One common
argument made in favor of European integration & federalism is that without
the EU, how would the European countries ever be able to withstand Russia? Supporters
claim that if the European countries weren’t united, it would only be a matter
of time until we were all effectively colonies, vassal states controlled by our
mighty eastern neighbor.
In this
article, I’m going to tell you why this is not the case.
First of
all, let’s consider history. Now I know most Europhiles love to pretend that
history started in 1945 (it’s a rather extreme secular version of young earth
creationism), but the truth is, Europe has been around for quite a while. And
so has Russia. For a thousand years or so Russia has been a huge country to the east
of Europe.
Have you noticed something lately? We're still here.
Despite a
landmass over ten times as large as any European country (and a population over
twice the size), Russia has been remarkably inefficient when it comes to
warfare. My own home country Sweden has fought 11 wars with Russia throughout
history and achieved a kill ratio of 3-to-1, which unfortunately was not enough
to save Finland (which was part of Sweden for 600 years until it was ceded to
Russia in 1809). Russia can defend itself very well due to a combination of
long, cold winters and the scorched earth-strategy, but they have been largely
unimpressive when on the offensive.
Seeing as
how for most of history we’ve had the very opposite of European unity, shouldn’t
we all be speaking Russian by now? It’s not like this huge country popped up
yesterday; they’ve been around for a while and so far we’ve survived just fine.
Then on the
other hand, maybe Russia is more dangerous today. While Russia is certainly
more dangerous today than it was 10 years ago, it still isn’t nearly as big a
threat to Europe as it was in the immediate aftermath of WWII and during the
1950’s when it had just acquired nukes – and back then, the EU was just getting
started and wasn’t even a political union yet.
Something
else kept Europe safe during those years. That “something else” was NATO – or more
specifically the United States and to a lesser extent the UK, since no-one else
really had any troops to contribute in the early years. This duo made it clear
to the Soviet Union that if a single Red Army soldier entered West Germany,
Moscow would become the next Hiroshima. The leaders of the Soviet Union knew
they were serious because the UK & US had a long tradition of fighting for
the freedom of other peoples. Evil as they were, Stalin & his successors
weren’t suicidal.
But then what
about non-military measures? Surely we need the EU to be able to apply economic
sanctions against Russia? And surely the collapse of the Ruble proves how
efficient these sanctions are?
First of
all, while the sanctions have definitely helped, the collapse of the Ruble has
more to do with Russia’s over-reliance on a certain natural resource – oil –
which happens to have a really low price right now.
Second of
all, people tend to forget this, but it really took the EU a long time to agree
to sanctions in the first place. This is because due to the way the EU
functions, it is impossible for one country to sanction another country unless
everyone else does it too. That means that if Sweden were willing to apply
sanctions against Russian imports, we would be unable to do so unless the rest
of the EU also was willing to apply those sanctions against Russian imports. And
what that means in practice is that due to Russia’s chokehold (in the form of
natural gas reliance) on the most powerful country in the EU – Germany – sanctions
will never be as tough as they could and should have been. This of course
applies to other countries as well – if one big EU country depends on a
non-European country, that country will never face any sanctions. In fact,
German politicians are already calling for a lightening of the sanctions,
saying they never sought to destroy Russia’s economy – which is sort of interesting
seeing as how that’s exactly what economic sanctions are meant to do.
If it weren’t
for the EU, Germany could simply give a pass on sanctions and everyone else
could go ahead, but because of the legal structure of the EU, that’s not a
possibility. Without the EU there would still be sanctions, but each country
could design their sanctions in the way that best suited them. Clearly, while
the EU has shown itself capable of occasionally applying sanctions against its
enemies, the structure of the union makes efficient sanctions less likely to happen, not more.
Thirdly,
just to put the final nail in the coffin: There is no need for a political union
to apply economic sanctions. To apply economic sanctions, all you need is a
union similar to the European Economic Area – a free trade union – that can
decide to simply not trade with Russia. Hence, even assuming that the EU makes
sanctions more likely to work, this does not justify European federalism.
But if this
is the case – if the EU isn’t actually hurting Russia – then why
does Russia sponsor Eurosceptic parties in Europe (most notably Front
National)? This has to do purely with not wanting the EU to expand. Russia does
not want the EU to allow Ukraine to join the union as they view Ukraine as part
of their sphere of influence and feel that the EU is encroaching on “their”
territory by allowing Ukraine to become a member. Eurosceptics for the most
part share Russia’s goal of keeping Ukraine out of the union, but for us, this is mainly
for economic reasons: Allowing Ukraine to join would mean free movement with
Ukraine, a country with significantly lower salaries and significantly higher
crime levels than Western Europe.
Basically, Ukrainian membership would be a pretty bad deal for us,
putting even further downward pressure on wages and increasing crime and other
social problems.
In addition
to economics, there is the very basic common sense reason for Eurosceptics to
oppose Ukrainian membership: We want to dissolve the European Union, so why
would we want to make it any bigger and stronger than it already is?
A picture from the Euromaidan protests in November 2013 |
I would
personally not mind a free trade agreement with Ukraine, but if there is one
thing we should learn from the EU’s latest expansion, when it allowed Bulgaria
and Romania to join, it is that free movement between countries with radically
different living standards is not a good idea (we are currently being flooded
with beggars from those countries, many of whom belong to organized criminal
networks). That being said, Ukraine is more than welcome to join the NATO as
far as I’m concerned.
It is true
of course that some Eurosceptics have made statements that have been construed
(sometimes correctly, sometimes not) as positive towards Russia. Sadly, many
people believe that “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”, and since the EU is the
enemy, and Russia is the enemy of the EU, this makes Russia their friend. This
is somewhat similar to how the leftists of the 1960’s embraced the communist
countries because they were enemies of the United States. Let's just say I don't think it's a coincidence that the most Russian-friendly eurosceptic party - Front National - is economically left-winged.
This
however does not mean that Eurosceptics are “fifth columnists” or “quislings”
(it’s always fun to hear such accusations from people who have effectively sold
out your country’s independence!) – does anyone seriously believe that Eurosceptics
would support Russia if Russia tried to conquer Europe? We are nationalist, we
value our independence more than anyone else in the political arena, and I
promise you we’ll be the first ones to join the war effort if that ever
happens. However, we will not give up on our political goals nor sacrifice our
countries’ economic well-being (which is what allowing Ukraine to join would
mean) simply to spite Russia. And quite frankly, I cannot see a single good
reason why we should.
I’ll stop here. Thank you for reading.
Photo credit: Ivan Bandura via Flickr (Attribution 2.0 Generic - CC BY 2.0)
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