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Some Europeans, especially in Eastern Europe, are genuinely concerned by Russia. Others (including many politicians and newspaper writers I read) are blowhards who switch seamlessly between "Ukraine is losing, we must send missiles so they can resist" and "Ukraine is winning, we must send missiles so they can finish the job" depending on the latest reports. The idea that Russia is about to sweep Europe is ridiculous.
Personally, I think there is a pretty sizeable contingent of Europeans whose performative fear of Russia is driven by the usefulness of being able to suppress dissident parties and call local dissent 'Russian misinformation'. It may well be that they have convinced themselves, of course. But in my personal circle (UK) anti-Putin sentiment is driven far more by disgust than fear.
They most certainly do not.
We are now seeing increasingly bald authoritarianism due to their failures to destroy right-wing governments in more subtle fashion - financially and procedurally. Plus the looming threat of populism in their own countries driven by their absolute failure and arrogant incompetence.
I mean, in my personal bubble anti-Putin sentiment is driven by straight Russophobia of the they’re all Mongolian savages, non-western barbarians invading Europe type. I wouldn’t oversample too much.
Yeah, mine too, and it's pretty funny since we are a Slavic nation, one that might not compare favorably to Russia when it comes to civilizational accomplishment and so on.
A certain aspiring class in our countries seems to be possessed by a complex of lesser value, and would rather see their neighbors fail, even though to a German we may as well be the same. Like that scene in Borat.
Then again, probably all parties are guilty, don't doubt for a second that Russians are bad winners and arrogant. Slavs may be fine individually, but our group characters on average and in a political aggregate will never be able to overcome our history and circumstances like Scandinavians did, for example. Nobody is even interested in that.
You are Ukrainian?
No, Croatian
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Fortunately I did not making an argument premised on that idea, having mocked the premise myself in the past, nor do my characterizations depend on people subscribing to that idea.
Your personal circle is, notably, located on an island that chose to not self-identify so much with the European identity, and whose strategic perspective is arguably even more influenced by the Americans.
In fact, Brexit helped contribute to the current norms of Russia thinking in Europe by taking out a counter-point against it. Rather than Continental Atlanticism, where the purpose of US-European ties is the security climate in Europe, the UK-American strategic culture has always been more globalistic view that prioritized further off areas of interest (Asia, the Middle East) far more than many continentals, and as such also discounted various concerns on Russia. With Brexit, a significant globalist perspective that would have countered Russian-centric thinking left the European elite community, and took with its the values and norms its leaders might have contributed (such as a stronger British political tradition of adherence to democratic practices at governing-party expense).
They most certainly do, because they did.
They disliked them, they tried to restrain them in various ways, they will be happy to see Orban go, but even the EU was able to acknowledge free elections it disliked.
What has changed is not that values has changed, or even the key actors in many cases, but the geopolitial contexts within which those values and actors operate.
If you think I am making any sort of moral defense on the ethical quality of the Europeans, don't. Most people are values-first deontologist until they are in a context where consequences encourage otherwise, and that is not a compliment.
I wasn’t intending to make a personal comment, I hope it didn’t come off that way. I have a deep contempt and loathing for the Powers That Be in our current age, and it shows.
I do seriously think people who should know better are subscribing to this belief, however.
In all sincerity, I appreciate the sentiment.
For a given value of ‘acknowledge’. If my colleague is promoted over me and I dedicate myself to getting them fired, I don’t think that counts as genuine ‘acknowledgement’ of the situation. It is merely a recognition that the cost-benefit ratio of publicly disputing it is bad.
I do not think the EU ever had any intention of acknowledging these elections as genuinely legitimate, it merely thought it could do to Orban what it did to the Greek radicals previously, and failed.
My model of European establishment behaviour is that its increasingly open authoritarianism has less to do with fear of Russia, which I don’t think is a genuine concern outside Eastern Europe, and more to do with the escalating failure of institutional soft power to squash emergent challengers. Even in Romania (unlike Poland, say), I don’t think that these judges are operating out of terror of a Putin invasion but out of hatred and contempt for their rivals, and a desire to show that Romania is no longer That Sort Of Country.
I appreciate the clarification (and would have not assumed worse than a hasty generalization), and can concur with your thought.
I think there is an opposite end of the spectrum, people who dismiss real threats because they don't take them seriously enough, but that's a separate thing and also not intended to characterize you or your view.
You are welcome, then, and I hope you have a good day.
I don't categorically disagree with your model in and of itself, but would point out that EU institutional soft power has been a target of Russia for well over a decade.
People forget it now due to the time-distance and the propaganda at the time, but even Ukraine wasn't about the Americans and NATO as much as the EU. Euromaidan initiated over the EU association agreement, not NATO, and the pre-Ukraine invasion demands weren't simply at the expense of NATO, but at the expense of EU institutions (including revaunchist claims that would target non-NATO EU members). I made a post a few years ago noting how the early Russia-Ukraine conflict was in some respects a Russia-German conflict, as Germany was a major driver in eastern European expansion of the EU and Germany pursued an international-media-influence strategy that set the groundwork for a lot of the pro-EU movements in eastern europe like Euromaidan. Russia's influence efforts follow a generally consistent divide model, and while the highest priority is the most obvious (Americans from Europeans), the EU itself is a not-at-all rare secondary (nations from the EU).
So if you wanted to say that the EU is more to blame for its failures than Russia, I'd be inclined to agree, but Russia is trying to make it fail, and for reasons that make otherwise acceptable things more problematic. It's fine, for example, if you can't find what you lost in your own house because you are disorganized, but it's another if you know there's a would-be-thief who is trying to steal.
If there's one part of your model I'd raise as questionable, it's Germany. Specifically where I suspect your model would run into issues on the categorical divide of what is / is not considered 'Eastern Europe.'
Merkel's dominance of German politics for a decade and a half created an impression of a German consensus that wasn't really so, particularly since it was sold on assumptions of Russian behavior (Russia is a reliable economic partner, Russia would never try to blackmail us) that were publicly demonstrated in the lead-up to the Ukraine War, where Russia deliberately caused gas shortages in Germany, publicly boasted about the expectations of freezing Germans, and generally attempted economic blackmail that, while resisted, has led to the major macroeconomic consequences to the Germans both as a matter of adapting (the considerable cost of gas-import infrastructure) but the second-order effects of rebalancing (significant sectors of the German economy no longer being cost-competitive without Russian gas that was kept as cheap as it was to build such dependencies).
While there is a lot of viewpoint diversity in a country of nearly 85 million people, the Ukraine War brought a significant and justified fear of Russian intent and interests to the German viewpoint. It wasn't just that the Eastern Europeans got to say 'I told you so,' it was that the Russians deliberately took a swing at the national economic foundation of the German society, demonstrated Germany's inability to functionally defend itself or others, and did so with an invasion that is figuratively next door. (It is only about a 16 hour drive from Berlin to Kyiv.) This is not just a strategic shock, but even a culture-shock.
Not only does this matter in the sense of Germany itself as the divider between East and West Europe, but Germany's institutional influence on the EU means that whatever Germany cares about, the EU will be more concerned about. Especially if France is also concerned... but here we get to the point that while France was not the leader of pro-Ukrainian support by any means, pro-French states in Africa were where Russia was able to make its most demonstrative retaliatory gains, meaning that the German-French motor of the EU was even more in alignment of Russia, creating its own feedback loops.
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