Opinion Sur
A Variable Geometry of Power after the new European War
Russia’s military incursion in Ukraine puts the entire Western security architecture in check. It was not inevitable, but now it is fatal. *
The Russian attack on Ukraine was among the possible and probable scenarios in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, it is the worst possible one. As I have pointed out in previous articles, tensions and crises were growing from the end of the Cold War with an opportunity lost by both former rivals, and especially with a wrong strategic decision on the part of the West.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States decided that the remaining Russia was a fourth-rate power that did not deserve further attention in a unipolar world in which all indications pointed to an undisputed global hegemony of the surviving superpower.
The illusions that the American world – and by extension a large part of the European world – had prevailed at 360 degrees corresponded to the Washington consensus on the new world order based on advanced capitalism (I call it late capitalism) and liberal democracy. The concept of “neo-liberalism” captures that combination. Such a projection was misguided because it ignored geopolitical reality. From that neo-liberal perspective, any “realist” (read Realpolitik in academic parlance) position was outdated and disposable: who could care about the old issues of security, territory, and balance of power guarantees in a one-dimensional world dedicated to free trade, low regulation, state retreat from big business, increasingly stable democracies, prosperity for all albeit unequal, and military intervention only in cases of gross human rights violations?
It was under these banners that Europe was united with a single currency but without going any further politically, and that the old NATO alliance forged in the Cold War and now historically obsolete could be happily repurposed, move forward, and incorporate territories – now new countries – that once “belonged” to the Soviet Union. Thus they went so far as to literally encircle Russia and try to surround it with a capitalist and democratic periphery, with a military presence more symbolic than real (if they did not count on US military power, the European armed forces were and are weak).
This is the ideology to which the Washington and London elites still cling, and with less enthusiasm other European elites (whose historical memory makes them more sober). During the years following the Cold War, when I lived in Europe, I was able to observe with some exasperation the cultural dominance of this Pax Americana (Peace with US hegemony) which seemed to me on the other side of the coin a Pax Inscia (foolish or unconscious Peace).
It backfired. Islamic terrorism in Manhattan first shook American society and abruptly shocked it out of its comfort zone. The response was to redouble the dose of neo-liberal armed interventionism (led at the time by a group called neo-conservatives, which is nothing more than the bellicose face of the neo-liberal world), and to engage in endless wars which it ultimately lost.
During that illusory period (30 years) the Western world thought that democracy and the free market were advancing, with guarantees of peace, while in reality it was witness to (1) a strong democratic regression even within the central countries, (2) serious accumulation crises (e.g. the financial crisis of 2008), (3) a growing and enormous social inequality, and (4) the advance of geopolitical rivals with a hard, more realistic, and alternative vision of power — in order of importance: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Turkey and other minor countries in the caboose.
`In the second decade of our century it became difficult to hide this new reality. In a moment of apparent lucidity it was recognized by an American president who came to power from outside the Washington establishment. Donald Trump had a crude intuition that the international game was a different, tougher game without illusions and he became enthralled with those other players, who were of course much more skilled than he was: Xi, Kim, Putin, Lavrov, Erdogan, and some tin pot autocrats in the Philippines and Brazil. He became aggressive and impulsive with the Chinese, friendly with the North Koreans, and – in Lenin’s words – a useful idiot (Полезный идиот) with the Russians. I do not want to overdo it, but President Trump (whose return to power in Washington would be a national calamity), reminds me of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s expression in another context: È un cretino illuminato da lampi di imbecillità. All this was understood by cold, calculating and strategic Vladimir Putin. He systematically prepared for a realistic power game, waited for the moment and when it came (seemingly provided by the American Democratic Party interregnum), he gave the proverbial paw swipe of the Russian bear. From that swipe there will undoubtedly emerge a disemboweled Ukraine. This tragedy could have been avoided, as the few remaining Realpolitikers in the United States warned: John Mearsheimer, Henry Kissinger, Stephen Cohen.
But it is too late: Putin has crossed his Rubicon and we can say like Julius Caesar: Alea iacta est – the die is cast. If Russia loses, it will mean great instability for the Russian regime, with use of tactical nuclear weapons as a last resort. If Russia wins, albeit in a brutal way, it will be a Phyrric victory: a success that comes with great losses or unacceptable costs. It will go against Machiavelli’s dictum that whoever wins with whatever means will be spared moral opprobrium. In fact it will be closer to an older dictum by Pyrrhus, a long-ago king of Epirus, who suffered heavy losses in defeating the Romans at Asculum in Apulia in 279 B.C.E, and who is reputed to have said “Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone.”
What will be the consequence? I will briefly review the possible consequences on the world geopolitical map. These are only hypothetical scenarios since no one has a crystal ball, but we can ponder the possibilities. In addition, I will emphasize the importance of the caliber of the different leaderships in the new geometry of powers.
How to move in the quagmire?
Europe:
The security of Europe will be reduced to the defense of the core countries such as France, Germany, Italy, the Iberian Peninsula, etc.. All the others will have to fend for themselves in greater isolation, with the exception of Sweden and Finland, which are pressured to ask to join NATO and be accepted as “core” members. However, both may in the end reach a compromise in the form of armed neutrality. The result will be a Western security of concentric circles, with a “hard” core of mutual defense and a more fragile periphery of variable geometry in countries like Hungary and Poland, and the Baltic states. It would be a NATO that would function in two sectors with two speeds. It will not necessarily be an act of formal downsizing but a tacit de-coupling of the long-standing Article 5 of the NATO allianceJorge Luis .
A major danger is the possibility of a direct confrontation between the U.S. (a NATO guarantor member) and Russia, the two most important nuclear powers on the planet. Threats from either side will be a dangerous game of sleight of hand.
Leadership:
Given the military primacy of the new situation and the zero-sum geopolitical logic, within Europe this will probably place France in a pre-eminent position relative to Germany, which is an economic but not a military power, and will drive the need for a post-Brexit arrangement with the UK, which possesses another substantial European military force, along with France. Turkey, for its part, will have a more positive relationship within NATO, although it will try to play its cards on both ends: continued economic ties with Russia and military support for countries threatened like Ukraine.
The new situation will have internal political repercussions in each affected country. In each of them a firm and realistic governing team will be necessary, not pacifist but adept at negotiating, to avoid the temptation -on the extreme left and right- to “tolerate” or sympathize with Putin’s regime. Russia will try to exploit every fissure in European countries -within and between them- to deepen the fissures. Of importance in France is the likely re-election of Emmanuel Macron-the only statesmanlike figure of some stature, albeit far less than that of De Gaulle.
The American dilemma:
In the United States – essential key to the new cold war in Europe – the return to power of the populist wing of the Republican party would be disastrous, with or without Trump. Its position can be summarized as follows: bellicose isolationism with China but lenient with Russia. In its nationalist rhetoric it will seize on the longstanding mistakes of the Washington establishment and denounce them in order to move away from Europe, tolerate Russia, and incite a boastful bluster with China. This stance is contrary, in my view, to the real long-term strategic interests of the USA. I will be harsh in my assessment: following Borges in the theme of the traitor and the hero, this posture of the American populist right is a form of treason disguised as heroic nationalism. As America was “pivoting” to Asia, it now faces a two-front challenge.
The last frontiers of the West:
The West’s challenge is big and fierce: to defend its values and its last frontiers in a world that demands strategic retreat and to prepare for a planetary partnership with China. To make matters worse, its enemies are not only outside.
The basic strategic problem is this: we see the beginning of a new cold war in Europe with dangerous hot flashes, in addition to a new cold war with China. Unlike the old Cold War, based on a bi-polar mutually assured destruction, this new double cold war is much less stable, and increases the risk of nuclear exchanges –not M.A.D. in the grand old manner but madding nonetheless –and dangerous for human civilization.
* Thanks to Julio Kuperman for providing most of the translation.
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