A few weeks ago, I paraphrased Marx’s words from nearly two centuries ago: “A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of irrelevance”. Recent events suggest that the spectre is rapidly becoming a reality. While the European Union and Britain are in overdrive, expressing unconditional support for the Ukrainian government and pushing it to continue fighting, the Ukraine crisis is no longer central for the dialogue between Russia and the United States. It has become just one of many issues – and possibly not the most important one – in the growing strategic discussion between Moscow and Washington, a discussion that excludes Europe.
Europeans naturally resent their exclusion from negotiations. Many attribute this exclusion to the drastic policy shift undertaken by President Trump and his team. J.D. Vance’s critical speech at the Munich Security Conference with its emphasis on values and democracy highlighted the conflict between the globalist ruling circles of the EU and the newly nationalist American administration. He overtly supported Europe’s nationalists and deplored their ostracization, specifically mentioning Germany and Romania.
However, the American attitude toward the European Union is not new, in fact, it shows a degree of continuity. It was a senior official of the Obama administration, Victoria Nuland, who laconically expressed this stance in 2014. In a telephone conversation with the U.S. Ambassador in Kiev she tersely dismissed European concerns raised by the ambassador: “Fuck the EU”. If anything, Trump officials have been more gracious and diplomatic.
This continuity reflects Europe’s chronic dependence on the United States. The crisis in Ukraine was triggered by the Maidan events, fomented with the active participation of the same Ms. Nuland, who testified that the U.S. had spent $5 billion on reorienting the Ukrainian ruling class away from Russia and political neutrality toward NATO and a Euro-Atlantic future. Europe went along with American policies, and European media followed suit by demonising Russia and its president. Russians have been excluded from most international sports events, film festivals and scientific conferences. Hardly anything positive has been published about Russia in mainstream media in recent years. “Rusophrenia” – a belief that Russia is about to collapse and to take over the world — has been stoked on both sides of the Atlantic. This irrational view of Russia is now entrenched in Western public opinion, even in countries like France, which traditionally maintained close cultural, economic and political ties with that country.
European foreign policy has largely degenerated into sabre-rattling. A prime example is Estonian Kaja Kallas, who, despite her position as the EU’s chief diplomat, rejects diplomatic approach with respect to Russia. President Macron, in an eloquent address to the nation, offered to extend nuclear deterrence to other European countries, with Poland and the Baltic republics gratefully accepting it. More recently, he presented a “survival manual” to his compatriots, instructing them on the supplies they must keep at home to survive a war. Ursula von der Leyen promised to rearm Europe, to raise 800 billion euros for this purpose and to revive Europe’s stagnating economy through military Keynesianism.
Since the newly elected Bundestag members, would have refused to adopt it, the outgoing parliament voted on an amendment to the constitution, lifting the government’s limitation to borrow money for the military. This disregards the democratic will of the citizens but benefits Rheinmetall, Germany’s main arms manufacturer. Alarm bells are ringing over austerity measures and further cuts to social services across Europe, not just in Germany. U.K. Prime Minister Starmer, arguably the most enthusiastic cheerleader of Europe’s war party, announced an overhaul of the welfare system, cutting benefits to the disabled and pushing many into poverty. All of this does not bode well for liberal ruling circles, as Europeans grow increasingly frustrated with political manipulations that render their democratic choice meaningless and relegate their concerns to the back burner.
Europe’s apparent preparations for war are based on the belief that Russia is bent on conquest – first all of Ukraine, then the rest of Europe. Any mention of the fact that Russian government has never expressed such intentions is simply dismissed as “Kremlin’s disinformation”.
This belief feeds into a long-standing European phobia, portraying Russia as a menacing Other. This ideology took a most aggressive and genocidal form as anti-Russian racism, which fueled the extermination war that soldiers from a dozen European nations, under German auspices, waged against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1945. The rehabilitation and celebration of Nazi collaborators in that war have become mainstream in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, and this view is spreading elsewhere with the growing influence of East Europeans in Brussels.
Instead of a realistic assessment of the evolving international context, fiery rhetoric and self-righteous posturing drive European policy, with no exit ramp in sight. The oft-repeated idea of dispatching European soldiers to Ukraine is a non-starter — not only for Russia but also for Europe itself, which lacks both the will and the power to confront Russian forces. All talk of a “coalition of the willing” – an ominous term given the West’s debacle in Iraq – is contingent on an American “backstop”, which the U.S. has refused to provide.
Europe seems determined to undermine the current Ukraine peace process by encouraging Kiev’s intransigence and formulating unrealistic demands that ignore military and political realities. Veteran political analyst, Anatol Lieven has called this European attitude “malignantly stupid” and characterised Europe’s military preparations as “a costume play,” in which Macron plays Napoleon and Starmer plays Winston Churchill. Curiously, in the Oval Office last February, Zelensky, answering in English a question about his wardrobe, misused the word “costume,” which means “suit” in his native Russian.
Trump has significantly shifted the country’s foreign policy despite the dominant anti-Russian sentiment in the U.S., which the previous governments and loyal to them media actively fomented. So far, European politicians continue to double down on their denunciations of Russia, albeit wisely refraining from antagonising Washington — a risky move at best. They continue to nurture Zelensky’s hope of joining NATO, even though Trump and his team have repeatedly rejected the idea. Europe has become a prisoner of its own rhetoric, which appears increasingly delusional.
Growing progressively estranged from where the real action is, it is becoming merely the western periphery of Eurasia.
Ironically, there is hope for Europe — not only in the growing ire of European electorates, who may vote current liberal politicians out of office, but also in European leaders’ habit of following Washington. Gradually, they may abandon their ideological narratives and come around to the American position, even as they resent it. It may act like a defiant teenager, which Prince William recently demonstrated posing in a British tank a hundred miles from the Russian border. However, its nickname “the Old World” suggests that Europe may return to its senses, especially in view of its economic and demographic decline. Otherwise, Europe may start another world war – this time the last one.
