularly in the energy sector. Islamabad has maintained bilateral diplomatic engagements with both countries to secure an amicable settlement of the problem. Pakistan has strong relations with the U.S., the EU, and the UK—the first mentioned being Pakistan's single largest export destination. Islamabad called for respecting Ukraine’s sovereign integrity and sent humanitarian assistance to that country. Yet, seeing a bigger picture, Pakistan is also committed to working out a just and democratic world order, where no single country or bloc imposes its will on another and where issues are resolved through dialogue.          
The impression that the bigger powers are more interested in keeping Russia bogged down in Ukraine through a proxy war is gaining ground. To erase such an impression, the Western powers, instead of relying on sanctions, need to address the casus belli—Moscow's sense of insecurity over NATO’s eastward expansion. Only diplomacy, which considers both sides' legitimate interests, can do this.

The author contributes to national and international issues, with a special interest in the Chinese economy, governance, and development model.
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