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The current state of discussions about the future of European defense is heading in a similar direction to the post-2012 discussion...
The Europeans invented the art of strategic diplomacy, but they seem to have forgotten most of it. The Russians, on the other hand, still have some of it. We read a long interview in Komsomolskaya Pravda with a Russian strategic thinker, Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and editor-in-chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs. What interested us more than his predictably one-sided stance on the war in Ukraine was a sharp observation about the EU. He said that the current geopolitical situation favors countries with top-down political decision-making systems, such as those of the US, China, and Russia. Political structures like the EU have difficulty making strategic decisions in such environments.
We see this as a fundamental problem, because there is no solution that we can have. The only hypothetical solution would be to turn the EU into a political union. It would be an understatement to say that there is no majority needed for this. The bigger problem is that there is hardly any support for this.
This became clear during the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. After Mario Draghi used the ECB’s balance sheet as a blanket deterrent, we saw interest in fiscal union suddenly fade away. Economists were drafting their technical proposals. The EU unveiled a legal mechanism to raise common debt, which they used for the Covid recovery fund. But this was only a one-off financing instrument that created a flow of debt, not an equity.
Even if these instruments were refinanced and officially classified as sovereign, the EU would not have the power to collect sovereign taxes and issue debt. Even if they were considered sovereign, it would only be so because it is ultimately national.
The current state of discussions about the future of European defense is heading in a similar direction to the discussion after 2012. At a recent conference in which various European experts discussed Europe's future defense architecture, the consensus was that joint procurement would be unrealistic. They have already given up on war.
In almost all categories of defense procurement, Russia not only spends more, but spends more efficiently. Russia also brings more innovation. We find it ironic that Europeans appeal to realism in defense of policies that have absolutely no chance of success.
Like all Russian commentators, Lukyanov is biased in his commentary on current affairs. But he is accurate in his characterization of the EU. The way the EU is constructed, it cannot pursue strategic interests. For its original creators, this was a feature, not a defect. The EU, like its bonds, is sub-sovereign by design./ Adapted from “Pamphlet” by “Eurointelligence”
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