5 EUROPE‘S ROOM FOR SELF-DETERMINATION
The importance of the EU
One (traditionally Western) way to view reality is this: The West has, up until now, been the exclusive group of countries where individual people, as singularities of the population mass, are defined as individually autonomous (free) and with civic rights reflecting and guaranteeing that. The state exists to protect society from external threats and from internal crime. In other places of the world, the state seems to have some kind of “purpose of its own” beyond this. People there tend to live either in more collectivist cultures where protection of a non-individualistic (sometimes religious – or even nationalistic) moral is the mentioned purpose, and/or under autocratic rules where individual freedom is held back to the favor of either far left wing ideological or far right wing ideological state paternalism at best, extreme left wing or extreme right wing oppression at worst.
Another way to view reality is this: Even where individualistic freedom is a cultural ideal and even a real possibility, far from all individuals reach a maturely individuated psychological functioning. The herd instinct isn’t dead within the West, and it may even act unwittingly on behalf of the Western freedom-ideology on false pretence. Not all people living under the cultural ideal of individualism grasp what that truly means, and they may use their rights to vote to support their incoplete understanding of it. Western nations, as collective, majority ruled entities (where “crude consequence” is often necessary to use for politicians to attract embrace by a cross section of the people), has until now in effect acted as though (aggregated on the state level) only half individuated. Our states may act as though our culturally conditioned (non-individualist) “consensus-subjectivity” should be valid as objectivity for other nations, because “only we have freedom and democracy”. This is a mechanism of collective self-righteousness, and its sentiment may even merge with forms of patriotism bordering on nationalism. True individualism taken also in the sense of “psychological freedom” does not need self-righteousness. It rejects the or any herd instinct.
So, if the Western freedom ideology is founded in individualism, we should take precarious care to stay consequent. We should beware that our “freedom and democracy” is not understood by others as an ideological “purpose of the state” too, because we front it in the same way ideologies are typically fronted, namely with a struggle for expansive influence. From the outside, it can even come to be viewed as a sort of post-colonial semi-colonialism with an attemptedly moral/moralizing justification. The lack of individuated functioning (on an individual and thus also on an aggregate state level within a popular democracy) is also one reason why democracies can be unstable, if the people does not know better than to elect a government that either secretly or not so secretly wants to do away with democracy, such as in the case of Hitler.
Politicians exaggerate truth (some even deny it) all the time, to italicize themselves in the struggle for winning support, or out of immaturity of convictions concealed by the package of an attractive person of great eloquence and self-conviction. “Contempt of politicians” is quite wide spread in western Europe. One instinct among some in the traditionally protestant part of Europe is to take charisma as a warning sign: “Why do – you – seek stage room, peacock?”. This may be healthy, it may increase the chance that we “see through” them (those among them that are the most important to see through). It might be more crucial to avert “positive error” (those we think are healthy to democracy that are not) than “negative error” (those we think are not healthy to democracy that are).
The top leaders of non-democracies, however, are not better when it comes to exaggerating og denying truths than politicians within democracies, but their exaggerations and denials stand in no way to be corrected domestically, which also means it can sometimes be brought further. When that happens, that is not rarely one element of the history behind power that the West brands “dictatorial”. In autocracies, the top leaders of different countries often act seemingly as though equals and may thus even seem as though they were intersubjective towards each other, but that must not reflect how they relate to their own populations. They must not act as equals towards them, which is what western Europeans would claim must be the top priority.
By autocratic forms of rule, a people that is inexperienced with democracy may naturally sense their nation to be equal in terms right to national autonomy and sovereignty and experience it as a threat if foreign powers condition these rights to a foreign ideal of democracy. They look for “trickery” in the West’s own narrative about democracy as the reason for our Western attitude of having wanted change in foreign countries, so to speak, as a block-based, semi-colonialistic power-behaviour by the use of “values” and purported moral as sly means, not rarely causing western morals to be disawowed. Thus, for many people in “the wide world”, autocracy may seem more reason based and just than democracy, maybe while even sensing: Democracy is shifting, unpredictable, even “unsafe”.
More than popular democracy being an “elegant system” (which is it often not), it is a system that is meant to protect individual freedom and civic rights as a value based “highest priority”. The motives for inventing democracy were never related to foreign policy or geostrategy, it was always solely domestic. Legs and arms wavering outside the national borders as an effect, and hence branded as foreign policy, was an inavoidable side effect.
Democracy is a “built” supposed to make it impossible to threaten the values of individual freedom and civic rights domestically, because the people craving those values can correct any ill-conceived course perpetually. Western democracies (at least some) try to better those builts perpetually, successively closing any remaining weaknesses still making the builts fragile, by making amendments to the constitutions.
The real problem for a democracy (a problem that is bigger the less “overworked” the constitutions is as expression of learning from the past) starts when the values upon which it is built, of individual freedom and civic rights are not yet / no longer either internalized sufficiently well or understood sufficiently well by the electorate populace. They can then either more or less unwittingly elect candidates who tries to hinder the “corrective power” of the people if these candidates are able to successfully “sell” a false public image that they are not doing so. This is easier the less “enlightened the population is”. Therefore, as a side note, this is probably a reason that a very strong, universal education is paramount to any single democracy’s chances of long term survival as that.
Some heads (for instance also in Russia) will quite simply watch out for the following – and for nothing else: Are you an own global pole or are you a country that needs to seek affiliation via a “superior” in order to cover your own needs militarily. If you need a superior, you are per definition in need of being treated as part of that superior power’s interest sphere, and your domestic set of “values” do not then concern us; your excitement about your freedom-ideology and democracy does not concern us, but is merely a domestic egocyncracy inherent to your country at the present time in the ages of history. If there are shades of grey as pertains to military self-sufficiency, then power-willing global parts will seek to strengthen their status as independent poles with a fight over “whose lap” in which those incapabable of an independent status as a pole finally land.
“Each body [cf. atom; quantum] strives to become master of space in its entirety and extend its power (- its will to Power) and to reject everything that opposes the extension. However, it constantly encounters equal strivings from other bodies and ends up arranging (‘uniting‘) with those being sufficiently similar: – Thus, they aspirere to power together. And the same process ensues.” (Nietzsche, posthumously 1901, in The Will to Power, Book 3, #363)
“I beware talking about chemical laws. It is much more about a setting of power relations. The strong becomes master of the weaker which cannot fight through its independence. Herein is no mercy, no sparing and even less respect for laws.” (Nietzsche, Posthumously 1901, in The Will to Power, Book 3, #630)
Transferred to both domestically political and international geo-political realities, this chemical analogy is not a reality description that peacefully minded, non-colonialist, non-expansivist democracies favoring intersubjective solutions to problems would agree is a “necessary fact of the world“. It imples that the “humanitarian humanity” of which the democratic state sees itself as an aggregate, is not only removable, but impossible not to remove. That seems a bit pessimistic and resignated. However, even if the chemical analogy is true only as an “incidental fact of the world”, we must adapt our understanding to it. If we ignore it as an incidental fact of the world, we may become victim to it. The present situation surrounding Greenland illustrates it.
“He who cannot obey himself will be commanded” (Nietzsche, 1883, in Thus spoke Zarathustra, Part 2, about self-conquering)
If anything, within this framwork, the nations of the EU is “arranging with those being sufficiently similar” (similar enough that intersibjectivity works fairly well even with low effort/will to it), but many of us in Europe would dispute that this, at this point in history, happens because our countries oppose each others’ mutual extension with a relatively eaqual strength like some type of pressure boiler reminiscent of the past Europe that consisted of multiple colonial powers, and many of us would also despute the existence of an a priori European wish to aspire to power combined in the sense of thus becoming “masters of space” in its entirety – together.
Contrary to Western European short term memory, Russia actually seems to have wished to see us as sufficiently similar to it and hence be part of Europe after 1991, but they have sensed a Western power rejecting anything that opposes Western extension. Thus, we need to differentiate “the West”, no longer speaking of it as one size, and maybe even be willing to lay that term “the West”dead as a pan-European concept, without thereby ending our friendship with the Americans.
Even a subjective, Russian perception that they are being “ganged up” against would, paradoxically, be reduced if we as countries of Europe achieved actual unity (cf. a more significant degree of federalization). The great challenge is to do this in a manner that retains full democracy. Politically, culturally, economically, and miliarily, the EU is the one thing that realistically can make us (Europe) less vulnerable. The purely military (and flawed) defence alliance NATO cannot.
It is not an illusion, but true. We in countries in Europe presently have freedom and democracy. If we should regress to autocracies, not only would we lose our individual freedom (freedom essentially includes the right to political participation to fight for all other rights and freedoms, should they become threatened), but we would also not profit from it in any other thinkable way. We would then be small, non-essential autocracies in the sphere between other and greater global poles’ interplay as “bears”.
One thought is that military EU forces throughout Europe would be better than NATO forces. It would have a certain chance of being respected as a “fledging united Europe’s” military, rather than as the militaries of single nations having both excluded Russia and “ganged up” on Russia and potentially seeking increased power singularly.
However, a common European reason for scepticism towards EU-forces is that it could be seen to threaten or potentially threaten the sovereignty of the member states if it is to replace national militaries. A future, supernational misuse of the supernational power against the member states’ right to autonomous self-determination could be imaginable.
An additional reason for scepticism to the idea of military EU forces, however, is that it could be sensed as a new threat to Russia, superseding that of NATO, making attempts at bettering relations more difficult.
Maybe it is not necessary to form an EU army. It may be enough to increase the amount of common practicing, introduce one common command language (maybe a newly invented one?), and letting military equipment be the same throughout the EU. The best tank-maker must equip all EU-countries with tanks. The best fighter-jet producer must equip all EU-countries with fighter-jets, etc. If the need to defend the EU arises, then various EU-countries forces could more easily take on roles akin to divisions of single army.
There could be a – latent – central EU command that is pre-chosen democratically, but safely anchored in meritocracy, within the EU-parliamentarical framwork and that is pooled from the multiple national militaries. Single EU-countries should have a reservation right against the central EU command being actuated for their country’s military if they see the EU’s course as deeply misguided (we don’t want to make the EU a majority dictatorship of nations), but not thereby a veto-right on behalf of all others.
The central EU command could be activated legally only if the EU needs to defend itself from invasion, and must be constitutionally forbidden on the level of the EU’s constitution ever to invade others. It can be discussed if it is also to be used in the event of existential threats to the USA and Russia, in the support of their self-defence, in light of those two countries contributions to European freedom in WWII.
If a single EU-country violates or provokes a non-EU part without consulting with the EU, they may lose the right to be defended by means of actuation of the central EU-command, and if a single EU country invades a non-EU part, it may be expelled from the EU altogether and may risk facing the central EU command in solidaric co-defence of the violated part.
The central EU command must not be used to intervene in civil wars within the EU, since it is always a question of partisan subjectivity which part breaks the constitution – or breaks it more (if all abided by it, civil war should be impossible), and a losing part may thus attribute the loss to unjust EU intervention (cf. foreign influence). An exception may be civil wars resulting from what obviously resembles an attempted coup (judges are some places instructed to use a 90% probability overweight to convict) or one-sided overthrow of the pertinent nation’s constitution. That is, if the nation in question has ratified an EU-constitution describing the legality of such action in such cases.
The central EU command may, at any rate, be used to – forestall – civil wars in the form of it sending EU peace keeping forces to be emulsificated with national forces if the formally correct level of government of any single EU country threatened by civil war asks for it before an ill development has gone too far to make it viable as a mending tool. That would lend the threatened EU-country some time to overwork constitutional shortcomings peacefully. The EU centrally may also present a clear reccomendation to a single member country to allow this, if a danger is seen more clearly from the outside than from the inside.
The EU should consider letting the central EU command have nuclear weapons (at least tactical ones) at its disposal not owned by any single EU-member (or co-owned by them). That could potentially safeguard the EU against an Armageddon-type invasion scenario in the far future. The most cold headed strategists will say you need strategic nukes to make the threat of semi-conventional use of tactical nukes believable when facing a malign superpower. Otherwise, the malign superpower may say: “We nuke you strategically if you use your tactical nukes”.
A bigger role for European countries with the strongset degree of legitimate reasons for concern?
Central Europe (here broadly defined, but inavoidably involving Germany as both its primary weight and its center), whose interest in peace with Russia may the most easily transcend Russian suspicion of it being politically ideological or something else other than simply wanting “peace in the neighborhood” should, without the USA (and maybe even without the nuclear powers France and Britain), talk to Russia.
The exchange should take the form of a not prejudiced, but openly intersubjective debate, and be focused among other things around the principle of the “nation state”. That concept refers to how geographical lines separating language and national identity-sensation should correspond one-to-one to national state boundaries, and was fully articulated by the german philosopher Johann G. Fichte. The debate should focus on what the Kremlin’s thoughts are concerning this topic of how just and stable borders towards their western direction would need to look like. We must be authentically interested in the reasons for the Russian position, while retaining the right to differ by presenting counterarguments.
First, all of this should be debated purely principally and hence, hypothetically, in a European situation imagined so as if NATO could be removed from “the equation”.
After that, more realistically and pragmatically, one must also talk with Russia about NATO, and about the – existential value – for Europe of having a “such a defence alliance”.
We must present the following to Russia: If we were not granted to have NATO or something like NATO, then what should our analogically sound defence assurance be? Russia is, after all, threateningly strong against any single of us.
It could, in a possible future, even be an order that also included Russia, given that Europe trusts Russia to respects all neighbours’ fully sovereign autonomy within their own borders. That trust, however, has now suffered.
Hence, the Kremlin must also see the normality of our need for increased defence budgets due to a “threatheningly big war” conducted by a nuclear superpower directly in our neighborhood. Otherwise, they expect more trust from us, then they feel able to give us – as a matter of inconsequence. They arm themselves heavily.
Simultaneous increased arming in Europe should not be seen as “militarization”, not more than Russia’s own increased armament is seen as “militarization”. We should resist resorting to any kind of subjective moralization about this, always taking the form of self-righteousness and using subjective morality-sensation to create double standards. We all become militarily stronger. If we find a way to be friends, that can even be a good thing.
Becoming friends may require, as the very first step, that we see both sides able to settle on borders that both side sense as both just and intended indefinitely stable. We cannot (and should also not wish to), however, by any means pressure Russia into viewing itself as a nation state, for instance if they want to define themselves as a multinational empire within their pre-stabilized borders. The USA is also not a nation state, and we neither should nor could ever moralize the USA into changing that.
A border between Russia and Ukraine based on “the nation state principle” could nonetheless be discussed. That would make the Ukraine a nation state. Moreover, it might be suspected that Russia hedges motives reminiscent of nation state sentiments to include Russian speaking populations in Russia rather than leaving them inside states in which they will constitute a minority vulnerable to democratic practices of low quality. Thus, maybe many Russians can understand our nation state motive and ideal.
Our “heroic no” said to Russia should be uttered if Russia in the future unilaterally and with power or threats of power seriously challenges the nation state principle’s right in Europe, including all nation states’ full autonomy in decision making. There can be no true nation state principle if one nation says to another “I accept your nation state status as long as you don’t decide this thing or that thing”.
Thus, our counteroffer must be to make extremely sure on our part that we never overtly or covertly communicate that same thing to Russia as a block. We must also be willing to offer to Russia to hold strongly onto our own autonomy and not to yield for the pressure of any “bear” (The USA being the most pertinent example) against a Russian offer no longer to expect smaller neighbors to abide by them as though Russia was “bear-like”.
We can neither know nor pretend to normate when Russias “heroic no” to us – should – be said. That is the most challenging flip side of true intersubjectivity. As mentioned, we must continually listen as much to what the Russians have to say, as we transmit out views to the Russians.