By Jeffrey Sachs* – Crisis Watch**
“Europe is trapped in an economic and security crisis, driven by fear of Russia and China and dependence on the United States.”
The European Union needs a new foreign policy based on the continent's true economic and security interests. Today, Europe finds itself in a largely self-inflicted economic and security trap: dangerous hostility toward Russia, mutual distrust of China, and extreme vulnerability to the United States. European foreign policy is now driven almost entirely by fear of Russia and China, a fear that has generated a dependence on the United States for security matters.
Europe's subordination to Washington stems almost exclusively from an exaggerated fear of Russia: a fear amplified by Eastern European countries with a strong Russophobic bias and a distorted narrative about the war in Ukraine. Convinced that the threat to its security comes primarily from Moscow, the EU sacrifices every other aspect of its foreign policy—economics, trade, environment, technology, and diplomacy—to American interests. Ironically, it is aligning itself with Washington just as the United States is becoming weaker, more unstable, erratic, irrational, and even dangerous in its approach to Europe, to the point of openly threatening its sovereignty (as happened with the Greenland issue).
To outline a new foreign policy,
Europe will have to overcome the false assumption of its extreme vulnerability to Russia. The narrative spread by Brussels, London, and NATO holds that Moscow is inherently expansionist and ready to overwhelm Europe at the first opportunity. The Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe between 1945 and 1991 is cited as evidence of this threat. But this interpretation profoundly distorts Russian behavior, both past and present.
The first part of this essay aims to debunk the false assumption that Russia poses a mortal threat to Europe. The second part, however, examines what new European foreign policy might emerge once irrational Russophobia is overcome.
The false premise of Russian imperialism towards the West
European foreign policy is based on the idea that Russia poses a direct threat to the continent's security. However, this assumption is flawed. Russia has been repeatedly invaded by major Western powers over the centuries (particularly Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States in the last two centuries) and has long sought to ensure its security by establishing a security zone between itself and Western forces. This hotly contested security zone encompasses present-day Poland, Ukraine, Finland, and the Baltic states. It is in this border region between the Western powers and Russia that the main security dilemmas between Russia and Western Europe are concentrated.
Major wars waged by the West against Russia from 1800 onwards include:
– The French invasion of 1812 (Napoleonic Wars)
– The Anglo-French invasion of 1853-56 (Crimean War)
– The German declaration of war against Russia on August 1, 1914 (World War I)
– The intervention of the Allied Powers in the Russian Civil War, 1918–1922 (Russian Civil War)
– The German invasion of the USSR in 1941 (World War II)
Each of these wars represented an existential threat to Russia's survival. From Moscow's perspective, Germany's failure to demilitarize after World War II, the creation of NATO, West Germany's entry into the Alliance in 1955, NATO's eastward expansion after 1991, and the progressive development of US bases and missile systems on Europe's eastern borders constituted the most serious threats to Russian national security since the end of World War II.
Russia, in turn, has advanced towards the West on several occasions:
– The attack on East Prussia in 1914
– The Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact of 1939, with the division of Poland between Germany and the USSR and the annexation of the Baltic countries in 1940
– The invasion of Finland in 1939 (Winter War)
– The Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989
– The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022
These episodes are considered in Europe as objective evidence of Russian expansionism. In reality, this interpretation is naive, historically incorrect, and the product of propaganda. In all five cases, Moscow acted to protect its own national security—in its own view—rather than pursuing imperialist ambitions as an end in themselves. This fundamental truth is the key to resolving the conflict between Europe and Russia today: Moscow does not seek to conquer the West, but to ensure its own survival. Yet the West has long refused to recognize, let alone respect, Russia's vital security interests.
The main cases of alleged Russian imperialism
Let's analyze the five main cases of alleged Russian expansionism.
The first case, the attack on Prussian Eastern Europe in 1914, can be quickly ruled out. It was the German Reich that declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914. The entry of the Tsarist army into East Prussia was a direct response to this declaration of war.
The second case, the agreement between Soviet Russia and Adolf Hitler's Third Reich for the partition of Poland in 1939 and the annexation of the Baltic states in 1940, is considered the clearest evidence of Russian perfidy. Again, this is a simplistic and misleading interpretation of history.
As historians such as E.H. Carr, Stephen Kotkin, and Michael Jabara Carley have carefully documented , in 1939 Stalin turned to Britain and France to form a defensive alliance against Hitler, who had declared his intention to wage war against Russia in the East (for living space, enslaved Slavic labor, and the defeat of Bolshevism).
But Stalin's attempt to forge an alliance with the Western powers was completely rejected. Poland would not allow Soviet troops to pass through Polish territory in the event of war with Germany. The Western elites' hatred of Soviet Communism was at least as great as their fear of Hitler. Indeed, a common expression among British Conservative elites in the late 1930s was: "Better Hitlerism than Communism."
Failing to secure a defensive alliance, Stalin set about creating a buffer zone against the imminent German invasion of the USSR. The partition of Poland and the annexation of the Baltic states were tactical maneuvers to buy time for the impending Battle of Armageddon against Hitler's armies, which took place on June 22, 1941, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. The early partition of Poland and the annexation of the Baltic states could have delayed the invasion and saved the Soviet Union from a swift defeat at Hitler's hands.
The third case, Russia's Winter War against Finland, is similarly viewed in Western Europe (and especially in Finland) as proof of Russia's expansionist nature. However, once again, the Soviet Union's primary motivation was defensive, not offensive. Moscow feared that the German invasion would be carried out partly through Finland and that Leningrad would be quickly conquered by Hitler.
For this reason, the Soviet Union offered Finland a territorial exchange (specifically, the cession of the Karelian Isthmus and some islands in the Gulf of Finland in exchange for Soviet lands) to protect the country's second largest city.
Finland rejected this proposal, and the Soviet Union invaded Finland on November 30, 1939. Finland subsequently joined Hitler's armies in the war against the Soviet Union during the so-called "Continuation War" between 1941 and 1944.
The fourth case, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe (and its continued control of the Baltic states) during the Cold War, is seen in Europe as further evidence of the profound threat Russia poses to the continent's security. The Soviet occupation was undoubtedly harsh, but even in this case, it had a defensive motivation that is completely overlooked in the Western European and US narrative. The USSR paid the ultimate price for its victory over Hitler, with a staggering 27 million dead during the war.
At the end of the conflict, Russia had one overriding demand: that its security interests be guaranteed by a treaty that would protect it from future threats from Germany and, more generally, the West. The West, now led by the United States, rejected this fundamental security demand.
The Cold War arose from the West's refusal to respect Russia's fundamental security concerns. Of course, the story of the Cold War, as told by the West, is precisely the opposite: that the Cold War was caused solely by Russia's bellicose attempts to conquer the world.
This is the true story, well known to historians but almost completely ignored by the American and European public. At the end of the war, the Soviet Union sought a peace treaty establishing a unified, neutral, and demilitarized Germany. At the Potsdam Conference of July 1945, attended by the leaders of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States, the three Allied powers agreed to the "complete disarmament and demilitarization of Germany and the elimination or control of all German industry that could be used for military production."
Germany would be unified, pacified, and demilitarized. All of this would be guaranteed by a treaty ending the war. In reality, the United States and the United Kingdom worked diligently to undermine this fundamental principle.
Beginning in May 1945, Winston Churchill tasked his Chief of Staff with developing a war plan for a surprise attack on the Soviet Union in mid-1945, codenamed Operation Unthinkable . Although British military strategists considered such a war impractical, the idea that Americans and British should prepare for an imminent war with the Soviet Union quickly took root. Military strategists estimated that the most likely time for such a war would be in the early 1950s.
Churchill's objective, it seems, was to prevent Poland and other Eastern European countries from falling under Soviet influence. Even in the United States, within weeks of Germany's surrender in May 1945, leading military strategists began to view the Soviet Union as America's next enemy.
The United States and the United Kingdom quickly recruited Nazi scientists and senior intelligence officials (such as Reinhard Gehlen, a Nazi leader who would receive support from Washington to create Germany's postwar intelligence agency) to begin planning for the future war against the Soviet Union.
The Cold War erupted primarily because the United States and Great Britain rejected the reunification and demilitarization of Germany agreed upon at Potsdam. Instead, the Western powers abandoned the project of German reunification to form the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG or West Germany) from the three occupation zones controlled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. The FRG would be reindustrialized and remilitarized under US aegis. In 1955, West Germany was admitted to NATO.
Although historians passionately debate who respected the Potsdam Agreement (for example, the West highlights the Soviet refusal to allow a truly representative government in Poland, as agreed at Potsdam), there is no doubt that the West's remilitarization of West Germany was the primary cause of the Cold War.
In 1952, Stalin proposed German reunification based on neutrality and demilitarization. This proposal was rejected by the United States. In 1955, the Soviet Union and Austria agreed that the Soviet Union would withdraw its occupation forces from Austria in exchange for the latter's commitment to permanent neutrality. The Austrian State Treaty was signed on May 15, 1955, by the Soviet Union, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom, along with Austria, thus ending the occupation.
The Soviet Union's goal was not only to resolve tensions over Austria, but also to demonstrate to the United States a successful model of Soviet withdrawal from Europe, combined with neutrality. Once again, the United States rejected the Soviet call to end the Cold War on the grounds of neutrality and the demilitarization of Germany.
As recently as 1957, America's leading expert on Soviet affairs, George Kennan, in his third Reith Lecture for the BBC , made a public and vehement appeal to the United States to agree with the Soviet Union on a mutual withdrawal of troops from Europe.
The Soviet Union, Kennan emphasized, neither intended nor was interested in a military invasion of Western Europe. But American Cold Warriors, led by John Foster Dulles, would not tolerate it. And no peace treaty with Germany to end World War II was signed until German reunification in 1990.
It is worth noting that the Soviet Union respected Austria's neutrality after 1955, as well as that of other neutral European countries (such as Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal). Finnish President Alexander Stubb recently stated that Ukraine should reject neutrality, based on Finland's negative experience (Finnish neutrality ended in 2024 when the country joined NATO).
This is a strange idea. During its period of neutrality, Finland enjoyed peace, achieved remarkable economic prosperity, and ranked among the happiest countries in the world (according to the World Happiness Report).
President John F. Kennedy demonstrated a possible path to ending the Cold War, based on mutual respect for the security interests of all parties. Kennedy blocked German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's attempt to acquire nuclear weapons from France, thus allaying Soviet concerns about a nuclear-armed Germany.
On this basis, JFK successfully negotiated the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev. Kennedy was likely assassinated a few months later by a group of CIA agents for his peace initiative.
Documents released in 2025 confirm the long-held suspicion that Lee Harvey Oswald was under the direct supervision of James Angleton, a senior CIA official. The United States' subsequent move toward peace with the Soviet Union was led by Richard Nixon. He, too, was brought down by the Watergate scandal, which also offers clues about a CIA operation that was never fully clarified.
Mikhail Gorbachev ended the Cold War by unilaterally dismantling the Warsaw Pact and actively promoting the democratization of Eastern Europe. I attended some of these events and personally witnessed some of his peace initiatives.
In the summer of 1989, for example, Gorbachev urged Poland's communist leaders to form a coalition government with opposition forces, led by the Solidarity movement. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the democratization of Eastern Europe, promoted by Gorbachev, quickly prompted German Chancellor Helmut Kohl to call for German reunification.
This led to the 1990 reunification treaties between the FRG and the GDR, and the so-called Two Plus Four Agreement between the two Germanies and the four Allied powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. In February 1990, the United States and Germany clearly promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move one iota eastward in the context of German reunification—a fact now widely denied by the Western powers, but easily verifiable.
This key promise not to proceed with NATO enlargement was made several times, but it was not included in the text of the Two Plus Four Agreement, as it referred to German reunification, not NATO's eastern expansion.
The fifth case, Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, is once again seen in the West as proof of Russia's unrelenting imperialism toward the West. The favorite expression of Western media, commentators, and propagandists is that the Russian invasion was "unprovoked" and therefore demonstrates Putin's iron will not only to reestablish the Russian Empire but also to advance further toward the West, which would mean Europe should prepare for war with Russia. This is a gigantic and absurd lie, but it is repeated so frequently in the mainstream media that it is widely believed in Europe.
In fact, the Russian invasion of February 2022 was so clearly provoked by the West that it is suspected that it was actually an American plan to involve Russia in the war in order to defeat or weaken it.
This claim is credible , as confirmed by a long series of statements from numerous US officials. Following the invasion, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin declared that Washington's goal was "to see Russia weakened to the point where it can no longer carry out the same actions it took when it invaded Ukraine. Ukraine can win if it has the right equipment and support."
The main US provocation against Russia was NATO's eastward expansion, contrary to its 1990 promises, with one main objective: to encircle Russia with NATO member states in the Black Sea region, thus preventing it from projecting its naval power, based in Crimea, into the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. In essence, the US objective was the same as that of Lord Palmerston and Napoleon III during the Crimean War: to expel the Russian fleet from the Black Sea.
NATO members would have included Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Georgia, thus forming a network to strangle Russian naval power in the Black Sea. Zbigniew Brzezinski described this strategy in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard , where he argued that Russia would surely bend to the Western will, as it had no other choice . Brzezinski specifically rejected the idea of Russia ever allying with China against Europe.
A new foreign policy for Europe
The entire period following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was marked by Western arrogance—as historian Jonathan Haslam has defined it in his masterful account—during which the United States and Europe believed they could push NATO and American weapons systems (such as the Aegis missiles) ever further east, with complete disregard for Russia's legitimate concerns about its own national security.
The list of Western provocations is too long to detail, but a summary can be drawn from the following points.
Western provocations in eight points
First, contrary to promises made in 1990, the United States began NATO's eastward expansion with President Bill Clinton's announcements in 1994. At the time, Secretary of Defense William Perry even considered resigning due to reckless U.S. actions that contradicted previous promises.
The first wave of NATO expansion took place in 1999, including Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. That same year, NATO forces bombed Serbia, a Russian ally, for 78 days, dismembering it and quickly establishing a large US military base in the breakaway province of Kosovo.
The second wave of expansion came in 2004, with seven new members, including the Baltic states, which directly border Russia, and two Black Sea countries: Bulgaria and Romania. In 2008, most EU countries recognized Kosovo as an independent state, despite continued European declarations that "borders in Europe are sacred."
Second, the United States abandoned the nuclear arms control framework by unilaterally withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty in 2002. In 2019, Washington followed suit by withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Despite Russia's strenuous objections, the United States began deploying anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland and Romania, and in January 2022, it reserved the right to deploy them in Ukraine as well.
Third, the United States infiltrated Ukraine's domestic politics deeply, investing billions of dollars in shaping public opinion, creating media outlets, and influencing the country's domestic politics. The 2004-2005 elections in Ukraine are widely considered a US-backed "color revolution," which used its influence and funding, both overt and covert, to favor pro-US candidates.
In 2013-2014, Washington played a direct role in financing the Maidan protests and supporting the violent coup that overthrew pro-neutral President Viktor Yanukovych, thus paving the way for a NATO-oriented Ukrainian government.
Coincidentally, I was invited to visit Maidan shortly after the February 22, 2014, coup that overthrew Yanukovych; a US-based NGO deeply involved in the events directly explained to me the role of US funding in supporting the protests.
Fourth, beginning in 2008, despite opposition from several European leaders, the United States pressured NATO to formally commit to expanding its presence in Ukraine and Georgia. At the time, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, William J. Burns, sent a now-famous cable to Washington titled " Nyet Means Nyet: Russia's NATO Enlargement Redlines ," explaining that the entire Russian political class strongly opposed NATO expansion into Ukraine and feared that such a move would provoke civil unrest in the country.
Fifth, following the Maidan coup, the Russian-majority regions of eastern Ukraine (Donbas) seceded from the new pro-Western government installed after the coup. Russia and Germany quickly negotiated the Minsk Agreements, according to which the two separatist regions (Donetsk and Luhansk) would remain part of Ukraine, but with broad local autonomy, inspired by the German-speaking region of South Tyrol in Italy.
The second agreement, Minsk II, also endorsed by the UN Security Council, could have ended the conflict; however, the kyiv government, with Washington's support, decided not to implement the autonomy. Failure to comply with Minsk II poisoned diplomatic relations between Russia and the West.
Sixth, the United States steadily expanded the Ukrainian military (both active and reserve troops) to approximately 1 million men in 2020. Ukraine, along with its far-right paramilitary battalions (such as Azov and Right Sector), carried out repeated attacks on the two separatist regions, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties in Donbass due to Ukrainian shelling.
Seventh, in late 2021, Russia proposed to the United States a draft Russia-US Security Agreement , which primarily called for an end to NATO expansion. The United States rejected the proposal and reaffirmed the alliance's "open door" policy, according to which third countries, such as Russia, would have no say in NATO enlargement. The United States and European countries repeatedly reiterated Ukraine's future NATO membership.
The US Secretary of State reportedly informed the Russian Foreign Minister in January 2022 that the United States reserved the right to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Ukraine, despite Moscow's objections.
Eighth: Following the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, Ukraine quickly agreed to begin peace negotiations based on a return to neutrality. The talks were held in Istanbul, mediated by Turkey. In late March 2022, Russia and Ukraine published a joint memorandum noting progress toward a peace agreement. On April 15, a draft agreement was presented that was close to a comprehensive solution.
At that point, the United States intervened and told the Ukrainians that it would not support the agreement, but would support Ukraine in continuing the war.
The high costs of a failed foreign policy
Russia has never made territorial claims against Western European countries or threatened them, except in the context of its right to retaliate against any Western-backed missile attack on its territory. Until the Maidan coup in 2014, Russia had not even expressed territorial claims to Ukraine.
After 2014 and until the end of 2022, Moscow's only territorial claim concerned Crimea, to prevent the Russian naval base in Sevastopol from falling under Western control.
Only after the failure of the Istanbul peace process—shaken by US intervention—did Russia declare the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia. Today, Moscow's declared war objectives remain limited: Ukraine's neutrality, partial demilitarization, a definitive withdrawal from NATO, and recognition of the transfer of Crimea and the four aforementioned regions to Russia, which constituted approximately 19% of Ukraine's territory in 1991.
These are not signals of Russian imperialism directed toward the West, nor unprovoked demands. Russia's war aims stem from more than 30 years of protests against NATO's eastern expansion, the arming of Ukraine, the US withdrawal from nuclear arms control treaties, and the deep Western interference in Ukrainian domestic politics, culminating in the 2014 coup that brought Moscow and NATO into direct confrontation.
Europe has chosen to interpret the events of the past 30 years as proof of Russia's inexorable expansionism, just as the West claimed that the Cold War was the sole responsibility of the Soviet Union, when in fact the USSR had repeatedly proposed paths to peace based on German neutrality, unification, and disarmament.
As during the Cold War, the West today has also preferred to provoke Russia rather than acknowledge its understandable security concerns.
Every Russian action has been interpreted in the most negative way possible, as a sign of bad faith or aggression, without ever acknowledging the Russian perspective in the debate. This is a clear example of the classic security dilemma, in which adversaries ignore each other, assume the worst, and act aggressively based on flawed assumptions.
Europe's decision to interpret the Cold War and the postwar period from this prejudiced perspective has cost it dearly, and the costs continue to mount. More importantly, Europe has come to believe that it is entirely dependent on the United States for its security. If Russia were truly expansionist, Washington would be Europe's indispensable savior.
But if, on the contrary, Russian behavior had always been an expression of legitimate security concerns, the Cold War would likely have ended decades ago following the model of Austrian neutrality, and the postwar period might have become a period of peace and growing trust between Russia and Europe.
In reality, the economies of Europe and Russia are highly complementary. Russia is rich in raw materials (agricultural, mineral, and energy) and possesses engineering expertise, while Europe is home to energy-intensive industries and key advanced technologies.
The United States has long opposed the growing trade ties between Europe and Russia, which arise from this natural complementarity. Washington considers the Russian energy industry a direct competitor to the U.S. energy sector and, in general, views the strong trade and investment ties between Germany and Russia as a threat to U.S. political and economic dominance in Western Europe.
For these reasons, the United States opposed the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines long before the Ukrainian conflict. For these reasons, Joe Biden explicitly promised to end Nord Stream 2—and he did—in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
US opposition to Nord Stream and Russian-German energy relations was based on a general principle: the EU and Russia should keep their distance so that the United States would not lose its influence in Europe.
The war in Ukraine and the breakdown in relations with Russia have severely damaged the European economy. European exports to Russia have plummeted from around €90 billion in 2021 to just €30 billion in 2024.
Energy costs have soared as Europe has switched from cheap, pipeline-supplied Russian natural gas to much more expensive American liquefied natural gas (LNG). German industry has declined by around 10% since 2020, with both the chemical and automotive sectors suffering severe consequences. The International Monetary Fund forecasts economic growth for the EU of just 1% in 2025 and around 1.5% for the rest of the decade.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has called for a permanent ban on the resumption of gas flows through Nord Stream, but this represents virtually economic suicide for Germany.
This position is based on Merz's belief that Russia has warlike ambitions against Germany; however, in reality, it is Germany that is provoking a war with Russia by adopting a bellicose language and initiating massive rearmament.
According to Merz, "a realistic view of Russia's imperialist aspirations is necessary." He argues that "part of our society has a deep fear of war. I don't share it, but I understand it."
Even more alarming is his claim that "diplomatic means are exhausted," despite the fact that he has reportedly never attempted to speak with Vladimir Putin since coming to power. Merz also seems to willfully ignore how close diplomacy came to success in 2022, during the Istanbul Process, before the US blocked it.
Chinese economic growth is antithetical to American interests
The West's approach to China closely mirrors its approach to Russia.
The West tends to attribute ill intentions to China, which, in many ways, are projections of its own hostile ambitions toward the People's Republic.
China's rapid economic rise between 1980 and 2010 led American leaders and strategists to view its increased economic growth as contrary to American interests.
In 2015, two influential American strategists, Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis , clearly explained that the United States' global strategy is to achieve American hegemony and that China represents a threat to this hegemony due to its size and success. Blackwill and Tellis proposed a set of measures by the United States and its allies to hinder China's future economic growth: excluding Beijing from new Asia-Pacific trade blocs, limiting the export of Western technologies to China, imposing tariffs and other restrictions on Chinese exports, and other anti-China measures.
It should be noted that these measures were not justified by China's specific shortcomings, but by the simple fact that its economic growth was considered incompatible with US supremacy.
A key component of this foreign policy toward Russia and China is a media war aimed at discrediting the West's supposed enemies. In the case of China, the West has accused it of genocide against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang. This is a highly exaggerated accusation, made without solid evidence, while the West ignores the real genocide of tens of thousands of Palestinians taking place in Gaza, perpetrated by its ally Israel.
Western propaganda has also spread a series of absurd claims about China's economy: its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative , which provides financing to developing countries to build modern infrastructure, is being called a "debt trap."
China's extraordinary capacity to produce green technologies—such as solar panels, which the world desperately needs—is ridiculed by the West as "excess capacity" that should be limited or halted.
On the military front, the security dilemma facing China is interpreted in the most grim possible way, just as it is with Russia. The United States has long proclaimed its ability to block China's vital sea routes, but then accuses Beijing of militarism when it responds by taking steps to strengthen its naval power.
Rather than interpreting China's military development as a typical security dilemma to be addressed through diplomacy, the US Navy declares it must prepare for war with China by 2027. At the same time, NATO is increasingly demanding an active role in East Asia, directed against China. America's European allies are adopting this aggressive stance, both commercially and militarily.
Ten concrete steps towards a new foreign policy
Europe has backed itself into a corner, subservient to the United States, rejecting direct diplomacy with Russia, losing its economic competitiveness through sanctions and war, incurring massive and unsustainable increases in military spending, and severing long-term trade and investment ties with Russia and China.
As a result, it faces mounting debt, economic stagnation, and a growing risk of full-scale war. A prospect that apparently doesn't frighten German Chancellor Merz, but that should terrify us all.
Perhaps the most likely conflict will not be with Russia, but with the United States itself, which under Trump threatened to seize Greenland if it wasn't sold or ceded to its sovereignty. Europe may very well be left without true friends: neither Russia nor China, nor even the United States, nor the Arab countries (outraged by European indifference to the Israeli genocide in Gaza), nor Africa (still resentful of European colonialism and neocolonialism), etc.
Of course, there is another possible path—indeed, a very promising one—if European leaders manage to reconsider the continent's true interests and security risks, returning diplomacy to the center of European foreign policy. Here, I propose ten concrete steps to build a foreign policy based on Europe's real needs.
1. Open direct diplomatic dialogue with Moscow
Failure: Europe's palpable failure to engage in direct diplomacy with Russia is devastating. Europe may even be believing its own foreign policy propaganda by avoiding direct discussions on key issues with its Russian counterpart. It is time to reestablish serious and stable channels of communication, independent of Washington.
2. Prepare a negotiated peace with Russia
Europe must prepare to negotiate peace with Russia over Ukraine and Europe's future collective security. The key is for Europe to agree with Russia to end the war based on a firm and irrevocable commitment not to expand NATO into Ukraine, Georgia, or other eastern regions. Furthermore, Europe must accept pragmatic territorial changes in Ukraine that benefit Russia.
3. Reject the militarization of relations with China
For example, Europe should oppose any attempt to expand NATO into East Asia.
China poses no threat to European security, and Europe should stop blindly supporting US claims of hegemony in Asia, which are already dangerous and illusory, even without European support. Instead, Europe should strengthen cooperation with China on trade, investment, and climate.
4. Reform the institutions of European diplomacy
The current setup is chaotic and ineffective. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy essentially acts as a spokesperson for Russophobia, while high-level diplomacy—to the extent it exists—is conducted in a confusing and intermittent manner by individual European leaders, the EU High Representative, the President of the European Commission, the President of the European Council, or a variable combination of these. In short, no one speaks clearly on behalf of Europe, since there is no clear European foreign policy to begin with.
5. Decoupling EU foreign policy from NATO
Europe should recognize that EU foreign policy must be dissociated from NATO. In reality, Europe doesn't need the Atlantic Alliance, as Russia has no intention of invading the EU. Europe should certainly equip itself with an autonomous defense capability, but at a cost far below 5% of GDP, an absurd figure based on a completely exaggerated assessment of the Russian threat. Furthermore, European defense should not coincide with European foreign policy, even though the two have become completely confused in recent times.
6. Cooperate with Russia, India and China
The EU, Russia, India, and China should cooperate on the green, digital, and infrastructure transitions across the Eurasian region. Sustainable development in Eurasia is mutually beneficial for the EU, Russia, India, and China and cannot be achieved without peaceful cooperation among the four major Eurasian powers.
7. Cooperate with China's Belt and Road Initiative
The European Global Gateway, the financing arm for infrastructure in non-EU countries, is expected to collaborate with China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Currently, it is presented as a competitor to the BRI. In reality, the two programs are expected to join forces to co-finance green energy, digital, and transport infrastructure for Eurasia.
8. Strengthen the financing of the European Green Deal
The European Union should increase funding for the European Green Deal (EGD), thereby accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy, instead of allocating approximately 5% of GDP to unnecessary military spending with no real benefit for Europe. Greater investment in the EGD would bring two main benefits. First, it would contribute to regional and global climate security. Second, it would strengthen Europe's competitiveness in future green and digital technologies, laying the foundations for a new sustainable growth model.
9. Collaborate with the African Union
The EU should work closely with the African Union to promote a broad expansion of technical education and training in its member countries. With its population projected to grow from 1.4 billion to approximately 2.5 billion by mid-century, compared to Europe's approximately 450 million inhabitants, Africa's economic destiny will be closely linked to that of Europe. The key to African prosperity lies in the rapid development of higher education and vocational training.
10. Support the new multipolar world order
The European Union, together with the BRICS countries, must clearly communicate to the United States that the future world order is not based on hegemony, but on international law and the United Nations Charter. This represents the only path to true security for Europe and the world. Dependence on the United States and NATO is a dangerous illusion, especially given the country's own instability. Conversely, a renewed commitment to the United Nations Charter can end wars (for example, by ending Israel's impunity and implementing the International Court of Justice's rulings on the two-state solution) and prevent future conflicts.