Opinion
Only a Europe that is truly capable of defending itself can break its dependence on the United States, whose policies are damaging to its security
• War in Ukraine, two years later
Fri February 23, 2024, 1:00 p.m. GMT
Two years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, warnings of war between Russia and the West have peaked in Europe and Britain. The explicit intent of these warnings is to build public support for massive arms spending, along the old lines of “scare them to death.”
The goal of European rearmament is laudable; The arguments used to bring this about are not. As long as the war in Ukraine continues, there is a real danger that NATO and Russia will fall into war as a result of an inadvertent collision. But the likelihood of this happening through a deliberate Russian invasion of a NATO country is slim.
Russia simply does not pose a serious threat to a conventional attack on the EU and NATO. Vladimir Putin has often said – most recently in his interview with Tucker Carlson – that Russia has no intention or interest in attacking NATO, it is because NATO is attacking Russia. At least in this respect we can believe him for a whole range of objective reasons.
On the one hand, Russia has proven to be a much weaker military power than was thought before the invasion – and than Putin assumed. Since its defeats in 2022, the Russian army in Ukraine has recovered and the balance of power is shifting in its favor; Still, the only Russian successes last year were the capture of two small towns in Donbass, and those advances lasted months and cost the Russians tens of thousands of casualties. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians inflicted heavy damage on the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Given this dismal record, why would a Russian planner expect victory in an offensive against NATO? Even without the US, European countries collectively far surpass Russia in numbers, weapons and military spending (the biggest problem is the lack of pooling of these resources); And the war in Ukraine has shown what great advantages the side on the defensive currently enjoys. Furthermore, in the event of an attack on a NATO country, Western countries would certainly impose a complete and crippling naval blockade on Russian maritime energy exports.
Putin's nuclear threats were intended to deter the US and NATO from directly intervening in Ukraine. When it comes to its own actions against NATO, the Russian government has so far been very cautious, despite the massive aid that NATO has given Ukraine.
Eliminate the threat of Russian invasion and that The real argument for European rearmament is almost the exact opposite: that it is necessary to make peace with Russia. Because only a Europe that is confident in its defense capability can break the vicious circle – not just a vicious circle, but increasingly absurd – in which it desperately fears that the US will no longer guarantee its security and therefore supports US policies , which causes serious damage to his security. Of course, recent statements by Donald Trump and his supporters also show that the US military commitment to Europe cannot actually be guaranteed in the long term.
If European countries had been convinced that they could defend themselves without the US, they – or at least the French and Germans – could have mustered the will to block the US push for NATO expansion and seriously sought a compromise with Russia can strive over Ukraine. This self-confidence would also enable Europe to free itself from its entanglement in the growing confrontation between the US and China.
More importantly, it would enable Europe to resist the disastrous US and Israeli policies in the Middle East, which threaten a return of terrorism and ethno-religious conflicts with Europe's large and growing Muslim minorities.
Take the case of Germany, which illustrates the inability of leading European countries to seriously think about economic and military security over the past generation. The end of cheap Russian energy supplies and the possible disruption of Chinese markets for German technology pose a serious threat to the country's industry and social and political stability; and German liberal democracy is a linchpin of the EU. This is a threat to European democracy that far exceeds what is happening in eastern Ukraine.
There was nothing fundamentally wrong with maintaining German industry on the basis of cheap Russian energy and limiting German forces to what was necessary to deter an attack on the country itself. But This only made sense if it was prepared to act decisively to stop NATO and EU enlargement if it affected what Russia saw as its vital interests. Combine both approaches – Relying on Russia while taking a US-led aggressive stance against it was an invitation to disaster.
'Don't lose' isn't enough: it's time for Europe to finally get serious about a Ukrainian victory | Timothy Garton Ash
In 2007, this would have resulted in Germany and France vetoing Ukraine's NATO membership rather than just postponing it. In 2013, the aim would have been to seek an economic agreement with Russia that would have opened Ukraine to trade and investment from both the EU and Russia – as was demanded at the time by, among others, Italian Prime Minister and President of the European Commission Romano Prodi.
Today, as the prospect of a complete Ukrainian victory fades, a wise European course independent of Washington would be to defy the Biden administration – and forestall a possible Trump administration – and accept Putin's offer of peace talks. Because without such talks it will be impossible to find out what Russian terms of peace are and therefore whether a compromise peace is possible.
It is true, as advocates of rearmament say, that the world is a more dangerous place than Europeans of the past generation imagined; And in a dangerous world, countries and alliances must be able to defend their interests. But these military advocates only talk about military defense; They overlook or willfully ignore the other essential need of nations living in a dangerous world: level-headed, prudent, self-interested and realistic diplomacy. The two are absolutely dependent on each other. Without confidence in the ability to defend itself, a country or region will always be subject to the wishes and interests of a military protector.
Since the question of NATO expansion first arose in the mid-1990s, Russian officials, journalists, and foreign policy intellectuals have told me that while they didn't care about Eastern Europe or even the Baltic states, they feared that NATO wouldn't hear about it stops; and that Russia would have to fight if it threatened to take Ukraine. In all these three decades, no established Russian has ever told me that Russia might attack Poland; and the only time this was brought up in relation to the Baltic states was when Lithuania blockaded the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.
With no immediate Russian threat, Europe has time to implement a moderate rearmament program. This should include limited increases in military spending, but more important is the pooling and coordination of military production, unifying the armed forces and stationing them in Eastern Europe to reassure EU members there. However, this rearmament will be completely meaningless if it does not form the basis for strategic autonomy and the defense of Europe's real interests and real security.
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