Europe and the Post-Soviet Space
The EU is an anomaly in geopolitics and not so easy to get a hold on; luckily, that makes EU quite interesting for the more astute observer. We focus on EU and its surroundings in the coming posts.
Zooming in on Europe
When I went to primary school, back in the 1970ies, we had three maps at the blackboard in our classroom: Denmark, The World and Europe. This provided us with the options of a local, global, or a regional perspective in Geography. Europe is the geographical denotation of the western part of the Eurasian landmass. It is common to demarcate Europe, east / west, from the Ural Mountains to the British Isles, and north / east, from Svalbard to the Mediterranean Sea. Back then, Europe was divided by what Churchill had named ‘an iron curtain,’ and the Map of Europe had a lot of different countries demarcated by many different colors on the left-hand side and a huge dark green spot, from the cost-line of the German Democratic Republic all the way to the Urals, on the right-hand side. The iron curtain drew a line, north-south, from The Baltic Sea to the Bulgarian / Turkish border. When that curtain was lifted in the beginning og the 1990ies, we entered the post-cold war era. This meant that The Soviet Union was no more. Geopolitically, we speak about the transformation of The Post-Soviet Space and this transformation is understood as a geopolitical catastrophe. Not a catastrophe to someone, but a catastrophic event in the global political order. To us today, this means a rearrangement of the political geography of the world of proportions analogous to the bronze age collapse. Although this analogy should not be taken too far, the epic proportions of the soviet collapse, when it comes to the number of people and political entities affected, should not be underestimated. Failing to recognize this will distort our proportions and leave us without depth in our understanding.
Fatal misconceptions
For more superficial commentators, this major geopolitical event is way past us: ‘We live in the 21st century’, they often reiterate, and one easily get the idea, that for them geopolitics itself is a thing of the past. This idea of a post-geopolitical world, blended with the discourse of lobbyists, think tanks and the like, combined with governments disregarding geopolitics for short term political gains, leaves us with a propensity to end up supporting meaningless wars and military interventions. The development and attempts to resolve The Ukraine Question (1991 – 2022) bears witness to that. Nowadays, the public discourse in EU and USA is that the fault of the escalating crisis in Southeastern Europe was on Kremlin and its misconception of NATO, hence EU and NATO do not have responsibility for the developments in Ukraine; note how the saying ‘Putin’s war of aggression,’ is used on a daily base in Western media, while the geopolitical discourse since mid 1990ies, led by Huntington and Mearsheimer, has been in consensus about the severity and complexity of The Ukraine Question; in line with the geopolitical discourse, events leading up to the division of Ukraine in 2014 is understood as driven by a rivalry between Washington and Kremlin. In that perspective recent developments are seen in the light of Washingtons support for colored revolutions and policies of regime change in the Post-Soviet Space. For the geopolitically interested, the conflict escalated due to the perception in Kremlin, that EU and NATO did not take notice of its grievances. This geopolitical ignorance is paradigmatic for the great power in the region: EU. Often it seems like Brussels do not have the ability to act in its geopolitical context, due to its lack of direction, what we in geopolitics call doctrine.
Decision-making issues
The EU is an anomaly in geopolitics exactly because its locus of decision, i.e., its center of government, from where a consistent strategy of policies could unfold, is not thoroughly constituted, hence prone to indecisiveness and sudden reactions. Writ large, this is because the gap between public discourse and geopolitical reasoning is wide. And that is a major hurdle for having a sensible decision-making process in a community of countries where public sentiment quickly turns into propagandistic enemy construction. Often the EU is seen as a project for the elites in society. And more often than not, this leads to problems of taking decisions of geopolitical nature, simply because the elites are on the mercy of the masses; in EU countries governments are elected by the peoples from its 27 different nation-states. It is not easy to agree on anything. And geopolitics is often very complex. Therefore, the peoples in the EU and its member states would need a deeper understanding, or at least the elites must come to a geopolitical consensus, where EU can at least see its own role in the things that happens around it. That would give it the base for developing autonomy from where it would be able to act in accordance with its interest and not simply create chaos in its surrounding by sheer default and misconception. Knowing the history of the EU one may doubt that geopolitics will ever be contemplated before the discourse on values and individual interests of member-states block for strategic geopolitical decisions, but EU is a young entity, and like puberty for the human being may be hard to overcome, it is necessary to gain individuation; for the EU it will be necessary to develop into an autonomous entity now. The geopolitical situation demands it and already at the end of this decade, it may be too late. A horror scenario, would be, that the current problems of indecisiveness and geopolitical confusions continues into the next decade, and Europe would find itself a victim of its own geopolitical anxiety.
Political transformation
To EU The Post-Soviet Space is and has been a huge hurdle to face. The ripple effects of the end of the cold war blends in with the general challenge of unstable states around the EU, not least the sustenance of Islamic State in Western Afrika. For geopolitical discourse, for instance people like me, who study the geopolitical consequences of state construction, thus track developments not in years, but rather in decades and centuries, some contours of this geopolitical catastrophe and its consequences are crystalizing. The point that I wish to stress is, that if we are going to talk about a future European strategic architecture, we must get things into perspective and understand, that the transformation of power structures does not speed up, because we are impatient; building states in The Post-Soviet Space is generally a hurdle, since the change from Soviet type economic order to capitalism challenges the emerging political structures, and tend to end in a downward spiral towards civil strife and anarchy, if not managed carefully. Of course, it helps if one has a Deng Xiaoping or other capable leader, but basically success in forging stable political structures comes down to the ability of the polity to mend the political condition, i.e., get a state up and running. That did not happen in Ukraine, but all the countries around The EU are struggling: From Russia over Turkey to Israel to Algeria to Marocco just to mention the relatively stable states around EU. On the other side of that stability continuum we find Libya, Lebanon, and Ukraine.
The Post-Soviet Space presents a challenge
The collapse of the Soviet Union is a geopolitical catastrophe of epic proportions with huge ramifications across the globe. Let me specify what I am talking about by pointing to the many developments that were deeply affected by the soviet collapse: The breakup of Yugoslavia; wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria; The devastation of Africa; political instability in The Caucasus; NATO enlargement; North Korean humanitarian crisis; The rise of China and The Taiwan Question; Ethiopia vs. Eritrea and the Azerbaijan vs. Armenia armed conflicts; The Ukraine Question. For Asia the largest single event has been the sustenance of mainland China under transformation from communism to capitalism under the CCP. In Europe it was the sustenance of the EU and NATO. From a state-building perspective The EU had to become a federation or break apart to be able to decide for itself and thus effectively navigate in the catastrophic situation, where intra-state conflict broke out in Yugoslavia, Belarus and Georgia.
A confused colossus
But a federation never materialized, why one could still argue that The European Union is only a union by name: EU remains a loose construction without a strong decision-making capacity. Furthermore, The EU has become prone to the geopolitical force of disintegration. Recently, EU had to let go of a major asset, namely U.K. Objectively, the divorce between EU and U.K. was a loss for both parties, but now they must make the best of it. EU is still massive. We see how the major regional powers in its vicinity, Russia, and U.K., get hurt, when they come to cross its way. That is what happens when you are dealing with a giant. But EU is a sleeping giant, a dreamer and unaware what it crushes on its path, when it sleepwalks without geopolitical orientation, heralding values as an old empire and intervening by instinct, with no long-term strategic perspective. The danger of falling off a cliff and into the abyss of disintegration is not immanent, but a possible future; note that it would be a hard blow to the major economies in EU, if all of a sudden, they find themselves unable to trade with China.
‘An Elephant in a glass shop’
This is a Danish expression and I am not sure that it works as well in English, but you probably get the picture: The Elephant is so huge, that just by turning around to say hello, it would leave everything scattered in a shop full of glass. A sudden movement by the giant can be devastating, especially because it seems unaware of its own doing. Think of when EU invites all countries around it to become members and political instability arise all around it, driven by people who would like to have the same standard of living as people in the EU; for instance, the Arab Spring of 2011, and Egypt ends up in dictatorships with an even harder agenda, than the one deposed in the wake of the uprising. When the political structures in Libya were destroyed, it simply left a territory in anarchy from where African immigrants could launch crossings of the Mediterranean See and into EU using small boats. Because of failures of the past, EU had no appetite for establishing political structures in Libya, without properly assessing the pros and cons. This blunder, based on a misconception of state-building, left the EU vulnerable at its borders and to the foothold of AQIM in Westafrica to gain strategic depth, eradicating efforts in Mali and Burkina Faso, and thus leaving the southwestern flank open to illegal migration. In general, EU does not seem to wake up to its geopolitical reality, and hence due to its size, it comes to leave its surroundings in political instability and disarray.
EU enlargement
Until now, EU has sought to adjust to The Post-Soviet Space by offering memberships: The Baltic nations, Poland, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Slovenia, and Croatia are now EU members. There are eight recognized candidates for membership of the European Union: Turkey (since 1999), North Macedonia (2005), Montenegro (2010), Serbia (2012), Albania (2014), Moldova (2022), Ukraine (2022), and Bosnia and Herzegovina (2022). The last three are fragmented and extremely challenged entities, but all candidates have tough issues to tackle before they can begin to seriously display their candidature. EU is struggling with integration, especially with the southeastern part: Greece went bankrupt and caused major troubles during 2010s, and last year Bulgaria and Rumania had to see themselves denied accession to Schengen, the passport union securing free passage of people and goods across nation-state borders, while Croatia was allowed into this exclusive club. Corruption is a factor when EU is enlarging its outer borders. The Post-Soviet countries are still struggling with their juridical systems and political corruption, but also other EU member states have issues here. Now, EU must focus on internal coherence and the geopolitical reality rather than expansion. Adopting Ukraine as a member, is a pipe dream, and the acceptance of Kiev into the ascension procedure, shows the triumph of ignorant idealism over the will to face reality, and in the end that will strengthen the forces of disintegration, distrust, and divisions in EU.
Internal cohesion and potential divisions
There are many political cleavages and divisions in the EU. The late Donald Rumsfeld enjoyed speaking about old Europe and new Europe. Reminiscences of this cleavage can be seen in the current situation, where EU shall begin to find a way to position itself vis a vis China. Already when it comes to Russia, there is differing. Germany, the 4 trillion-dollar economy, and the usual leader of the pack did not see any benefits in war with Russia, nor can it be the interest of Berlin to have its expensive gas pipeline blown up, especially if it was done by NATO allies Norway and Britton under the command of Washington, as it has been suggested. Italy, another member of the old guard, is governed by a coalition in Rome, who like Germany has strong interdependencies with Russia, have good relations to Kremlin and have enough troubles as it is with refugees and an emerging black hole in its economy. Paris seems to have had it altogether with Washington calling the shots and recently raised The Taiwan Question, thereby undermining transatlantic unity. Belgium and Spain are trading with Moscow despite sanctions. There is a south-western bloc emerging and on the other side of this bloc, we have the north-eastern countries stark in support of the regime in Kiev, despite its ideological leaning and governance record; this bloc seems to be willing to follow the superpower to the end of the world, so to speak. In terms of GDP the southwestern bloc is strong, but in terms of numbers, Sweden, Denmark, Lithuania, Poland, and The Czech Republic can match them. Where Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Holland end up this time, will interest observers in the time to come.
Decision time
Note that except Hungary, which is very reliant on Russia for its fossil consumption, and a bit of a special case, the countries in the north-western bloc have proximity to Russia. The Post-Soviet Space of course includes Belarus, but also the Baltic Sea, affecting Finland and Sweden gravely. Due to the situation in Ukraine, EU is in dire straits to find its orientation in the world. The recent attempt to shape the discussion about enhanced EU autonomy by the French president, has been called untimely by the collected quire of parties and lobby organizations in Europe: unity is needed, not deliberation and discussion, they chant. One could ask whether a discussion about something unpleasant is not always untimely, and the question is perhaps rather, whether this discussion is not exactly timely because it came at a moment in time where it could not be ignored, and therefore gains attention. Given the current fault lines of east, west, north, and south, much depends on where Germany decides to lay its weight, if Germany decides, and then, what will happen if it all ends up in a division between northeast and southwest. Nothing may come of it, and again, this is very likely, but is that a tenable outcome for The EU?