There is at least something that Vladimir Putin will have achieved, unfortunately, with his invasion of Ukraine, and that is to give Russia back its old enemy from the Cold War era, where there were only two superpowers in the world, to use Henry Kissinger’s vocabulary: the United States and the USSR.
Posted at 9:00 a.m.
In the period immediately preceding this war, it was telling that Putin was addressing his demands only to Joe Biden, deeming not only Ukraine, but also European countries to be insignificant.
The Russian dictator then underestimated – to say the least – the nationalism of the Ukrainians, but he was right to believe that his great adversary would ultimately be the United States, and not the countries Europeans.
Europe reinvigorated?
At the start of this war, European commentators unanimously sang the praises of their exceptionally supportive and united continent in the face of the aggression of the Ukrainian nation at its doorstep, while the President of the French Republic of the European Union, Emmanuel Macron, alone maintained contact with Vladimir Putin.
But three months after the Russian invasion – how time flies! – it seems increasingly obvious that European countries have lost control in this matter to the benefit of the United States, which now assumes leadership. NATO, of which the Americans are the driving force and which Macron was still burying yesterday, appears to be the fundamental organization, at the expense of a European Union that does not carry weight.
The signs are clear, starting with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s much more critical tone of brotherly European countries dragging their feet too much while the Americans are sending far more money and arms to Ukraine.
Moreover, being a member of the European Union is clearly no longer enough for the frightened Finland and Sweden, which are asking to be admitted to NATO. Another flaw in European unity, Hungary opposes the embargo on Russian oil.
But what above all highlights Europe’s weakness in this war is the continent’s heavy reliance on Russian gas as the economic powerhouse, Germany having foolishly given up its nuclear power plants under Angela Merkel to now be run by a Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, struggling to make weight on the political level.
Too idealistic approach
Fortunately, the United States and NATO are there! But what a humiliation for Europe to be deprived of control of its destiny to such an extent three quarters of a century after its liberation from the Nazis by the Americans in 1945.
It must be said that, during this long period when it comfortably benefited from American military protection at low cost, the European continent would have had time to equip itself with a system of defense and power adapted to the perils of the beginning of the 21st century.and century.
We preferred to forget that global geopolitics has nothing to do with good feelings. The Europeans have instead adopted a resolutely carebear idealistic approach – Kantian, to use a philosophical term –, with this mad expansion without limits of a European community initially centered on the solid Franco-German axis.
With the result that we find ourselves, in 2022, with a European Union of no less than 27 States, with no credible army other than that of France, an organization where the smallest country can block all the others on its own.
What a mistake also that, without ever following up on it, we dangled Turkey’s entry into the European Union, this power that is much more Asian than European, now under the influence of this militant Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan!
Whether or not he maintains his objections to the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO, of which Turkey is a member, there is no doubt that Erdoğan, ambivalent about Putin from the start, enjoys now find yourself in the position of someone who can say no…
Macron and Scholz offside
Europe has a good chance of finding itself the big loser in this dangerous war which is dragging on at home, the United States benefiting for the time being without much risk from the situation, among other things in terms of energy.
This cannot make us forget that other planetary destabilizations could result from the conflict in Ukraine, as well as this risk of a nuclear skid as present as three months ago, even if many do not want to hear any more about it.
The Americans are now setting the tone, they who were the first to say that this war not only had to end, but that Ukraine could win it, with defeated Russia then finding itself in a situation where it could no longer harm.
Frenchman Macron and German Scholz may be starting to think the US and Ukraine are a bit too much cracked in this affair, not to mention the shoddy Churchill, the Briton Boris Johnson.
But they are not the ones who decide. They are Putin, Biden and Zelensky.