Wars surrounding Europe exposed EU’s Impotence in Hard Power Matters

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by one of our passionate writers, Mr. Alexandros K. Liakopoulos. The opinions expressed within reflect only the writer’s views and not necessarily The European Sting’s position on the issue.

As war surrounds Europe, expanding and deepening day-by-day, the EU proves incapable to cope with the situation. Its impotence is due to lack of political leadership, its inherent institutional design, the historical national rivalries that have devasted the continent several times in the past three centuries, internal divisions among its members states and the current national interests of the three superpowers of the world: on the one hand, Europe’s defense patron – the USA and the NATO alliance it is leading; on the other, its world-equals and rivals – the Russians and the Chinese, along with “the Rest of the World” they aspire to lead. Between these two forces, Europe is essentially between “a rock and a hard place”, while the sky falls upon its head and the time to escape its deathtrap is shrinking. Having lost its ability for independent strategic thinking and the means for independent strategic acting, or being completely incapacitated for doing so, the EU seems to be walking in awe and despair in these crucial times, a recipe for disaster for Europe, the values it stands for, its people, its periphery, and the whole world.

In a recent article in Politico, Matthew Karnitshnig expressed the same remark in the most vivid way: “Of the myriad geostrategic illusions that have been destroyed in recent days, the most sobering realization for anyone residing on the Continent should be this: No one cares what Europe thinks. Across an array of global flashpoints, from Nagorno-Karabakh to Kosovo to Israel, Europe has been relegated to the role of a well-meaning NGO, whose humanitarian contributions are welcomed, but is otherwise ignored.” 

But Europe never aspired to be an NGO. From its conception to its establishment to the present day, it is portraying as a global power, a distinct player on the global chessboard, with its own interests, values and ideas about matters of war and peace, collaboration, mutual respect, development, ecological concerns and the like. Recent events have exposed the very fact that no matter how well Europe may be putting itself in the portrait of these themes and making a selfie of itself, nobody is taking this selfie at face-value, except, maybe, the ones whose faces happen to be in the photo.

The EU grew up and matured at the shadow of the USA, an event that scarred her to the core, as it proves. She never got over it, or – put otherwise – she was never allowed to get over it. At the aftermath of the fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, Europe left its ECC past and created the EU, consisting of “three independent pillars”, whose second one was on an independent Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). With the times, within CFSP a defense apparatus was inserted, under the names of European Defense Agency (EDA) and Common Foreign and Defense Policy (CFDP). Recent events have proven that all these agencies and structures remain bureaucracies incapable of producing the slightest result, ie. incapable of defending Europe’s interests in an independent manner. 

This should come as no surprise: defense is about hard power and hard power speaks with weapons, tanks, jets, missiles and the like. The only member state of the EU still having an arms industry of a considerable size at the world level is France; this is not by mistake, of course. Europe’s patron, NATO, led by its most powerful member, the USA, had its own interest to secure: convincing the member-states of the EU, who were also members of the alliance, to dismantle their internal arms industries and to externalize their security and defense to NATO, the USA knew quite well that it was gaining eternal clients on the one hand, and that it would not have to face a rival at the world equilibrium of power on the other. It was a mistake of the European leaders, who accepted in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, of massive consequences, which produce their results today, rendering Europe incapable to act at the most crucial time in its history, when its very ‘raison-d’être’ is at stake, along with its survival, its periphery’s prosperity and peace, along with world peace at large and the ecosystem’s survival. In a sense, everything is at stake today and Europe seems incapacitated to act, while it is mostly needed.

The very ideals and values of Europe die in the battlefields of Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Syria and Palestine. While each case is for sure distinct from the other, they all have something in common: they are all about a Clash of Fundamentalisms, be it nationalistic versus hegemonistic interest in the first case; be it of the right to national independence versus the right of territorial unity of the national borders in the second; be it of religious fundamentalism and global interventionism versus the right of maintaining a legitimate central authority that seeks to retain the wholeness of its state, in the third; or a clash between jihadi fundamentalism and the Israeli extreme right fundamentalism in the forth. 

We are entering a new Era of the Extremes, as Hobsbawm would have it; the EU, having its basis on the values of human rights, democracy, the rule of law and peaceful resolution of conflicts would be much needed in this phase of History. Yet, even to be listened in the grand spectacle of History, one needs to be able to defend his words, values and ideals with actions. Europe lacks this capacity. And what is more, I am not so sure anymore that its leadership believes in the values the EU abides with. For if it does believe in it, how is it and it still has not aligned with the SG of the UN in condemning the illegal shelling of civilian infrastructure in Gaza, along with the mass shelling of civilian populations, along with the Apartheid state Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people and the wider abuse on their human rights from the Netanyahu government? How is it possible to condemn the shelling of civilian infrastructure from Russian forces in Ukraine, but neither the similar shelling of Ukrainian forces in currently Russian-held territories of Ukraine, or in Palestine? Doublespeak cannot work in the case of human rights and the respect of international law, for the whole world is watching and a power’s credibility is judged by both its wordings and its actions or inactions, which are actions per se.

EU’s lack of strategic leadership is becoming more apparent by the “fifty faces” of European leadership. At the top of the list are Commission’s Ursula von der Layen and High Commissioner of CFSP Josep Borrell, who hardly at any time coordinate with each other. The same happens with each specific Commissioner, who thinks of his/her post as her/his personal fief. Then comes the President of the European Parliament, who – after more than half of a century of direct European elections – misses to represent the European people as a whole and, therefore, cannot deliver a decisive voice to the world audience. And then comes the President of the European Council, who is a rotating chair changing hands every six months. After, we have the Heads of the European Governments, each speaking for his/her people, sometimes against other European people. With such an arrangement, the European Common Foreign and Security Policy is anything but common, is hardly about security and defense, misses to stipulate a policy and only manages to be foreign for its member-states, and therefore never to be fulfilled.

For Europe to survive these times of troubles, it needs to strategically assess the situation as war is surrounding it; it needs to understand that the strategic interests of its patron and his antagonists meet upon Berlin, ie. the whole Europe is at stake; further, to come out of it intact, or with the least possible wounds, leadership is essential. This leadership needs to have long historical and deep strategic understanding: the manager-politician of today won’t cut it, we need people who understand hard power, how it works, how it correlates with soft power, how it supports and uplifts values and ideas, how it may be transformed if the values and ideas are not respected, etc. And what is more, maybe, we need to replace the chorus of current European cacophony with a new chorus of a European symphony of leaders truly abiding to the Fundamental Values of the Treaties of the European Union and the United Nations. Not only Europe needs it; World Peace needs it desperately. If Europe does not provide, the whole world will pay the price and Europe will be its ultimate and most cherished victim.

A world with Europe devastated again will be a world with no democracy, no rule of law, no human rights and no United Nations, where the Big Three will – once again – divide the world under spheres of influence, respecting only the rule of the ancient roman law: par in parem non habet imperium, meaning an equal has no authority over another equal. In the meantime, the ecosystem will have paid a grave – literally and literary – price, along with all humans, animals and plans, for war is nothing but destruction with a huge ecological footprint. Will Europe finally see the big picture so to escape its current deficiencies and do all that it takes to create the necessary escape plan for itself, the world and the ecosystem? From the response to this question, the whole future is hanging.