Transcription
Thank you very much, Tom, for that kind introduction. It's a great pleasure and an honor to be here today to speak at the European Parliament, and I'd like to thank the Patriots for Europe for inviting me to speak here and thank all of you for coming out to listen to me speak.
Uh, Europe is in deep trouble today, mainly because of the Ukraine war, which has played a key role in undermining what had been largely a peaceful region. Unfortunately, the situation is not likely to improve in the years ahead. In fact, Europe is likely to be less stable moving forward than it is today.
The present situation in Europe stands in marked contrast to the unprecedented stability that Europe enjoyed during the unipolar moment, which ran from 1992, which is the year after the Cold War, the year after the Soviet Union collapsed, until about 2017, when China and Russia emerged as great powers, transforming unipolarity into multipolarity.
We all remember Francis Fukuyama's famous article, "The End of History," written in 1989, which argued that liberal democracy was destined to spread across the world, bringing peace and prosperity in its wake. That argument was obviously dead wrong, but many in the West believed it for more than 20 years. Few Europeans imagined in the heyday of unipolarity that Europe would be in so much trouble today.
So, the question on the table is, what went wrong? The Ukraine war, which I will argue was provoked by the West, and especially the United States, is the principal cause of European insecurity today. Nevertheless, there's a second factor at play: the shift in the global balance of power in 2017 from unipolarity to multipolarity, which was sure to threaten the security architecture in Europe. Still, there's a good reason to think this shift in the distribution of power was manageable. But the Ukraine war, coupled with the coming of multipolarity, guaranteed big trouble, which is not likely to go away in the foreseeable future.
Let me start by explaining how the end of unipolarity threatens the foundations of European stability. And then I will discuss the effects of the Ukraine war on Europe and how they interacted with the shift to multipolarity so as to alter the European landscape in profound ways.
The key to preserving stability in Europe during the Cold War, and all of Europe during the unipolar moment, was the US military presence in Europe, which was, of course, embedded in NATO. The US has dominated that alliance from the beginning, which has made it almost impossible for the member states underneath the American security umbrella to fight with each other. In effect, the United States has been a powerful pacifying force in Europe.
Today's European elites recognize that simple fact, which explains why they are deeply committed to keeping American troops in Europe and maintaining a US-dominated NATO. It is worth noting that when the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union was moving to pull its troops out of Eastern Europe and put an end to the Warsaw Pact, that Moscow did not object to a US-dominated NATO remaining intact. Like the West Europeans at the time, Soviet leaders understood and appreciated the pacifier logic. However, they were adamantly opposed to NATO expansion. But more about that later.
Some might argue that the EU, this institution here, not NATO, was the main cause of European stability during the unipolar moment, which is why the EU, not NATO, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. But this is wrong. While the EU has been a remarkably successful institution, its success is dependent on NATO keeping the peace in Europe. Turning Marx on his head, the political-military institution, here we're talking about NATO, is the base or foundation, and the economic institution, here we're talking about the EU, this superstructure. All of this is to say that absent the American pacifier, not only does NATO as we know it disappear, but the EU will also be undermined in serious ways.
During unipolarity, which again ran from 1992 to 2017, the US was by far the most powerful state in the international system, and it could easily maintain a substantial military presence here in Europe. The unipolar world went away, however, with the coming of multipolarity. The United States is no longer the only great power in the world. China and Russia are now great powers, which means that American policymakers have to think differently about the world around them.
To understand what unipolarity means for Europe, it's essential to consider the distribution of power among the world's three great powers. The United States is still the most powerful country in the world, but China has been catching up and is now widely regarded as a peer competitor. Its huge population, coupled with its truly remarkable economic growth since the early 1990s, has turned it into a potential hegemon in East Asia. For the United States, which is already a regional hegemon in the Western Hemisphere, another great power achieving hegemony either in East Asia or Europe is a deeply worrisome prospect. Remember that the United States entered both World Wars to prevent Germany and Japan from becoming regional hegemons in Europe and East Asia, respectively. The same logic applies today to China and East Asia.
Russia is the weakest of the three great powers and, contrary to what many Europeans think, I'm sure many Europeans in this institution, it is not a threat to overrun all of Ukraine, much less Eastern Europe. After all, it has spent the past 3 and 1/2 years just trying to conquer the eastern 1/5 of Ukraine. The Russian army is not the Wehrmacht, and Russia is not the Soviet Union during the Cold War or the Chinese in East Asia today. In other words, Russia is not a potential hegemon in Europe.
Given this distribution of power, there's a strategic imperative for the United States to focus on containing China and preventing it from dominating East Asia. There is no compelling strategic reason, however, for the United States to maintain a significant military presence in Europe, given that Russia is not a threat to become a European hegemon. Indeed, devoting defense resources to Europe reduces the resources available for East Asia. This basic logic explains the US pivot to Asia. But if a country pivots to one region, it means that it's pivoting away from another region. And of course, that other region that we're pivoting away from is Europe.
There's another important dimension, which has little to do with the global balance of power, that further reduces the likelihood the US will remain committed to maintaining a significant military presence in Europe. Specifically, the United States has a special relationship with Israel that has no parallel in recorded history. That connection, which is the result of the tremendous power of the Israel lobby inside the United States, not only means that the United States will support Israel unconditionally, but it also means that American forces will be involved in Israel's wars, either directly or indirectly. In short, the United States will continue to allocate substantial military resources to Israel, as well as commit substantial military forces of its own to the Middle East. This obligation to Israel creates an additional incentive to draw down US forces in Europe and push European countries to provide for their own security.
The bottom line is that powerful structural forces associated with the shift from unipolarity to multipolarity, coupled with America's peculiar relationship with Israel, have the potential to eliminate the US pacifier from Europe and NATO, which would obviously have serious negative consequences for European security. It is possible, however, to avoid an American exit, which is surely what almost every European leader desires. Simply put, achieving that outcome, i.e., preventing the United States from leaving Europe in a serious way, requires wise strategies and skillful diplomacy on both sides of the Atlantic. But that is not what we have gotten so far. Instead, Europe and the United States foolishly sought to bring Ukraine into NATO, which provoked a losing war with Russia that markedly increases the odds that the US will depart Europe and NATO will be eviscerated.
Let me explain. To fully understand the consequences of the Ukraine war, it's essential to consider its causes. Because the reason that Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 says a great deal about Russia's war aims and the long-term effects of the war. The conventional wisdom in the West, as all of you know, is that Vladimir Putin is responsible for causing the Ukraine war. His aim, so the argument goes, is to conquer all of Ukraine and make it part of a greater Russia. Once that goal is achieved, Russia will move to create an empire in Eastern Europe much like the Soviet Union did after World War II. In this story, Putin is a mortal threat to the West and must be dealt with forcefully. In short, Putin is an imperialist with a master plan that fits neatly into a rich Russian tradition.
There are numerous problems with this story. Let me spell out five of them.
First, there's no evidence from before February 4, 2022, that Putin wanted to conquer all of Ukraine and incorporate it into Russia. Again, I want to emphasize, there is no evidence to support the conventional wisdom. Proponents of this wisdom cannot point to anything that Putin wrote or said that indicates he thought conquering Ukraine was a desirable goal, that it was a feasible goal, and that he intended to pursue that goal. I want to repeat this: Putin never said that conquering Ukraine was a desirable goal. There's no evidence to support that. There's no evidence that he said he thought it was a feasible goal, and there's no evidence that he said, this is all before February 24, 2022, that he intended to pursue that goal.
When challenged on this point, and as you can imagine, I've had many discussions with people who defend the conventional wisdom, they point to Putin's claim that Ukraine was an "artificial state," and especially to his view that Russians and Ukrainians are one people, which of course is a core theme in his famous July 12, 2021 article, and that people often reference. These comments saying that Ukraine is an artificial state or saying that the Ukrainians and Russians are one people say nothing about his reason for going to war. In fact, if you read the July 12, 2021 article that he wrote, which I've read many times, there is zero evidence in there that he was bent on conquering Ukraine. And in fact, he said exactly the opposite in that piece. For example, he tells the Ukrainian people, and I'm quoting from that July 12, 2021 article, "You want to establish a state of your own, you are welcome." Regarding how Russia should treat Ukraine, he writes, "There is only one answer: with respect." There's only one answer: with respect. He concludes that lengthy article with the following words: "And what Ukraine will be, it is up to its citizens to decide." That does not sound like somebody who's bent on conquering Ukraine.
In that same July 12, 2021 article, and again in an important speech on February 21, 2022, this is three days before the Russians invaded Ukraine, he wrote, "The new Russia accepts the new geopolitical reality that took shape after the dissolution of the USSR." He reiterated that same point three days later on February 24, 2022, when he announced that Russia would invade Ukraine. All of these statements are directly at odds with the claim that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and incorporate it into a greater Russia.
Second, Putin did not have anywhere near enough troops to conquer Ukraine. I estimate that Russia invaded Ukraine with at most 190,000 troops. General Syrsky, who as you all know is now the present commander of the Ukrainian forces, estimates that the Russians invaded Ukraine with 100,000 troops. So, John estimates that they invaded with 190,000. Syrsky estimates that they invaded with 100,000. There is no way that a force numbering either 100,000 or 190,000 could conquer, occupy, and absorb all of Ukraine into a greater Russia.
Consider that when Germany invaded the western half of Poland on September 1, 1939, and you remember, as a result of the Von Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, the Soviet Union invaded the eastern part of Poland, and the Germans invaded the western part. So, the Germans only invaded half of Poland. The Wehrmacht on September 1, 1939 sent 1.5 million troops into Poland. Ukraine is geographically more than three times larger than the western half of Poland. And Ukraine in 2022 had almost twice as many people as Poland did when the Germans invaded. If we accept Syrsky's estimate that 100,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and again, this is General Sirsky speaking, that means Russia had an invasion force that was 1/15 the size of the German force that went into Poland. And that small Russian army was invading a country that was much larger than the western half of Poland in terms of both territorial size and population.
One might argue, and of course you often hear this argument, that Russian leaders thought that the Ukrainian military was so small and so outgunned that their army could easily conquer the entire country. But this is not the case. In fact, Putin and his lieutenants were well aware that the United States and its European allies had been arming and training the Ukrainian military since the crisis first broke out in 2014. Indeed, Moscow's great fear at the time was that Ukraine was becoming a de facto member of NATO. Moreover, Russian leaders recognized that the Ukrainian army, which was larger than the invasion force—I want to emphasize this, the Ukrainian army was larger than the Russian invasion force—it was armed and trained by NATO, and it was becoming a de facto member of NATO. They recognized that that force had been fighting effectively in the Donbas since 2014. They surely understood, the Russians that is, that the Ukrainian military was not a paper tiger that could be defeated quickly and decisively, especially since it had powerful backing from the West. And you remember, before the war, the West, especially the United States, made it clear that we would back Ukraine to the hilt if it was invaded by Russia. Putin's aim was to quickly achieve limited territorial gains and force Ukraine to the bargaining table. Which is what happened.
And this brings me to my third point. Immediately after the war began, Russia, not Ukraine, Russia reached out to Ukraine to start negotiations to end the war and work out a modus vivendi between the two countries. This move is directly at odds with the claim that Putin wanted to conquer Ukraine and make it part of the greater Russia. Negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow began in Belarus just four days, four days after the Russian invasion. And that Belarus track was eventually replaced by an Israeli as well as an Istanbul track. The available evidence indicates that the Russians were negotiating seriously and were not interested in absorbing Ukrainian territory, save for Crimea, which they had annexed in 2014, and possibly the Donbas region. The negotiations ended when the Ukrainians, with prodding from Britain and the United States, walked away from the negotiations, which were making good progress at the time. The Russians did not walk away from the negotiations.
Fourth, in the months before the war started, Putin tried to find a diplomatic solution to the brewing crisis. On October 17, 2021, remember the war begins February 2022. This is December 17, 2021. Putin sends letters to both President Biden and to NATO Chief Jens Stoltenberg proposing a solution to the crisis based on a written guarantee that does three things: Says, number one, Ukraine would not join NATO. Number two, no offensive weapons would be stationed near Russia's borders. And number three, NATO troops and equipment moved into Eastern Europe since 1997 would be moved back to Western Europe. Whatever one thinks of the feasibility of reaching a bargain based on Putin's opening demands, it shows he was trying to avoid war. The United States, on the other hand, refused to negotiate with Putin. It appears it was not interested in avoiding war.
Fifth, this is my fifth and final point. Putting Ukraine aside, there is not a scintilla of evidence that Putin was contemplating conquering any other countries in Eastern Europe. And this is hardly surprising, given that the Russian army is not even large enough to overrun all of Ukraine, much less to conquer the Baltic states, Poland, and Romania. Plus, those countries outside of Ukraine are all NATO members, which would almost certainly mean war with the United States and its allies.
In sum, while it is widely believed in Europe, and again, I'm sure here in the European Parliament, that Putin is an imperialist who has long been determined to conquer all of Ukraine and then conquer additional countries west of Ukraine, virtually all the available evidence is at odds with this perspective. In fact, the United States and its European allies provoked the war. This is not to deny, of course, that Russia started the war by invading Ukraine, but the underlying cause of the conflict was the NATO decision to bring Ukraine into the alliance, which virtually all Russian leaders saw as an existential threat that must be eliminated.
But NATO expansion is not the whole problem. As this part of a broader strategy that aims to make Ukraine a western bulwark on Russia's border. Bringing Kyiv into the European Union and promoting a color revolution in Ukraine. You all remember the Orange Revolution, which was designed to make Ukraine a pro-Western liberal democracy, are the other two prongs of the policy. So, I want to make it clear here, there are three prongs to NATO to the West policy towards Ukraine: One is NATO expansion into Ukraine, two is EU expansion into Ukraine, and three is regime change, turning Ukraine into a pro-Western liberal democracy. Russian leaders fear all three prongs of this policy, but they fear NATO expansion the most. As Putin put it, "Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist while facing a permanent threat from the territory of today's Ukraine." In essence, he was not interested in making Ukraine part of Russia. He was interested in making it sure it did not become part of what he labeled a springboard for Western aggression against Russia. To deal with this threat, Putin launched a preventive war. This was a preventive war, in my opinion, on February 24, 2022.
Now, what's the basis of the claim that NATO expansion was the principal cause of the Ukraine war? What's the basis on which I make this line of argument?
First, Russian leaders across the board said repeatedly before the war that they considered NATO expansion into Ukraine to be an existential threat that had to be eliminated. Putin made numerous public statements laying out this line of argument before February 24, 2022. Other leaders, including the defense minister, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister, and Moscow's ambassador to Washington, also emphasized the centrality of NATO expansion for causing the crisis over Ukraine. Sergey Lavrov, the foreign minister, made this point succinctly at a press conference on January 14, 2022, this is approximately one month before the war started. He said, quote, "The key to everything is the guarantee that NATO will not expand eastward."
Second, the centrality of Russia's profound fear of Ukraine joining NATO is illustrated by events since the war started. For example, during the Istanbul negotiations, which I was talking about before, Russian leaders made it manifestly clear that Ukraine and the West had to accept, quote unquote, "permanent neutrality" and could not join NATO. The Ukrainians actually accepted Russia's demands without serious resistance at Istanbul, surely because they knew that otherwise it would be impossible to end the war. More recently, on June 14, 2024, this is not this past June, but last June, June 14, 2024, Putin laid out Russia's demands for ending the war. One of his core demands was that Kyiv officially state, quote, "that it is that it abandons its plans to join NATO." None of this is surprising, as Russia has always seen Ukraine and NATO as an existential threat that must be prevented at all costs.
Third, a substantial number of influential and highly regarded individuals in the West recognized before the war that NATO expansion, especially into Ukraine, would be seen by Russian leaders as a mortal threat and eventually would lead to disaster. William Burns, who was recently Joe Biden's head of the CIA, but he was the American ambassador to Moscow in April 2008 when the decision was made to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. I wrote a very famous memo that I'm sure some of you are familiar with to then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This is a quite remarkable memo, and I'm going to quote extensively from it: "Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite, not just Putin. In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine and NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russia's interests. NATO," he said, "would be seen as throwing down the strategic gauntlet. Today's Russia will respond. Russian-Ukrainian relations will go into a deep freeze. It will create fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine." This was written by Bill Burns in 2008.
Burns was not the only Western policymaker in 2008 who understood that bringing Ukraine into NATO was fraught with danger. This is at the Bucharest summit. This is where the decision is made to bring Ukraine into NATO. Both Angela Merkel, who was then the German Chancellor, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy adamantly opposed moving forward to bring Ukraine into NATO. And this is what Merkel said about her thinking at the time. This is really, truly remarkable. Merkel said, "I was very sure that Putin is not going to just let that happen. From his perspective, that would be a declaration of war." That's Angela Merkel speaking. She is saying that the decision that was made in the April 2008 meeting in Bucharest, that saying Ukraine would be allowed to come into NATO, would be seen by the Russians as a declaration of war.
Supporters of bringing Ukraine into NATO sometimes argue that Moscow should not have been concerned about enlargement because, quote, "NATO is a defensive alliance and poses no threat to Russia." Mike McFaul, who was the American ambassador to Moscow at the time, has told me that he told Putin on numerous occasions that Putin had nothing to fear from NATO expansion. It was led by a benign hegemon known as the United States, and NATO was not a threat. But that is not how Russian leaders think about Ukraine and NATO. And it is what they think that matters. I just would quickly point out to you, I have a number of friends who deny that NATO expansion into Ukraine is an existential threat. My response to them is, it doesn't matter what you think. All that matters is what the Russians think, and it's manifestly clear that the Russians see NATO expansion into Ukraine as an existential threat. And as Angela Merkel said, they will see it as a declaration of war.
In sum, there's no question that Putin saw Ukraine joining NATO as a mortal threat that could not be allowed, and was willing to go to war to prevent it from happening, which he did, of course, in February of 2022.
Now, let me talk a bit about the course of the war, what's happening in the war. After the Istanbul negotiations failed, this is in April 2022. Remember, the war starts February 22, 2022, and then the negotiations failed by mid-April 2022. The Ukraine conflict turned into a war of attrition, bearing actually marked similarities to World War I on the Western Front. Uh this war, which has been a brutal slugfest, has now been going on for 3 and 1/2 years. And during that time, as you all know, Russia has formally annexed four Ukrainian oblasts in addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. In effect, Russia has so far annexed about 22% of Ukraine's pre-2014 territory, and all of that, of course, is in the eastern 1/5 of the country.
The West has provided enormous support to Ukraine since the war broke out, doing everything but directly engaging in the fighting. It's no accident that Russian leaders think their country is at war with the West. Nevertheless, as you well know, President Trump is determined to sharply limit America's role in the war and shift the burden of supporting Ukraine onto Europe's shoulders.
Now, Russia is clearly winning this war and it's likely to prevail. And I believe the reason is very simple. In a war of attrition, each side tries to bleed the other side white, which means that the side that has more soldiers and more firepower is likely to emerge victorious. Russia has a significant advantage on both dimensions. For example, General Syrsky says that Russia now has three times more forces engaged in the fight than Ukraine does. And he says that at some points along the front lines, the Ukrainians are outnumbered 6 to 1, says Syrsky, and at some points it's 6 to 1. And in fact, according to numerous reports from the Ukrainian side, the Ukrainians do not have enough soldiers to defend the front lines. They can't thickly populate the front lines with their combat forces. They have to leave open spaces that the Russians can exploit or penetrate.
In terms of firepower, throughout most of the war, Russia's advantage in artillery, which is a critically important weapon in attrition warfare, Russia has had an advantage reported to be either 3 to 1, 7 to 1, or 10 to 1. Russia also has a huge inventory of highly accurate glide bombs, which they have used with deadly effectiveness against Ukrainian defenses. Kyiv has hardly any glide bombs. Well, there's no question that Ukraine has a highly effective drone fleet, which was initially more effective than Russia's drone fleet. Russia has turned the tables over the past year, and Russia now has an upper hand with drones, as well as artillery, as well as glide bombs.
It's important to emphasize that Kyiv has no viable solution to its manpower problem, as it has a much smaller population than Russia, and it is plagued by draft dodging and desertion. Reports are that in October, 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers deserted from their frontline positions. That is a remarkable number. Moreover, Russia has a robust industrial base, which produces vast quantities of weaponry, while Ukraine's industrial base is paltry. To compensate, Ukraine depends heavily on the West for weaponry, but Western countries lack the manufacturing capability necessary to keep up with Russian output. To make matters worse, Trump is slowing down the flow of American weaponry to Ukraine.
The bottom line is that Ukraine is badly outmanned, badly outgunned, which is fatal in a war of attrition. On top of that dire situation on the battlefield, Russia has a huge inventory of missiles, both ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, and drones that it uses to strike deep into Ukraine and destroy critical infrastructure and weapons depots. For sure, Kyiv has the capability to hit targets deep inside Russia with its drones, but it has nowhere near the striking power Moscow possesses. Moreover, striking targets deep inside Russia is going to have little effect on what happens on the battlefield where this war is being settled.
What about the prospects for a peaceful settlement? There's been much discussion over the course of 2025 about finding a diplomatic settlement to the end of the war. This conversation is due in good part to President Trump's promise that he would settle the Ukraine war even before he moved into the White House. And if he didn't solve it before he moved into the White House, he would settle it shortly after he moved in. He obviously failed. Indeed, he has not even come close to succeeding.
The sad truth is that there is no hope of negotiating a meaningful peace agreement. This war will be settled on the battlefield, where the Russians are likely to win an ugly victory. I'm choosing my words carefully here. They're going to win an ugly victory that results in a frozen conflict with Russia on one side, and Ukraine, Europe, and the United States on the other side. Let me explain.
Settling the war diplomatically is not possible because the opposing sides have irreconcilable differences. Moscow insists Ukraine must be a neutral country, which means it not only cannot be in NATO, it can't have meaningful security guarantees from the West. Russians insist on that. The Russians also demand that Ukraine and the West recognize their annexation of Crimea plus the four oblasts that they've annexed in Eastern Ukraine. And their third demand is that Kyiv limit the size of its military to the point where it presents no meaningful military threat to Russia. Unsurprisingly, Europe and especially Ukraine categorically reject these demands. Ukraine refuses to concede any territory to Russia, which you can understand. While Europe and Ukraine continue to push to bring Ukraine into NATO or at least allow the West to give Ukraine meaningful security guarantees. Disarming Ukraine to the point where it satisfies Moscow is also a non-starter. There's no way these opposing positions—the Russian position and the Ukraine plus West position—can be reconciled to produce a peace agreement. Thus, the war will be settled on the battlefield.
Although I believe the Russians will win and are close to winning now, it will not win. The Russians will not win a decisive victory where they end up conquering all of Ukraine. I want to be very clear on that. Instead, it's likely to be, as I said, an ugly victory where Russia ends up occupying somewhere between 20 to 40% of pre-2014 Ukraine, while Ukraine ends up as a dysfunctional rump state covering the territory that Russia does not conquer. Moscow is unlikely to try to conquer all of Ukraine because the western 60% of that country is filled with ethnic Ukrainians who would mightily resist a Russian occupation and turn it into a nightmare for the occupying forces. All of this is to say that the likely outcome of the Ukraine war is a frozen conflict between a greater Russia and a rump Ukraine backed by Europe.
Let me now explore the likely consequences of the Ukraine war, focusing first on the consequences for Ukraine itself, and then on the consequences for relations between Europe and Russia, and then finally I'll turn to the likely consequences inside of Europe as well as for transatlantic relations.
Starting with Ukraine. Ukraine has effectively been wrecked. It has already lost a substantial portion of its territory and is likely to lose more land before the fighting stops. Its economy is in tatters with no prospect of recovery in the foreseeable future, and according to my calculations, it has suffered roughly 1 million casualties. A staggering number for any country, but certainly for one that is said to be in, quote, "a demographic death spiral." Russia has paid a significant price as well, but it has suffered nowhere near as much as Ukraine.
Europe will almost certainly remain allied with rump Ukraine for the foreseeable future, given sunk costs and the profound Russophobia that pervades the West. But that continuing relationship between Europe and Ukraine will not work to Kyiv's advantage for two reasons. First, it will incentivize Moscow to interfere in Ukraine's domestic affairs to cause it economic and political trouble so that it is not a threat to Europe and is in no position to join either NATO or the EU. Second, Europe's commitment to supporting Kyiv no matter what motivates Russia to conquer as much Ukrainian territory as possible while the war is raging so as to maximize the weakness of the Ukrainian rump state that remains once the conflict is frozen. In other words, if you're playing Putin's hand and you believe the Europeans are going to be deeply committed to Ukraine for the foreseeable future, you have a deep-seated interest in grabbing Odessa, grabbing Kharkiv, Kyiv, and grabbing all the oblasts in between. You want to take 40% of Ukrainian territory. You want to do everything you can to wreck Ukraine and then you want to keep Ukraine weak for the foreseeable future because you understand the Europeans will be supporting the Ukrainians and they will be interested in causing you, Russia, trouble. So, the basic point I'm making here is that maintaining close relations with Ukraine is not going to work to Ukraine's advantage.
What about relations between Europe and Russia moving forward? They are likely to be poisonous as far as the eye can see. Europeans, and surely the Ukrainians, will work to undermine Moscow's efforts to integrate Ukrainian territories that Russia has annexed, as well as look for opportunities to cause the Russians economic and political trouble. Russia, for its part, will look for opportunities to cause economic and political trouble inside Europe and between Europe and the US. Russian leaders both will have powerful incentives to fracture—excuse me, Russian leaders will have a powerful incentive to fracture the West as much as possible, since the West also will have its gunsights on Russia. And one does not want to forget that Russia will be working to keep Ukraine dysfunctional, while Europe will be working to make it functional.
Relations between Europe and Russia will not only be poisonous, they will also be dangerous. The possibility of war will be ever present. In addition to the risk that war between Ukraine and Russia could restart, there are six other flashpoints where a war pitting Russia against one or more European countries could break out.
First, consider the Arctic, where the melting ice has opened the door to competition over passageways and resources. Remember that seven of the eight countries that are physically located in the Arctic are NATO members. Russia is the eighth country, which means that it is outnumbered seven to one by NATO countries in that strategically important area.
The second flashpoint is the Baltic Sea, which is sometimes referred to as a NATO lake because it is largely surrounded by countries from the alliance. That waterway, however, is a vital strategic interest to Russia, as is Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave in Eastern Europe that is also surrounded by NATO countries.
The fourth flashpoint is Belarus, which because of its size and location is as strategically important to Russia as Ukraine. The Europeans and the Americans, however, will surely try to install a pro-American or pro-Western government in Minsk after President Lukashenko leaves office and eventually hope to turn Belarus into a pro-Western bulwark on Russia's borders.
The West is already deeply involved in the politics of Moldova, which not only borders Ukraine but contains a breakaway region known as Transnistria, which is occupied by Russian troops.
The final flashpoint is the Black Sea, which is of great strategic importance to both Russia and Ukraine, as well as a handful of European countries, which include Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Turkey. As with the Baltic Sea, there is much potential for trouble in the Black Sea.
All of this is to say that even after Ukraine becomes a frozen conflict, Europe and Russia will continue to have hostile relations in a geopolitical setting filled with trouble spots. In other words, the threat of a major European war will not go away when the fighting in Ukraine stops.
Let me now turn to the consequences of the war for inside of Europe, and then turn to its likely effects on the transatlantic relationship. For starters, it cannot be emphasized enough that a Russian victory in Ukraine, even if it is an ugly victory, as I anticipate, would be a stunning defeat for Europe. Or, to put it in slightly different words, it would be a stunning defeat for NATO, which has been deeply involved in the Ukraine conflict since it started. Indeed, the alliance has been committed to defeating Russia since February 2022. NATO's defeat will lead to recrimination between member states and inside many of them as well. Who is to blame for this catastrophe will matter greatly to the governing elites in Europe, and surely there will be a powerful tendency to blame others and not accept responsibility themselves. The debate over who lost Ukraine will take place in a Europe that is already racked by fractious politics both between countries and inside them.
In addition to these political fights, some will question the future of NATO, given that it failed to check Russia, the country that most European leaders describe as a mortal threat. It seems almost certain that NATO will be much weaker after the Ukraine war is shut down than before that war started. Any weakening of NATO will have negative repercussions for the EU because, as I said earlier, a stable security environment in Europe is essential for the EU to flourish, and NATO is the key to stability in Europe.
Threats to the EU aside, the great reduction in the flow of gas and oil to Europe since the war started has seriously hurt the major economies of Europe and slowed down growth in the overall Eurozone. There's good reason to think that economic growth across Europe is a long way from recovering after that war in Ukraine turns into a frozen conflict.
A defeat in Ukraine is also likely to lead to a transatlantic blame game, especially since the Trump administration has refused to support Kyiv as vigorously as the Biden administration, and instead pushed the Europeans to assume more of the burden of keeping Ukraine in the fight. Thus, when the war finally ends with a Russian victory, Trump can accuse the Europeans of not stepping up to the plate, while the European leaders can accuse Trump of bailing out on Ukraine in its greatest moment of need. Of course, Trump's relations with Europe have long been contentious, so these recriminations will only make a bad situation worse.
Then there's the all-important question of whether the United States will significantly reduce its military footprint in Europe, or maybe even pull all of its combat troops out of Europe. As I emphasized at the start of my talk, independent of the Ukraine war, the historic shift from unipolarity to multipolarity has created a powerful incentive for the United States to pivot to East Asia, which effectively means pivoting away from Europe. That move alone has the potential to put an end to NATO, which is another way of saying an end to the pacifier in Europe. What has happened in Ukraine since 2022 makes that outcome more likely to repeat.
Trump has a deep-seated hostility to Europe, especially its leaders, and he will blame them for losing Ukraine. He has no great affection for NATO and has described the EU as an enemy created, quote, "to screw the United States." That's Trump talking about the United States. It's an enemy designed to, quote unquote, "screw the United States." And he has 3 and 1/2 more years left in office. Furthermore, the fact that Ukraine lost the war despite enormous support from NATO is likely to lead him, President Trump, to trash the alliance as ineffective and useless. That line of argument will allow him to push Europe to provide for its own security and not free ride on the United States.
In short, it seems likely that the results of the Ukraine war, coupled with the spectacular rise of China, will eat away at the fabric of the transatlantic relationship in the years ahead, much to the detriment of Europe.
I'd like to close now with a few general observations. For starters, the Ukraine war has been a disaster. Indeed, it is a disaster that is almost certain to keep giving in the years ahead. It has had catastrophic consequences for Ukraine. It has poisoned relations between Europe and Russia for the foreseeable future. And it has made Europe a more dangerous place. It's also caused serious economic and political harm inside Europe and badly damaged transatlantic relations.
This calamity raises the inevitable question: Who's responsible for this war? This question will not go away anytime soon. And if anything, it is likely to become more prominent over time as the extent of the damage becomes more apparent to more people. The answer, of course, is that the United States and its European allies are principally responsible. The April 2008 decision to bring Ukraine into NATO, which the West has relentlessly pursued since then, doubling down on this commitment at every opportunity, is the main driving force behind the Ukraine war.
Most European leaders, and I'm sure most people in the various European publics, will blame Putin for causing the war and thus for its terrible consequences, but they are wrong. The war could have been avoided if the West had not decided to bring Ukraine into NATO, or even if it had backed off from that commitment once the Russians made their opposition clear. Had that happened, Ukraine would almost certainly be intact today within its pre-2014 borders, and Europe would be more stable and more prosperous. You just want to think about what I'm saying here. Had we not made the decision to bring Ukraine into NATO in April of 2008, or if once having made that decision, we saw how clear-cut Russian opposition was, had we backed off, Ukraine would be intact today inside its pre-2014 borders. Crimea would still be part of Ukraine. And furthermore, Europe would be a more prosperous and more stable place than it is. But that ship has sailed, and Europe must now deal with the disastrous results of a series of avoidable blunders.
Thank you.