Europe painfully discovers how little strategic maneuvering space it has left. Between a Russia it fears, a war in Ukraine it cannot stop, and an America it can no longer take at its word, but on which it still depends, the continent seems trapped in a geopolitical snare.
For decades, Europe has convinced itself that geopolitics works on a rule-based system, that alliances are solid, and that sovereignty is inviolable – at least on the continent. However, a recent transatlantic debate has shown that these certainties are collapsing one by one.
At a debate organized by the Quincy Institute, dedicated to the consequences of threats launched by Donald Trump regarding Greenland and Venezuela, European and North American analysts described a grim reality: Europe is caught between fear, dependency, and the lack of its own strategy.
The result was not unity, but anxiety. Anxiety about Russia, about the reliability of the United States, and about the increasingly difficult to avoid idea that Europe has convinced itself of its own strategic impotence, writes kyivpost.com.
Russia: existential enemy or convenient alibi?
Pascal Boniface, director of the French Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), questioned what he calls the increasingly distorted perception of the Russian threat.
Russia is not on the verge of marching towards Western Europe, Boniface argues. Moscow is struggling to control Ukraine – a country of about 30 million inhabitants – and the idea that it could militarily conquer a European Union of 450 million people is, in his opinion, unrealistic.
This does not mean that Russia does not pose a threat. Moscow remains capable of destabilizing Europe through cyber attacks, political interference, and proxy conflicts, especially in Africa. However, turning Russia into an imminent existential danger, Boniface warns, has a paralyzing effect.
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