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

Andrew Sheng

Published: 1:30am, 22 Oct 2022

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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.

Second, the economic sanctions against Russia have backfired, with European households paying more for energy and therefore facing higher inflation, while Russia’s exports have recovered with much less economic damage than expected. The International Monetary Fund forecasts that the Russian economy will shrink by just 3.4 per cent this year, compared with a 35 per cent drop in real gross domestic product for Ukraine.

Third, the more advanced military equipment Nato gives Ukraine, the more brutal the reaction from Russia and the higher the risk of a nuclear outcome. Both sides think it would be suicidal to use nuclear weapons, admit that accidents are possible, but claim the other side would not dare to use them. This irresponsible drift to escalation makes me think of physicist Richard Feynman’s report on the 1986 Challenger space shuttle fiasco – he found the engineers’ estimate of the chance of failure was about 1 in 100, whereas Nasa officials claimed it was about 1 in 100,000.

Fourth, as costs begin to mount in terms of a looming recession and higher inflation, more thoughtful European leaders are waking up to the uncomfortable prospect of a protracted war in Europe with no end in sight, and a situation in which the final decision-making on their security has already been passed to Washington. In effect, in defending the sovereignty of a non-Nato member, namely Ukraine, they have lost the sovereign power to decide whether to end the war.

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Fifth, the biggest economic loser is Germany, as the largest manufacturing and surplus economy in Europe, since the war has cut off its cheap sources of energy and it faces a loss of markets, including potentially to China as a result of sanctions. At the same time, Germany’s decision to re-arm awakens fear in other European nations which remember how the project of the European Union was to bind Germany into peaceful coexistence.

The Ukraine war, therefore, is a war fought within Eurasia that will decide whether Eurasia can decide on its own security.

Eurasia, as a continental mass, has enough food and energy for all, except that resources are not divided equally. Geographical space was complicated by emotional space, as neighbours fought over religion, race or tribal concerns that often defy logic. Continental Europeans remember how Britain, an offshore island, kept playing divide and rule so no European power could challenge the British empire. History seems to be repeating itself with the US playing the same game.

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All this raises the question of whether any nation-state can be totally sovereign in an interrelated world. All International Monetary Fund members know that when they get into trouble financially, they have to cede sovereign decisions to the fund to get financial aid. Small countries that have powerful neighbours know they cannot act against their neighbours’ interests without costs. Realistically, no sovereign country is totally independent in an interdependent world.

Ukraine’s fate today is to fight to the last man. When that happens, there will be no principle left to defend. If we take that logic to nuclear war, what is the moral worth of defending one’s sovereignty when everything can disappear in a nuclear annihilation?

As long as emotions run high, the war will continue. Cold logic for peace can only come when everyone is looking at paying the ultimate price for the foolishness of senseless slaughter.

Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective