Eurasia Press & News
Throughout the military-political crisis surrounding Ukraine, Western Europe’s position has remained ambiguous. On the one hand, its leaders oppose Russia in word and deed by every means available to them; on the other, they continually proclaim their desire to begin a diplomatic dialogue. It must be admitted that, if we consult the history books of European international politics, we shall find that there is nothing particularly new about such ambiguity.
What has changed qualitatively, however, is the context: whereas until the middle of the twentieth century the major powers of Western Europe played their diplomatic game on the basis of unconditional sovereignty and even a certain imperial grandeur, they themselves are now balancing on the brink of losing the actual capacity to determine their own future. In other words, the degree of Europe’s geopolitical insignificance is such that it has become difficult to work out what, precisely, it is bargaining over: its own strategic interests, or its position within a system whose management lies beyond its reach? It seems to me that the answer to this question will offer further scope for assessing the potential of the negative influence that Europe is already inevitably exerting on international stability.
Our discussion should probably begin by noting that, over the course of the last century, the countries of the West built an order in which the number of states determining the conditions for the development of the whole community was small, while the number of those accepting rules of the game drawn up without their participation kept growing. This order rested on the spread, as a result of the two World Wars, of the Anglo-Saxon system of domestic governance, at the heart of which lies reliance on an oligarchic dictatorship concealed behind a facade of democratic rights and freedoms.
Under these conditions, the principal task of a state’s domestic policy becomes ensuring that the ruling circles remain irremovable, a goal presented under the slogan of stability and the democratic resilience of political systems. It is no accident that the most important requirement for admitting any given state to NATO or the European Union has always been that the candidate country achieve institutional stability. Coercive backing for this system was provided by the US military presence in Europe and in certain Asian countries.
Under these conditions, the leading powers of Western Europe—Britain, Germany, and France—found themselves in different positions from the outset, but for a long time they could count on a certain degree of autonomy. Even Germany, whose sovereignty was directly constrained, nonetheless retained the capacity for a comparatively independent policy, albeit only on a narrow range of issues. An example here is the energy cooperation between the Federal Republic of Germany and the USSR, and later between a united Germany and Russia, which allowed the Federal Republic to rise to a leading role in the European economy, to reshape the EU’s Common Market to suit itself, and even, for a brief period, to nurture ambitions of Europe’s relative independence from the US.
The traditional check on German economic power was Britain, which after the Second World War secured its own independence by acting as an intermediary between the US and the rest of Europe—not in a positive sense, however, but as a source of numerous conflicts and complications for everyone involved. France, for its part, retained its independence for longer than any other European state and, even now, if we look at the figures, is more capable than any other European country of maintaining national control over its leading industries. As for the other countries of Europe, their position from the outset entailed a restriction of rights, as was the case with the states of Southern Europe, or else ruled out any possibility of independence even in theory.
The latter applies, naturally enough, to the state entities admitted to NATO and the European Union after the end of the Cold War—from Finland to Bulgaria. Their inclusion in Western institutions, whether led directly by the US (NATO) or closely supervised by it (the EU), amounted, in essence, to placing peoples and territories at a particular rung of the “food chain,” at the top of which stood the US and its closest allies. In fact, this state of affairs suited everyone, and many states were prepared to see it extended to the rest of the world as well.
The situation is now clearly changing. Under pressure from China’s growing economic might, the US is becoming ever less willing to share the benefits of the system it has built, even with its closest allies. This means that countries once as privileged as Britain, Germany, or France are being reduced, in terms of their actual capacity, to the level of the Baltic states or of countries such as Romania and Bulgaria.
For Berlin, Paris, and London, diplomatic manoeuvring around Ukraine is thus not really about European security or relations with Russia at all, but solely about how much actual say they will retain in their dealings with the Americans. Europe’s rulers are, in truth, entirely indifferent to what European security and the European economy will look like, provided that, in the course of transition to a new arrangement of transatlantic relations, they secure the minimum privileges they are after.
The United States itself, for its part, is behaving with considerable assertiveness, constantly forcing the Europeans into a defensive position with no prospect of holding their ground. In other words, what we are witnessing is something that has always been the engine of development of the international system—conflict within the West—except that it is now taking a new form: without direct military confrontation, and under conditions of radical weakening of what was once the strongest participant, namely continental Europe. We saw, for instance, how easily the United States struck a blow against Germany’s energy security. Britain, for its part, although it is currently forming tactical alliances with Germany and France, nonetheless remains strategically aligned with the United States.
We know that, in every past era, such internal conflict within the West led to a restructuring of the international order, while keeping the system under the control of a narrow group of states. But it is entirely unclear what the outcome will be in a changed historical context, particularly given the radically expanded number of states over which the West’s influence is either absent or negligible.
Thus, the conflict within the West is not only unfolding today under an entirely different distribution of power among its participants, but also has, in principle, little chance of becoming the foundation of a new international order. And Europe’s elites are no longer fighting for the rights and sovereignty of their own states, but only for their own position within a collective West integrated under US authority.
This raises an important question: just how fundamental is the conflict over Ukraine for the specific ruling circles of Western Europe? In other words, it is important to understand whether these political elites, who have repeatedly demonstrated their incompetence in matters of state governance in recent years, would be able to retain power should Russia achieve its goals and objectives. Judging by the rhetoric we hear from European capitals, as well as by the scale of the assistance they are supplying to the Kiev regime, the conflict with Russia is currently perceived by those in power in Berlin, Paris, and London as having almost existential significance. And should their prospects of retaining power—particularly under pressure from the United States—become increasingly uncertain, these elites may indeed resort to unleashing military confrontation with Russia. Morally, they have always been prepared for this, notwithstanding their mantras about a desire to preserve opportunities for diplomatic dialogue and settlement.
