For Antena M by: Miljan Vešović
“During the Munich Security Conference, I was asked why I was so gloomy” - tweeted recently the Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Gabrielius Landsbergis. In the same tweet, he continued: “Well, someone has to tell it like it is, so here is how it is – things are not going well”.
Landsbergis was referring to the security situation which will, to quote him again “get worse in Ukraine, in the rest of Europe and possibly globally”, if we (meaning the Trans-Atlantic community) don’t “shock ourselves back into action”. He continued that “Ukraine is starved of ammunition and forced to pull back, Europe is facing challenges which might test Article 5 (of the North-Atlantic Treaty) and global instability emerges because autocrats are emboldened by Russia’s action and our cautious response”.
Landsbergis’ simple conclusion to this series of tweets was: “This is not pessimism, this is fact”.
Lithuanian Foreign Minister’s “gloominess” about the European and global security situation is unfortunately shared by many people in the know from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The thinking goes like this – the only way to stop Russia from prevailing in Ukraine is to aid Ukraine with increasingly sophisticated and deadly weaponry for an undetermined amount of time.
If, Russia, however, prevails in Ukraine, the next Putin’s move will be to test NATO’s resolve to act upon Article 5 by attacking one or more vulnerable allies. The “two Bs” (the Baltics or the Balkans) would probably be the first in the line of fire. If NATO’s reaction is not sufficient, that will be the end of peaceful and safe Europe for a long, long time. The reason for it is that alliances are dependent on their credibility – as soon as adversaries stop believing an alliance will act, they will pounce, regardless of the capabilities of an alliance. This is especially true for authoritarian, expansionistic regimes like Putin’s.
This line of thinking is, however, not shared by everyone. Both in Europe and in the U.S, there are dissenting voices, people from all sides of the political spectrum that claim that there are merits to Putin’s arguments that Russia was treated badly, that Ukraine should unequivocally have been kept out of prospective membership in NATO, and that the peace deal between Ukraine in Russia, by which Ukraine will cede parts of its territory to Russia, might be the best and most desirable outcome of the war in Ukraine.
These days, this sort of arguments resonates especially well among the supporters of former (and perhaps, future) U.S. President Trump. They are in line with Trump’s “transactional” view of foreign policy and alliances, and they are further promoted by Trump’s sometimes incendiary campaign rhetoric -for example, he stated that if he is President, he’ll “make Russia and Ukraine stop fighting each-other in one day” and that he’ll “invite Putin to do whatever the hell he wants” to NATO allies who still do not spend 2% on their GDPs on defense.
Trump’s bluntness is definitely not helpful to calm the frayed nerves in Europe. However, it is important to acknowledge that some of his positions have merit. It is true that European allies were neglecting their defense for decades, counting on United States to bail them out militarily if the push came to shove. When it comes to spending, the situation is now getting better – 18 NATO allies (including Montenegro), out of 31, will meet the 2% defense spending threshold by the end of this year. European allies are ramping up their capacity to help Ukraine as well – for example, it is expected that, by this time next year, European factories will be able to produce enough munitions and artillery shells to cover most of Ukrainians’ needs.
However, the problems still remain. It is not enough to just increase one’s military capability – countries also need to have the political will to use it. Lack of the political will has traditionally been a big problem for Europeans and the situation is similar now. For example, out of all European allies, only United Kingdom has, so far, joined U.S. in the operation “Prospective Guardian”, which protects the Red Sea shipping routes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen. This despite the fact that attacks on commercial shipping lanes hurt everyone, and that European allies such as France, Spain or Italy have sufficient naval capabilities to contribute to the operation.
All this points out to a conclusion that a new proliferation of hastily proposed plans for Europe to became independent, security wise, from the United States (plans spurred by fear of Trump’s victory at US elections in November) will lead to the same outcome as its previous iteration. In the short to mid-term, Europe is incapable of defending itself. The sooner European leaders accept that fact and adjust their position towards their key security guarantor, the United States, accordingly, the better.
Moreover, it is realistic, not sentimental, to say that Europe owes a historic debt to the United States, for being an absolutely essential factor in liberating Western Europe from Nazism and defending it successfully for more than forty years against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The good way to repay that debt would be for Europe to take a more active role in helping the United States contain and ultimately defeat the next (possibly) emerging superpower – China.
It is true that European allies have sharpened their position towards China recently. However, the notion that Indo-Pacific is too far and Chinese money too enticing is still damagingly strong in Europe. Not long ago, French President Macron publicly stated that “Europe must resist pressure to become America’s followers” on China. This, much more than percentages of GDP spent on defense, is the harmful line of thinking that might damage Trans – Atlantic alliance the most, regardless of whether Biden, Trump or someone else is sitting in the White House.
When it comes to Ukraine, proponents of helping Ukraine from both U.S. and Europe (to whom the author also belongs) should be doing a better job persuading the opponents why it is necessary for the aid to be continued, and also presenting what the plan is and what the endgame is. The best argument for continued help to Ukraine is the defense of rules-based international order which is the key for economic prosperity of both America and Europe and which Russia wants to destroy.
The worst argument possible is to point fingers and call everyone who oppose further aid to Ukraine a “Russian puppet”. This is not the way to persuade people, especially people whose votes you need to grant the aid package. To go out in public and claim that, Putin and Xi aside, the biggest security threat is still climate change is not the way either – it is like saying to a 30 years old person with a gun
pointed at their face that the biggest problem they are facing is that they might die of cancer at age 70.
On the other hand, it is also crucial to acknowledge that American isolationism and/or dealmaking with Putin favored by populist right and left-wing voices from both sides of the Atlantic can seriously hurt both European and American interests. Especially harmful is the idea that the U.S. should ignore Russia and concentrate on China. It is true that China is, long term, stronger threat to world’s democracies than Russia. However, there is a key difference between two revisionist powers. China still believes it is strong enough to challenge the West within the existing world order and win the ensuing competition. Hence Chinese still present caution to make moves that can truly destabilize the world.
Russian regime, however, is perfectly aware that it is no match for the West – militarily, politically or economically, and that it doesn’t have the means to reshape the existing world order to its liking. Therefore, it aims to destroy it, which makes Russia much more immediately dangerous for global peace. To paraphrase the famous economic “Prospect theory” – Chinese leaders are more risk averse, as they still believe they can win. Putin is risk – prone, as he knows he is losing, long term.
However, if China sees Putin risking everything and getting away with it, they’ll become more risk – prone too, in Taiwan or elsewhere.
It is also important to recognize that, while Trump’s rhetoric about NATO spending might be understood as a ploy to show Europeans some “tough love” and make them spend more (which is a welcome development), his unpredictability, short attention span, recklessness, penchant to break institutions and admiration he often expresses for world’s “strongmen” can be extremely corrosive for alliance – building. All these can be described as introduction of populism to foreign policy – an area that is uniquely incompatible with populist way of thinking.
This weaponization of foreign policy for domestic purposes has never served Western leaders well (Munich Agreement and Vietnam War are famous historic examples) and usually led to victories for authoritarian powers and historical discreditation of Western leaders who presided over such policies. The same might as well happen to Western right and left – wing populists of today.
The long – term solution for the global security crisis is the Trans – Atlantic unity. Whenever the Trans – Atlantic community stood united, the values it defends prevailed and the world was a stabler place. The future stability of the world depends on the ability of Western leaders, in Europe and in the U.S. to recognize this fact and accept that, despite personal and ideological differences, the continuation of Trans – Atlantic unity is in everyone’s interests.
It is, however, highly uncertain that the current set of sitting and prospective Western leaders is capable of that. We will hazard a guess – this, much more than some shell shortage in Ukraine, is the real reason for “gloominess” of Lithuanian MFA and other foreign policy and security decision – makers and experts. This is the reason why we are writing this rather long article as well – some in Montenegro might wonder why the comings and goings of the wide world should concern us here. It should not be, however, forgotten - if the world burns, Balkans and Montenegro will be the first, or among the first, in the line of fire. Just like we always were.
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