Today, concerning the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, it is a Swiss who will talk to us about Europe. Writer and intelligence specialist, Jacques Baud is the author of Z operation, published by Max Milo. He is a member of Swiss strategic intelligence, a specialist in Eastern European countries, and head of doctrine for peacekeeping operations at the United Nations.
franceinfo: You were also at NATO in Brussels, and precisely we Europeans are at the gates of this conflict. What is your vision of Europe?
Jacques Baud: As I have often said with regard to this conflict, my idea of Europe in relation to a conflict and not only of Europe – to tell the truth of all the multilateral organizations in relation to a conflict – is to remain at the above conflicts. For me, it is the privilege of multilateral institutions not to go down to the level of the parties to the conflict. And in this context, I was disappointed by the approach that was chosen by the European Union.
And as I have often said too, I understand the Ukrainians. I was a soldier myself, so if I had to defend my country, I would. I understand that the Ukrainians do it and that is completely legitimate. But when you have the privilege of not being in a conflict, I regret that you go into it deliberately and become a party to the conflict. And I have the feeling that we made decisions under the influence of emotion.
Like the penalties?
There you have it, sanctions whose implications we have not really perceived, without knowing what the long-term consequences would be. And above all, it is that we obviously did not analyze what Russia was, and we obviously did not understand what it was capable of, and the resilience of its economy. And we now find ourselves drawn into economic difficulties that affect us ourselves.
Energy as a weapon of war, that was predictable, right?
Yes, it was predictable because in 2014, indeed, the West had already taken energy-related measures against Russia, and they had been relatively successful at the time, but in a very In particular, since the price of petroleum products was extremely low, Russia’s revenues were already naturally low due to the market, but they were burdened by the sanctions.
Whereas in 2022, we are on totally different phenomena, since with the Covid crisis, we have had a shrinkage of supply in all areas, a shrinkage also of logistics chains, including in the areas of petroleum products . And when sanctions were applied to petroleum products in early 2022 in Russia, it only accentuated this contraction in supply. And when there is a contraction in supply, there is an explosion in prices.
We are in a situation where we no longer want to lose face. We can clearly see that Europe today has entered a kind of dead end, that it will suffer from an energy problem because of its sanctions. And I think that in a more general way, Europe and the West must come back to reality. We have a Eurasian bloc which is getting stronger with a China which is undeniably one of the major world players.
And I go back to what the Indian Minister for Foreign Affairs said in Bratislava this year, that Europe must stop thinking that its problems are the problems of the world, and therefore have a more sober outlook on the world.
But you also say it in your book, the problem of the West, of the West, is to work on the short term while the others are working on the long term?
That’s right, that’s true. And this is also a characteristic of large countries. We talk about China, we talk about Russia which now forms the core, but also about India for that matter.
The famous Eurasia?
It is this famous Eurasia which is in the process of being consolidated thanks to our sanctions. In a way, these are huge countries, and these are people who have to think over many years. They cannot simply reflect on a four-year presidential term. I think they all – China, Russia and India – have a much more strategic thinking than what we have in the West, and we have lost that perspective.
We have modes of governance in Europe which today are based more on tweets than on thoughtful decisions. That means, in other words, that we are in the immediate response.
Z operation by Jacques Baud published by Max Milo.