If between two countries there is trade and economic relations and reciprocal gains, then they will stop making war and peace will be consolidated. This axiom has based much of Western politics after World War II. But the war in Ukraine has unexpectedly broken this model.
The EU and Russia have founded a large part of their relations on energy exchanges. But it has not been enough to prevent Russia from first attacking Ukraine and then declaring some kind of crusade against the West. And the Europeans have been taken by surprise, because their habitual scheme, one of their identity traits, has fallen.
Ivan Kratsev, president of the Center for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, who participated this afternoon in the first day of the Cercle d’Economia meeting, is a ruthless analysis.
Krastev believes that Putin invaded Ukraine for two reasons. One is the need to stop Russia’s demographic decline. Forcing Ukrainians to be Russian citizens was an option. Second, because he distrusts his succession: he had to run this “special operation” as long as he could.
This intervention has been a trauma for Europeans, because it has broken another of their classic theorems: that with softpower hardpower was not necessary. This war on European soil has instead shown that more military spending on defense is necessary. Another blow to the European identity.
According to this expert, the conflict will change the international tableau. On the one hand, Europeans “always obsessed with institutions” will have to rethink their judgment on Ukraine at some point. Because if the perception that the Europeans had about the institutional weakness of Ukraine and its corruption, they will have to change their minds. “A country that has lived through a war will later be capable of anything,” says Kratsev. Ukraine can thus aspire to be a “new country” of Europe. And he quotes a phrase from Kissinger: “Ukraine is now too armed to be left out of NATO.”
On the other, the war demonstrates the rise of middle powers such as India, Turkey or Brazil, which now see this crisis as an opportunity to assert their role even against Western interests. Something that European multinationals that do business there will have to take into account in the coming years.
How will the war end? “In a Shakespearean way,” Kratsev quips. “Putin will not negotiate before the United States has the next president,” he says. “The Russian economy is resilient, it can last two or three years. Putin has wisely cultivated the Russians’ resentment with the West,” he maintains.
Instead, in his opinion, the proliferation of private armies and the number of young men from poor families sent to the front lines could destabilize the regime internally.
In any case, this political scientist points out, it must be considered that in the coming months there will be elections in the Eurochamber. Eastern Europe’s reaction to the war has been different from that of the West. The EU will have to test its unity. And, therefore, its future and such its very existence. “European unity should not be taken for granted” in the face of the war in Ukraine, because it would be a “political mistake” to do so, he has argued.