2024.03.19

A. Kubilius. About Another War

Let me say straight away that I support Israel in its difficult war against the Hamas terrorists. I have been saying this since 7th October last year, since the massacre by Hamas terrorists on Israeli territory.

Of course, I must say that I am humanely sorry for both the Palestinian civilians who are dying and the Jews who have been killed, but the war on terror requires not only the emotion of pity, but also rational analysis.

This text, with its reflections and conclusions, was prompted by another POLITICO article on the conduct of the war that caught my eye.

However, for me, these thoughts have been on my mind since the beginning of the war. And although international attention to the war seems to be waning, the problems of the region, which are also important to us in a global world, remain. That is why I want to express my thoughts a little more systematically than I would have done at the beginning of the war.

I have said since the beginning of the war that I see no difference between the actions of Hamas and ISIS. ISIS (Islamic State, Daesh) terrorised the Middle East between 2014 and 2017, when it managed to seize huge territories, including the city of Mosul in Iraq, a city of few millions. One can see the difference in the fact that the number of ISIS victims was several times higher than that of Hamas, one can recall the fact that ISIS undertook the genocide of the Yazidi ethno-religious group, but one cannot fail to see the identity in the fact that both ISIS and Hamas have resorted to mass terrorism in order to kill as many civilians as possible. Al-Qaeda did the same by hijacking Boeing passenger planes and targeting the World Trade Center towers.

I do not see any difference between the nature of Hamas and the nature of ISIS either. When Hamas carried out the massacre in Israel, the cheering crowds of Hamas supporters in Gaza waved ISIS flags in large numbers.

And even at the beginning of the war, I regretfully said that I saw only one difference. The difference between how the West viewed the defeat of ISIS in 2016-2017, in which it itself participated alongside the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga, and how a part of the West views Israel’s military action today to defeat the Hamas terrorists.

The defeat of ISIS was hailed in many Western capitals at the time as a major victory against terrorism (since many Western countries, led by the US, took part in the military action against ISIS), whilst Israel’s fight against Hamas terrorists has been the subject of constant Western criticism and demands to halt hostilities.

Although both the defeat of ISIS and the fight against Hamas have resulted in similar numbers of civilian casualties, since the terrorists are holding civilians hostage as a ‘human shield’, preventing them from evacuating.

It is enough to compare the 2016-2017 struggle to liberate the city of Mosul from ISIS terrorists with the Israeli struggle to liberate Gaza City from Hamas terrorists.

ISIS forces occupied the city of Mosul in June 2014 and the liberation of the city began in October 2016 and continued until July 2017. Before the occupation, the city had 2.5 million inhabitants, but during the 2 years of occupation, the population decreased to 1.5 million.

Experts estimate that between 5,000 and 12,000 ISIS terrorists defended Mosul from liberation. The battles of liberation lasted almost 10 months. The American-led coalition force of nearly 110,000 troops used aviation, artillery and other heavy military equipment to take the city. The city was badly damaged. Experts estimate that up to 40,000 civilians may have been killed during the siege (estimates vary widely from 10,000 to 40,000 casualties). It is difficult to find information on whether, during the military operations to liberate Mosul, the Coalition forces were called upon by the West to cease fire to avoid civilian casualties. Hostilities continued until Mosul was completely taken and liberated from ISIS terrorists. Today, Mosul is being rebuilt and living a normal, peaceful life, no longer afraid of ISIS terror.

Between 2.1 and 2.3 million Palestinians live in the Gaza Strip (around 600,000 in Gaza City itself). Israeli security experts estimate that Hamas has up to 40,000 active fighters in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands more in Gaza cheerfully supporting Hamas terrorist attacks. Israel mobilised 300,000 IDF reservists before launching military action in Gaza. The Israeli army warned the population of Gaza in advance of the military action and urged them to evacuate. The evacuation was reportedly obstructed by Hamas fighters who sought to use civilians as a human shield. The Palestinian Ministry of Health says that up to 30,000 civilians have been killed so far, while the Israeli army reports that it has managed to eliminate 10,000 Hamas terrorists so far. Israel, unlike the coalition that liberated Mosul, is the subject of much international criticism, condemnation in various Western capitals and repeated calls for an end to hostilities against Hamas terrorists.

The overall conclusion is that the operations to liberate Mosul from ISIS terrorists and to liberate Gaza from Hamas terrorists took place in very similar conditions: in densely populated cities where tens of thousands of terrorists hide among the civilian population and therefore prevent their evacuation. In both cases, the use of heavy military equipment by troops against terrorists hiding in the cities has led to severe destruction of the cities and to a significant number of civilian casualties.

That is the price of fighting terrorism. Terrorism may be born for a variety of reasons, but the only choice for the civilised world is to fight and destroy terrorism. Such a struggle is always difficult and always involves many civilian casualties. However, if terrorism is not eradicated, the casualties and tragedies are even greater and completely unpredictable.

In Mosul, the terrorists have been defeated and the city has been freed; in Gaza, the fight against the terrorists is ongoing, and the territory has not yet been liberated. Additional casualties in Gaza can be avoided – all Hamas needs to do is to stop its activities tomorrow, end its military resistance, disarm and there will be an instant end to hostilities in Gaza.

The liberation of Mosul and the liberation of Gaza from the terrorists are therefore identical processes in their causes and their consequences.

However, the reaction of the democratic Western world to these two identical processes is, as has already been said, completely different: the liberation of Mosul has been welcomed in the Western world, while the liberation of Gaza has been the subject of severe criticism in parts of the West, with vehement statements of condemnation and demands for Israel to cease its military operation immediately.

Why are the reactions so different? There are probably several reasons: historical, political or psychological. However, it is not lost on us that the democratic West is still influenced by a subconscious anti-Semitism, which is why Israel is being condemned for its fight against terrorism, whilst the coalition that liberated Mosul from the terrorists has been congratulated on its victory.

When you ask those who condemn Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists how else Israel should deal with the Hamas terrorist problem, the most common answer in the West is very simple: a two-state solution must be implemented immediately.

It is my belief that the so-called ‘two-state solution’ has been used in the West very often, and for quite a long time, only as a sham and an easy way of escaping from the discussion and resolution of difficult issues.

Looking both at the history of the region in the 20th century and at recent developments, I do not see any real prospect of an independent Palestinian state emerging alongside Israel in the near future. It is not because I am in any way against Palestinian Arabs, and it is not because I think that any people are unprepared to live in their own state. However, when we talk about the prospects of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, we have to realise that without a fundamental change in the behaviour of the Palestinian Arabs, and without a fundamental change in the security architecture of the whole region, Israel will never agree to a separate Palestinian state alongside them. This is because Israel would regard the emergence of such a state as a strategic threat to its security and to its existence.

The question of an independent state or another entity that satisfies the Palestinian Arabs can only be resolved by any solution when Israel feels secure in implementing such a solution. Until such a condition is guaranteed, all Western talk of a “two-state solution” will remain a Western attempt to take the easy way out of difficult decisions. And from their responsibilities.

One can go on for a long time accusing Israel of being concerned only with its own security, of ignoring the problems of the Palestinian Arabs, or of ignoring any United Nations resolutions, but the stark reality is that ever since the United Nations’ historic decision in 1947 to bless the creation of the Israeli and Palestinian states side by side, the Israeli people have been fighting to implement this decision, and the Palestinian Arabs have been fighting with weapons against the implementation of this decision. And they did so with the support of the entire neighbouring Arab world of hundreds of millions of people. Israel has had to endure at least three Arab wars in which the Arabs sought to destroy Israel (1948, 1967 and 1973), as well as several terrorist intifadas, and thousands of Hamas or Hezbollah rockets from Gaza or Lebanon that still reach Israeli territory today. And now Hamas has started a real terrorist war against Israel.

It is arguable who has made more mistakes in the 75 years since Israel’s establishment: the Israelis, who have expanded the territory under their control or occupation after every victory in which they have succeeded in defending Israel against the military aggression of their Arab neighbours, who are intent on destroying it; or the Palestinian Arabs and the other Arab states that support them, who are still not giving up on destroying the State of Israel by war or terror.

However, it is now clear that Hamas’ path of terror is merely a distancing factor from the Palestinian Arabs’ declared ambition to have their own state. Israel will never agree to have a state ruled by terrorists in its neighbourhood, because that would be a direct road to Israel’s destruction. Similarly, neither France nor Spain, nor the European Socialists nor the Greens, would accept the prospect of having a terrorist state in their neighbourhood, even though they are the ones from whom in the European Parliament most of the fierce criticism of Israel comes, as well as primitive and superficial calls for an immediate solution to all the problems through a ‘two-state solution’.

Such calls only serve to delay a real and rational solution to the problems that have cost so many lives.

I try to answer the question of how to solve the problem of the Palestinian Arabs, their aspiration to have their own state, rationally (at least from my point of view): the key to solving a problem like this, which is riddled with historical injustices and victims of terrorism, is only one: to start with the security of Israel. Only when Israel feels safe and has security guarantees from all its neighbours will it be possible to move from the emotions of mutual hatred to rational solutions. Until both the Western and Arab worlds realise this, Israel will defend its right to exist with arms and will not enter into any talk of creating a separate Palestinian Arab state.

So, paradoxical as it may sound, those who are genuinely concerned about the fate of Palestine, and not just about condemning Israel repeatedly, should, above all, be courageous in their support for Israel’s war against the Hamas terrorists. Because an Israeli victory in this war is the first, but not the only, condition for Israel to feel secure.

The second step is for the Arab states to sign the so-called “Abraham accords” with Israel, which provide for security guarantees from the Arab countries to Israel on the one hand, and for Israel and the US to invest heavily and beneficially in the Arab economies on the other. It is worth remembering that the United States of America is very much involved in the signing of such agreements. Hamas launched its terrorist war against Israel last year when it emerged that Saudi Arabia was also prepared to sign such an agreement. Terrorism does not need peace in the region because it is also a lucrative business, and it could not exist in peace.

The third step, which is necessary for Israel to feel secure, is for the Palestinian Arabs to unambiguously condemn and distance themselves from their own terrorism. The terrorist path chosen by the Palestinian Arabs is the great mistake and tragedy of the Palestinian Arabs, because it has destroyed any chance of finding a realistic way in which their separate state can be created. All this has left us with nothing but the empty talk of a ‘two-state solution’ by Western politicians, but this is the easiest way to escape from the more difficult decisions, and it only covers up their deep indifference to the tragedies of the people of the region.

It is time for the Western world to realise that the old ways and ideas of “two states” can no longer be expected to solve the bloody problems of the region. Only if the West do not fundamentally care about the future of the region and the Palestinian Arabs, can it continue to follow the same paradigm for its own satisfaction: condemning Israel and demanding the immediate implementation of a ‘two-state solution’. However, it is clear that this will only prolong what we have now and what we have had for the last 75 years: wars, terrorism and a lot of blood. And no real prospect of meeting the expectations of the Palestinian Arabs.

In order to put an end to the tragedies of the region and the suffering of the Palestinian Arabs themselves, the West must finally have the courage to abandon the old paradigms of “two states” and “Israel’s fault”, which have so far only guaranteed that the region’s problems are at a tragic impasse. New and innovative solutions are needed to finally address these problems in a real way.

The solution is clear: commencing with the security of Israel. Help today to defeat the terrorism that threatens Israel. Then persuade the Arab countries and Israel to sign the “Abrahamic Accords” guaranteeing mutual security and development. Then intellectually help the Palestinian Arabs to “heal” from the paradigm of terrorism (which may first require forcing Iran to abandon its sponsorship of terrorism in the region). And then, with the help of a secure Israel, to assist the Palestinian Arabs in developing their ability to govern themselves, beginning with genuine autonomy for Palestinian Arab cities and towns.

Is it possible to expect such a change in attitude from the West and the European Union?

I hope so!

It once seemed impossible to expect the European Union to concern itself with how to help Ukraine withstand Russian military aggression and how to help Ukraine become a member of the EU.

Now, to the surprise of many, this is really happening!

And why should we, Lithuanians,  care that Israel finally feels safe and that the bloody problems in the region are finally resolved?

We should be concerned about this not only because of the history of our relations with the Jewish people, which has been full of everything, including the Lithuanian tragedy of the Holocaust and the bloody responsibilities of the representatives of the Lithuanian nation. It is also important for us today that the bloody Kremlin is using the terrorist ‘services’ of its partner Hamas to create a much broader crisis in the region and simultaneously weaken the European Union’s ability to counter the Kremlin’s aggression against Ukraine.

We must recall that terrorists all over the world have been united since the Soviet era. Only Western unity today can counter this.

This must also concern us in Lithuania because our security relies on it!

2024.03.18

Andrius Kubilius. Putin Is Not The President

While listening to the news of the Lithuanian radio, I hear them reporting: “With presidential elections taking place in Russia today … etc.”

There are no presidential elections in Russia today and no President has been elected in Russia. Because there was no possibility of electing anyone or choosing from anyone. And that  hasn’t been possible for a long time.

The 17 March “presidential election” in Russia was exactly the same as the “parliamentary elections” on 25 February in Belarus, that were neither elections nor to a parliament.

We all know very well that Belarus has neither a real Parliament nor a real President. It has the usurper Lukashenko, it has the dictator Lukashenko, but not the President Lukashenko. Any dictionary of international terms can tell us that the only person who can be called President is someone who has been elected in accordance with the international electoral standards enshrined in the Constitution and who acts in accordance with the Constitution. Elections, the Constitution and Lukashenko have nothing to do with each other.

The same with Putin: neither elections nor the Constitution. Therefore, by continuing to call him President, we are deceiving ourselves and the international community. Just as we are fooling ourselves by continuing to say that there was a presidential election in Russia today. There were no elections in Russia, and they did not elect or choose any President. We can call Putin whatever we like: dictator, war criminal, Kremlin mafia boss, but not elected President.

Russia does not have a President, nor does it have elections. And it won’t have as long as Putin is around. And it is not elections that will bring down the Kremlin regime.

The only difference between the dictators of the 20th century and those of the 21st century, both in Russia and throughout the world, is this: in the 20th century, dictators did not need any elections; in the 21st century, dictators like to pretend that they are supported by their citizens.

In the 20th century, under the Soviet empire, Stalin did not need any elections to stay in power as long as he wanted. In the 21st century, in the era of the restoration of the Russian Empire, Putin, for some reason, wants to have the simulation of “elections” in addition to being in power for as long as he wants. “Potemkin elections”, as Politico called today’s “special operation”.

At the end of the operation, Putin will write down whatever victorious figures he wants: how many participated and how many voted for him. Those figures mean nothing, and it would be a mistake to analyse them in the same way as we analyse the figures for the same factors at the end of elections in Lithuania or the United States.

The only more significant result of the day is that the Russian opposition, with its “Noon without Putin” action, has managed to demonstrate to Western politicians that there is a sufficiently strong anti-Putin potential for public sentiment in Russia.

Changes in Russia will only come after the victory in Ukraine. And that is only – maybe – it will come. But for Ukraine to prevail, the West needs to stop being afraid of the collapse of the Putin regime and to stop being afraid of supporting Ukraine until its crushing victory. Today, such fears exist and they are  preventing Ukraine from receiving maximum support. For the West to stop being afraid, it needs to believe that a post-Putin Russia can be different. Today, the Russian opposition has tried to show this.

After today, the West must draw some simple conclusions:

  • Russia has a clear alternative: a Russia without elections or a Russia without Putin; as long as there is Putin, there will be no elections.
  • After today, Putin is neither elected nor President. All the other titles – dictator, war criminal, Kremlin mafia boss – fit him. Talking about Putin’s legitimacy is the same as talking about the legitimacy of a mafia boss.
  • Peace on the European continent is only possible when not only Russia is crushed in Ukraine, but also when Putin is no longer in the Kremlin. Therefore, the Western coalition “for Ukraine” must become an “anti-Putin” coalition, in the same way that the West was united by an “anti-Hitler” coalition during the Second World War. This is the only way to victory for Ukraine and to our security. The West is not yet united in such an “anti-Putin” coalition. And that is the biggest problem for Ukraine, for us and for the wider West.

Let’s try to act on it: that’s the main conclusion of the day. Let’s try to persuade the West to take on Putin seriously. Just as the West took on Hitler during World War II.

2024.03.05

Electoral programme of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats for the 2024 European Parliament elections

Electoral programme of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (pdf):

Europe for Us, We For Europe: To Grow And To Defend!!!

On 3 March 2024, the Council of the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats (Tėvynės sąjunga-Lietuvos krikščionys demokratai, TS-LKD) approved the provisions of its electoral programme for the 2024 elections to the European Parliament (EP): “Europe – for us, we – for Europe: to grow and to defend!”. The list of TS-LKD candidates for the EP elections was also approved, led by the current MEP Andrius Kubilius.

This year Lithuania will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its membership of the EU and NATO. The programme adopted by the TS-LKD states that membership of the EU and its rich single market has allowed Lithuania to build its own success story. The Conservatives’ strategic declaration “We Believe in Europe” was adopted at the HU 25th Anniversary Congress in 2018, outlining the core provisions of the TS-LKD European policy, and stating that EU and NATO membership contributes to the realisation of Lithuania’s most important interests – to strengthen its geopolitical security and to foster the growth of the economic and social well-being of the people.

The programme also provides that EU membership over the last 20 years has enabled Lithuania to grow safely and rapidly. The provisions state that we and Europe will continue to grow, but that new challenges will have to be met, both for Lithuania and for the EU.

One of the provisions of the TS-LKD electoral programme is based on the fact that the next decade will be the decade of overcoming Europe’s geopolitical crisis, in other words, it will be the “Ukrainian decade”. Only Ukraine’s success, its victory over Russia, its reconstruction and modernisation, and its membership of the EU and NATO, will bring about change in the Eastern European region.

The TS-LKD is convinced that Ukraine’s victory, its reconstruction and its Euro-Atlantic integration are what the EU and other Western countries can and must do. The most important task for TS-LKD representatives in the European Parliament over the next decade will be to do everything possible to ensure that the EU effectively realises its responsibility for Ukraine’s success. For the TS-LKD, the most important concern is that the EU must grow, expand and become stronger, as this is a prerequisite for Lithuania’s own continued secure growth.

The work and ideas of TS-LKD representatives for the transformation of the Eastern region and the restoration of sustainable peace on the European continent are known and appreciated in the international community. In the European Parliament, our party’s representatives work in the largest political group of the European People’s Party (EPP). This allows us to have a greater influence on the decisions of the EP and on the dissemination of ideas that are important for Lithuania. The current President of the European Commission and many influential members of the European Commission are also members of this political group, which opens the door for informal coordination of important decisions for Lithuania, the region and the EU as a whole.

TS-LKD information and photo

2024.03.04

Andrius Kubilius. When Protests Make One Dizzy

Polish farmers have decided to block Lithuanian borders.

As it is known, the Polish authorities are not stopping them from blocking the Ukrainian borders for a long time, which is neither morally nor politically acceptable. Even humanitarian aid from Lithuania cannot reach Ukraine because Polish farmers are fighting their supposedly ‘just’ battles.

The consequences of the Polish Government’s acquiescence to the Polish blockades on the Ukrainian border are entirely in line with the proverb: “Give an inch, they’ll take a mile”, and now they have decided to block the Lithuanian border too. Because it is no longer interesting to blockade only the Ukrainian border.

Polish farmers have created and successfully spread the myth internationally that they are still suffering badly from the influx of Ukrainian grain. That is why they are protesting. This was partly true until June 2023, but after the EU Commission and Ukraine took special measures to protect the markets of the countries neighbouring Ukraine, it is a lie. Since then, no surplus Ukrainian grain has entered the markets of Poland or any of its neighbours. This can be seen in the graph based on EU statistics  (see Figure 1 below), which demonstrates how much cereals have been entering the markets of Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria from the end of 2021. It is clear that after a peak of almost 1 million tonnes in November 2022, only around 15 000 tonnes (60 times less) are now entering these markets, which is exactly in line with the pre-war Ukrainian cereal export figures to these markets. 

Farmers might understandably be unhappy with the fact that wheat grain prices on world markets have been steadily declining since their peak, when they increased at least 3-fold from USD 300 per unit of relative weight (before the war) to USD 1 200 in the first months after the war. They have now fallen to USD 570 and are continuing to fall, but are still higher than they were before the war (see Figure 2 below). This global price trend is not due to Ukraine, but to the good harvests in Argentina this year and the good harvests forecast for the United States or Canada. The falling prices may cause various fears among Polish farmers, but it is neither moral nor sensible to protest on the Ukrainian or Lithuanian borders. Just as only those who are dizzy from protesting can protest on the borders of Ukraine or Lithuania regarding the consequences of the Green Deal approved in Brussels.

The consequences of such protests for Polish farmers could be very simple: it would not surprise me if a public campaign “buy Ukrainian and don’t buy Polish” starts in Lithuania.

Ukrainian salo and horilka are indeed of excellent quality.

**********

Figure 1. Imports of cereals from Ukraine into neighbouring (EU) Member States. Source: European Commission, Statistics on Ukrainian grains and oilseeds exports

 

 

Figure 2. Dynamics of wheat price in global markets (2015-2024, USd/Bushel). Source: tradingeconomics.com

 

2024.02.23

Liudas Mažylis. (Ne)išmoktos Europos pamokos

Jau nuo pat 2022 m. vasario, kai prasidėjo rusų karinė invazija į Ukrainą, ES lyderiai labai aiškiai deklaravo, jog ukrainiečiai kaunasi ir žūsta gindami mus, Europos laisvę. Iš pirmo žvilgsnio, atrodo, kad toks herojiškas naratyvas suvienijo ir sutelkė Europą bendram tikslui – Ukrainos pergalei. Visgi, stringanti karinė parama Ukrainai, susijusi su lėtais Europos pramonės gamybos tempais, kelia rimtą nerimą ne tik dėl Ukrainos pergalės, bet dar ir dėl pačios bendrijos gebėjimo apsiginti. Strateginiame lygmenyje ES institucijos iš tiesų priėmė neregėtą kiekį naujų iniciatyvų ir instrumentų, skirtų tiek Ukrainos gynybai, tiek Europos saugumo situacijos sustiprinimui. Tačiau reikia pripažinti, kad po Antrojo pasaulinio karo Europos gynybos architektūra, kuri buvo paremta JAV saugumo garantijomis, nebėra savaime suprantama. O geopolitiniai aljansai, kurie praeityje atrodė labai aiškūs, šiandien tampa vis sunkiau nuspėjami.

Bandant įvertinti dabartinę saugumo situaciją objektyviai, reikia suvokti, kad Ukrainoje jau prasideda tretieji Rusijos plataus masto invazijos metai.  Šalis kasdien patiria raketų atakas prieš savo miestus, o rytuose okupantai ne tik sėkmingai laiko užimtas pozicijas, bet ir vėl bando kontratakuoti. Pavyzdžiui, prieš kelias dienas ukrainiečių kariai po ilgos apgulties turėjo pasitraukti iš Avdijivkos miesto, esančio Rytų Ukrainoje. O fronte vis labiau masiškai trūksta amunicijos bei Ukrainos karinėms pajėgoms tampa vis sunkiau išlaikyti turimas pozicijas. Todėl galima pastebėti, jog Vakaruose jau nebeliko ne tik perdėto optimizmo, koks buvo karo pradžioje, bet, galima sakyti, neliko ir politinės inercijos. Kitaip tariant, sprendimų priėmimo tempai sulėtėjo. O dar ir laikinai strigo finansinė ir karinė parama Ukrainai. Kita vertus, buvo tik laiko klausimas, kada ES narės ras kompromisą dėl 50 mlrd. eurų makrofinansinės paramos paketo Ukrainai. 2024 m. vasario 1 d. Vadovų Taryboje pavyko susitarti dėl ilgalaikės paramos, tačiau daug sunkiau ir vėliau nei tikėtasi. O pavienės ES narės, pavyzdžiui, Prancūzija, dar praeitą savaitę pasirašė saugumo paktą su Ukraina ir pažadėjo skirti iki 3 mlrd. eurų papildomos karinės pagalbos. Tačiau, reikia pripažinti, Europa bando skubiai didinti karinę paramą reaguodama į vis sunkiau nuspėjamą JAV politinę situaciją. Nuo 2023 m. rudens JAV įstrigo kritinės reikšmės 60 mlrd. dolerių paramos paketas, skirtas Ukrainai. Tokia situacija susiklostė dėl politinių nesutarimų, paliečiančių JAV nacionalinio saugumo finansavimą. Žinoma, JAV artėja prezidento rinkimai, todėl panašu, kad rinkiminis laikotarpis dar labiau apsunkins sprendimų priėmimą. Tačiau, šiek tiek ironizuojant, galima tik spėlioti, ar greitas ar partijų sutarimas dėl paramos Ukrainai, Izraeliui ir Taivanui bei sutarimas dėl sienos su Meksika apsaugos atitiktų amerikietišką demokratijos kultūrą, kad visi klausimai būtų išspręsti dar likus 6 mėnesiams iki rinkimų? Greičiausiai ne. Visgi ekspertai teigia, kad galutinis susitarimas jau arti, kadangi įstatymo projektas buvo patvirtintas Senate, o dabar likęs pritarimas Atstovų rūmuose. Nors ten taip pat yra nei kiek ne mažesnis susipriešinimas.

Europos gynybos pramonės pasirengimas karui su Ukraina dar tik įsivažiuoja. Nors žemyno gynybos pramonė padidino šaudmenų gamybos pajėgumus net 40 proc., ES tikslas iki 2024 m. kovo pagaminti ir perduoti Ukrainai 1 mln. artilerijos sviedinių nebus įvykdytas. Dabar karo ekspertai ir net šalių lyderiai dalijasi prognozėmis, kad Rusija savo karinius pajėgumus gali atkurti greičiau negu iki 2030 m., galimai tam, kad pradėtų karą prieš NATO šalis. Ar reikėtų rimtai reaguoti į vieno iš buvusių ir dabar vėl bandančio tapti JAV prezidentu D. Trumpo kalbas, kad Vašingtonas negintų tų šalių, kurios nemoka pakankamai už savo saugumą? Galbūt. Bet Europai ruoštis reikia. 2024 m. vasario 16–18 d. Miuncheno saugumo konferencijoje ES bei sąjungininkės patikino, kad Ukraina ir toliau ilguoju laiku bus remiama šaudmenimis ir artilerija, tačiau tam, kad Ukraina galėtų karo lauke padaryti reikšmingą kontrataką, būtina teikti daug daugiau artilerijos. Europos Sąjungos užsienio reikalų įgaliotinis Josepas Borrellis vasario 19 d. konferencijoje paragino valstybes nares įsigyti šaudmenų Ukrainai už bloko ribų. Visgi svarbu, kad šaudmenų pirkimas iš trečiųjų šalių netaptų ilgalaike strategija. Reikia, kad Europos gynybos pramonė galėtų augti bei sulaukti investicijų iš bendrijos narių.

Dar 2023 m. liepos 13 d. Europos Parlamente balsavome už teisėkūros rezoliuciją dėl reglamento, kuriame nustatomas Šaudmenų gamybos rėmimo aktas. Šiuo aktu siekėme paspartinti šaudmenų ir raketų tiekimą Ukrainai ir padėti valstybėms narėms papildyti savo arsenalus. Buvo numatytas 500 mln. eurų finansavimas, siekiant padidinti ES gamybos pajėgumus, kad būtų išspręstas dabartinis gynybos produktų, ypač artilerijos šaudmenų, raketų ir jų komponentų trūkumas. Bendrai, tiek Europos Komisija, Vadovų Taryba, Europos Parlamentas bei kitos institucijos veikia Europos gynybos stiprinimo bei atsparumo srityje. Dėl to pastaruoju metu ir kyla daugiau klausimų, ar ES institucijoms nereiktų daugiau centralizacijos ir bendrai daugiau koordinuoto veikimo, siekiant sustiprinti bendrijos gynybinius pajėgumus. Pavyzdžiui, Europos Komisijos vadovė Ursula von der Leyen Miuncheno saugumo konferencijos metu užsiminė, kad po 2024 m. liepą vyksiančių naujų ES rinkimų galimai būtų sukurta nauja ES gynybos komisaro pozicija. Toks sprendimas galbūt iš tiesų leistų labiau konsoliduoti bendrijos gynybos strategijos klausimus bei padėtų institucijomis veikti efektyviau. ES institucijos yra pasidalinusios gynybos ir saugumo kompetencijomis. Tarkim, už Bendrą saugumo ir gynybos politiką (BSGP) yra atsakingas Europos Sąjungos užsienio reikalų įgaliotinis Josepas Borrellis. BSGP apima karinių ar civilinių misijų dislokavimą siekiant išsaugoti taiką, užkirsti kelią konfliktams ir stiprinti tarptautinį saugumą. Europos Komisija turi Gynybos pramonės ir kosmoso generalinį direktoratą (DEFIS), kuris atsakingas už Europos gynybos fondo įgyvendinimą, gynybos rinkos konkurencingumą, karinį mobilumą bei bendrai gynybos pramonės ir kosmoso sektorių. Europos Parlamentas irgi aktyviai prisideda prie ES saugumo ir gynybos politikos formavimo.

Tačiau esminis klausimas vis dar išlieka: ar Europa, matydama, kas vyksta Ukrainoje, ruošiasi pakankamai? Ar Rusijos agresija Ukrainoje išmokė ko nors Europą? Naujai priimtų sankcijų tempai Rusijai juk irgi sulėtėjo. Nors, kita vertus, akivaizdu, kad ne paketų skaičius, o sankcijų efektyvumo klausimas, kurį dabar ir mes Europos Parlamente nuolatos eskaluojame, yra svarbiausias. Naujasis 13-asis sankcijų paketas, kuris artimiausiu metu turėtų būti patvirtintas Taryboje, irgi nepanašu, kad suduos kokių nors esminių smūgių Kremliaus karo mašinai. Bus  taikoma daugiau individualių sankcijų bei uždrausta ES juridiniams objektams prekiauti su keliomis Kinijos, Turkijos, Indijos ir Serbijos įmonėmis. Tačiau jokių naujų sektorinių sankcijų ar su jų apeidinėjimu siejamų instrumentų nebus pritaikyta. Apie naftą ir dujas net nėra ką ir kalbėti, nes apie tai jau dvejus metus kalbama. Reikia pripažinti, kad judama, bet per lėtai. O juk Rusiją ir jos gebėjimą kariauti galima susilpninti ir kitose srityse. Pavyzdžiui, mokslinis bendradarbiavimas tarp Europos ir Rusijos mokslininkų taip pat vis dar nėra sankcionuotas.

2024.02.21

A. Kubilius. On Alexey Navalny

I want to start from the words of Ilya Jashin, another political prisoner of Putin. In his public statement yesterday from the prison he said:

“The confrontation between Navalny and Putin showed the scale of the personalities of both. Alexey will remain in history as a man of exceptional courage, who went forward for what he believed in. He walked, despising fear and death. He walked with a smile and his head held high. And he died a hero.

Putin will remain a small man who accidentally received enormous power. A character who hides in a bunker, kills on the sly and makes millions of people hostage to his complexes. But I don’t wish him to die. I dream that he will answer for his crimes not only before God’s court, but also before the earthly court.“

Putin killed Navalny. He killed Navalny, because Navalny had a dream. 

Navalny fought for his dream of a “wonderful Russia of the future” (“прекрасная Россия будущего”): a normal, European, democratic Russia. 

This is the prospect of Russia that many Russians still believe in. And that is why Putin killed Navalny. 

Putin killed a man, but it is impossible to kill a dream. It has a life of its own and it will one day become a reality.

When that happens, depends not only on ordinary Russians, not only on the opposition to Putin or on Russian civil society. 

“The wonderful Russia of the future”: a normal, European, democratic Russia is not only Navalny’s dream, which will live on. 

It is also our dream, because the existence of the whole of Europe depends on its realisation – whether we will ever be able to live in a stable peace without the threat of a post-imperial, authoritarian, aggressive Russia. To protect ourselves against such a threat, we need to invest not only in NATO’s “deterrence and defence” strategies, not only in our own military capabilities in our countries, but also in the realisation of Navalny’s dream.

We have in our hands the most important instrument to help Navalny’s dream become a reality. These are the Ukrainian victories, which depend only on the Western support: they will open the window for transformations in Russia.

Putin will lose. He will be crushed first in Ukraine and then in Russia.

Putin’s defeat is our task and our job. This requires a long-term and an ambitious   Western strategy. 

We say goodbye to Alexei Navalny. But our struggle will continue. Dreams never die. We shall continue the fight of A. Navalny, and the entire democratic world will continue his fight. It would be very important for European Parliament to continue to be in the leadership of that fight.

2024.02.20

EPP Group position paper on the EU Plan for the victory of Ukraine

The European People’s Party  has always been and will continue to be the leading European political force standing together with the Ukrainian people. We continue to lead EU initiatives aimed at supporting Ukraine with military, humanitarian, and financial assistance, aiding  the reconstruction efforts and helping Ukraine prepare for integration to EU and NATO.

At this moment the biggest concern and challenge for the EU and the Western world is ensuring long-term military support sufficient for Ukraine to achieve victory and to defeat Russia. Despite the West’s economic strength being 25 times than that of Russia’s, the Western military support provided during the last years prevented Ukraine from  defeat, but was not enough to win the war.

There is an urgent need to overhaul the Western system of military support to Ukraine, which until now was based on individual countries making voluntary decisions regarding military assistance. Our system needs to be transformed into one  based on collective decisions and obligations to deliver the necessary support for Ukraine to prevail and win the war. It should also include a collective decision regarding the ramping up of the EU military industry to produce what is needed for defence and victory of Ukraine in the nearest future.

To address these issues, the EPP Group proposes that the  EU institutions  urgently develop “The EU Plan for the Victory of Ukraine.” This Plan would provide the framework for collective EU decisions and the implementation of urgent steps for military assistance to Ukraine necessary for its victory. This position paper presents the basic information and arguments for the preparation of such a Plan.

Read the paper in pdf.

2024.02.19

Andrius Kubilius. The West, Lithuania and Europe’s Eastern Area: the Strategic Importance of the “Transformation Triangle” for Europe’s Destiny

I started writing the text on the “Transformation Triangle” some two weeks ago. The term “Transformation Triangle” itself came to mind even earlier, during a visit to Washington in November 2023, when I was looking for an answer on how the West can realistically help Russia to get rid of the Putin regime and to gradually return to the path of democracy.

The idea that we must explain to the West that Ukraine’s military and geopolitical (integrationist) victories are the only way how the West can help Russia’s transformation has long been with me. And Ukraine’s victories are the sole responsibility of the West. For only with sufficient Western support for Ukraine can such victories be achieved, and with it the opportunity to bring about transformation across the wider Eastern area of the European continent. So far, Ukraine has not received such a sufficient support.

I started telling and writing this even before the war.

I started writing this text, which I planned as a summary of my thoughts, a couple of weeks ago. I finished it on the day that the shocking news reached us all – Putin had killed Navalny.

Navalny fought for his dream of a “wonderful Russia of the future” (“прекрасная Россия будущего”): a normal, European, democratic Russia. This is the prospect of Russia that many Russians still believe in. This was demonstrated by the huge queues of Russians willing to sign up to Nadezhdin’s candidacy in the so-called presidential “elections”.

Putin killed Navalny. He  killed Navalny,  because Navalny had a dream. Putin killed a man, but it is impossible to kill a dream. It has a life of its own and it will one day become a reality.

When that happens, depends not only on ordinary Russians, on the opposition to Putin or on Russian civil society. It is up to us and it is up to the West as a whole. We have in our hands the most important instrument to help Navalny’s dream become a reality. These are the Ukrainian victories, which depend only on the Western support.

Putin will lose. He will be crushed first in Ukraine and then in Russia.

Putin’s defeat is our task and our job. This requires a long-term and holistic Western strategy. I have tried to set out some of the elements of such a strategy in this text.

“The wonderful Russia of the future”: a normal, European, democratic Russia is not only Navalny’s dream, which will live on. It is also our dream, because the existence of the whole of Europe depends on its realisation – whether we will ever be able to live in a stable peace without the threat of a post-imperial, authoritarian, aggressive Russia. To protect ourselves against such a threat, we need to invest not only in NATO’s “deterrence and defence” strategies, not only in our own  military capabilities in Lithuania, but also in the realisation of Navalny’s dream, in the implementation of the long-term strategy of the “Transformation Triangle”. Because only the “Transformation Triangle” will destroy the very source of the threat.

We say goodbye to Alexei Navalny. But our struggle will continue. Dreams never die.

***

Ukraine’s war against Russia is not yet going the way the Ukrainians and all of us would like. Since the beginning of the war, Western support for Ukraine has been just enough to enable Ukraine not to lose, but the support of only that level has prevented Ukraine from achieving victory. It is enough to remember just one figure: in 2023, Russia has spent more than EUR 100 billion on financing the war, while the Ukrainian side, with the full weight of the West’s support for Ukraine’s defence, has managed to mobilise resources worth only EUR 80 billion, of which as much as EUR 40 billion were Ukraine’s own resources.

Total Western military support to Ukraine in 2023 was less than 0.1% of Western GDP. After all, the economic potential of the West is 25 times that of Russia.

So, the West is rich enough that, with its vast resources to support the heroism of the Ukrainian soldiers, it could easily have ensured that Russia had already lost the war.

But this didn’t happen. Russia has not yet lost the war. And in truth, it still remains to be seen how Ukraine will be able to achieve victory in this war in the coming years. Because it is not likely that Western support will increase dramatically in the short term.

Here we have the first strange paradox in the behaviour of the West: a number of Western leaders, politicians and military men, seeing that Ukraine is still not winning the war, do not shy away from loudly lamenting this, and do not shy away from publicly predicting that a Russia that has not been crushed in Ukraine will be ready to attack some NATO country in 5 or 6 years. However, this overwhelming feeling on the part of Western leaders does not in any way translate into a decision to provide greater military support to Ukraine, which would enable Ukraine to win the war, to crush Russia and, at the same time, to remove the threat of its aggression against the West.

Why is that?

The answer is clear: because Western support has so far lacked the strategic ambition to achieve such a victory.

Why does the West still not dare to be ambitious for victory?

Because they are contemplating the goal of victory over Russia with a mood of negativity and fear rather than with a positive ambition that such a victory of Ukraine and the West would be good not only for Ukraine, but also for Russia itself and its prospects, would be good for the whole of the eastern area of the European continent, and would be good for the West itself, because it would create the conditions for a stable peace in the European continent.

It is clear that the ambition to achieve a Ukrainian victory for the West has so far was absent, because a large part of the West is simply afraid of such a Ukrainian victory.

First, the West fears that its ambition to see Russia defeated could provoke Putin to escalate the war, perhaps even to the point of using nuclear weapons. The West is therefore opting for the tactic of a slow “froggy boil”, only gradually increasing Ukraine’s military potential, in the hope that this will avoid the risk of escalation, and that Russia will eventually be exhausted and will decide to pull out of the war itself. However, this “slow-boil” tactic has the potential to “exhaust” the West’s own support for Ukraine in the first place. We are already seeing signs of this in the deliberations of the US Congress.

Secondly, the West fears what consequences such a Ukrainian victory might have for Russia itself. It is feared that a Ukrainian victory will result in the collapse of the Putin regime and that it will be replaced by even more aggressive “nationalists” rather than by some Russian democrats (because the West does not believe in Russia’s democratic prospects). There is also the fear of a post-Putin Russia breaking up into separate, conflicting entities, leaving it unclear who controls Russia’s nuclear weapons. More recently, the famous Elon Musk has been voicing such fears to members of the US Senate.

Sometimes it seems that the goal of a Ukrainian victory alone is not geopolitically and psychologically sufficient for the West to overcome such fears. That is why the West remains so “lukewarm”. They are also lukewarm in their military support for Ukraine.

All these fears, together with the usual short-sightedness and lack of leadership, prevent the West from seeing the completely new European horizons and perspectives that a Ukrainian victory could open up, as well as from seeing positive horizons that require a positive and strong Western strategic ambition.

Therefore, we, those of us who are striving for a Ukrainian victory, must also help the West to see the much broader horizons that only a Ukrainian victory can open up. Only in this way can we awaken the West’s ambition to achieve such a victory in Ukraine, only in this way can we help the West to free itself from fears about what will happen with Putin, with the Kremlin, or with all of Russia after a Ukrainian victory.

We need to preach to the West a very clear strategic doctrine, which is understandable to the West, and which is important to the West as a whole, and not just to us (or to our region), and which will help the West to understand the significance of the new horizons that will be opened up by the Ukrainian victory, and the meaning and strategic benefits of this, including for the West.

As French President Macron is fond of saying, today the West (including the European Union) lacks a new “grand narrative”, which makes the West look increasingly weak geopolitically.

Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression allows the West to discover a new “grand narrative”, and this must be the West’s ambition to achieve not only the victory of Ukraine, but also the transformation of the entire eastern area of the European continent.

These new European horizons can be called the horizons of the “Transformation Triangle”. At the top corner of the Transformation Triangle is Ukraine, and in the other two corners of the triangle are Russia and Belarus. The corners of this triangle are historically and geopolitically closely interlinked. Therefore changes at the “corner of Ukraine” will inevitably lead to major transformations in the other corners of the triangle: Russia and Belarus.  It is also called a triangle because if one looks at the point on the map where the borders of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus meet, one can clearly see the geographical triangle formed by the border roads (see photo).

“The Transformation Triangle” is the new “grand narrative” in Europe, because it is the key to the lasting peace in Europe: the neighbourhood of the current European Union, not led by the dictators in Russia and Belarus, but rather with the resurgent and evolving democracies in these countries, is the only chance for Europe to fulfil the formula of G.H.W.Bush: “Europe – whole, free and at peace”. This is the only formula that can guarantee lasting peace in Europe. This requires “freedom” in Russia and Belarus. Only when Russia and Belarus are transformed into territories of democracy and freedom can the old Europe no longer feel threatened by an authoritarian and neo-imperial Russia. Democracies do not fight each other – this is the axiom of a lasting peace on the European continent.

The question Western leaders must answer is simple: do they want chaos, blood and more suffering on the European continent, or do they want a stable peace. Indifference, a “not my business” attitude, an unwillingness to invest in a lasting peace, will only lead to ever-increasing chaos and the threat of war; a stable peace requires political and material investment in the “Transformation Triangle”. “Grand Narratives” only become true “grand narratives” when “grand” political and material resources are also invested in them, and one not merely limits oneself to empty but regularly repeated statements.

The West can bring about a major positive change at the “Ukrainian corner” of the Transformation Triangle, starting with Ukraine’s military victory and ending with the victory of the “Ukrainian success”, which will require both the reconstruction of Ukraine and Ukraine’s EU and NATO membership. The military victory of Ukraine is needed to crush the ideology of the current Kremlin regime’s Russism in Russia and to crush the Kremlin regime itself, thus opening a window of opportunity for political transformation in Russia, while the creation of a “Ukrainian success” through its Euro-Atlantic integration is needed so that the example of such a success can inspire ordinary Russians and Belarusians to strive for the same kind of European-oriented transformation in their countries.

Some in the West fear that such Western efforts to bring about change in the Russian-Belarusian corners of the Transformation Triangle are an implementation of the Western policy of “regime change”, which is supposedly unacceptable for some historical reason. However, this is a completely false fear: yes, we want a political change in Russia and Belarus, we want the fall of both the Putin and Lukashenko regimes, but this will have to be achieved by the Russians and the Belarusians themselves, and we will help the change in Russia and Belarus with our resolute policy of support for Ukraine and with our consistent solidarity with the Russian opposition and civil society.

The Transformation Triangle means that positive transformation in Russia and Belarus can also take place, thanks to the European-designed and supported change at the “corner of Ukraine”. Transformations in Russia and Belarus will be implemented by Russians and Belarusians themselves, but the context and motivation for such transformation will be created by the changes in Ukraine. And the changes in Ukraine, including its victories, can and must be created and influenced by the West. But to do so, the West needs to discover a new “grand narrative” and to realise its ambition for it.

Both Ukraine’s military victory and the integration victory of the “Ukrainian success story” now depend solely on the West’s determination to achieve this. The Ukrainians have long since demonstrated that they have more than enough of determination, while the West has still not shown that it has the Western resolve and determination  to support such Ukrainian victories. And without the West’s resolute support, such Ukrainian victories will not be possible.

What the European Union’s Transformation Triangle strategy must look like? It must consist of five essential parts:

Ukraine’s military victory and Russia’s defeat. The Putin regime and the aggressive ideology of Russism must suffer a severe crushing. The nostalgia of ordinary Russians for imperial grandeur must also suffer a painful defeat. The defeat must be accompanied by an international tribunal and reparations so that the Russians understand the extent of the crimes committed. This may open a window of opportunity for the beginning of a transformation in Russia. A military victory for Ukraine can only be achieved with much greater Western military support.

Reconstruction and European integration of Ukraine (building Ukraine’s economic success). The reconstruction of Ukraine and Ukraine’s integration into the EU Single Market is the only way how the long-term success of Ukraine’s European economy can be built. Reconstruction and European integration will be closely interlinked processes. The economic “miracle” of Central Europe and the Baltic States has been created by the region’s accession to the EU and the EU Single Market: Lithuania’s GDP/capita (PPP) was only 36% of the EU average in 1999, when it started negotiations for EU membership, and now it is 90%. For Ukraine, the same figure now is only 36%. But it has the same potential to reach 90% of the EU average in the next 20 years if the EU is able to implement an ambitious enlargement policy. It should be remembered that no post-Soviet country (in Central and Eastern Europe or in the Balkans) has so far been able to build its success without the EU integration. The EU can create such a success for Ukraine. The contagious example of Ukraine’s success will be the strongest factor that will eventually inspire the Russian and Belarusian people to seek fundamental change at home. The EU would be making a huge geopolitical mistake if it did not pursue an ambitious and rapid enlargement strategy that includes Ukraine. For such a European integration of Ukraine would fundamentally change the whole Transformation Triangle.

Ukraine’s NATO membership. Ukraine’s membership, or at least the invitation to join NATO in the near future, is not only important because it would address Ukraine’s security issue. It is also important because it would help Russia to transform itself. Because such an invitation to Ukraine would mean that Ukraine is no longer left in the “grey” security zone and a clear signal is sent to Russia that Ukraine is no longer within their sphere of its influence. And this, as the famous Zbygniew Brzezinski once very rightly said, would be the greatest support for Russia’s transformation into a democracy: according to Brzezinski, a Russia that retains the ability to rule and influence Ukraine will always remain an empire, and a Russia that loses this ability will be able to become a democracy. The West has all the means to implement Brzezinski’s formula in the near future – all it needs to do is to invite Ukraine to become a NATO member at the next NATO Summit. This will bring about a huge change in the whole Transformation Triangle and it depends only on the determination of the West to help or not to help Russia transform itself.

Support for the Russian and Belarusian opposition and civil society. This is the least the West can and must do in terms of concern for change in the Transformation Triangle. It is also a test of the West’s geopolitical wisdom: the West can only genuinely help the opposition and civil society if it also genuinely believes that democratic change can happen in both Russia and Belarus. If they do not believe this, then all the Western slogans about support for the opposition or civil society are a sham. Moreover, if you don’t believe in the prospects for democracy in Russia or Belarus (and the majority of people in Lithuania and the wider West do not yet believe in such prospects), then you are helping Musk to explain to US congressmen that there is no need to support and work for the victory of Ukraine and Russia’s defeat and the fall of Putin’s regime, because there can’t be a positive transition in Russia after Putin; because the situation will get only worse; because there simply cannot be a positive democratic transition in Russia. So, if you do not believe in the prospects of democracy in Russia, you are helping those who do not want to give Ukraine more weapons, because they are subconsciously afraid of a Ukrainian victory. Therefore, the European Union must put more much efforts in helping the Russian opposition; the EU must believe in Russia’s democratic prospects, and must begin to implement the grand narrative of the Triangle of Transformation, because only then will it no longer be afraid of Ukraine’s victory, and no longer be afraid of giving more weapons to Ukraine.

A “Marshall Plan” for democratic Belarus and Russia. The European Union must say loudly today to ordinary Russians and Belarusians that, after Putin and Lukashenko, they will be able to live a much better life than they are living now. Because the European Union will not allow them to be disillusioned by democratic change in their own countries. It must be announced now that the European Union is ready to help the future young democracies of Russia and Belarus with European special “Marshall Plans” of the 21st century. These will not be bags of money shipped to a democratic Moscow or Minsk, but agreements on free trade, visa-free travel and modernisation partnerships with the EU, which will help the people of those countries to realise the benefits and opportunities of democracy. For a democratic Russia, this will be a realisation of the dream of the murdered Navalny: to build the “wonderful Russia of the future”. And for the democratic Belarus, these are also prospects for the EU integration.  The European Union should already be announcing such plans now, and should be coordinating them with the democratic forces in those countries: it would not cost the EU anything for the time being, but it would already have a tremendous impact on the thinking of the people of the Transformation Triangle.

Can Putin be angry about this Transformation Triangle agenda and the “grand narrative” of transformation being implemented by the West?

Definitely yes.

But ordinary Russians and Belarusians will surely support such a Western agenda.

The question remains: who is the West with – Putin or ordinary Russians and Belarusians waiting for the implementation of the Transformation Triangle strategy?

Europe as a whole needs such a strategy. Because the Transformation Triangle is the key to a stable peace on the European continent.

And the European Union is able to implement such a Transformation Triangle strategy. Through the implementation of an ambitious and victorious strategy in support of Ukraine.

But this requires one condition: that the West stops being afraid of Putin. And that they finally decide that Putin must be crushed in Ukraine – with much greater Western military support for Ukraine.

“Transformation Triangle” on the map:

2024.02.06

Andrius Kubilius. How To Stop The Veto Rampage And “Orbanization” Of The European Union?

Over the last few years, Viktor Orban has made Hungary the biggest headache for the entire European Union.  Despite the fact that during the recent EU Council meetings he gradually retracted from his tactics to veto all the EU decisions related with Ukraine, during recent years V.Orban nevertheless created the permanent threat to the European Union of being “orbanized”. “Orbanization” of the EU means weakening of the EU decision making capacity with the abuse of veto power by a Member State, which attempts to blackmail all the EU.

The European Union is struggling to find the best way to stop the spread of such a new “culture of blackmail”, but still does not have a systemic approach to such a challenge.

It is time for the EU to look for a proper answer to the challenge of “Orbanization”.

In order to move forward, first of all we need to look into the past, in order to understand how and when the phenomenon of “Orbanization” started to appear.

In the begining, the European Union was forced to find new ways to stop Orban’s legislative activities back home, in Hungary, that violate basic values, especially the rule of law, as enshrined in the EU Treaties, and violation of which risks disrupting the functioning of essential EU mechanisms, including the EU Single Market, which operates on the basis of the uniform application of the rule of law throughout the EU.

To force Hungary to return to the rule of law, the EU had previously legally withheld (“frozen”) the disbursement of the EU  Recovery Fund (around EUR30 billion) to Hungary. In December last year, when Hungary was forced to correct some of its rule of law violations, the EU Commission made the decision to ‘unfreeze’ EUR10 billion in payments to Hungary.

But during last years Orban, who had already been “financially” punished by the EU Commission several years ago, decided that his first priority was not so much to fix Hungarian law as to resort to “veto blackmail” against the EU as a whole (and thus to force the EU to go for  the “unfreezing” of EU funds), since the Treaty on European Union stipulates that most decisions in the EU Council must be taken unanimously.

Under the Treaty definition of unanimity as decision making procedure in the European Council, Hungary appears to have a formal veto over important EU decisions. The established practice within the EU so far has been that an exercise of the veto right does not need to be based on any serious arguments by an individual country. Thanks to mainly Orban’s efforts, the veto right entrenched in the Treaty has become an important instrument of the new “blackmail culture”. This “blackmail culture” is spreading rapidly throughout the EU, especially in “new Europe”. This makes the EU dangerously ineffective, especially since Orban’s “veto” has been specifically aimed at undermining the EU’s efforts to support Ukraine over the last two years, after the onset of the war.

Therefore, it warrants significantly more attention to identify effective EU legal mechanisms to put an end to Orban’s blackmailing “rampage”.

Firstly, it must be clarified that Orban’s infractions pertain to two distinct aspects of EU operations: he infringes upon the principles established in the Treaty on European Union regarding the “internal” activities within EU Member States, as well as the principles for “external” actions of EU countries in their interactions with other Member States and with the EU Community at large.

It is evident that Viktor Orban and his administration are making “domestic” decisions which infringe upon European values of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights within Hungary, as stipulated in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). However, Mr. Orban is also engaging in “external” misconduct beyond Hungary’s borders in Hungary’s interactions with other Member States and with the EU Community at large, as well as within the EU’s international domain, by exploiting the “veto” power granted by the EU Treaties in order to blackmail the entire EU.

To counteract Orban’s treaty-breaching conduct (both “internally” and “externally”), we must utilize targeted and distinct EU legal instruments to safeguard the EU Treaties in those respectively different spheres of “internal” and “external” activities of Member States.

While there is much to be said about Orban’s domestic actions in Hungary and the necessity for him to adhere to the values outlined in Article 2 of the Treaty, it is clear that what currently preoccupies the European Union is his employment of “veto blackmail” as an “external” maneuver. Nevertheless, in our defense against this “external” blackmail, we continue to discuss and develop arguments, based solely on Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union. This article is designed to uphold EU values against the improper domestic conduct of national governments within the EU, specifically when there is a breach of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law as defined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union.

Our efforts to demonstrate that the “veto blackmail” (applied “externally”) also contravenes the values of Article 2 of the Treaty (which are originating “internally”) have not been legally effective and will likely face significant challenges in curtailing “veto blackmail”. Thus, it becomes important to explore alternative legal avenues to halt the proliferation of this “veto blackmail culture” within the EU.

In the quest to effectively halt Orban’s “veto blackmail”, we should also consider Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union, which defines the EU’s basic principles of sincere cooperation and loyalty. The Article 4 (3) states, “The Member States shall facilitate the achievement of the Union’s tasks and refrain from any measure which could jeopardise the attainment of the Union’s objectives.”

As it is stated in the commentary to the Treaty on European Union, “The principle of sincere cooperation is another key concept of Union law. /…/ The principle can be regarded as foundation stone of the Union’s legal order. /…/ The principle of sincere cooperation requires both cooperation and respect. /…/ As a general obligation flowing from the loyalty principle the CJEU inferred the principle of good faith, which prohibits the MS from any abuse of rights”.[1]

Mathias Herdegen, while analyzing Article 4(3) of the TEU, explains: “From the Union’s point of view, compliance with the Treaty obliges the Member States to loyally fulfill their contractual obligations. /…/ In any case, it is obvious to see a violation of the principle of “loyalty to the Union” in an “empty chair policy” or a refusal to participate in the Council of European Union in order to achieve certain objectives”.[2] Despite the fact, that  M.Herdegen does not comment anything on the “abuse of veto power”, but “empty chair policy” had the same goal as policy of “abuse of veto” of today: it was and is used “to achieve certain objectives in violation of “loyalty to the Union” principle.

The language of the Article 4(3) suggests that the EU Member States’ veto right, as established in the Treaty on European Union, is not absolute. Abusing the veto power in a manner that jeopardizes the Union’s objectives is a manifest violation of the Treaty. This means that the right to veto should be reserved for exceptional instances where a Member State’s paramount national interest is at risk. For such instances, an objective mechanism to evaluate the legitimacy of the veto justification should be established.

It is now abundantly clear that Orban’s use of “veto blackmail” instrument is obstructing and jeopardizing achievement of the Union’s objectives, particularly regarding the EU’s support for Ukraine—an EU stance that has been repeatedly affirmed at the highest levels of EU institutions since the onset of the conflict. Yet, Mr. Orban continues to employ his blackmail tactics, relentlessly aiming to undermine the EU’s efforts to support Ukraine without any substantive arguments. This behavior constitutes a stark breach of the Treaty, threatening not just Ukraine, but the integrity of the EU itself.

European Parliament in its January 18, 2024 Resolution “On the situation in Hungary and frozen EU funds” made a clear statement, that in December, 2023 EU Council meeting, when Hungary vetoed the decision on the essential MFF revision, including the Ukraine aid package, it demonstrated “full disrespect and violation of the EU’s strategic interests”. And even more – European Parliament clearly declared that in such a way Hungary violated its Treaty obligations “/European Parliament/ believes that such actions /of Hungary/ are in violation of the principle of sincere cooperation, as enshrined in the Treaties.”

So, it can be stated in a unambiguous way: “orbanization” of the Union is a clear violation of the basic principles of “sincere cooperation” and “loyalty to the Union”, which are “the foundation stone of the Union’s legal order.”

One should also remember that the Union is based on the principle of rule of law, and violation of the principles of the Union and of the Treaty, is violation of the basic law of the Union. Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union, mandates that the Commission “shall ensure the application of the Treaties […] and it shall oversee the application of Union law”.

Consequently, the European Commission must act to uphold Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union and shield it from Mr. Orban’s egregious misuse of the veto. According to the Treaty, the Commission, as the custodian of the EU Treaties and laws, must perform its protective duties in accordance with the rulings of the European Court of Justice. It is time for the Commission to take the lead and fulfill its responsibilities. Article 258 of the TFEU states very clearly,

“If the Commission considers that a Member State has failed to fulfill an obligation under the Treaties, it shall deliver a reasoned opinion on the matter after giving the State concerned the opportunity to submit its observations.

If the concerned State does not comply with the opinion within the period laid down by the Commission, the latter may bring the matter before the Court of Justice of the European Union”.

Should the Commission hesitate to act for any reason, it is pertinent to remember that Article 259  of the TFEU states:

“A Member State which considers that another Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under the Treaties may bring the matter before the Court of Justice”

Therefore, the Court of Justice can be addressed by a state , for example by Lithuania, concerning Hungary’s “veto blackmail” and the enforcement of Article 4(3) of the Treaty on European Union.

It is imperative to put a halt to the “culture of veto  blackmail” which is created by Viktor Orban and which has a danger to spread to other EU Member States. It is within our power to do so, using the obligations and the powers of the Treaties. We must not merely lament the perceived frailties of the European Union; we are the European Union. Let us be proactive in aiding ourselves.

The best way to get rid of the “culture of veto blackmail”, of course, is to abandon veto right in decision making totally and to move to QMV. That is what citizens of EU demanded in the outcomes of the Conference on the Future of the EU. But until this is achieved, we need to demonstrate that the EU is able to defend itself against any blackmail. Violation of the basic EU principles of sincere cooperation and loyalty to the Union should be punished with the same vigor as Union is punishing for the violation of basic EU values of democracy, human rights and rule of law.

[1] The Treaty on European Union (TEU), H.-J.Blanke and St. Mangiameli (Ed’s.),  Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31706-4, p.232-234.

[2] Mathias Herdegen, “Europarecht” (Beck C.H., 2019)

2024.01.17

Andrius Kubilius. 2024 And Beyond: A Rationally Optimistic War Scenario

The year 2023 ended in Lithuania with  apocalyptic predictions that everything is bad – Ukraine is losing, it does not know how to fight, Russia is winning and will soon come to us, and the West is betraying us all. And we are the only ones who know how to do everything, but nobody listens to us.

I am hyperbolizing a bit, but the end of the year sounded like this…

We are not special – in today’s world of instant global communication and rapid change, it is common for societies to swing from a wave of over-optimism to a black pit of pessimism very quickly.

HOW CAN WE OVERCOME OUR PESSIMISM AND STOP THE KREMLIN ENJOYING IT?

We have to admit that at the beginning of last year, many of us were hoping for a quick victory for Ukraine, and when we did not get it, we were tempted, without thinking too much, to compete to see who could paint a blacker and more desperate scenario for the future. In the darkness of the long winter nights, pessimism becomes a new dangerous pandemic, because our and all the West’s disbelief in the possibility of a different outcome, of the victory of Ukraine eventually leads very quickly to the Kremlin’s longed-for mood of “fatigue” and “acceptance of reality” in our midst. Obviously, if this mood is allowed to prevail, Ukraine will receive even less support from the West.

So, it is worth answering a simple question for ourselves: if the Kremlin benefits from our emotional pessimism and apocalyptic predictions, is it really wise for us to indulge in such black pessimism indiscriminately and to encourage it even more ourselves?

The desire not to succumb to global pessimism does not mean that we do not need to see what is happening on the ground: Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion has entered a new phase in which there are no immediate victories for Ukraine in liberating its territory. The war may last longer than we expected a year ago. However, this also does not mean that Russia’s victory in this war is imminent.

In order to overcome our own pessimistic pandemic, we must first of all realize that the only inoculation that can protect us from such a pandemic is not the fountain of over-optimistic sentiment that opposes general pessimism, but only a much deeper rational analysis, based on facts, figures, and reason (but not on emotion). Meanwhile, we are still not used to such analyses, even after becoming a frontier state. It is about time…

It is worth starting such a rational analysis with simple, basic questions: firstly, about the political will of the West, and secondly, about the material capacity of the West to realize this political will.

DOES THE WEST WANT RUSSIA TO WIN THE WAR?

The first question in this series of questions is quite primitive: why has Ukraine, which is supported by a West that is dozens of times richer than Russia, not yet won the war, and why is this war turning into a continuing conflict?

I provided a numerical answer to this question a good month ago in my text “On the Reality of War”: despite the fact that the West is economically much stronger than Russia, Russia has spent more than EUR100 billion on financing the war in 2023, while Ukraine, with all the support of the EU and the US, has mobilized only EUR80 billion. Ukraine spent 25% of its GDP on the war effort, Russia almost 6%, while EU military aid amounted to only 0.075% of its total GDP. Thus, on the front line, the West’s economic advantage has not yet been seen, and therefore Ukraine is so far receiving only the kind of support from the West that allows it to remain undefeated, but is not enough to achieve victory.

This raises a second simple question: if the West does not support Ukraine to the extent that Ukraine can win, is it possible that the West, on whose support Ukraine’s ability to win this war depends, want Russia to win this war?

I do not have the capacity to delve into the depths of the thinking of the leaders of the democratic world, especially the leaders of Western Europe, but I do not see any rational argument why they should want and seek to see Russia win this war. On the contrary, the fears of Western leaders that a Russian victory over Ukraine would only mean that in a few years’ time, Russia would turn its aggression against one of the NATO countries – Finland, Estonia, or Lithuania – are becoming more frequent in public discourse. My personal hunch is that an increasing number of Western leaders now similarly see the danger of a “peace under Putin”, in which Ukraine would be forced to give up part of its territory, which would only mean a victory for Putin and the prospect of imminent future aggression.

It is likely that some Western leaders are wary of the prospect of a quick and crushing victory for Ukraine, either because they fear that the Kremlin would respond with an unpredictable escalation of its aggression, or because they fear that such a Ukrainian victory would result in the collapse of the Putin regime and the frightening uncertainty of who will take over the Kremlin after Putin. However, such fears, even if they exist, cannot explain why the West should want a Russian victory.

This leads to the rational conclusion that there are no Western leaders who want Russia to win this war. There is no logical argument as to why a Russian victory, followed by a new wave of Russian aggression, would be of any benefit to the West. And since the West is also likely to be increasingly aware that a Russian victory would probably mean an inevitable increase in Chinese aggressiveness against the “weak” West and Taiwan too, this makes it even less likely that anyone in the West would think that a Russian victory in Ukraine would be of any benefit to the West.

Some might say that the West, even if it perceives that a Russian victory in Ukraine is not only disadvantageous to it but even highly threatening to them, may remain indifferent to the fate of Ukraine. But those who would think so, would be assuming that Western leaders are simply unwise, and that the only wise people in the entire Western world are us. Such an assumption on our part would say nothing good about our own wisdom.

The answers to the first two basic questions lead to a simple conclusion about the political will of the West: there is no indication that the West wants Russia to win this war; however, the West’s support for Ukraine until now has enabled Ukraine only not to lose, but not to win the war.

FROM SUPPORT FROM WAREHOUSES TO SUPPORT FROM MILITARY INDUSTRY FACTORIES

Having concluded that the lack of Western support for Ukraine is not due to a lack of political will, the third rational question is whether the West is materially capable of providing greater military support to Ukraine at this time. That is, is the West currently capable of providing Ukraine with more artillery shells, long-range missiles, air defense systems, modern tanks, fighter jets, and drones?

We must recognize a simple truth: during the first years of the war, many Western countries, including Lithuania, provided Ukraine as their military support with what they had stockpiled in their warehouses. As the second year of the war draws to a close, such stocks in the West (and in Lithuania) are running out. Meanwhile, the production capacity of the military industry throughout the Western world, while beginning to grow, is still not sufficient to meet the needs for a Ukrainian victory. The reasons why Russia, even in an environment of sanctions, has managed to put its economy on the warpath; why Russia’s ally North Korea has managed to supply Russia with 1 million artillery shells in one month; and why the European Union is still not able to produce and supply Ukraine with the same amount of artillery shells it promised, namely 1 million artillery shells – that is a subject for a separate discussion. But it is obvious that this is the core problem of the war: the capacity of the Western military industry, which has only just begun to be mobilized for the needs of the war in Ukraine, is still not able to meet those needs in full.

As stated in a recent valuable analytical, strategic text published by the Estonian Ministry of Defence, “Setting Transatlantic Defence up for Success: A Military Strategy for Ukraine’s Victory and Russia’s Defeat”: in order for Ukraine to maintain its 155 mm caliber artillery superiority over Russia’s artillery capabilities, Ukraine needs a minimum of 200,000 artillery shells per month (2.4 million shells per year). This rate of consumption of artillery shells threatens to exhaust the stockpiles of such artillery shells in both EU and US warehouses by 2024. However, Estonian experts argue that the West can increase its artillery shell production capacity by 2025 to fully meet at least Ukraine’s minimum military needs. At the end of 2023, EU companies were producing about 50,000 artillery shells per month, which is about twice as many as they were able to produce at the beginning of the year. The US currently produces 28,000 shells per month, which is also twice as much as it was able to produce at the beginning of 2023.

The US plans to increase its production capacity to 100,000 shells per month by the end of 2025, while the European Union’s production of artillery shells needs to be increased by an additional 140% by the end of 2025 to meet Ukraine’s minimum needs. However, it is worth knowing that Russia plans to produce and deploy 3.5 million artillery shells this year (2023) (which is 3 times the production of the previous year), and plans to produce 4.5 million artillery shells in 2024. Therefore, the most important task for the West today is, first of all, to realize that the war cannot be won if the projected production of artillery shells in the West is almost two times less than the projected figures for Russia. And for the West to be able to close this gap urgently requires a common Western strategy, not just plans by individual NATO countries to slightly increase their production.

This leads to the conclusion that problems on the Ukrainian front are not due to a lack of Western strategic political will to support Ukraine’s victory, nor to a lack of Western financial resources to support Ukraine’s victory, but to a simple deficit in the capacity of the Western military industry. This is an economic issue for the West, not a political or strategic one. It is rooted in the West’s long-held belief that there will be no war with Russia and that there is no need to prepare for such a war in advance, thus negating the need to develop its military industry. This problem is gradually being overcome if the political will and financial resources needed to overcome it become available in the West.

This situation mirrors the one faced by the collectively democratic West on the eve of the Second World War when only Churchill, from the beginning of the 1930s after Hitler came to power in Germany, was worriedly proclaiming that Hitler was rapidly increasing the capacity of the German military industry. Meanwhile, Britain and the other Western democracies did not heed Churchill’s warnings, they naïvely hoped that peace could be negotiated with Hitler, and were virtually unconcerned about their own military-industrial capacity. As a result, Hitler had clear military superiority at the start of World War II, and it was not until the war began that Britain and the US gradually managed to catch up and eventually overtake the pace of Germany’s military industry.

Today, the Western democracies are only beginning to develop their military-industrial capabilities, belatedly, after the war has started. The rapid expansion of the military-industrial capacity of the democratic Western Alliance at the outbreak of World War II did not happen overnight. The same thing is happening now. This is the main reason why the West’s support for Ukraine is so far only enough to enable Ukraine not to lose, but not yet enough for Ukraine to win.

2024 – STRATEGIC DEFENCE. VICTORY – 2026?

Is the lag of the Western military industry behind the needs of the war in Ukraine surmountable? The same Estonian experts, in their strategic analysis, provide rational figures on how many and what other weapons (not only artillery shells) Ukraine will need to exceed Russia’s capabilities: from artillery “tubes” to long-range GMLRS, ATACAMS, Storm Shadow, SCALP, or Taurus missiles. Increasing their production capacity to the required volumes would not seem to be out of reach in the coming years. The same applies to the production of drones or the tactical training of a larger number of Ukrainian troops in the West. All such Ukrainian needs are easy to calculate, not difficult to quantify financially, and the West is fully capable of realizing them in the coming years. But physically it cannot happen tomorrow: for the West to be able to supply Ukraine with more weapons than it was able to supply at the beginning of the war from its own warehouses requires that the capacity of the Western war industry grows very rapidly, at least several times over.

The same experts, therefore, calculate that Ukraine will have to live through 2024 with a level of Western support that will be insufficient to achieve victory, and that Ukraine may have to switch to strategic defense as a result. By 2025, however, the rapidly growing Western military industry will have reached a level of production that will allow it to accumulate and provide Ukraine with enough support to achieve victory in 2026.

I realize that such an attempt to take a rational look at the prospect of war may not convince everyone of its rational optimism. And especially when that rational and constructive optimism is formulated not by someone else, but by our neighbors, the Estonians (although when I found the analytical document cited on the website of the Estonian Ministry of Defence, I became jealous that it was not published by Lithuanians). We are easily swayed by emotions, but wars are won (and lost) not by emotions, but by material numbers: the economic strength of the belligerents, the volume of their military-industrial production and the number of weapons supplied, as well as the finances devoted to it. And of course, we must not forget the number of troops mobilized.

Again, the same experts say that if the Ukrainian armed forces were able to destroy (counting those killed or seriously wounded) at least 50,000 Russian troops in each six-month period, Russia, with its mobilization and recruit training capabilities,

would not be able to regenerate its human military resources (I would guess, based on the information available in the public domain, that the Ukrainian armed forces are currently capable of far exceeding this indicator). For its part, the West can easily increase the quantity and quality of training of Ukrainian troops, given that 100,000 Ukrainian troops have been trained in the West so far, at a cost of only around EUR 350 million.

WILL WE FORM A “0.25% GDP” COALITION IN SUPPORT OF UKRAINE?

And finally, once again about money. And about us.

At the very beginning of this text, I reminded that in 2023, Russia has spent EUR 100 billion on the war, while Ukraine, with all the military support from the EU and the US, has spent only EUR 80 billion. That is why the front has stalled. As it turned out, the West was unable to provide significantly more material military support because the stocks in the warehouses have run out and new military production is growing more slowly than desired at this stage.

In this text, I have discussed expert estimates of the levels of arms production needed in the West to provide Ukraine with sufficient supplies to achieve victory. However, it is clear that new financial resources are also needed for the West to grow new arms’ production capacity. As has already been written, this year total EU military aid (provided by the EU institutions and all EU Member States) amounted to only 0.075% of the EU’s GDP. The US has given a little more to Ukraine, with military aid amounting to 0.10% of US GDP in 2023. But in any case, it is clear that in financial terms such Western military support to Ukraine is insufficient to achieve victory.

One of the problems that has become evident during these two years of war is that the level of military support to Ukraine varies considerably from country to country: during these two years, Lithuania and Estonia’s military support to Ukraine has exceeded 1.2% of their respective GDPs; Norway is not far behind with 0.79% of Norway’s GDP, and Germany’s growing support has reached 0.43% of Germany’s GDP, while France’s support is still only 0.02% of its GDP.

This situation needs to be changed. One way is the one proposed by the Estonian experts already quoted above: the countries of the transatlantic alliance should commit themselves to provide military support of at least 0.25% of their national GDP each year, which would generate around three times the current level of Western military support to Ukraine (EUR120 billion instead of the current EUR40 billion). This would be enough for Ukraine to win and for Russia to lose.

And finally: more on the prospects for Lithuanian military support to Ukraine.

As already mentioned, Lithuania’s military support to Ukraine in the two years since the start of the war amounts to 1.2% of Lithuania’s GDP (the second highest among NATO countries), i.e., about EUR760 million since the start of the war or EUR380 million (0.6% of GDP) in one year of the war. However, it is worth noting that Lithuania’s currently officially approved programme of assistance to Ukraine foresees that such assistance will amount to only EUR200 million over the next three years, i.e., about EUR67 million per year or about 0.1% of GDP. This level of planned Lithuanian assistance to Ukraine is clearly insufficient. Our strategic task, not only in terms of Ukraine’s security but also in terms of our own and Europe’s security, is not only to think about how to support Ukraine bilaterally, but also about how to set a good example of support for Ukraine to other Western countries, and about how to build, if not a coalition of the 1%, then at least a coalition of the 0.25%, so that we can jointly persuade the laggards.

The problem with our support to Ukraine is the same as for many other countries – we have given away all the military stocks we have accumulated over the two years of the war, which we do not really need at the moment, therefore our level of support has been exceptionally high. But today we have nothing left in our warehouses that we can give to Ukraine. And we do not have much of a defense industry of our own in which we could invest further and produce what Ukraine needs. Therefore, in seeking grounds for rational optimism about the West’s support for Ukraine and Ukraine’s victory in 2026, let us first of all deal rationally with the prospects for our support for Ukraine. Our declarations of solidarity, our calls for the West to increase its support for Ukraine and our apocalyptic lamentations that the West is probably betraying Ukraine will certainly not be enough. In war, victories are not achieved by declarations of solidarity from allies, but by the abundance of material support they provide.

PUTIN WILL NOT WIN

Rational analysis clearly demonstrates that Putin has no chance of winning this war. Because, as Putin himself complains, Russia is now at war in Ukraine with the whole Western world. Putin did not expect this when he launched the war against Ukraine. And the West’s total economic potential is more than 25 times greater than Russia’s entire economy. This will eventually become apparent in this confrontation between the West and Russia, which Putin himself “asked for”. It will be felt, among other things, on the war front in Ukraine. But it will take time for the West’s economic advantage to be transformed into an advantage in arms production. The West needs not only a “defense NATO” but also a “weapons production NATO”. And that depends on us.

Rational optimism is made by “doing”. I wish to engage in that “doing”…

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