The war in Ukraine is tearing the European Union apart. This is the thesis of Bálint Ablonczy’s article published on June 7, 2022. The author is not alone in his pessimistic prognosis. Similar opinions have been floating around on both sides of the Atlantic in recent days. Note by Robert C. Castel.
These seemingly pessimistic articles are in fact unduly optimistic and wishful. Those crying over the harmony of European security policy are wailing over a baby that has not even been conceived.
The war in Ukraine cannot tear the Union apart, as the article quoted suggests, because, in matters of national security, Europe has always been and remains a geographical concept.
Rather than the angry moralizing that accompanies support for the war in Ukraine, it would be worth considering, from a realpolitik perspective, what common ground can there be between Continental and Mediterranean Europe?
Continental Europe will forever remain a cold refuge in the shadow of Eurasia looming menacingly over it.
In contrast, the threat to Mediterranean Europe, from a historical perspective, was not Eurasia, but Continental Europe. Now, as Germany sets out for the umpteenth time to build the largest army on the continent, the sense of déjà vu is becoming increasingly uncomfortable on the southern side of the European mountain range.
For Mediterranean Europe, the future of great power and energy beckons not from beyond the Alpine-Carpathian line, but from the eastern and southern shores of Mare Nostrum.
The French language does not seek to implement soft power to colonize the Polish-German plain, but Sub-Saharan Africa.
When Jacques Chirac spoke of preserving France’s status as a great power, he did not see the key to this in Alexander Nevsky’s ice fields, but in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Continental Europe is a demographic rear-view mirror. At the same time, the demographic future of humanity lies beyond the Mediterranean.
For Continental Europe, fossil energy is nothing more than a piece of cheese in a Cyrillic-lettered mouse trap.
For Mediterranean Europe, energy is a return to colonies that, contrary to popular belief, were never liberated but merely put on a long monetary leash.
But what then of the idea of a united European defence force? Obviously nothing. The French nuclear arsenal could have been made light years ago via a simple European administrative decision. If no time has been found to do this over the last 30 years, it is unlikely that it will ever happen.
The idea of the European Union was born out of American cognitive stinginess.
In the context of the Cold War, who had the patience to decide whether it would be Slovakia or Slovenia, Budapest or Bucharest. The Cold War has long since yellowed in the pages of history books, and nowhere does it say that the alphabet soup we concocted during that conflict — NATO, the EU, etc. — was the optimal response to the geopolitical challenges of the 21st century.
The new geopolitical constellation, including the crisis in Ukraine, is whetting the appetite for new types of alphabet soup.
New soups will appear, even if not on the same menu.
