The EU thread

[Jacob]

So Merz has apparently gotten the memo:

"What we once called the normative West no longer exists in this form," Merz said at an event for employers in Berlin on Tuesday. "At best, it is still a geographical designation, but no longer a normative bond that holds us together."

It's on Bloomberg, which requires a subscription - so here's a link to reddit commenting on the Bloomberg article.

[Sheilbh]

I think that's a mirage.

Russia has agency in the Ukraine in the sense that they can and have chosen to burn the lives of hundreds of thousands of men to occupy some extra square miles of dirt and wrecked urban infrastructure, and manifest their frustrations in mass civilian atrocities.  But they utterly failed to impose their will on a smaller, weaker, and political fragile nation.  Being willing and able to do utterly stupid and counterproductive things isn't a sign of agency.

The Middle Eastern policy is shambles; they put their chips on Assad and went bust.  They are dicking around pointlessly in Libya.  They are basically meaningless in Africa; a handful of the more unsavory dictators have used some of their pseudo-mercs to bully the locals.  No one takes them seriously compared to China.

On these I don't agree.

So I do think agency or freedom and ability to act includes bad decisions, or morally wrong ones. Again to put the counterpoint of Europe - there is not a single European NATO deployment on our Eastern frontier that does not rely on American logistical support. Similarly I bang on about this because I think it's important (and actually reflects the state of European infrastructure), the former US Army in Europe commander has said that there is not enough "transport capacity, or infrastructure that enables the rapid movementof NATO forces across Europe." Germany - which is the linchpin in the middle, has the capacity to move "one and a half armoured brigades simultaneously at one time, that's it."

I think if you are not able to move more than 6,000 troops at one point and you do not have logistical infrastructure to sustain them (in peacetime) - you are not able to conduct any significant form of military operation. In this case I'm even talking about it primarily in the context of self-defence. Russia has military force and is capable of moving and sustaining them - it may be for something that's wrong and bad. But I think that is a material difference in agency and power. Take the point on political sustainability that in the long(er)-run I think the war challenges the political settlement of Putin's regime.

I kind of agree on the Middle East and Africa. But even there I think it's more complicated. So with Syria I think we should avoid reading backward from what was an improbable collapse of the regime - the month before Assad fell the EU was discussing an Italian proposal to actually recognise Assad again because they'd clearly won. Russia was able to intervene decisively for a period. From everything I've read about the collapse that was very much on Assad and his regime - if it had been able to be even marginally less cruel and less corrupt it would probably have been able to survive with the Russian and wider support it had (it also wouldn't be the Assad regime any more). Russia also got its client out and have him comfortably living in Moscow - I read that he's apparently got into online gaming in a big way.

With Syria and Libya and Africa I also think one "benefit" for Russia is that it is able to manipulate migration flows to Europe and generate destabilising crises. There is strong evidence they do this both at points like the Polish-Belarussian border, but also through the networks crossing the Sahara, in Libya and that the did it in Syria too. This is why I'd frame it in the context of competition as it's not for nothing that the first EU uniformed force is FrontEx and the first EU deployments to other countries is about trying to stem the flow of migrants particularly in Africa and the Middle East.

With Africa, in general, I think there's more complexity. I think Russia is still able to play on a legacy of associations with the Soviets and support for anti-imperial/national liberation movements. And I think there has been further propaganda wins from associating with anti-French/next wave of anti-imperial movements. I think that propaganda side does matter - with the US dividing over I think Europe (and Canada and Australia etc) is the only part of the world that feels the way we all do about Ukraine and I think that should maybe cause a bit of self-reflection. In terms of real benefits I think it's pretty minimal but there has been competition with France over it. I also think it is actually one of the areas where they have something to offer China becuse very often there's something of an informal handover (a bit like from British imperial power to American power in some parts of the post-war world).

In a hard-edged, hard power multipolar world, Russia is a Chinese vassal, transferring oil at below market prices in return for some diplo cover and desperately needed imports. Russia is leaning hard on China to make its play for some continuing relevance in the West as Chinese commercial interests tighten their grasp on the resources of Russia's far eastern provinces.

I agree. But I think there's a question of timelines. At a very basic level from what I've read China's leaders were shocked at Russia invasion as they had not been forewarned even at relatively recent senior meetings. I don't tink that's the behaviour of a vassal back in 2022 - but I think since then Russian dependency on China is increasing incrementally. I think it's something they're very aware of but that there's a generational divide with Putin and his cohort being totally focused on Ukraine even at the expense of future weakness/dependence on China while I think the generation who will take over from them are more alarmed at the implications. But I think that's because we're not there yet.

On the oil isn't that largely because of the oil price cap?

"Europe" may be politically dysfunctional at the level of unified diplomatic presence but whether looked at collectively or at the larger individual states, they embody centers of manufacturing prowess, technical competence, significant players in global commerce and finance, and an affluent consumer market. Russia has none of these things.  It can play the nuclear blackmail card, which has already been overplayed.

I agree with a lot of this - especially actually the technical competence. Europe does not have global competitors in the digital area generally - Breton's point was correct. But there's lots of technical and technological areas, especialy around manufacturing, where Europe absolutely has world leading companies and centres.

I think my argument is that isn't enough. What matters is the ability to leverage those capacities into agency: the ability to decide to do something and then do it. I think Europe, collectively and at individual state level (for different reasons), is less than the sum of its parts. It's unable to turn its advantages and resources into effective levers of power.

[The Minsky Moment]

Similarly I bang on about this because I think it's important (and actually reflects the state of European infrastructure), the former US Army in Europe commander has said that there is not enough "transport capacity, or infrastructure that enables the rapid movement of NATO forces across Europe." Germany - which is the linchpin in the middle, has the capacity to move "one and a half armoured brigades simultaneously at one time, that's it."

Let's dig down about what this means.   OK let's assume they can't presently "enabl[e] the rapid movement of NATO forces across Europe" in accordance with US standards.  But if NECESSARY, they could improvise. The Krauts could move a lot more than 1.5 brigades at a time if they really wanted to.  They have a fantastic highway system and lots of flat land. Would it look great?  Perhaps not.  Would the military end result be optimal.  Perhaps not.  But they could do it.

Russia is no better; they tried to cram down a bunch of armor from Belarus down Kiev and despite years of planning and months of pre-positioning ended up with the century's worst traffic jam and a military fiasco of world historical proportions.  You can call that agency.  You can also say the Yuros have agency because they choose to avoid such obvious disasters.

The Russians like to compare their invasion to Ukraine to the "Great Patriotic War" but the better WW2 era analogue is Italy's invasion of Yugoslavia. In comparative world power terms, Russia c.2022 is about the same level as Italy c. 1940.  Both sought to boost themselves up by invading what appeared to be a vulnerable neighbor and found themselves in a quagmire.  Putin has no Wehrmacht to bail him out.

Mussolini impressed a lot of people at the time with bellicose talk and a military that looked impressive on paper, but like Russia now, Italy couldn't sustain the burden of even medium scale war without leaning on a stronger power.  It looked like Fascist Italy was exercising its agency, but like with Russia, it was a mirage.  It could exercise a power to choose but the cost of that exercise was accepting dependency on greater powers.

So with Syria I think we should avoid reading backward from what was an improbable collapse of the regime - the month before Assad fell the EU was discussing an Italian proposal to actually recognise Assad again because they'd clearly won. Russia was able to intervene decisively for a period.

It's the Middle East; all alliance system based on Arab regimes are built on sand. It's just a matter of when.  The bigger question is what was the overall strategy?  Getting an air base in?  Chasing the dream of a naval base in Med?  Manipulating refugee flows was an improvised response to a situation and one where what mattered was Russian control over its remaining Euro satellites, not some proconsular presence in the ME.  There's always going to be refugees from somewhere at sometime or another.

On the oil isn't that largely because of the oil price cap?

That's the mechanism but if Russia had the requisite clout or influence it could evade it by negotiating subsidized imports back from China.  They don't.

I think my argument is that isn't enough. What matters is the ability to leverage those capacities into agency: the ability to decide to do something and then do it. I think Europe, collectively and at individual state level (for different reasons), is less than the sum of its parts. It's unable to turn its advantages and resources into effective levers of power.

That's true but by choice.  There is agency, just not agency at the level of national executives.  It's the agency of populations that prefer the comforting illusion of national sovereignty over external effectiveness.

[The Minsky Moment]

Now where Russia does have some real levers is outside the realm of direct hard power. They are a shitposting superpower. They really have mastered the art of post-modern propaganda in the age of social media. They've refined the old Soviet art of exploiting western plutocratic influence over politics and manipulation of greed. They are at the heart of international criminal networks: money laundering, arms dealing, cyber crime, trafficking of every kind.  Those are real capabilities and what Putin has used to keep Russia punching well above weight.

[Duque de Bragança]

You obviously meant Italy's invasion of Greece, not Yugoslavia, to nitpick, in true Languish style. 
Not arguing with the rest.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes of course, probably got mixed up with an old Hearts of Iron game.