On December 1 and 2, a meeting of the Council of NATO member states' Foreign Ministers was held via secure video conference. The agenda looked rather vague, but the goals were obvious. Ahead of the meeting, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave a long-winded press conference, outlining the key challenges the alliance faces these days.

Having noticeably cheered up, the Secretary General, who recently choked before Donald Trump, jumped on his favorite idea of Russia's growing threat, calling it "an enemy of NATO". According to Stoltenberg, Moscow conducts intimidating military operations, keeps violating the territorial integrity of Georgia and Ukraine, strengthens the armed group in the Crimea, interferes in the affairs of Belarus and contributes to the escalating Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In an emotionally charged fuse, he even mentioned the deployment of Russian missiles in Libya, something that obviously puzzled military experts.

According to Stoltenberg, in response to Russia's aggression, NATO will take multifaceted countermeasures, primarily expand its presence in the Black Sea basin. Apart from the alliance's permanent members in the region, i.e. Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, an important role in building up the anti-Russian potential is assigned to Ukraine and Georgia as the bloc's "valuable partners."

The Foreign Ministers of Ukraine and Georgia expressed readiness to engage in the implementation of NATO plans. Thus, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine Dmytro Kuleba pointed to the need of increasing the number of joint exercises by the armed forces of Ukraine and the Alliance, and also raised the question of Kiev's obtaining NATO Membership Action Plan. The emphasis on this issue was made amid behind-the-scenes leaks that Georgia would highly likely get the plan in the near future.

Moreover, given the military and political situation developing in the Black Sea basin, and the primacy NATO strategists give to this region in their anti-Russian rhetoric, the potential bloc expansion at the expense of "valuable partners" does not look that much fantastic.

What else did the Foreign Ministers discuss? Of course, they could not but touch upon relations between the Alliance and China. Despite the existing challenges, China is more likely to be a rival of NATO, Stoltenberg stressed. He noted that the main rivalry with Beijing is in the field of ideology and economics. One can argue at length about word semantics for the terms "opponent" and "rival", but it stands to reason that the Trump-declared order of NATO enemies has changed, with first-place honors won by Russia.

During the meeting, the ministers had an opportunity to get acquainted with the NATO 2030 project, which contains recommendations for strengthening cohesion, solidarity and predictability between the allies for the next decade. The draft covers some 140 proposals, relating, among other things, to limiting the possible defiance of the Alliance's decisions by separate members, developing interaction protocol redrafts, and prohibiting politically motivated hindrance of NATO governing bodies' decisions.

The document's development began a year ago at the initiative of Paris and Berlin after the well-known crisis, described by President Macron as "NATO brain death." Under Trump, the prospect of its adoption looked vague. But times have changed, bringing hope to the Europeans to discuss ways of strengthening transatlantic cooperation.

In general, this meeting can be considered as a full-dress rehearsal before the NATO summit due next year. The future event' date has yet to be fixed, but the invitation has already been sent to Biden. The European alliance members, who have had a hard time with Trump, place high hopes on the upcoming summit. At the same time, fearing of mistakes, they have prepared sort of a "rough paper" to be submitted to the new teacher for final amendments.

However, the changes may not prove pleasant to everyone. Listening to the joyful whooping of Ukrainian nationalists, Polish President Duda feels blue over the Fort Trump project. It is not yet clear how the new owner's relations with the strong-willed Erdogan will develop. At least, the outgoing US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who also took part in the meeting, ultimately gave Ankara a piece of his mind. He accused Turkey of "provocative steps" in the Eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh. "Turkey opposes the principles of the North Atlantic Alliance, thereby undermining its unity", he said and called the purchase of the S-400 a gift to Russia.

In response, Turkish Foreign Minister Çavuşoğlu accused the US of supporting terrorists in Syria. But it's worth noting that the Republicans and Democrats have consistent positions on the Turkish S-400s. Just the other day, both houses of the US Congress voted to make the 2021 defense budget include anti-Turkish sanctions for the purchase of these complexes. Thus, the question of a possible improvement of US-Turkish relations remains open.

Time has not yet come to judge the scale of the future reset of US-NATO relations. We have seen many times that political rhetoric may not coincide with particular action. Only the growing anti-Russian hysteria in the West can be regarded as obvious. Washington needs this to restore order and discipline among the "rowdy" allies, as well as to proceed with its sanctions policy against Russia. Well aware of this, Moscow is prepared for any scenario.