Just a couple of weeks ago, it seemed that Europe, that motley collection of towns that modern civilization invented had resigned itself to being nothing more than a theme park for Chinese and North American tourists. The consensus was that, despite the enviable prosperity of its most important cities, the approximately 500 million inhabitants of the aptly named old continent could not hope to play a leading role in a world that would henceforth be dominated by United States and China.
For some, the principled impotence of many European leaders who prided themselves on their lack of interest in geopolitical issues, was a source of pride. So was the pacifism made possible by the alliance with United States. We do know what war is, they said, which is why it is up to us to show others that we can do without military forces like those of countries that are in the hands of characters with such a primitive mentality that they believe they are necessary.
Unfortunately, it was a fantasy, a benign one but no less illusory for that. Military weakness is provocative. Invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin sounded an alarm clock that, almost immediately, put an end to the long European dream of a world dominated by “soft power” wielded by politicians more concerned with gender issues and with the difficulties encountered by members of different ethnic groups than with rudimentary issues. that obsessed their predecessors. One can understand, then, the astonishment felt by virtually everyone when the new German chancellor Olaf Scholz, a centrist accustomed to repeating the progressive banalities that had hitherto been fashionable, toannounced that Germany would not only send “lethal weapons” the Ukrainians but would also drastically increase their country’s military spending, a change that, to the surprise of many, his compatriots applauded. Similarly, to meet the threat posed by Russian expansionism, Sweden, Finland, and even Switzerland abruptly abandoned their traditional neutrality.
The withering reaction of so many Europeans to the brutal escalation of the campaign that Putin has been waging against Ukraine since before the annexation of Crimea in March 2014 is due in part to the far from arbitrary feeling that they can no longer trust the protection of United States. They do not like at all that there are Americans who consider them as disposable as the Afghans. They share with the Russian the suspicion that Washington’s elites they have lost interest in the rest of the world and are therefore aware that it would be suicidal for them to continue betting that no sane person would think of taking advantage of their weakness. Vladimir has just reminded them that, when it comes to international relations, it is better not to depend on the good will of others.
Another factor that has made itself felt is a certain nostalgia for the realism of other times. Even if nothing has been seen to compare to the burst of enthusiasm for war that Europeans experienced at the beginning of the First World Warl, it would seem that some were relieved to realize that the traditional “normal” was back. Although many may not like it, the human being is still the same animal that, through the millennia, has participated in countless wars and the instincts that prompted him to risk his life in defense of his own have remained valid.
Not surprisingly, there are signs that the example set by the Ukrainians led by the President Volodomir Zelensky it has revived the warrior spirit that was latent in large sectors of Europe; To the chagrin of military leaders who do not want to try to close the sky over Ukraine to Russian aviation for fear of the consequences, many Europeans are calling for their own country to adopt much more interventionist policies. Also, the fact that almost all the refugees are women and children. since able-bodied men stay in Ukraine to fight, it has suggested that the “toxic masculinity” often denounced by militant feminists is far from as perversely anachronistic as they claim.
No one knows if the change in attitudes that are taking place will be consolidated or if it is just an emotional spasm in the face of the ruthless aggression of a dictator who, as often happens in circumstances like these, many are comparing with Adolf Hitler. Still, while the self-congratulatory passivity of before the invasion of a sovereign neighboring country may soon be restored, it would not be at all surprising if more Europeans now take up positions that they would have previously reviled as warmongers.
For now at least, it seems clear to them that the current situation has been contributed to by the refusal of political leaders in their part of the world to believe in the existence of genuine enemies, and their propensity to treat as reckless reactionaries those who warn them that, Unless they once again learn to defend themselves, European countries could fall victim to predators with ideas less noble than those considered acceptable in Brussels. Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine because he understood that other Europeans would be reluctant to challenge him on the battlefield. Had he believed they were looking for an excuse to do so, he would not have thought of going to such lengths.
As well as impressing other Europeans with their courage, the Ukrainians have reminded them that without patriotism, no national community can survive for long. For those who govern the European Union, patriotism is a despicable archaic value that, according to them, always causes wars. Likewise, they treat the Nation State with disdain as an antiquity that should be abolished, hence the incredulous indignation that caused Brexit. Is it so? Or is he the nation state ands the only political entity capable of deserving the unconditional support of millions, sometimes tens and even hundreds of millions, of people with very different characteristics? Although certain religious cults and messianic ideologies can be equally powerful in this regard, of all the available alternatives the Nation State, for which so many Ukrainians are dying, is the least dangerous as long as it does not involve the desire to seize foreign territories. Among many other things, the attack on Ukraine has served to resume the debate about the “end of history” that, according to the Hegelian approach of the North American Francis Fukuyama, occurred thirty years ago with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the triumph of the sociopolitical order based on democracy and the free market, which, in his opinion, was surely imperfect but still the best conceivable, although the arguments put forward by Fukuyama were much more subtle the cartoonish version of his argument that his most vocal critics sought to demolish, the idea that everyone would end up accepting that it would be futile to try to impose alternatives to liberal democracy turned out to be so influential that many governments became convinced that they would not need to spend defense money.
For the skeptics, first the Islamists and then Putin have shown that history is far from over and that it would therefore be a serious mistake to ignore what happened in the past. Indeed, while the Islamists would like to return to the early Middle Ages to resume their conquest of the world, Putin, inspired by the theories of thinkers such as Lev Gumilyov (the son of Nikolai Gumilyov and Anna Akhmatova) about the alleged fate of the peoples of “Eurasia”, seems to imagine the providential successor of the tsars whose empire extended from Finland in the West to Alaska in the East.
For those convinced that not only the hard sciences but also other activities, such as artistic and political ones, “progress”, Putin’s ideas are absurdly retrograde. They may be, but until very recently his attachment to supposedly outdated notions gave him a decisive advantage in baffling those who refused to take them seriously.
If as a result of their conduct Germans and other Europeans choose to behave according to similar criteria, Putin and the other Russians will pay a heavy price for defying them.
Meanwhile, Western countries, led by people who understandably don’t want to overly provoke a man who could unleash a nuclear apocalypse, hope to bring Russia to heel with harsh economic sanctions. Although in their own countries the impact of the measures to reduce the import of gas and oil that they have already taken will be painful, especially in Central Europe and east until it is less cold, it is estimated that the effects in Russia will be punitive enough to convince the population and, of course, the oligarchs and professionals with cosmopolitan tastes, that unless Putin backs down his country, that is already as poor as the Argentina will suffer an even deeper depression than the one that followed the implosion of the Soviet Union. Will Europeans be willing to tolerate the economic costs of trying to defeat Putin with financial and trade measures? We will soon know the answer to this key question.
