Opinion | Ukraine war: an emotional Europe is playing right into the US’ hands

With no exit strategy from the war, backfiring sanctions and rising risks of a nuclear escalation, Europe has effectively ceded decisions to the US

Meanwhile, economic loser Germany’s decision to rearm awakens old fears

Reading Time:3 minutes

A medical worker walks past a burning car after a Russian attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on October 10. Photo: AP

Published: 1:30am, 22 Oct 2022Updated: 1:50am, 22 Oct 2022

As the Ukraine war drags on, I am reminded of the late Yale University professor Nicholas Spykman’s assertion that “whoever rules the Rimland commands Eurasia, and whoever rules Eurasia controls the destinies of the world”.

Zbigniew Brzezinski’s 1997 article “A Geostrategy for Eurasia” is also essential reading for anyone wanting to understand US policy on Europe. The former US national security adviser noted that “Eurasia accounts for 75 per cent of the world’s population, 60 per cent of its GNP [gross national product], and 75 per cent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia’s potential power overshadows even America’s.”

Even though the United States is protected in the east by the Atlantic Ocean and in the west by the Pacific, the mainstream realist American view followed the Spykman line that control of the rimland – the coastal lands that surround the Eurasian land mass – would mean command of Eurasia. This explains why the American leadership in Nato is so focused on Ukraine.

Russia’s decision to invade Ukraine was the US cold warrior’s dream outcome. Western Europe had been drifting away from American influence as it came to depend more on cheap Russian energy. The Ukraine war and damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines mean Europe once again depends solely on the American defence umbrella and is therefore subject to US strategic direction.

Spending time in Europe last week made me realise how emotions are clouding logic in the debate over the Ukraine war.

First, there is no European exit strategy, such as how to achieve peace negotiations, to end the war in Ukraine, which claims lives and destroys infrastructure every day that it lasts. After Switzerland gave up its neutral stance, there is no longer a neutral European agent to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table. The odd middleman is Türkiye, which is a Nato member but with its own differences with Europe.

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