Three Recent Seismic Geopolitical

Changes That Have Flown Under The

Radar and What They Mean For
European Identity

I’m writing this as Russia’s war with Ukraine enters its 100th day —
a bleak milestone in the conflict that brought 75 years of peace on
the European Continent to an end. The war continues to dominate
headlines and news feeds throughout the world, and so it should,
but this ongoing flow of information from the most documented
conflict in history has meant that a few other fundamental changes
in Europe’s direction have been missed by those not keeping an
eagle eye on the news.

Three changes stand out, each of which was triggered by Putin’s

invasion of Ukraine. That’s not to say that other seismic shifts have
occurred in parallel, but we’ll focus on what these changes are, why
they’re significant and what it might mean for the European Project
and the continent’s identity in the near future.

German rearmament

German rearmament is arguably the most significant of the three

changes. Pacifism has become deeply rooted in German society in
the post-World War II years, driven partly by a sense of historic guilt
and partly by a reimagination of new national pride that isn’t based
on strength of arms and superiority over others. After bringing mass
destruction to Europe and the world on two separate occasions in
the first half of the 20th Century, Germans have been keen to
distance themselves from that history and prove that there is more
to their country than imperialist conquest and subjugation of other
nations.

Not only this, the US and Russia spent the latter half of the 20th
Century in a delicate dance of bringing Germany into the NATO and
Warsaw Pact spheres whilst preventing it from becoming too strong.
Both nations were aware that whoever held influence over Germany
in the post-World War II years would be in the strongest position to
spread their ideology throughout Europe. Germany really was the
frontline in the Cold War. But following two World Wars started by
Germany, both nations were also acutely aware that if they
strengthened Germany too much there was a distinct possibility that
it could rise up for a third time, so the rebuilding of Germany was
done carefully and with calculation.

German policy for a long while has been to not send weapons into
active combat zones — prior to Russia’s invasion they pledged only
helmets and hospitals to Ukraine. They’ve also taken marginal roles
in NATO conflicts in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia and typically left
European Security policy work to Britain and France. Germany has
both self opted, and been encouraged, to favour soft power.

However, on February 27th 2022 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz

announced what has been described as a 180-degree turn in German
foreign policy. He himself called it a Zeitenwende — a watershed
moment. Starting as soon as possible, Germany would make a 100
billion Euro investment in its armed forces and increase its military
spending to greater than 2% of its GDP to meet NATO requirements.
To put this into context, Germany will now have the world’s third
best-funded armed forces after the US and China.

Germany has turned its back on its recent past exercising soft
diplomatic power over military intervention. It will be much harder
to do this going forward with one of the world’s best-funded fighting
forces available for deployment. Germany may begin to take a more
proactive role in future geopolitical events than it has been willing to
since its reunification.

It also ties Germany, and with it Europe, even closer to the US. This
money will have to be spent somewhere, and the Germans have
already signalled that a lot of it will be put towards buying US-built
F-35 jets and Chinook helicopters. With a stronger Europe behind it,
the US could become more emboldened with its ambitions beyond
the security of Ukraine — in places like Taiwan for example. This
risks the eruption of an even larger scale and more destructive
conflict than the one happening now.

Sweden taking a side

Sweden had a rough 18th and early 19th Century. Its arch-nemesis,
Russia, invaded Finland (then held by Sweden) in 1808 — a war
which the Swedes lost. Sweden was forced to cede the territory to
Russia, leading to an internal coup d’etat in 1809. Active
involvement with the Allies against Napoleon three years later saw
Swedish armies again fighting, this time in Denmark and North
Germany. Immediately after the Swedes invaded Denmark, they
secured Norway as a result which was recognised at the Congress of
Vienna in 1815. In the space of six years, they had lost Finland,
gained Norway and taken part in three major wars. They’d had
enough, and declared neutral status.

In another 180-degree move, a second former major European

military power has completely flipped its foreign policy. On May
18th 2022, Sweden filed for NATO membership, bringing its 207
years as a neutral to an end. Sweden’s move is massive for a country
that has pursued pacificity since the early 1800s — a stance that
endured through two world wars.

Bringing this country of 10.3 million people into NATO is a seismic

shift in the alliance’s ability to dominate the Baltic Sea — a key
strategic European arena. The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and
Lithuania are largely thought to be Putin’s next target given their
Soviet history. However, a NATO presence in the Baltic with Sweden
actively involved completely changes the balance of power in the
region and will surely make Putin think twice. With Finland joining
as well, NATO’s European border with Russia has doubled in size
and completely overhauled the dynamic between the alliance and
Russia across the whole of Europe’s Northern Flank.

Putin has said that he won’t sit idly by as Sweden and Finland join
NATO. He has threatened to militarise the border in response (with
questionable effectiveness given the Russian Army’s lacklustre
performance in Ukraine), however this likely won’t be limited to
conventional military forces. There is a strong possibility that Russia
begins staging nuclear weapons in its territory east of Finland,
reducing current ICBM flight time to US cities on the Eastern
seaboard.

Switzerland throwing its lot in with the EU

Switzerland’s neutrality dates back to the same year as Sweden’s,

following Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.
Napoleon abdicated for the second time after this defeat, signing the
Treaty of Paris which also included the convention of Switzerland’s
neutrality. The Swiss managed to maintain this status through the
two World Wars in Europe and have not taken part in any military
conflict since 1815.

Then on February 23rd 2022 Switzerland’s President Ignazio Cassis

announced that the country would be joining the EU in imposing
sanctions on Russia, citing “an extraordinary situation where
extraordinary measures could be decided”. Switzerland had taken a
big long stride into camp Europe. This was particularly significant
due to its role as a financial hub, giving the country a fair amount of
leverage over oligarch assets.

Switzerland hasn’t gone as far as to start providing weapons or

equipment to Ukraine but has demonstrated strongly which side it is
behind in the conflict and the fact that it is willing to take a side.
This only provides extra weight to the international condemnation
Russia has faced since it started its invasion. The move has
demonstrated to other despot leaders that there is only so far that
they go before even historic neutrals also get involved, which may
deter other future attempts of authoritarian expansion or oppression
in other parts of the world.

What does this all mean for the European Project?

War as a thing of history

Europe is going through another phase of changing identity. For

centuries, from the 1400s to mid-1900s, Europe has been a
continent of internal power struggles and war. Firstly Protestant and
Catholic empires battled over rights of succession, all whilst keeping
the expanding Ottoman Empire at bay. A series of revolutionary
wars epitomised by Napoleon’s France followed through the 1700
and 1800s as an increasing number of European nations opted for
greater people’s representation in politics. These conflicts
culminated in the World Wars of the early 1900s, pitting the great
European Empires against each other across the globe.

Europe was spent. It was split down the middle between the
influences of capitalism and communism as the US and USSR
scraped over the ruins of post-World War II Europe. A new direction
was needed if the continent was going to move forward. Europe’s
identity changed with the creation of the European Union, founded
by the victorious Western European states. The continent’s identity
rapidly switched from one of centuries of competition and war to
one of cooperation and peace.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its influence in Eastern Europe
saw an expansion of the EU and its collaborative ideals to take in
many of the former Warsaw Pact countries. Europe entered its
longest period of peace in its history. Wars were a thing of the past.
Countries opted for democratic ideals and integrated markets to
solidify this peace. The experiment was working.

The first fractures

But fractures started to appear in the early part of the 21st Century.
Sovereign debt crises in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, caused by
the 2008 financial crisis, put pressure on the European economic
project, leading to bailouts (and much resentment) from the more
prosperous nations like Germany and France. There was a
resurgence of right-wing populism in the mid-2010s in the face of a
huge influx of refugees into the continent from countries like Syria
experiencing civil wars, coupled with major terrorist attacks in
places like Paris and Brussels. Then in 2016, the EU was set to
contract in size for the first time ever when one of its earliest
member nations, Great Britain, voted to leave the European Union.

The European identity was lost. The dream of union, democracy and
peace seemed to have reached its limit. Maybe the utopian idea was
too much in the face of the realities of bringing together millions of
different people and cultures under the same banner? Europe
needed something new.

Enter Vladimir Putin

Nothing quite brings about domestic unity like a foreign threat. This
is something that has been recognised throughout human history, to
the point where leaders in precarious positions at home have used a
foreign war to rebuild their bases of support. Putin’s invasion of
Ukraine has come at the ideal time for a European continent that
needed a new direction.

With Germany’s rearmament and NATO’s expansion, Europe is

consciously transitioning from a bloc of peace to one of open
military power. It is taking sides. Interestingly, it is a very different
war-ready Europe from the one of the past. Previously, Europe at
war meant a continent where the nations that comprised it were
fighting each other internally. The new Europe at war is one of a
united continent that can project power externally. This is a huge
change. There was always a reluctance amongst European nations to
create an army alongside the EU, but with NATO’s recent expansion
they don’t really need one — NATO is the proxy European Army that
is buoyed up by the US’ massive defence bill.

Will Europe become more assertive with this newfound military

strength? Will it be more willing to back up its ideals in its sphere of
near-influence? Will we see more interventions locally (similar to
what happened in Libya) in places like Syria, Israel or the Caucasus?
Europe is going to be in a position to flex its muscles abroad, and it
remains to be seen how restrained it will be in the next few decades
if its mutual interests come under threat.

Do people in Europe want this?

Putin forced the European hand pretty quickly, but do people

actually want this? It’s hard to tell. On the one hand, countries that
feel most threatened by Russia are the ones who are driving the
unity and solidity conversations the most. Ukraine has been pushing
to fast-track its EU membership bid, and the Baltic states continue
to push for a greater NATO presence within their borders.

But on the other, we’ve seen recently how some of the founding
members of the EU (and NATO) have begun to turn their backs on
the European project. Firstly Britain, with its referendum to leave
the EU. It would be interesting to see the result if that referendum
had happened against the backdrop of the Ukraine war. Secondly,
France’s Macron narrowly won the recent French presidential
elections against the ever-popular right-wing Marine Le Pen, who
makes no secret of her admiration for Putin. Macron would have lost
the election if over 60s weren’t allowed to vote — something which
doesn’t bode well for the longevity of his base of support.

The question of longevity

A stronger Europe comes at the expense of reduced national

sovereignty. As Europe continues to grow ever closer, evolving and
drifting away from its founding EU ideals, it remains to be seen how
much longer the people of each individual nation are willing to
tolerate surrendering their own identities for greater hegemony. As
soon as the Russian threat is no longer apparent will the European
project collapse? Or will it find a new crisis to respond to, and a new
identity to adopt? Time will tell.