Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

I’m writing this as Russia’s war with Ukraine enters its 100th day — a bleak milestone in the conflict that brought 75 years of peace on the European Continent to an end. The war continues to dominate headlines and news feeds throughout the world, and so it should, but this ongoing flow of information from the most documented conflict in history has meant that a few other fundamental changes in Europe’s direction have been missed by those not keeping an eagle eye on the news.

Three changes stand out, each of which was triggered by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. That’s not to say that other seismic shifts have occurred in parallel, but we’ll focus on what these changes are, why they’re significant and what it might mean for the European Project and the continent’s identity in the near future.

German rearmament

German rearmament is arguably the most significant of the three changes. Pacifism has become deeply rooted in German society in the post-World War II years, driven partly by a sense of historic guilt and partly by a reimagination of new national pride that isn’t based on strength of arms and superiority over others. After bringing mass destruction to Europe and the world on two separate occasions in the first half of the 20th Century, Germans have been keen to distance themselves from that history and prove that there is more to their country than imperialist conquest and subjugation of other nations.

Not only this, the US and Russia spent the latter half of the 20th Century in a delicate dance of bringing Germany into the NATO and Warsaw Pact spheres whilst preventing it from becoming too strong. Both nations were aware that whoever held influence over Germany in the post-World War II years would be in the strongest position to spread their ideology throughout Europe. Germany really was the frontline in the Cold War. But following two World Wars started by Germany, both nations were also acutely aware that if they strengthened Germany too much there was a distinct possibility that it could rise up for a third time, so the rebuilding of Germany was done carefully and with calculation.

German policy for a long while has been to not send weapons into active combat zones — prior to Russia’s invasion they pledged only helmets and hospitals to Ukraine. They’ve also taken marginal roles in NATO conflicts in Afghanistan and Yugoslavia and typically left European Security policy work to Britain and France. Germany has both self opted, and been encouraged, to favour soft power.

However, on February 27th 2022 German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced what has been described as a 180-degree turn in German foreign policy. He himself called it a Zeitenwende — a watershed moment. Starting as soon as possible, Germany would make a 100 billion Euro investment in its armed forces and increase its military spending to greater than 2% of its GDP to meet NATO requirements. To put this into context, Germany will now have the world’s third best-funded armed forces after the US and China.

Germany has turned its back on its recent past exercising soft diplomatic power over military intervention. It will be much harder to do this going forward with one of the world’s best-funded fighting forces available for deployment. Germany may begin to take a more proactive role in future geopolitical events than it has been willing to since its reunification.

It also ties Germany, and with it Europe, even closer to the US. This money will have to be spent somewhere, and the Germans have already signalled that a lot of it will be put towards buying US-built F-35 jets and Chinook helicopters. With a stronger Europe behind it, the US could become more emboldened with its ambitions beyond the security of Ukraine — in places like Taiwan for example. This risks the eruption of an even larger scale and more destructive conflict than the one happening now.

Sweden taking a side

Sweden had a rough 18th and early 19th Century. Its arch-nemesis, Russia, invaded Finland (then held by Sweden) in 1808 — a war which the Swedes lost. Sweden was forced to cede the territory to Russia, leading to an internal coup d’etat in 1809. Active involvement with the Allies against Napoleon three years later saw Swedish armies again fighting, this time in Denmark and North Germany. Immediately after the Swedes invaded Denmark, they secured Norway as a result which was recognised at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. In the space of six years, they had lost Finland, gained Norway and taken part in three major wars. They’d had enough, and declared neutral status.

In another 180-degree move, a second former major European military power has completely flipped its foreign policy. On May 18th 2022, Sweden filed for NATO membership, bringing its 207 years as a neutral to an end. Sweden’s move is massive for a country that has pursued pacificity since the early 1800s — a stance that endured through two world wars.

Bringing this country of 10.3 million people into NATO is a seismic shift in the alliance’s ability to dominate the Baltic Sea — a key strategic European arena. The Baltic states of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania are largely thought to be Putin’s next target given their Soviet history. However, a NATO presence in the Baltic with Sweden actively involved completely changes the balance of power in the region and will surely make Putin think twice. With Finland joining as well, NATO’s European border with Russia has doubled in size and completely overhauled the dynamic between the alliance and Russia across the whole of Europe’s Northern Flank.

Putin has said that he won’t sit idly by as Sweden and Finland join NATO. He has threatened to militarise the border in response (with questionable effectiveness given the Russian Army’s lacklustre performance in Ukraine), however this likely won’t be limited to conventional military forces. There is a strong possibility that Russia begins staging nuclear weapons in its territory east of Finland, reducing current ICBM flight time to US cities on the Eastern seaboard.

Switzerland throwing its lot in with the EU

Switzerland’s neutrality dates back to the same year as Sweden’s, following Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon abdicated for the second time after this defeat, signing the Treaty of Paris which also included the convention of Switzerland’s neutrality. The Swiss managed to maintain this status through the two World Wars in Europe and have not taken part in any military conflict since 1815.

Then on February 23rd 2022 Switzerland’s President Ignazio Cassis announced that the country would be joining the EU in imposing sanctions on Russia, citing “an extraordinary situation where extraordinary measures could be decided”. Switzerland had taken a big long stride into camp Europe. This was particularly significant due to its role as a financial hub, giving the country a fair amount of leverage over oligarch assets.

Switzerland hasn’t gone as far as to start providing weapons or equipment to Ukraine but has demonstrated strongly which side it is behind in the conflict and the fact that it is willing to take a side. This only provides extra weight to the international condemnation Russia has faced since it started its invasion. The move has demonstrated to other despot leaders that there is only so far that they go before even historic neutrals also get involved, which may deter other future attempts of authoritarian expansion or oppression in other parts of the world.

What does this all mean for the European Project?

War as a thing of history

Europe is going through another phase of changing identity. For centuries, from the 1400s to mid-1900s, Europe has been a continent of internal power struggles and war. Firstly Protestant and Catholic empires battled over rights of succession, all whilst keeping the expanding Ottoman Empire at bay. A series of revolutionary wars epitomised by Napoleon’s France followed through the 1700 and 1800s as an increasing number of European nations opted for greater people’s representation in politics. These conflicts culminated in the World Wars of the early 1900s, pitting the great European Empires against each other across the globe.

Europe was spent. It was split down the middle between the influences of capitalism and communism as the US and USSR scraped over the ruins of post-World War II Europe. A new direction was needed if the continent was going to move forward. Europe’s identity changed with the creation of the European Union, founded by the victorious Western European states. The continent’s identity rapidly switched from one of centuries of competition and war to one of cooperation and peace.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and its influence in Eastern Europe saw an expansion of the EU and its collaborative ideals to take in many of the former Warsaw Pact countries. Europe entered its longest period of peace in its history. Wars were a thing of the past. Countries opted for democratic ideals and integrated markets to solidify this peace. The experiment was working.

The first fractures

But fractures started to appear in the early part of the 21st Century. Sovereign debt crises in Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece, caused by the 2008 financial crisis, put pressure on the European economic project, leading to bailouts (and much resentment) from the more prosperous nations like Germany and France. There was a resurgence of right-wing populism in the mid-2010s in the face of a huge influx of refugees into the continent from countries like Syria experiencing civil wars, coupled with major terrorist attacks in places like Paris and Brussels. Then in 2016, the EU was set to contract in size for the first time ever when one of its earliest member nations, Great Britain, voted to leave the European Union.

The European identity was lost. The dream of union, democracy and peace seemed to have reached its limit. Maybe the utopian idea was too much in the face of the realities of bringing together millions of different people and cultures under the same banner? Europe needed something new.

Enter Vladimir Putin

Nothing quite brings about domestic unity like a foreign threat. This is something that has been recognised throughout human history, to the point where leaders in precarious positions at home have used a foreign war to rebuild their bases of support. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has come at the ideal time for a European continent that needed a new direction.

With Germany’s rearmament and NATO’s expansion, Europe is consciously transitioning from a bloc of peace to one of open military power. It is taking sides. Interestingly, it is a very different war-ready Europe from the one of the past. Previously, Europe at war meant a continent where the nations that comprised it were fighting each other internally. The new Europe at war is one of a united continent that can project power externally. This is a huge change. There was always a reluctance amongst European nations to create an army alongside the EU, but with NATO’s recent expansion they don’t really need one — NATO is the proxy European Army that is buoyed up by the US’ massive defence bill.

Will Europe become more assertive with this newfound military strength? Will it be more willing to back up its ideals in its sphere of near-influence? Will we see more interventions locally (similar to what happened in Libya) in places like Syria, Israel or the Caucasus? Europe is going to be in a position to flex its muscles abroad, and it remains to be seen how restrained it will be in the next few decades if its mutual interests come under threat.

Do people in Europe want this?

Putin forced the European hand pretty quickly, but do people actually want this? It’s hard to tell. On the one hand, countries that feel most threatened by Russia are the ones who are driving the unity and solidity conversations the most. Ukraine has been pushing to fast-track its EU membership bid, and the Baltic states continue to push for a greater NATO presence within their borders.

But on the other, we’ve seen recently how some of the founding members of the EU (and NATO) have begun to turn their backs on the European project. Firstly Britain, with its referendum to leave the EU. It would be interesting to see the result if that referendum had happened against the backdrop of the Ukraine war. Secondly, France’s Macron narrowly won the recent French presidential elections against the ever-popular right-wing Marine Le Pen, who makes no secret of her admiration for Putin. Macron would have lost the election if over 60s weren’t allowed to vote — something which doesn’t bode well for the longevity of his base of support.

The question of longevity

A stronger Europe comes at the expense of reduced national sovereignty. As Europe continues to grow ever closer, evolving and drifting away from its founding EU ideals, it remains to be seen how much longer the people of each individual nation are willing to tolerate surrendering their own identities for greater hegemony. As soon as the Russian threat is no longer apparent will the European project collapse? Or will it find a new crisis to respond to, and a new identity to adopt? Time will tell.