“There’s nothing really new about the way the world works. It’s just that we, the Western Europeans, stopped looking at it. International politics was always ‘great power politics’ […] If Europe fails to act as a great power, we will become a playground for the other great powers. We either force ourselves into the League of the US, China, and Russia, or we accept we will be sidelined” – says Prof. Dr. Sven Biscop, a renowned Belgian political strategist, and director of the ‘Europe in the World’ program at the Egmont Institute.
In an interview with RFE/RL’s Georgian Service, Biscop discusses the return to the “Old Normal” – great power politics, Europe’s role in stabilizing its periphery, and what this means for Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova amid the ongoing tensions with Russia.
What is this return to the “Old Normal” that you’ve been writing about, and what does it spell for the actors involved?
What I’ve said is that, in a way, there’s nothing really new about the way the world works, it’s just that we, the Western Europeans, simply stopped looking at it. The reality is that international politics was always “great power politics.” These great powers can cooperate, but they are also rivals, and now this fact has forced itself back on our agenda.
The most basic issue for the grand strategy of Europe is: are we a great power or not? If not, then I think we will end up being a playground for the other great powers, which you can see already – Trump says “I talked to Putin directly. I don’t need to care about the EU, I’ll tell you afterwards.” The alternative is we either try to act like a great power and force ourselves into the League of the US, China, Russia, or we get sidelined. In economic terms, the EU is a great power. In political terms, less so. In security terms – no, it isn’t one.
And we can hardly find a more telling example of that than not being invited to the negotiation table [over Ukraine peace talks]. How does Europe win a seat?
I think we can win a seat, or seek even to de facto shape the negotiations, by saying that Ukraine will be a member of the EU. Trump can’t negotiate that away. We can remind him we have sanctions against Russia, and say that they will stay, or we will decide how to phase them out, and under what conditions – Trump cannot negotiate that away either. We can send troops as a security guarantee. These are the things that win us a seat at the negotiation table, but we need to stick by our words.
Wouldn’t that last part – security guarantees, stationing armed forces in Ukraine, also sneakily get NATO’s Article 5 involved?
Exactly. That’s my point. We have to say to the Americans that, whether they like it or not, and I am sure they won’t be thrilled, NATO is going to be involved, because they have asked us to provide a security guarantee. But then they say, “if you get into trouble because of that, you’re on your own.” And in doing so, they are breaking transatlantic solidarity. We have to say, “well, that’s just not possible, because the troops there will be from NATO allies. You can’t isolate Ukraine from the rest of the European Theater, because then you have NATO countries in the war with Russia, and that war will not be limited to Ukraine.”
What Americans are saying might have merit legally, but it’s detached from strategic reality, and we have to remind them they will be involved whether they like it or not. It’s better to make it explicit, because the more obvious you make it, the bigger a deterrent will it be for the Russians.
To reassert itself, you proposed that the EU should “take a lead in stabilizing the zone of responsibility, from Ukraine through the Caucasus to the Middle East and North Africa.” What does that imply, in more pragmatic terms?
It means going beyond the current approach to security, which essentially amounts to telling allies and candidate members that, “yes, we are with you, unless a war breaks out, until you’re attacked.” And then we say, “now it’s your problem, but should you survive, we’ll be happy to talk again afterwards.”
That’s just not serious. It doesn’t mean that you have to go to war, but at least, as a non-combatant, we should do what we’ve done for Ukraine for Georgia and Moldova too, if we are taking their membership bids seriously. I don’t think people realize it, but for me, the day we invited Georgia to become an EU candidate, it meant that if Georgia is ever in trouble, we should do for Georgia what we did for Ukraine as a non-combatant.
If things take a turn for the worse, say, in Georgia, which of these two is the likely option: that the will EU embrace its responsibility and get involved as a non-combatant, or that it will play it safe and turn a blind eye?
I think we have arrived at a situation where all options are now risky. There are no safe options. We have now reached a stage where, if we want to carry on with Ukraine and its EU application, we have to guarantee its security after an eventual ceasefire.
Yes, and unlike many other authors, you don’t settle for peacekeepers, you say “we should be giving security guarantees, we should have armed forces there.” How much appetite do you see for that in Europe?
I see the appetite clearly in the UK, and Macron also clearly wants to do it – he will have to lead his country towards that, because I think France will be very divided over it. We see that Merz is being very radical on defense as well. But what’s the other option? We don’t do it, we abandon Ukraine- then next time the Russians attack and they take all of it. Does that leave us better off? No. There is still a risk of Russia going further. Then there’s Georgia, Moldova and then on to the NATO countries, so maybe it’s better to assume this risk now. I would rather take our chances with 110 Ukrainian brigades – the largest armed forces in Europe – on my side, than without!
In Western Europe, the realization is slowly dawning that this is what this all is about, and the UK in particular seems to have crossed the threshold of realization that we’re no longer in 2014, we’re in 2025, and if we abandon Ukraine now, Russia will be encouraged and will try to dominate Moldova and Georgia. I’m sure of it. And then you’re in a different kind of game, because the Caucasus is important in its own right, because of its resources, and as part of the Middle Corridor that opens access to Central Asia. If you lose all access to the eastern flank, you lose those resources, and you cut yourself off from Central Asia, from which we also need resources. We can’t afford to have that happen.
Will we have the backbone to do what’s needed? I think if we stand by Ukraine, then Moldova is, in a way, less difficult, because it’s wedged in between Romania and Ukraine. Geographically, though, Georgia is much more difficult.
You write of Georgia as an “outpost.” What are outposts usually good for, geopolitically?
An outpost can be a base for a deployment, but that’s not so in this case, or they can be a difficult to defend place, or, conversely, an easier to defend fortress. It also depends on what Georgia wants out of it. What does its government want? What do the Georgian people want? If you look at the election results, if there had been zero Russian interference, how different would the election results have been? I have no answer to that, sadly.
If there had been no Russian interference at all, this wouldn’t change the fact that the ruling party presented itself as a choice between war or peace.
Indeed. But what we do know is that Georgia, being where it is, in terms of military support, it makes things very difficult. You can only reach it with the agreement of Turkey, which cannot be taken for granted. This raises many other difficult questions, for example: What is the actual role of Turkey in the European security architecture? What sort of relationship do we want to have? There are a lot of overlapping interests.
“At the very least, the EU should prepare contingency plans for non-belligerent support to Georgia and Moldova, up to the same massive scale as for Ukraine, if necessary” – you write. What would those contingency plans entail?
I was just surprised that nobody seems to have even thought about it: if you offer candidate status to Moldova and Georgia, it entails responsibilities on the EU side as well, not just on the side of the candidates, and this includes the security dimension. And then people are surprised that there’s a Russian backlash in Georgia. Of course there is, that’s the game you just entered, right? Have you not noticed that you’re entering this rivalry? At its utmost, it entails what we’re doing now for Ukraine: massive military and financial support. That’s in the case of war, of course. In other cases, it means increased cooperation in security and defense, military, investment, including in the cyber sphere.
Is there a chance that you might be about 10 years too late with this idea?
Probably. We should have talked about all of this a lot earlier. But it’s a matter of perspective as well, or rather, a change of it – did I think of things in these terms 10 years ago? Not quite, no. I think we’re realizing belatedly that despite our best efforts, we are locked into a geopolitical rivalry with Russia, who actively tries to stop it. And not by legal means either – it’s not about “oh, you have got an offer? We’ll make you a better one”. No.
So, on a grander scale, what does the return to the Old Normal spell for the countries that are in what Russia terms as its “near abroad”?
We can clearly see they are creating strategic depth, either by acquiring these territories directly or by basically creating protectorates, vassal states. What’s new about this is that now China is also a player in the region. And, in a way, it’s a paradox. They claim to be defending against Western encroachment, but the Chinese encroachment [on Russia] is massive. Of course, they can’t say that, because Russia can do nothing about it. If you’re an infallible dictator, you’d better keep quiet about such issues, right?
The Chinese are there, and this gives the Central Asian state states marginal maneuverability. But I think for Georgia it will be much more difficult to exploit this, because Russia’s presence has become so strong there. I sometimes wonder whether, by offering candidate status, we perhaps went too far.
The Georgian Dream Government would say, “well, if that’s the case, what other choice did we have than to be subservient to Russia”? If the realpolitik is returning, what are the alternatives?
It’s a tricky thing, because one could also say that whatever we, the EU, did or did not do with Georgia, Russia was looking to make things happen anyway. So, any EU or Western shortcomings don’t absolve the Russian aggression or the Georgian government’s choice to be as pliable as it has been.
Interview by Vazha Tavberidze
