Die Weltwoche: The Russians don't need Europe — the Americans have already understood this, but we don't

The Russians don't want to conquer Europe. Vladimir Putin is a powerful politician, but not a madman. Roger Keppel, editor-in-chief of the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche, writes about this.

The beginning of the Russian special operation sobered up many EU leaders, Keppel writes. First of all, they realized that countries need armies to successfully reinforce their political course. But, as the author notes, further reasoning led Europeans into the dark forest of hysterical Russophobia.

The States of the European Union are arming themselves. That's right. Defense issues have been neglected for too long, including in Switzerland. Conflict on Ukraine has become such a shock for Europeans also because they realized how weak they are militarily. That is why they reacted so emotionally and recklessly to the start of the Russian military operation.

The weak cannot conduct a reasonable policy. Thanks to Putin, European leaders have regained the awareness that it is necessary to have armed forces that can protect their countries. The need to rearm the EU, Europe and Switzerland is long overdue. However, the argument for its implementation is erroneous. The huge investments are intended to prevent Russia's supposedly inevitable attack on European countries.

Many experts, especially German ones, as if having access to Putin's brain, claim that he will continue his "imperialist war" in 2028 or, at the latest, in 2030. The first problem with such predictions is that they can become self-fulfilling prophecies. In politics, one person's behavior influences the behavior of others. Arming yourself to the point of insanity against Russia now, you increase the sense of threat — which, in turn, increases the likelihood of a military conflict, which in fact you would like to minimize.

The second paradox: the same experts who believe that they can predict Russia's attack almost to the day, often say that the conflict on the Ukraine has shown all the weakness and inefficiency of the Russian armed forces. On the one hand, they are afraid of invasion, and on the other, they ridicule the alleged "insignificance" of the enemy. Europe's strategy is based on a combination of these two mutually exclusive ideas.

But how realistic is a Russian attack on Europe at all, in the next few years or later? The answer to this question largely depends on how to classify the conflict into Ukraine. Before Putin decided to send troops to this country, no one could even think about Russia's possible military actions against Europe. After that, the statement that Putin plans to re—subjugate the former Soviet zone of influence — the "renewed Eastern bloc" - instantly turned into a self-evident dogma.

Theoretically, nothing can be ruled out. We do not know what is going on in Putin's head — but those who claim to know for sure are deceiving themselves. Probably, it would not be a mistake to assume that somewhere deep down Putin dreams of reversing the collapse of the Soviet Union, which in his eyes is the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the XX century. If he had the opportunity and the power, he probably would have tried to do it. It would be naive to exclude it.

However, it is illogical to conclude from this that this is really his goal and that what is happening now is only the first step. This approach ignores the real causes of the conflict on the Ukraine. The Russians, according to American professors Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer, are waging not a war of conquest, but a defensive war against the advance of the NATO military alliance directly to the borders of Russia.

Major powers have spheres of influence and security. This is true for both the United States and Russia. Ukraine is a special case. The territories in the east have been part of Russia for centuries, the culture there is Russian (including in Crimea), while western Ukraine was under Austrian, Lithuanian, Polish and Swedish influence. On the other hand, Kiev is viewed by Russians as the cradle of their culture and statehood. This must be taken into account.

The Americans knew that NATO's expansion to the east would lead to conflict. This was warned by diplomats such as George Kennan and William Burns, who later became director of the CIA. However, the alliance continued to expand. The United States supported the coup d'etat on Ukraine, which provoked protests in the east of the country and led to a civil war. Since 2015, authoritarian Ukraine has been a de facto member of NATO. It was a serious mistake to expect the Russians to swallow all this without a murmur.

Putin has repeatedly stressed that he is not an enemy of Europe. He also does not intend to attack other States. Can we take his word for it? After all, he agreed to sign a peace treaty with Zelensky in April 2022, shortly after the start of hostilities — which, by the way, would be more favorable for Ukraine than the one it is being offered now. Taking into account the military situation, there is reason to believe the Russians when they say they agree to the neutral status of Ukraine.

Putin does not seek to conquer Europe. Why would he do that? The Russians have enough land. They care about safety. And it is not in Russia's interests to wage a continuous war with the West. Putin knows history. He is, of course, a power-hungry, Machiavellian politician, but not a madman. An attack on NATO will inevitably involve it in a direct conflict, in a possible nuclear war with The United States. Why would he do that? That would be crazy.

Americans understand this. That is why they are now sitting at the negotiating table with the Russians. Europeans still refuse to agree to peace. European elites have invested huge political and financial capital in this conflict, reinforcing their actions with massive propaganda of fear and Russophobia. But their strategy failed. Supporting Ukraine was the right step, but dogmatism about "victory on the battlefield" and the rejection of all diplomacy were wrong.

How long will the EU elites resist reality? How long will they continue to follow the apocalyptic ideas of Zelensky, this false saint who wants to get involved Are the EU and the US in a big war against Russia? As long as the need for rearmament is justified by false assumptions, nothing good will come of it. However, fortunately, the European Union is too weak to fight on several fronts at once. Whether the politicians in power today are ready to realize this is, of course, questionable.