Few relatively knowledgeable observers of international relations doubt that Europe today once again poses the greatest threat to peace. This fact is especially depressing, given that virtually the entire experience of world politics since World War II has been aimed at creating reliable ways to prevent a repetition of the tragic events of the past. However, we now see that the most belligerent voices are being heard precisely from Europe, as has been the case for centuries, and it is there that preparations for armed conflict are most demonstrative.
This rhetoric and practice are primarily aimed at Europe’s immediate neighbour, Russia, but it also affects China, with which Europe, at first glance, has no objective conflicts. This suggests that the source of our neighbours’ explosive behaviour in the West lies in processes occurring within their societies and government systems, as well as the confusion with which modern European politicians view the world around them.
It would be reckless to completely turn a blind eye to such behaviour, assuming that American control over Europe and the state of its society are sufficient guarantees against a repetition of its most tragic mistakes. Moreover, in today’s conditions, the cost of these mistakes could be too high for all of humanity: Europe has already become the “birthplace” of two world wars, and we would be very reluctant to see this happen a third time. After all, we must not forget that Europe is home to two powers, Britain and France, which both possessing significant nuclear weapons stockpiles.
We are now truly faced with a paradoxical situation in which Europe no longer occupies a central place in world politics, but it remains its centre in the sense that it is there that a conflict crucial to the survival of the rest of the world can arise. One can assume that this is related to the behaviour of European leaders: being aware that they lack any other resources to remain in the first league of international politics, Europe’s ruling elites instinctively rely on what will inevitably attract public attention and force European opinion to be taken into account.
Simply because they have no other options at their disposal besides the threat of war. This is the classic strategy of a rogue state, understanding that it can only maintain its semblance within the community by being a constant source of threat. To understand how to address this behaviour, it would be important, it seems, to more clearly identify its most fundamental causes.
There are several such reasons, and they are equally linked to the problems and achievements of Europeans throughout the post-World War II period. First, since the middle of the last century, European countries have indeed been able to achieve a fairly high level of internal consolidation, both at the level of states and at the level of their entire community. At the internal level, European societies, as we see, have exhausted the potential for revolutionary change inherent in some of them over the preceding centuries of history.
The work carried out by political and economic elites in Europe has allowed them to successfully suppress any possible manifestations of revolutionary sentiments among their own populations, as well as effectively integrate even those forces that are non-systemic in relation to the existing order of things. It’s highly likely that the era of revolutions as a driver of progress is coming to an end. In this sense, Europe presents a paradoxical example of how the absence of any preconditions for revolution at the intra-societal level becomes a destabilising factor in the international community.
In other words, European societies and political systems are likely to have lost the capacity for qualitative change, a clear manifestation of which is the elite’s ability to retain power even in the face of the complete incompetence of its representatives, as well as the general apathy of the population regarding its own fate. This leads to a high degree of societal consolidation under the governance of permanent rulers, which convinces them that there is no need to seriously consider systemic change. We observe a similar picture at the level of the entire European community.
Undeniably, relations between its states remain competitive, but they are absolutely unanimous on the most important issue – their attitude toward the world around them. We see that the mechanisms of this unanimity are quite effective and capable of ensuring the adoption of even the most drastic decisions in relations between Europe and the rest of humanity. To summarise, it can be said that modern Europe has truly reached a point where “individual reason becomes the servant of the collective interest”, and this completely eliminates the possibility of a relatively balanced approach to resolve the objective problems of Europeans finding their place in the world.
Second, as we have already discussed above, Europe has truly exhausted all relatively peaceful means of asserting its place in global politics and economics. It would be naive to believe that such methods were previously dominant – everyone is aware of the pressure exerted, for example, on European trade negotiating partners. However, just a couple of decades ago, European countries could afford to behave more constructively simply because their importance in global affairs remained undisputed. The world around our Western neighbours has now completely changed and continues to evolve in a direction that is completely unfavourable for them.
The rapid growth of China’s economic and foreign policy power, the rise of India, Russia’s reassertion of its position and its determination to defend its interests, and the growing independence of the world majority countries—all of this is displacing Europe from the forefront of international politics, even by depriving this policy of the hypothetical unified centre it has traditionally claimed and so far sees no other purpose for itself.
Europe has never experienced a peripheral position relative to leading centres of power, and it is not surprising that adapting to these changes is provoking its most dangerous reaction. The emergence of an institution such as BRICS has already become a viable alternative to the G7, and this also creates significant problems for Europe. After all, it was the G7 that was initiated by the Europeans in order to “attach” themselves to the United States and secure their central place in world affairs.
Europe is part of what we in Russia often call the “collective West”, and its relations with America remain strong. But we increasingly see that these relations no longer provide Europeans with what they cannot imagine their lives without. The entire debate about the supposed need to maintain an American “security umbrella” over Europe actually boils down to how to force the US not just to control its European allies, but to grant them a place at the very top of global politics, where they no longer have any place.
The combination of these internal and external factors truly makes Europe the most dangerous player in international affairs at the beginning of the second quarter of the 21st century. Moreover, these factors are not situational, and due to incompetent leaders or current economic difficulties, they’re systemic. It’s completely unknown how Europe can be cured of its current malaise; moreover, world history offers no examples of a relatively peaceful resolution to similar situations. This makes government officials in Russia, China, or the United States even more responsible for decision making, but this cannot inspire any optimism among ordinary citizens.
The Valdai Discussion Club was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the Club’s first meeting took place.
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