Jeffrey Sachs: A new Foreign policy for Europe

Europe is currently in an economic and security trap of its own making, characterized by its dangerous hostility with Russia, mutual distrust with China, and extreme vulnerability to the United States. Europe’s foreign policy is almost entirely driven by fear of Russia and China — which has resulted in a security dependency on the United States, writes Jeffrey D. Sachs, a University Professor and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, and President of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, at ‘Horizons’ magazine (Serbia).

Europe’s subservience to the U.S. stems almost entirely from its overriding fear of Russia, a fear that has been amplified by the Russophobic states of Eastern Europe and a false narrative about the Ukraine War. Based on the belief that its greatest security threat is Russia, the EU subordinates all its other foreign policy issues— economic, trade, environmental, technological, and diplomatic—to the United States. Ironically, it clings close to Washington even as the United States has become weaker, unstable, erratic, irrational, and dangerous in its own foreign policy toward the EU, even to the point of overtly threatening European sovereignty in Greenland.

To chart a new foreign policy, Europe will have to overcome the false premise of its extreme vulnerability to Russia. The Brussels-NATO-UK narrative holds that Russia is intrinsically expansionist and will overrun Europe if the opportunity arises. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1991 supposedly proves this threat today. This false narrative badly misconstrues Russian behavior in both the past and present.

The False Premise of Russia’s Westward Imperialism

Europe’s foreign policy is premised on Russia’s purported security threat to Europe. Yet this premise is false. Russia has repeatedly been invaded by the major Western powers (notably Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the past two centuries) and has long sought security through a buffer zone between itself and the Western powers. The heavily contested buffer zone includes modern-day Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic states. This region in between the Western powers and Russia accounts for the main security dilemmas facing Western Europe and Russia.

The major Western wars launched against Russia since 1800 include:

• The French invasion of Russia in 1812 (Napoleonic Wars)
• The British and French Invasion of Russia in 1853-1856 (Crimean War)
• The German declaration of war against Russia on August 1st, 1914 (World War I)
• The Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, 1918-1922 (Russian Civil War)
• The German invasion of Russia in 1941 (World War II)

Each of these wars posed an existential threat to Russia’s survival. From Russia’s perspective, the failure to demilitarize Germany after World War II, the creation of NATO, the incorporation of West Germany into NATO in 1955, the expansion of NATO eastward after 1991, and the ongoing expansion of U.S. military bases and missile systems across Eastern Europe near Russia’s borders have constituted the gravest threats to Russia’s national security since World War II.

Russia is not seeking westward expansion; Russia is seeking its core national security. Yet the West has long failed to recognize, much less respect, Russia’s core national security interests.

The High Costs of a Failed Foreign Policy

Russia has not made any territorial claims against Western European countries, nor has Russia threatened Western Europe aside from the right to retaliate against Western-assisted missile strikes inside Russia. Up until the 2014 Maidan coup, Russia made zero territorial claims on Ukraine. After the 2014 coup, and up through late 2022, Russia’s only territorial demand was Crimea, to prevent Russia’s naval base in Sevastopol from falling into Western hands. Only after the failure of the Istanbul peace process—torpedoed by the United States—did Russia claim annexation of Ukraine’s four oblasts (Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia). Russia’s stated war aims today remain limited, including Ukraine’s neutrality, partial demilitarization, permanent non-NATO membership, and transfer of Crimea and the four oblasts to Russia, constituting roughly 19 percent of Ukraine’s 1991 territory.

This is not evidence of Russian westward imperialism. Nor are they unprovoked demands. Russia’s war aims follow more than 30 years of Russian objections to the eastward expansion of NATO, the arming of Ukraine, the American abandonment of the nuclear arms framework, and the deep Western meddling in Ukraine’s internal politics, including support for a violent coup in 2014 that put NATO and Russia on a direct collision course.

Europe has chosen to interpret the events of the past 30 years as evidence of Russia’s implacable and incorrigible westward expansionism—just as the West insisted that the Soviet Union alone was responsible for the Cold War, when in fact the Soviet Union repeatedly pointed the way to peace through the neutrality, unification, and disarmament of Germany. Just as during the Cold War, the West chose to provoke Russia rather than to acknowledge Russia’s wholly understandable security concerns.

Europe’s choice to interpret the Cold War and the post-Cold War from this heavily biased perspective has come at enormous cost to Europe, and the costs continue to mount. Most importantly, Europe came to view itself as wholly dependent on the United States for its security. If Russia is indeed incorrigibly expansionist, then the United States truly is Europe’s necessary savior.

A New Foreign Policy for Europe

Europe has backed itself into a corner, making itself subservient to the United States, resisting direct diplomacy with Russia, losing its economic edge through sanctions and war, committing to massive and unaffordable increases in military spending, and cutting long-term trade and investment links with both Russia and China. The result is rising debts, economic stagnation, and a growing risk of major war, which apparently does not frighten Merz but should terrify the rest of us.

Perhaps the most likely war is not with Russia but with the United States, which under Trump threatened to seize Greenland if Denmark wouldn’t simply sell or transfer Greenland to Washington’s sovereignty.

It’s quite possible that Europe will find itself without any real friends: neither Russia nor China, but also not the United States, the Arab states (resentful of Europe’s blind eye to Israel’s genocide), Africa (still smarting from European colonialism and post-colonialism), and beyond.

There is, of course, another way — indeed a highly promising way, if European politicians reassess Europe’s true security interests and risks, and reestablish diplomacy at the center of Europe’s foreign policy. I propose 10 practical steps to achieve a foreign policy that reflects Europe’s true needs.

First, open direct diplomatic communications with Moscow. Europe’s palpable failure to engage in direct diplomacy with Russia is devastating. Europe perhaps even believes its own foreign policy propaganda, since it fails to discuss the key issues directly with its Russian counterpart.

Second, prepare for a negotiated peace with Russia regarding Ukraine and the future of European collective security. Most importantly, Europe should agree with Russia that the war should end based on a firm and irrevocable commitment that NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine, Georgia, or other eastward destinations. Moreover, Europe should accept some pragmatic territorial changes in Ukraine in Russia’s favor.

Third, Europe should reject the militarization of its relations with China, for example by rejecting any role for NATO in East Asia. China is absolutely no threat to Europe’s security, and Europe should stop blindly supporting American claims to hegemony in Asia, which are dangerous and delusional enough even without Europe’s support. To the contrary, Europe should strengthen its trade, investment, and climate cooperation with China.

Fourth, Europe should decide on a sensible institutional mode of diplomacy. The current mode is unworkable. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy serves mainly as a mouthpiece for Russophobia, while actual high-level diplomacy — to the extent that it exists — is confusingly and alternatively led by individual European leaders, the EU High Representative, the President of the European Commission, the President of the European Council, or some varying combination of the above. In short, nobody speaks clearly for Europe, since there is no clear EU foreign policy in the first place.

Fifth, Europe should recognize that EU foreign policy needs to be disassociated from NATO. In fact, Europe does not need NATO, since Russia is not about to invade the EU. Europe should indeed build its own military capacity independent of the United States, but at far lower cost than 5 percent of GDP, which is an absurd numerical target based on the utterly exaggerated assessment of the Russian threat. Moreover, European defense should not be the same as European foreign policy, though the two have become utterly confused in the recent past.

Sixth, the EU, Russia, India, and China should work together on the green, digital, and transport modernization of the Eurasian space. Eurasia’s sustainable development is a win-win-win-win for the EU, Russia, India, and China, and cannot occur other than through peaceful cooperation among the four major Eurasian powers.

Seventh, Europe’s Global Gateway, the financing arm for infrastructure in non-EU countries, should work together with China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Currently, the Global Gateway is pitched as a competitor to BRI. In fact, the two should join forces to co-finance the green energy, digital, and transport infrastructure for Eurasia.

Eighth, the European Union should step up its financing of the European Green Deal (EGD), accelerating Europe’s transformation to a low-carbon future, rather than squandering 5 percent of GDP on military-related outlays of no need or benefit for Europe. There are two benefits of increased outlays for the EGD. First, it will deliver regional and global benefits in climate safety. Second, it will build Europe’s competitiveness in the green and digital technologies of the future, thereby creating a new viable growth model for Europe.

Ninth, the EU should partner with the African Union on a massive expansion of education and skill-building through the AU member states. With a population of 1.4 billion rising to around 2.5 billion by mid-century, compared with the EU’s population of around 450 million, Africa’s economic future will profoundly affect Europe’s. The best hope for African prosperity is the rapid buildup of advanced education and skills.

Tenth, the EU and the BRICS should tell the United States firmly and clearly that the future world order is not based on hegemony but on the rule of law under the UN Charter. That is the only path to Europe’s, and the world’s, true security. Dependency on the U.S. and NATO is a cruel illusion, especially given the instability of the United States itself.

The European Union needs a new foreign policy based on Europe’s true economic and security interests!

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