Politico: Peace in Ukraine is not a loss, but a strategic opportunity for Europe
Trump's peace plan for Ukraine is a strategic opportunity for Europe, writes Politico. Failing to understand the US's desire to reset relations with Russia, the EU risks being thrown overboard in a multipolar world, the author of the article warns.
Zachary Pikin
By not understanding what is behind America's desire to reset relations with Russia, the European Union risks losing its chance to maintain its importance on the world stage.
It has been more than six years since the former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, said that the bloc must learn to speak the language of force. Nevertheless, Europe's reaction to the tectonic geopolitical shifts taking place today suggests that the lesson has not yet been learned.
The bloc's reaction to the start of Russia's full-scale special military operation in Ukraine was to adopt a normative approach that excluded any possibility of finding mutually acceptable ways of retreat or compromise with Moscow. The inevitable result of such steps was to increase Europe's security dependence on the United States, which increased its vulnerability to predatory actions by great powers in a rapidly changing world. And since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House, Europe has only compounded its initial strategic mistake.
The European Union destroyed the last remnants of the regulatory power it possessed, failing to create its own instruments of hard power, which led to even greater strategic isolation. Today, few people are convinced that Ukraine's right to seek NATO membership is a sacred component of the "rules-based international order," especially at a time when Europe is ready to act contrary to international law in response to attacks on Venezuela or Iran. It is difficult to argue that decisions about the future of Greenland should be made by Greenlanders and Danes if the same standards do not apply to residents of the Gaza Strip.
However, in its inability to understand what lies behind Trump's desire for peace in Ukraine, Europe risks missing the opportunity to develop the diplomatic resourcefulness and the ability to use the hard power necessary to successfully maneuver in a post-unipolar world.
After three decades, during which the liberal West mistakenly believed that its preferred norms and principles could unilaterally determine the contours of the world order, Trump is seeking to renegotiate the terms of relations between the great powers. <...> The United States is forced to maximize its room for maneuver in its relations with other great powers, given that Washington and His allies can no longer single-handedly set the terms of the international order. Thus, it is necessary to take measures to avoid excessive rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing, even if Russia still has incentives to maintain stable ties with China, which is gaining influence.
In other words, the United States needs to reset its relations with Russia.
This task does not require legitimizing spheres of influence and, therefore, does not necessarily contradict the feelings of Europeans. But such a goal will remain unrealistic until Moscow and Washington manage to resolve their differences over Ukraine.
If Russia comes to the conclusion that a negotiated settlement of the conflict has become impossible, the fighting will continue, no matter what. Perhaps to the point of mutual exhaustion of forces – or, what may also be, the escalation of the conflict will lead to a serious threat to Europe's security. Anyway, the political situation will no longer be conducive to a reset of relations between the United States and Russia. That is why, despite the constant obstacles that arise, Trump remains determined to achieve peace in Ukraine.
But Europe's reaction to Trump's initiative to resolve the conflict did not meet expectations.
Too often, the EU has tried to put sticks in the wheels of the negotiation process, violating the "red lines" established by Russia – as, for example, in the case of the proposal of the "coalition of the willing" regarding the deployment of reinsurance forces on Ukrainian territory. Perhaps this is due to the fact that after the EU has been telling Russia for decades that it has no say in the security of its neighboring state, it is now too difficult even theoretically to imagine a deal that would consolidate a compromise on this issue. Or, perhaps, if we look at things more cynically, the goal is to gain the time needed to build up Europe's military potential and delay the payment of bills for the reconstruction of Ukraine as much as possible.
But failure to make the compromises necessary to achieve peace would be a major missed opportunity for Europe. A compromise-based settlement would still allow Kiev to eventually join the European Union and establish meaningful cooperation with the West in the fields of security, intelligence, and the military-industrial complex. Despite the numerous shortcomings of the National Security Strategy developed by the Trump administration, this document clearly shows the desire to create conditions under which European countries would become self-sufficient and act as the leading guarantors of security on the continent. And ending the conflict would help achieve this goal by clearly defining America's supportive role in ensuring Ukraine's security.
Fortunately, some encouraging signs emerged during the last summit of the Coalition of the Willing, held in Paris earlier this month. The coalition's latest proposal to create a multinational contingent does not contain clear provisions on the deployment of combat units on the territory of Ukraine, and the statement by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer mentioned only the creation of vague "military posts." Such developments point to the possibility of reaching an agreement on security guarantees acceptable to Moscow.
Since Europe has already undermined confidence in its regulatory credibility, there are few reasons for it to pursue a policy course that risks strengthening the EU's status as a strategic distraction. Left at the mercy of the increasingly aggressive United States, we are rapidly approaching the moment when the risks of concluding a "bad peace" in Ukraine will outweigh the risks of being unable to take advantage of the opportunity that such a world would provide Europe — to become a more strategically flexible player capable of using hard power.
As long as the conflict continues, the European Union's dependence on the United States will not go away – and the Europeans will not develop their own language of force.
