European countries may be at an existential risk due to their geopolitical ignorance

Europe has been facing a great existential threat since the 1940s, and with the entry of war between Russia and Ukraine at the present time, its fourth year, the transformations in the policy of the US President’s administration, Donald Trump, indicate that Europe may face a war between it and Russia without support from the United States, as Washington is now negotiating a possible peace with Moscow and Kiev, without the participation of Europeans. It also seems that America is ready to reach an agreement that is largely dependent on Russia’s conditions.

In addition, Europe has wakes up doubts about Washington’s obligations to the fifth article of the NATO Charter (NATO), which provides for the defense of Europe if it is attacked. Europe appears to be in a situation that its armed forces cannot deal with.

And the Europeans, of course, can blame this entire development on the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and his counterpart Trump, and this is what many of them do. But in the end, the Europeans must admit that they are now paying the price of their geopolitical ignorance.

History is full of examples of leaders who turned a blind eye to political geography, which made their countries pay a precious price in the end.

Nazi Germany made a similar mistake, which led to its fall when it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, exposing itself to a bilateral war.

At the level of the major strategy, the Chinese “Ming” breed committed one of the most dangerous geopolitical errors in history when it abandoned maritime navigation in the mid -15th century. In the 14th and early 15th centuries China, China built the strongest and greatest fleet in the world ever, fully controlling trade routes in the Indian Ocean and West Pacific, but starting in the 1930s, and with the increase in European shipbuilding and navigation skills, the Chinese emperors reduced their support for shipbuilding basins, and they banned most maritime trade, and as a result the European Navy dominated water Asian over the next five centuries. Likewise, Europe did not benefit from these examples, and three prominent geopolitical developments that we could include were ignored as follows:

1- Europe has greatly turned a blind eye to the return of Russia as an imperialist power, which is the most important and further geopolitical development directly on Europe since the end of the Cold War. Like the emperors, Ming, who got rid of their naval fleet, the Europeans literally abandoned political geography. For almost two decades, they developed a more suitable military structure to fight the rebels in the mountains of Afghanistan, and to intimidate pirates in the Gulf of Aden to defend the European homeland. It seems that Europe has been abandoning political geography and ignoring the growth of Putin’s influence for a simple reason, which is the security guarantee provided by the United States.

2- Europe has not realized the geopolitical logic of China’s rise, which will eventually force the United States to balance its military situation towards the Indian and calm region. In 2011, when the administration of former US President Barack Obama announced for the first time the “American trend towards Asia”, only two European countries were committed to the “NATO” pledge to spend at least 2% of the gross domestic product of the defense.

After a decade, in 2021, only four additional European countries of NATO members were able to reach this threshold.

One of the important reasons for this default in the response is the US clear suspension of heading towards Asia, when its forces moved to Eastern Europe and its warships to the Atlantic Ocean, in response to Russia’s 2014 control of the Crimea Peninsula, which it is fighting with Ukraine. At that time, it seemed that many people I spoke with in the European strategic society believed that Washington has always returned to Europe. However, they ignored that the American balance towards Asia is driven by the strongest and most stable power in international relations (balance of power and fear of domination), as Chinese defense spending amounted to $ 309 billion in 2023, which exceeds the spending of the rest of East Asia and its south combined, which means that China is able to dominate the region easily, if the United States withdrew its military presence there.

The situation in Europe is completely different, as the Russian economy is smaller than the Italian economy, in terms of nominal GDP, and lacks basic technological and manufacturing capabilities, so any negligence of Europeans from Russia’s deterrence and containing it is fully due to the unwillingness of European leaders to do so in the past and present. This difference in the balance of Asian and European powers is explained by Washington’s continuous flirting with the Kremlin, as the settlement of the Russian -Ukrainian war will enable a more comprehensive American military balance in Asia.

3- The third geopolitical development that Europe has ignored its own responsibility, is the Chinese-Russian partnership, its inherent strategic logic, and the value that both countries give to it. China’s economic rise enabled Russia to diversify its trade relations and reduce its dependence on Europe. This was especially important for Russia since 2014, when the West imposed economic and financial sanctions for the first time in response to Russia’s control of the Crimea.

Moreover, although it is the smaller partner, Russia is aware of China’s preoccupation with the United States in the Pacific, which reduces Moscow’s view of the threat that Beijing represents. In fact, Russia would not have waged a comprehensive war on Ukraine as China’s unbalanced China was on its Asian wing.

As for China, good relations with Russia are more attributed to geopolitical considerations and considerations of power balance, and that the presence of Moscow alongside it may give Beijing a preference in its competition with Washington as great powers.

In short, Russia’s return to imperialism should have been provided, and the United States turns from Asia, and the Chinese -Russian partnership of European leaders, valid reasons for reconsidering the security arrangements for their continent, but they did not. We used to consider that the Europeans live on a holiday of history, to the extent that we are not surprised by their ignorance of geopolitical affairs as it should.

Ultimately, the former major European powers were brilliant in the strategy.

The “Realism” school depends on the theory of international relations, with its strong focus on the balance of power, to a large extent on the studies of European great powers. At the height of the prosperity of the British Empire in 1848, the then Foreign Minister, Lord Palmerson, announced in the British House of Commons, a famous statement: “We do not have eternal allies, and we have no eternal enemies, our interests are eternal and lasting, and it is our duty to follow.” The advice of Palmersteon was supposed to benefit European leaders in recent decades.

The European strategic “blindness” is multiple reasons, including the lack of leadership class to vision and wisdom. But I would like to emphasize two other interpretations. The first of them is that European countries have moved from being a leader in the strategy, to being a subordinate to the United States strategy. This can be said this is the case since the Suez Canal crisis in 1956, when the United States, Britain and France, forced to retract their attempt to invade Egypt and control the Suez Canal.

While European governments expressed their opposition to various American policies in the years that followed, such as the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, they remained secondary countries in their alliance with a great power. Therefore, her attention was focused on building strong alliances with Washington, more than her interest in developing its own strategic capabilities.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Europeans secured a firm belief that the circumstances had recently been prepared for the idea of ​​the German philosopher Emmanuel Kent, on eternal peace based on democracy, free trade and institutions that will restrain the policies of power.

And when liberalism became not just a prevailing model, but an ethical necessity, the advocates of geopolitical realism are often ignored, with their focus on the balance of power, so they became a mockery, as happened when German officials mocked Trump who warned them in 2018, and others have warned before, that relying on Russia in the energy field is a dangerous strategic mistake.

*Joe Anji Beckvold

*A prominent colleague of Chinese affairs at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies.

About “Fourn Police”

. History abounds with examples of leaders who turned a blind eye to political geography, which made their countries pay a precious price in the end.