The strategic periphery

Karl Kautsky, the great Social Democratic thinker, published an article in Die Neue Zeit on 11 September 1914, in which he famously explained that in the era of ultraimperialism, major wars were not possible any longer. He drafted the piece several months before and thought that the minor mid-summer developments would not weaken the power of his arguments. To use the expression of the Australian historian Christopher Clark that “Europe sleepwalked into the Great War”, and as the case of Kautsky demonstrated, even among the most brilliant theoreticians of the time, the dynamics of conflict were not well understood.

European wishes

What Europeans want today, in general, however, is not very far from what Kautsky called “ultraimperialism”: a relatively peaceful stage when major powers behave in international politics like cartels in the sphere of economics. The Prague-born Kautsky was not alone with such expectations; previously, the British John Hobson but also the German Karl Liebknecht had put forward similar speculations

110 years later, again, there is war in Europe, and it has already lasted for over 30 months, under the persistent risk of escalation. Most Europeans remain supportive of Ukraine, the country that was invaded in February 2022. However, according to a study by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) published last June, the largest group of Europeans wishes to support Ukraine to be stronger at negotiations and also wants to see more diplomatic efforts for a negotiated outcome.

In a broader perspective, Europeans” expectations were surveyed a few years ago in a unique exercise called the “Conference on the future of Europ”. Through structured deliberations, 320 possible measures were identified to follow up on under nine topics: climate change and the environment; health; a stronger economy, social justice and jobs; EU in the world; values and rights, rule of law, security; digital transformation; European democracy; migration; education, culture, youth and sport. The conference confirmed that citizens link the EU to democracy, peace, individual and economic freedom. And it was also understood that much of the desired changes could only be delivered if the EU Treaties could change.

Citizens assume that the EU can deliver a lot, and it could perform even better. However, the greatness of the EU is more often explained through statistics but not necessarily in geopolitical terms. Although very much intended 20 years ago, at the time of the failed constitutional exercise, it seems to be a Herculean, if not a Sisyphean, task to turn the EU into a block player in international relations. Establishing the European External Action Service (EESC) and the High Representative 15 years ago were big steps forward, but views differ about the success of all this, in the light of recent developments.

Fallacy of composition

We are aware of the Brussels effect, the fact that the EU, through its single market, is a rule setter for much of the world, but it is not obvious how to translate this into solutions in diverse policy fields. The overrepresentation of small countries in EU institutions does not help, because they all bring with them the experience of limited autonomy and a culture of alignment. As a result, in many Brussels debates, we can witness difficulty in deciding whether Europe is big or small.

The phenomenon of logical failure that stems from this situation is called the fallacy of composition. It can be seen as a kind of simplification, assuming that parts or members of a whole will have the same properties as the whole. In other words, if we assume that a composite object (for example, the European Union) has the properties of its constituent parts (for example, Denmark, Ireland or Latvia) without justification, we might be wrong. Acually, most likely we are wrong, which also has consequences.

For example, in the early 2010s, during the great eurozone crisis, many believed that once Latvia managed to get out of its recession by administering a heavy dose of internal devaluation (cuts in wages, pensions and public investment while maintaining a fixed exchange rate), the EU as a whole could do the same to boost competitiveness. However, the aggregate effect was not recovery but a reduction of demand for everyone, and the eurozone started to look like a suicide sect.

Regarding migration: Denmark has stood out in recent years with a negative approach, but this is something Europe as a whole cannot adopt. Geographical openness, responsibility for refugee lives, and relations with the neighbourhood are just a few of the many reasons. Nevertheless, we will hear more and more voices encouraging Europe in general to adopt the Danish method.

Taxation is another example. Ireland is an outlier, with tax optimisation for multinational corporations at the heart of its financial architecture. Irish policy might be smart from an Irish point of view, but it is most certainly not an example that Europe as a whole could follow. In fact, it might be an issue that the rest of Europe might consider a source of economic damage, but that is a different debate.

Rule of law decay

The challenge, therefore, is to see the properties and the potential of Europe as a whole, rather than just a sum of its parts. Otherwise, there is no point in talking about a “geopolitical Commission”, a language introduced in 2019, in response to US policies under Donald Trump. But the meaning of “geopolitical” has changed in the meantime. Originally, it was about Europe defining its own interest and representing it more forcefully. Now, it is more about adapting to geopolitical developments of the outside world and, if needed, risk the integrity of EU rules, norms and policies.

The EU has not made much progress in securing the rule of law in recent years. The conditionality mechanism embedded in the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF)  has not been a resounding success. There are more and more far-right parties present in national governments, and their share has increased in the European Parliament as well. Recent regional election results in Germany show that verbal confrontation and shaming do not deter dissatisfied citizens from voting for parties which are stigmatised as extremist by the intellectual and political mainstream.

In France, president Emmanuel Macron has been usually seen among the defenders of the rule of law. Still, now, the situation is complicated as he refuses to appoint a prime minister candidate supported by the largest political block in parliament. Maybe it would be too strong to compare him to Donald Trump, who in 2020 refused to acknowledge the outcome of the elections, and even spurred an armed revolt. Constitutional systems differ, there are no identical situations, and the disputes over forming a government have not turned into violence in France. But this is not the finest hour of French democracy.

Another matter of great concern is the case of the Nord Stream pipelines. When those were blown up in September 2022 close to Bornholm island, EU Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen called it an act of “sabotage”. She threatened the “strongest possible response” to any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure. Von der Leyen’s reaction has set the tone ever since. Ukrainian state officials also said at the time that the incident was “a terrorist attack” and “an act of aggression towards the EU”.

Although there was some bogus speculation at the time about possibly Russia being the culprit, the investigations have found nothing that would point in this direction. And now Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, and former president of the European Council, states that he will not provide help to the German investigation of this unprecedented crime, and shrugs off the suspicion that the Polish state might have been a facilitator of an act of war against Europe. This attitude is particularly puzzling because Tusk was expected to restore the rule of law in Poland and sort out the problems of its judiciary.

The arrogance of leaders like Macron and Tusk risks balkanising Europe. This that refers to a region not only as a patchwork of diverse ethnicities but also with the potential to generate greater conflicts, as happened with the two Balkan Wars in the years before World War I. “Balkan”, here, can be synonymous with the “powder keg”. Balkanisation theorists often assume that such a region cannot be stabilised without an external hegemon.

Zbigniew Brzeziński, the late Polish-American political scientist (and national security adviser under Jimmy Carter), in his famous book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (1997)introduced the concept of the “Eurasian Balkans”. According to “Zbig” this macro-region stretched from Turkey to Pakistan, and from Yemen to Kazakhstan, and covered all territories in between. His ideas fell on fertile ground, and there have been tremendous “stabilisation” efforts in the decades following the publication of his book. If he were still alive today, Brzeziński would surely be tempted to theorise about the state of affairs in contemporary Europe.

The old and the young

110 years ago, Europe sunk into war despite almost all heads of state being cousins or in-laws of each other and could have discussed all the disagreements during a hunting weekend. Their countries also traded a lot with each other. So, it was already known back then that intense trade relations between countries do not necessarily maintain peace, as long as chauvinism runs high in all different nations, and leaders underestimate their opponents, thus for whatever reason they are blind to various risks and the potential consequences of their actions.

According to an aphorism attributed to Herbert Hoover: “Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die.” It should not be overlooked, therefore, that Franz Josef I (aka “Kaiser und König”: “emperor and king”) was almost 84 years old when he sent the Austro-Hungarian troops into war against the Western Balkan rival Serbia in July 1914, because the latter sponsored youthful terrorists who killed the heir to the throne, archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo. The Serbian government ignored the security concerns of Austria-Hungary, and Franz Josef thought that by the end of the Autumn (when the leaves fall), the soldiers would be back home. Instead, the war lasted for four years, and the monarchy disintegrated due to the defeat. Franz Josef did not live to see the sorry outcome because he passed away in 1916.

Vladimir Putin was nearly 70 years old when he pressed the wrong button two and a half years ago. But he is 10 years junior to Joe Biden, with whom he directly negotiated throughout 2021 about the fate of Ukraine, above the head of Ukrainians and EU countries as well. Biden’s role remains crucial, not least because the strategic leadership of Europe has been outsourced to the US, an external hegemon. While the European Parliament election in June played a key role in influencing the staffing the European institutions (including the gender balance of leading bodies) to set a direction on the most important issues of our continent, we are waiting for the November elections in the on the other side of the Atlantic. Whether we like it or not, Europe became a strategic periphery. Joe Biden is the addressee of Volodymyr Zelensky’s new peace plan.

The difference between Franz Josef of 1914 and Joe Biden of 2024 is not only the two years in age, but also the fact that a war going wrong in Europe cannot cost Biden the disintegration of his own country, contrary to the case of the heavily moustached Habsburg ruler. As he approaches the end of his high-level political career spanning half a century, assessments of his achievements in US foreign policy, especially during his presidency, will appear in large numbers. Commentators will highlight that he has been the most labour-friendly US president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. But he also has a chance to be comparable to FDR in another way: not to start, but to end a war in Europe. He has a few months left to play a role in this. Otherwise, the task will be left to someone else.