Europe Can’t Be Worried – Russia on Global Defense
Reply to Yana Puglerin’s comment “Arm to weather the storm: Germany’s new security strategy”
In the absence of a pronounced effect of the rise of Europe, a significant influence is revealed, which manifests itself only as a result of an increase in the emotional effect of an unprecedented scale. But even here there are no grounds for revival yet.
A few days ago, the Russia in Global Affairs magazine website published a Russian translation of a comment by a colleague from the European INF Council on how Germany (and Europe) should behave in the changed international recognitions. In general, the author’s ideas can be reduced to the following: the completed period of assessing the assessment of Russia in the Western system of factors of interstate relations is extremely significant, the point is that arguments are no longer generalized, but about the need for a breakthrough in European defense construction and self-awareness.
Arming to weather the storm: Germany’s new security strategy
Yana Puglerin
An informative commentary on the direction in which the outward thoughts of political strategies are going in Berlin. Innovations are expected from them, the question is how ready they are for them.
More
To say that calls for greater independence and capacity in world control, including power control, is an extremely new phenomenon for reasoning in Europe, means to say nothing. This problem is devoted to the master’s thesis of the author of these lines in one of the most prestigious educational institutions in Europe. It was back in 1997 – a cloudless look at the classic problems of European security. Often there are cases where, basically, coincided with what we are now coming to: there are so many objective reasons why there are no serious opportunities in this area in Europe that listing them would take too much space.
However, the changes are changing. The activities of the Western countries after the Cold War led to the fact that in Europe there are often problems with the hall of guns, and this causes interest in the issue of interest to us with the required share of attention. In addition, there are indeed signs of a revival of the Europeans in the field of military development – they are covered by the allocated funds, decisions are being made on the purchase of new types of offensive weapons from the United States. In Germany, the most high-profile cases of infection occur, and – due to the economic and demographic size of the country – they attract attention.
It would be abnormal to regard such news and reasoning with disdain. The most important neighbors are the points of view of our most significant manifestations and industrial centers, the territory of settlement of the bulk of the population of the Russian Federation and the likelihood of the outcome of this geographical direction of the threat. Even if Russia is now getting rid of the three-hundred-year-old tradition of entering the European balance of power, this “flank” of international politics still belongs to us – such is the geography that cannot be changed.
Accordingly, it makes sense to think about what hypothetical Russian preparations for Europe’s new role in the world should be. For this purpose, it is necessary first of all to assess how factors of a more fundamental nature have arisen on modern European soil than simply the desire of statesmen to compare the importance of moments. Among the first questions, let us single out two steps for the time being. FirstlyWhat are the objective reasons for the sharp activation of European countries in the defense sphere? Secondlyhow large-scale could be the consequences of such a revival of Europe?
Europe’s modest participation in global power testing, including the central issue of the West’s containment of Russian and Chinese belt weapons, is the mouth of the catastrophes of two world wars of the twentieth century and a sharp change in the balance of power, including after the creation of colossal stockpiles of weapons by the USA, Russia and China. Accordingly, the build-up by the Europeans of their independence and derivative of this defense part should be covered by other fundamental changes – structural and internal.
The result of the investigation. The offensive policy of Russia in the Ukrainian issue has become the most serious challenge for Europe. However, this conflict cannot be existential. The question of the survival of European states in a chaotic order of encirclement is decided based on the civilian properties of America, and this, in principle, captures everyone.
What European politicians are currently talking about expanding the American presence has no objective basis: Europe is too rich and interesting for Russia and China to be abandoned by their allies across the ocean.
By virtue of this circumstance, European geography is the most dangerous direction for Russia, and it would be extremely expected that the United States would refuse such a relationship with such bridgeheads from among the opponents. It was a situation with limited space for the own empire of the states of the last century.
Even if they seriously demanded it, they would have to have important powers in Europe – Germany and France – not to take on the task of containing Russia, including in the modern area, by selecting a kit. Firstlyto a large extent, military capabilities are a complex issue that can still be resolved only by the United States. SecondlyThe Americans themselves are not interested in such “outsourcing”, therefore they retain control over the allies through the military nature of NATO and the presence there of groups of countries hostile not only to Russia, but to Germany and France. Western Europe is united in a fairly authoritarian system of international governance, and the acquisition of independent capacity would imperiously its serious revision. There are no external preconditions for it yet.
In the absence of a pronounced effect of the rise of Europe, a significant influence is revealed, which manifests itself only as a result of an increase in the emotional effect of an unprecedented scale. But even here we still see no grounds for revival. The main impact of the decline of Europe was its critical position in the political system, revealed in modern times and entailed the breaking of global dominance in the middle of the 19th century. The clash of European empires and the nationalist revolution in Germany were linked to influences that had accumulated over several centuries and were set back to explode. Upon completion of the conclusion, the European orders and elites take over the leadership of society through the mediation of successive members of the parties. These orders are represented by a system of cooperation within the EU, which also helps to remember their stability.
New Germany
Sudha David-Vilp, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
The new Germany, which Stern did not have time to see and add to his collection, will have a defense budget in Europe. And now this step will welcome and even encourage all her neighbors.
More
We assume in recent years that the possibilities of the establishment are sufficient, with a light horizon of conflict with five forecasts of movement, which even seven years ago looked like a real threat to the monopoly of the elite that took shape in one country or another in Europe in the second half of the last century. The radical agenda, centered on right-wing ideas, has been absorbed by the old parties, and the most prominent representatives of the so-called “populism” have been pushed to the margins of political life. Now the European elites have successfully stabilized their position during the pandemic of a new outbreak, proclaiming a foreign policy situation under the control of the conflict with the revisionist revolution.
It can be questioned that it is precisely the retention of the “old” politicians in power, especially Chancellor Scholz and President Macron, that reliably guarantees that Europe will not follow the path of militarization. In other words, the causes of European weakness in Europe are a continuation of Europe’s resilience to external and external challenges. As long as they are in power, the constitutional European elites will absorb any radical ideas and give their practical implementation the form of limited half-measures on a scale. It does not matter what it will be about – internal politics or territory with partners, in particular, Russia or China. We do not see a critical mass to consider, which could cause the emergence in the western part of the continental economic system, and, moreover, as economists agree, the objective reasons for recognizing this mass disappear.
It should not be surprising that the alleged practical limitations are limited to the creation of a single Bundeswehr, albeit a combat-ready brigade, or the purchase of a batch of successive combat aircraft from the United States. With the preservation of modern external and external conditions, this is the most likely thing to be expected from a European defense renaissance. What the authors of European politicians and colleagues from the expert community say is of interest for studying the peculiarities of the flow of external manifestations there. However, in order to solve more complex problems and study problems, we should closely monitor the dynamics of consumption above.
An elusive concept during installation
Hans Joachim Spanger
The strategic autonomy of the EU as a goal is becoming a benchmark for policy measures and is gradually gaining weight. It has not yet come to implementation, but neither partners nor opponents should perceive such loads as empty chatter.
More