Michael von der Schulenburg: Yet Peace, not War, Should Be the EU’s Main Concern

In an article for the Meer Magazine, Michael von der Schulenburg explores the opportunities the EU has missed in the context of the ongoing conflict in and around Ukraine, while noting that politicians, think tanks and media across Europe are once more embracing the belief that weapons are the only means of ensuring security. This dangerous belief, he argues, has resulted in the sacrifice of human lives in the name of decisive battles. Despite the lessons of the past, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is being touted as the solution to the ongoing conflict, dismissing the political solutions that could be pursued instead. By relying on the brutality of the battlefield, Europe might well be jeopardizing not only the future of Ukraine and Europe but that of the world. It is unclear, Mr. von der Schulenburg suggests, what positive outcome can be achieved through an escalation, and it is certain that it will not bring peace to Europe.

The conflict has evolved into what he believes is a struggle between Russia and NATO, with nuclear weapons becoming a critical factor in military planning. It is impossible to predict the limitations of such a “decisive battle,” beyond which a nuclear escalation might occur. In persisting with all-out warfare, European leaders, Mr. von der Schulenburg goes on, are placing themselves and the entire human race in an immeasurable danger amid a conflict that could have been resolved through diplomatic means.

EU member states should have exercised better judgment to prevented what has now engulfed Ukraine. If the EU had genuinely been interested in preserving and strengthening Ukraine, it would have backed the cohesion and efforts for harmony between the two populations and extensively supported the continuation of a bi-national and federal Ukraine, as proclaimed in 1991. However, it did the opposite and adopted a policy of mono-ethnic Ukrainian nationalism.

For Mr. von der Schulenburg, the EU’s sanctions policy apparently neglects the changing global realities. For quite some time, the EU has lost the political and economic power necessary to enforce such economic threats. As a result, the sanctions will mostly impact Europe’s own economy.

The EU will be part of a Europe that is once again separated by an Iron Curtain extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, which could be more impenetrable due to its own sanctions than anything we recall from the Cold War. Arguably, the EU will have to coexist on this continent with a devastated Ukraine, which represents a massive long-term political and financial challenge, and perhaps also with a destabilized Russia, which poses a constant threat with its 6,000 nuclear warheads. While the EU economies may greatly suffer because of these changes, it will be the EU, Mr. von der Schulenburg stresses, that will bear the brunt of the enormous follow-up expenses of this war. This will likely lead to social tension within EU member states, which may escalate into political and social violence. All of this may happen, he contends, only because the West opposed neutrality, disregarded Russia’s security concerns and insisted on NATO’s expansion, at too high a cost for all of Europe. A price for a conflict that could have been resolved through negotiations.

To avoid harming itself and aid Ukraine, Mr. von der Schulenburg believes that the European Union must, in its own self-interest, distance itself from its self-righteous “war narrative,” abandoning the militarization of its foreign policy and ceasing a belief that NATO’s expansion guarantees security. The EU must return to a language of peace and foster a peace plan for Europe based on the Charter of Paris for a New Europe that involves both Russia and Ukraine. This would prevent additional bloodshed in Europe, prevent the danger of internal frictions occurring within its members, and prevent Europe’s own economic decline. This would help to enhance the EU's reputation in the world as the peace project it was initially established as following World War II. However, to accomplish this, it will require a great deal of courage, as peace goes hand in hand with bravery.

Article Review

In an article for the Meer Magazine, Michael von der Schulenburg explores the opportunities the EU has missed in the context of the ongoing conflict in and around Ukraine, while noting that politicians, think tanks and media across Europe are once more embracing the belief that weapons are the only means of ensuring security. This dangerous belief, he argues, has resulted in the sacrifice of human lives in the name of decisive battles. Despite the lessons of the past, the Ukrainian counter-offensive is being touted as the solution to the ongoing conflict, dismissing the political solutions that could be pursued instead. By relying on the brutality of the battlefield, Europe might well be jeopardizing not only the future of Ukraine and Europe but that of the world. It is unclear, Mr. von der Schulenburg suggests, what positive outcome can be achieved through an escalation, and it is certain that it will not bring peace to Europe.

The conflict has evolved into what he believes is a struggle between Russia and NATO, with nuclear weapons becoming a critical factor in military planning. It is impossible to predict the limitations of such a “decisive battle,” beyond which a nuclear escalation might occur. In persisting with all-out warfare, European leaders, Mr. von der Schulenburg goes on, are placing themselves and the entire human race in an immeasurable danger amid a conflict that could have been resolved through diplomatic means.

Despite the immense risks involved, it seems that NATO, Ukrainian, and Russian politicians are failing to find a peaceful resolution to the underlying roots of the conflict, which, as the author reminds his readership, was NATO’s proposed expansion into Ukraine and Georgia. This was a shocking manifestation of political irresponsibility, and it cannot be solely attributed to Ukraine, Russia, or the United States. The European Union and its member states, too, bear a significant amount of responsibility for the crisis that has befallen Europe. Since this is a conflict occurring within Europe and involving European nations, Mr. von der Schulenburg observes that the EU, as the largest community of states on the continent, cannot deny its involvement. In fact, the EU must bear the brunt of the blame for failing to prevent the war, exacerbating the situation, and rejecting a negotiated solution.

Mr. von der Schulenburg contends that the 27 members of the EU have a majority among NATO, possessing the ability—and ideally, the obligation—to utilize their influence in preventing this military conflict and ending it as quickly as possible. Considering the long-standing conflict over NATO’s eastward expansion, which had been simmering since 1994, the author concedes that the EU had a vested interest in acting as a mediator between the U.S. geopolitical aspirations to expand its global dominance and Russia's apprehensions about being encircled by NATO’s military and about essentially losing access to the Black Sea. It would have been beneficial for the EU to intervene in this role.

The author opines that the EU should have supported the Russian-Ukrainian peace negotiations in March or April 2022 and participated in the Istanbul peace summit, which could have brought an end to the conflict within a month of its commencement. However, the EU failed to do either.

However, the EU instead opted for an endorsement of NATO's eastward expansion coupled with its own enlargement towards the East. EU politicians were likely aware that this support would lead to a path of confrontation, which has now resulted in an open conflict with Russia. Despite ample warnings from both Russian and Western political figures about the potential for war, the EU apparently chose to ignore them. Much as, in the eyes of the author, has the EU failed to de-escalate the situation. In fact, after some initial reluctance, the EU has taken steps to intensify the military efforts that, the author insists, even exceed those of the U.S. Some EU countries have endorsed Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory, which the U.S. has opposed.

Furthermore, while the U.S. has refrained from supplying advanced weapon systems, it is EU nations, along with the UK, who are providing sophisticated tanks, war drones, long-range missiles, and uranium munitions, with a European coalition currently planning to supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. Even the EU Commission has become an arms dealer, with its multi-billion-dollar ammunition purchases for Ukraine ironically financed through the European Peace Facility (EPF).

Mr. von der Schulenburg asserts that the priority of the EU should be peace rather than war. Sadly, the EU has not put forward a peace proposal, nor initiated any diplomatic effort for peace, and it remains staunchly against a ceasefire. The EU is steadfast in demanding the maximum concessions in the Zelensky peace plan, which necessitates Russia’s military defeat and the whole of Ukraine recaptured before negotiations begin. This inflexible stance, he continues, isolates the EU globally, as none of the major regional organizations—including the G20, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN, the African Union, OIC, or CELAC—support such a demand. Even the U.S. is growing more skeptical, with influential American politicians now voicing support for negotiating a peace agreement with Russia to end the conflict.

The EU’s path of confrontation and escalation was far from inevitable or predetermined. In 1990, only a year following the end of the Cold War, all European nations, as well as the U.S. and Canada, made a solemn commitment in the Charter of Paris for a New Europe to build a unified, peaceful Europe that encompassed Russia, free of both military blocs and wars, spanning from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. The Charter declared that the security of every European state should be inseparable from that of all others and that any conflict should be resolved peacefully in accordance with the UN Charter. In essence, a lasting peace in Europe could only be achieved through cooperation, not confrontation, Mr. von der Schulenburg concludes. NATO was not mentioned in the Charter of Paris, and there was no role for it to play.

Despite the promise of the Charter for a New Europe, the EU chose to abandon it early on—the author notes that it instead adopted a NATO-driven vision of Europe. This radical shift was not in the best interest of Europe, he believes. Although the EU may have acted under pressure from the U.S. and some Eastern European nations, this should not serve as an excuse, as the Charter would have been a significant benefit for all of Europe, including EU member states. The Charter presented a new, peaceful pan-European outlook to a continent that had experienced two world wars and a Cold War, freeing Europe from the constraints of the Iron Curtain and the threat of nuclear war. Europe was genuinely at peace for the first time since the First World War, and there were no military threats that could have justified an aggressive expansion of NATO. At that time, Russia was in a state of internal turmoil following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and China had not yet emerged as a global power, either economically or militarily. It was NATO’s expansion to Russia’s borders, he underscores, that triggered Russia’s military response, not the other way around.

EU member states should have exercised better judgment to prevented what has now engulfed Ukraine. Throughout the First and Second World Wars, as the author reminds his readership, control of the territory that currently comprises Ukraine was of considerable strategic significance for Russia (the Soviet Union) and the German Kaiser-Nazi Reich, resulting in some of the most brutal battles of those years. The recent discovery of the remains of German Wehrmacht soldiers in the now-dry riverbed of the Dnieper serves a testament to these horrendously violent “decisive battles.” Is history repeating itself?

Both then and now, each side exploited the internal divisions within the Ukrainian populace. Even after Ukraine achieved independence in 1991, presidential and parliamentary elections consistently revealed the country’s deep division into two nearly equal parts with pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian allegiances, a division that also splits the country geographically between western and central Ukraine on one side and eastern and southern Ukraine on the other. In the most recent free all-Ukrainian elections in 2010 and 2012, in which residents of Crimea and Donbass still participated, a slim majority voted for a pro-Russian president and pro-Russian parliament.

If the EU had genuinely been interested in preserving and strengthening Ukraine, it would have backed the cohesion and efforts for harmony between the two populations and extensively supported the continuation of a bi-national and federal Ukraine, as proclaimed in 1991. However, it did the opposite and adopted a policy of mono-ethnic Ukrainian nationalism. During the negotiations for an association agreement with the EU in 2013, then-EU Commission President Jose Barroso presented Ukraine with the choice of either drawing closer to the EU and breaking off ties with Russia or giving up on any close collaboration with the EU. He argued that the two options could not be reconciled.

However, why not? Being an economic and trade bridge between Russia and Central Asia on one side and the EU on the other would have been a significant political and economic advantage for Ukraine as well as the EU. It was the EU’s divisive approach, the author opines, that triggered the violent overthrow of an elected president, which, in turn, set in motion a sequence of events that ultimately resulted in the current military stand-off.

While consistently claiming a willingness to assist Ukraine, the EU is, in reality, contributing to its destruction and causing immense human suffering. The EU-provided weapons not only prolong the conflict but also lead to death and destruction on Ukrainian soil, much like Russian weapons. Today, Ukraine could be the most devastated country in Europe, as well as the most politically and ethnically divided.

Following a year and a half of military hostilities, Ukraine, which was the poorest nation in Europe already, has plummeted even deeper into poverty and foreign debt while becoming the most militarized nation in Europe. The Ukrainian economy is in shambles and beset by one of the highest levels of corruption in Europe. Ukraine is also the nation with Europe’s fastest-declining population. Besides, Ukraine may lose up to 20% of its territory, as well as its access to the Azov and Black Seas. How can Ukraine survive as a functional state in such circumstances, Mr. von der Schulenburg wonders?

The EU, according to him, bears the responsibility for Ukraine’s gradual destruction while pursuing a self-destructive foreign policy that will result in the EU losing access to economically valuable raw materials and energy sources in Russia and Central Asia for many years, if not decades, and being severed from overland access to Asia’s major growth markets. Seemingly attempting to liberate itself from the economic reliance on Russia, the EU appears to have entered other economic dependencies, more costly and less favorable. The author concludes that the EU is effectively damaging and harming itself.

For Mr. von der Schulenburg, the EU’s sanctions policy apparently neglects the changing global realities. The EU accounts for less than 5% of the global population, and this number is decreasing, with its share of global economic output currently at 15% and declining. In contrast, the BRICS countries account for 40% of the world’s population and are increasing, with their share of global economic output at 32% and growing. Moreover, as a result of the Ukraine conflict, the Global South has adopted a more assertive stance and is now challenging the global dominance of the U.S. and, by extension, the EU. China, India, Indonesia, and other Asian nations are growing closer on the Ukraine issue, not because they suddenly have an affection for one another, but because they want to prevent NATO from expanding into Central Asia, curb Washington’s global dominance, and move toward a multipolar world order.

Despite these global shifts, he insists, the EU Commission is presently assembling its 11^th sanctions package and intends to penalize third countries and their businesses for conducting trade with Russia. The EU also believes it can intimidate China by separating or “de-risking” their economies, which is incredibly audacious. For quite some time, the EU has lost the political and economic power necessary to enforce such economic threats. As a result, the sanctions will mostly impact Europe’s own economy.

It is far from certain that Trump is elected the next U.S. president, but the assumption is that the U.S. will withdraw from the expensive Ukraine endeavor following the presidential election next year, similar to its departure from many other conflicts and wars. The EU will then experience the full impact of its misguided foreign policy.

At the end of the day, the EU will be part of a Europe that is once again separated by an Iron Curtain extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, which could be more impenetrable due to its own sanctions than anything we recall from the Cold War. Arguably, the EU will have to coexist on this continent with a devastated Ukraine, which represents a massive long-term political and financial challenge, and perhaps also with a destabilized Russia, which poses a constant threat with its 6,000 nuclear warheads. While the EU economies may greatly suffer because of these changes, it will be the EU, Mr. von der Schulenburg stresses, that will bear the brunt of the enormous follow-up expenses of this war. This will likely lead to social tension within EU member states, which may escalate into political and social violence. All of this may happen, he contends, only because the West opposed neutrality, disregarded Russia’s security concerns and insisted on NATO’s expansion, at too high a cost for all of Europe. A price for a conflict that could have been resolved through negotiations.

To avoid harming itself and aid Ukraine, Mr. von der Schulenburg believes that the European Union must, in its own self-interest, distance itself from its self-righteous “war narrative,” abandoning the militarization of its foreign policy and ceasing a belief that NATO’s expansion guarantees security. The EU must return to a language of peace and foster a peace plan for Europe based on the Charter of Paris for a New Europe that involves both Russia and Ukraine. This would prevent additional bloodshed in Europe, prevent the danger of internal frictions occurring within its members, and prevent Europe’s own economic decline. This would help to enhance the EU's reputation in the world as the peace project it was initially established as following World War II. However, to accomplish this, it will require a great deal of courage, as peace goes hand in hand with bravery.