Russia-Ukraine conflict: What did Europe do wrong?

After the Russian-Ukrainian conflict broke out, even Europe recognized that it was essentially a conflict between Russia and the United States, but third-party Europe became the main victim.

Strategically, Europe has two main losses. One is that it has lost Russia, an important global geopolitical force.This not only results in a significant compression of Europe's external strategic buffer space, putting it at a disadvantage in the game of great powers, but also because Russia's cheap energy has a considerable impact on the global competitiveness of the European economy and its ongoing re-industrialization.

The second is to become more dependent on the United States. In the past it was just security and now it is also about energy. In particular, the Baltic countries and most Central and Eastern European countries are completely oriented towards the United States, and Europe's integration and strategic independence have been severely damaged.

Economically and politically, Europe not only lost Russia's market, investment and various resources, but also bore the cost of sanctions, aid, and accepting refugees. This has led to high prices in Europe and a sharp decline in people's purchasing power. All this has triggered social unrest and stimulated the rise of extreme political forces, resulting in serious political consequences.

In the 2024 European Parliament elections, anti-EU and anti-immigration far-right populist parties are rapidly rising.Even in Western European countries with a strong democratic tradition like the Netherlands, the extreme right has become the largest political party, while France is dominated by the extreme left and right. The rise of the far right in Europe is even more unstoppable. This directly threatens the survival of the EU.

Originally, from a global perspective, Europe's geopolitical situation was the best: the United States simultaneously contained Russia and China, and all parties actively wooed Europe. Europe could play both sides and benefit from all parties.But in the end Europe became the biggest loser.

Europe fails to learn lessons from history

From the perspective of the history of human civilization, Europe is the region where great power wars occur most frequently. It can be said that Europe has accumulated rich experience in how to deal with war and peace and maintain balance among major powers.But just over 70 years after the end of World War II, a hot war involving major powers broke out again in Europe. The main reason is that European politicians have failed to learn from historical experience and lessons and have made the same mistakes over and over again.

From a historical perspective, Europe's political capabilities reached their peak at the Vienna Peace Conference in 1814 and have been declining ever since.

After Napoleon's defeat, rebuilding European order became the biggest challenge. There are two core issues: one is how to deal with France. The second is how to deal with the threat posed by the powerful Russia after the war.Such a major and complex issue was perfectly solved by the European political leaders at the time.

The first is to adopt a tolerant policy towards France. In the first Treaty of Paris, France not only did not cede territory and pay compensation, but even received the land it had acquired through expansion until 1792. Even its overseas colonies lost in the war were returned by the Allies, and even the cultural relics they had stolen were able to be retained.

There are three main reasons for this. First, the anti-French alliance realized that a country like France could not be divided, and losing a few pieces of land would not hurt its strength, but it would generate huge feelings of hatred and revenge. France, with so many resources, could recover quickly, which would inevitably lead to renewed war. The current approach can reintegrate France into the post-war European system and become a major country willing to cooperate.

Second, the new French government can also establish its authority domestically and gain the support of the people, so that revolution will not easily occur and will not threaten the stability of Europe again.

Third, France is not the only threat to European peace and security. There is also Russia, which defeated France and replaced France. France can reestablish the balance of power without being weakened and play an important role in balancing Russia.

The second is the establishment of a European coordination mechanism, which includes all major powers. History has also proven that Russia has played an important role in maintaining European order in the following decades.

To put it simply, the Congress of Vienna not only turned enemies into friends, but also brought all major powers into the post-war system, thus maintaining peace in Europe for a hundred years.

However, since then, Europe has never had such wisdom. World War I ended with the defeat of Germany and revolution in Russia. At this time, Europe had completely forgotten the successful experience of the Congress of Vienna: it not only humiliated Germany with very harsh conditions, but also excluded Russia from the new order. The result was a huge sentiment of revenge in Germany. The newly born Weimar Republic could neither develop its economy internally nor defend its sovereignty externally. It was infamous and had no prestige, and was soon replaced by the Nazis.

Isolated Russia can only join forces with Germany repeatedly to seek security. In the end, the even greater catastrophe of World War II broke out just twenty years later. All of Europe was in ruins. Europe's dominance of the world was also ended.

Originally, Germany established a republic after its defeat in World War I and formulated the best constitution in the world at that time. If Europe can help it achieve stability and prosperity, and establish the authority and legitimacy of its new institutions, it will become part of the European order. As long as it does not exclude Russia, it will always be able to exert its power to check and balance Germany. But during that period, Europe did exactly the opposite.

After the end of World War II, Europe learned lessons from Germany. First, it adopted military occupation and economic assistance to establish a stable Western democratic system. The second is to integrate Germany into NATO, the EU and the Eurozone system instead of treating it as a threat.

Germany, despite its re-emergence as a world economic power and its eventual reunification, is an essential part of Europe's security and prosperity. However, Europe repeated its historical mistakes towards Russia: Churchill was the first to issue the Iron Curtain Speech, starting the Cold War, and once again excluded Russia.

Only because mankind has entered the nuclear age, there has been no direct hot war, but proxy wars have emerged one after another.

In fact, World War II was very similar to the Napoleonic Wars. One is for France to unify the continent, and the other is for Germany. Both sides invaded Russia under non-aggression treaties, which became the starting point and turning point of their failure. Russia became the most powerful country in Europe after both wars.

However, the Treaty of Vienna was able to integrate Russia into the European system, but it fell into a full-scale Cold War after World War II. What is incomprehensible is that Russia has never tried to unify the European continent, and its strength and threat level were far lower than France and Germany at that time. More importantly, Russia saved Europe twice. However, Europe can incorporate France and Germany into its own system, but it could not treat Russia in this way.

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and Russia, including its institutions, shifted towards the West. But Europe once again made the strategic mistakes it made after World War I. First, it failed to help Russia consolidate its system, especially by refusing to assist Russia when it was in deep economic difficulties.

During this period, the Russian economy shrank by 50%, and financial crises, production crises, budget crises and debt crises occurred one after another. There has been a rare phenomenon in human history of a sharp decline in life expectancy and a decrease in population during peacetime. Only 40% of newborns were ealthy. A once superpower has been reduced to a third world level. In this case, the transplanted Western system, like the Weimar Republic, lost its authority and legitimacy.

Second, it has repeatedly humiliated Russia: it broke its promise and repeatedly expanded eastward, bombed Yugoslavia, which is also a Slavic nation, and supported Chechen separatist forces. In particular, NATO's eastward expansion poses a serious threat to Russia's security.

During the German reunification negotiations in 1990, the then US Secretary of State James Baker made the famous promise to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev who was present at the meeting - "Never expand one inch eastward."

But in 2004, eight countries in the former Soviet sphere of influence joined NATO, including the three Baltic countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.

Before the Russia-Ukraine conflict occurred, four more countries joined NATO in sequence. NATO even announced that Georgia and Ukraine would be included in NATO. Since NATO implements a one-vote veto system, it is easy for European member states to stop it. But apparently Europe has forgotten Metternich’s famous saying: Great powers cannot be humiliated. It also forgets that Russia is the same as France: it cannot be divided, losing ground cannot hurt its strength, and the country will fight back once it recovers.

In fact, Russia did not reject NATO in its early days. In 2000, when Putin first came to power, he proposed to U.S. President George W. Bush to join NATO. He also said, "Russia is part of European culture, and I can't imagine my country being isolated from Europe, or from what we usually call the civilized world." "I want Russia to be part of a safe, stable and prosperous West, because at that time Russia doesn’t have it all.”

Russia's conditions are nothing more than enjoying the courtesy of a great power: being invited to join instead of queuing up to apply like other countries and "as long as Russia's views can be regarded as partners' views on an equal basis." But was rejected.

This has led to two consequences: First, Russia has returned to its traditional politics. Second, the mutual trust that the two sides had finally established under extremely rare historical conditions was lost. It can be said that the end of World War I, World War II and the Cold War gave Europe the opportunity to re-establish long-term peace - after all, Russia was either an ally or turned to the West. However, Europe not only failed to learn from the success of the Vienna Conference, but instead made the same mistakes again and again. mistake. After creating confrontation with Russia, it eventually led to the recurrence of military conflicts in Europe.

This is why geopolitics master Kissinger has repeatedly emphasized that Europe's biggest mistake is not including Russia in the common security system. As Hegel famously said: "The only lesson that mankind has learned from history is that mankind cannot learn any lessons from history." At least this sentence is completely correct for Europe.

Europe makes fatal mistake in Ukraine crisis

Not surprisingly, the EU has repeatedly made fatal mistakes and lacked foresight in dealing with issues related to Russia. It can neither prevent nor end the conflict. As we all know, 2014 was the starting point of confrontation between Russia and Ukraine, the EU has made a huge mistake here.

Ukraine and the EU planned to sign an association agreement in November 2013, but the EU put forward many political and economic conditions.

Merely meeting these economic conditions cost Ukraine as much as $20 billion per year, when its GDP was only $133.5 billion.

Ukraine's fiscal deficit accounts for as high as 8% of GDP (the EU requires it not to be higher than 3%), and a debt of US$15 billion is about to mature. At this time, there is only US$430 million left in the government account. The EU's demands are clearly far beyond what Ukraine can afford.

Still, Russia-backed President Yanukovych said at the time that Ukraine would "do its best" to meet EU demands and he urged parliament to pass laws to comply with EU standards. However, on November 21, 2013, the Ukrainian Parliament failed to pass the relevant bill. As a result, the Ukrainian government had no choice but to announce the suspension of signing the agreement with the EU and turn to economic cooperation with Russia.

Yanukovych has nothing to blame, both in terms of procedures and actual efforts. However, the failure of the negotiations triggered a pro-EU demonstration movement in Ukraine, and the pro-EU western region even declared independence. At this time, as long as the EU handles it properly, it can still avoid the outbreak of the crisis.

Because Russia at that time also hoped to solve the problem through dialogue and negotiation. To this end, it worked with the EU  to make the three opposition parties and Yanukovych reach a compromise: according to the new electoral law, the presidential election will be held in advance in December 2014, a national unity government will be established within 10 days, and the 2004 Constitution will be revised within 48 hours. No state of emergency, an investigation into the violence that occurred during the protests under the supervision of the European Council, the Ukrainian government and the opposition, etc.

It can be said that the Ukrainian government met all the demands of the opposition. Russia's acceptance shows that it is just seeking to save face at this time. And importantly, the United States also expressed support for the agreement, stating that "the focus must be on concrete actions to implement the agreement, and we will pay close attention to this."

On February 21, 2014, under the witness of Russian representatives, French Foreign Minister Fabius, German Foreign Minister Steinmeier and all parties signed the agreement.

Just when the world thought the crisis was over, the agreement was immediately torn up by the opposition: the day after it was signed, on February 22, Yanukovych fled under the threat of opposition supporters. ----A few days later, he said at a press conference that he left Ukraine because the personal safety of himself and his family members was threatened.

Congress removed him from office on the same day.

What Russia cannot accept is that a democratically elected president it supported was overthrown not by votes but by violence. Second, the agreement that the EU participated in mediation and co-signed turned into waste paper in an instant.

What is even more unacceptable to Russia is that this behavior is supposed to be a challenge and humiliation to all signatory mediators, but the entire West pretends to be deaf and dumb and does not even condemn it. The United States, which originally claimed that it must implement the agreement, said nothing.

Of course, Russia suspects the role of Europe and the United States behind it. Thus began a long conflict, and the EU eventually paid a huge price for all its actions and did not know when it would end.

After the full-scale conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out in 2022, the West strongly condemned it and imposed comprehensive sanctions on the other. But those who are familiar with European history know that conflicts in Europe are far from being as simple as black and white.

For example, the origin of the Crimean War that broke out 150 years ago was the result of France's initiative to get rid of the constraints imposed on it by the Vienna System and break the Anglo-Russian alliance: France deliberately used religious issues to "put pressure" on Turkey. Turkey, which was in conflict with Russia, understood this well, but despite its strong protest, it actively cooperated and successfully induced Russia to get involved.

When Russia woke up and wanted to compromise and withdraw, Turkey rarely refused. It eventually became a war between Britain, France, Turkey and Russia, and France also achieved its strategic goals.

What needs to be said is that after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine broke out, Russia sought to negotiate with Ukraine when a quick resolution could not be achieved. Under the mediation of Turkey, Russia made great concessions and the two sides quickly reached a consensus.

This was Europe's last chance to avoid a war. However, according to Arakhamiya, the parliamentary leader of Ukrainian President Zelensky’s party, in an interview with domestic media “1+1”, he said: “During the negotiations, then British Prime Minister Johnson arrived in Kiev and told Ukrainian officials to continue fighting and not Sign any agreement with Moscow”.

In May 2022, Johnson described his disruptive role in peace talks in Istanbul as reported by the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrainska Pravda.

In addition, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also exposed for the first time in a nearly five-hour interview with the Israeli media "Channel 12" the process of his shuttle between Russia and Ukraine in early March 2022 to pursue peace negotiations between the two sides.

Although Putin and Zelensky made concessions and agreed to negotiate. He also communicated the progress of mediation to France, Germany and the United States, but was ultimately vetoed by Biden. No matter what the positions of France and Germany were, they obviously failed to stop the United States.

Bennett's statement also confirmed the speculation of many experts: The United States wants to use the Russo-Ukrainian war to bring down Russia under Putin. Today's Europe, in the era of great power competition, has found it difficult to dominate and defend its own interests, and has therefore become a battlefield and victim of the competition between the Anglo-Saxon civilization and Russia.

This is the reason why today Europe has repeatedly become a gaming field for major powers and cannot control its own destiny. To get out of this dilemma ,in addition to complete integration and strategic autonomy, Europe must also consider how to mutually beneficial coexistence with Russia.

After all, Russia is so big that there is no place where the enemy can deliver a fatal blow, and no blow can greatly weaken Russia's strength. The current policy of confrontation between Europe and Russia has no end or future at all. From an interest perspective, without Russia there would be no security in Europe, and it would be difficult for Europe to achieve strategic independence, which would seriously affect its economic competitiveness. 

Editor | Qing He

Design | Demi