How Putin’s war is reshaping Europe’s alliances

This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: How Putin’s war is reshaping Europe’s alliances

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Gideon Rachman
Hello and welcome to the Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. We’re now more than a month into the war in Ukraine, and the western world is coming to the disturbing realisation that this conflict could be with us for months, maybe even years. If that’s the case, the implications for world politics and economics will be very profound. All sorts of new possibilities need to be considered about the place of Russia in the world, the future of Europe, the western alliance and of globalisation. To think through some of these implications, I’m joined this week by one of Europe’s most interesting thinkers on geopolitics, Alexander Stubb, a former prime minister of Finland who’s currently a professor at the European University Institute in Florence. So how will the war in Ukraine remake the world?

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For many of Russia’s immediate neighbours, the war in Ukraine stirs fears about the future and bad memories of the past. Finland shares a land border of over a thousand kilometres with Russia. It’s modern history has been shaped by the winter war of 1939 to 40, when the Soviet Union invaded Finland. The statement of Hjalmar Procopé, Finland’s minister in America at the time of the invasion, will sound very familiar to Ukrainians.

Hjalmar Procopé
Russia has attacked Finland. This is not a war, but the most ruthless aggression of one, a peace-loving, hard-working and deeply religious people. Finland never threatened Russia. England accepted with deep gratitude the offer of conciliation put forward by the government of the United States. The Finnish nation is firm and united in the defence of her liberty and of her democratic institutions.

Gideon Rachman
Moscow’s justification for invading Finland in 1939 and its demands also have a familiar ring to them. The Kremlin cited the Soviet Union’s security needs, and it demanded the secession of territory. But as with Ukraine today, the invading army performed unexpectedly badly, and the Finns fought with great bravery. Here’s a Pathé newsreel of the time.

News report
On the southern battlefield of the Caribbean this month, the Finns are entrenched in their homeland, and all the might of Russian tanks and artillery can’t break through. But it’s hardest of all to keep warm. In the far north, the summer and the Arctic Ocean, the Ghost Army in the mist, they’re driving Russia back. They’ve got the enemy on the run.

Gideon Rachman
Today, in the light of the war in Ukraine, Finland’s once again having to think hard about how to protect itself from Russia. Alexander Stubb is somebody who thinks a lot about the future of Europe and international relations. He’s often mentioned as a possible future president of the European Commission. But before we got on to the global implications of the Ukraine war, I wanted to ask him about the specifically Finnish perspective. Even in London or Paris, the war feels uncomfortably close. So what’s the mood in Finland with a war like Russia just across the border?

Alexander Stubb
You know, a lot of people are driven at the moment by rational fear. You know, we had our experience in world war two, with the winter war, war of continuation. We had a very difficult time compromising our democracy during the cold war, with 1,340km of border with Russia or the Soviet Union at the time. And we hoped that we would see the end of history and the integration of Russia into the western world and into the international community, but it didn’t happen. And we didn’t see that in Georgia 2008, Crimea 2014, and now there’s a full-scale war. So Finns are driven by rational fear. And therefore, if you want a manifestation of that, you know, our Nato opinion polls basically turned overnight. Used to be 50 against 20 in favour; now it’s 62 per cent in favour of Nato membership and 16 against. So you know, this is a reaction, and this is a reaction of fear.

Gideon Rachman
Are you personally in favour of Nato membership?

Alexander Stubb
Oh yeah, I’ve been that, you know, Gideon since 1995. I think we should have joined the same time when we joined the European Union, but I have been in a minority, I fully admit that. Now, I think the train has left the station. I think eventually we will become members of Nato. And as I’ve said, as far as the application for Nato membership is concerned, it’s not a question of days or weeks, but it is a question of months. Unfortunately, of course, our military is completely Nato compatible, more Nato compatible than most Nato member states themselves.

Gideon Rachman
Of course, Russia has suggested that that in itself, simply applying for Nato membership, might be casus belli presumably, I mean, you have to take that reasonably seriously, but it’s not gonna stop you.

Alexander Stubb
Sure thing, we do take it very seriously. You know, Putin has stated basically three aims — one is to take over Ukraine, two is to push back the frontiers of Nato in eastern and central Europe and three is to prevent Finland and Sweden from joining Nato. You know, they have voiced it with four mouths, if you will. One was Putin himself, then Lavrov, then spokeswoman Zakharova and then diplomat (inaudible). And they have talked about, you know, military technical ramifications, and we take those very seriously. But fortunately, we do have a very strong and actually large standing army. We didn’t cut our military expenditure radically in the post-cold war era. We have our F-18s. We just got 64 F-35s that we purchased, and we do trainings with Nato. So we feel quite comfortable with our security situation and understand the risks both ways. But I guess a Finn will right now think, OK, where am I safer? The Ukraine line, not in Nato or in Nato? And Finns will say in Nato because we never, ever want to be alone again, just like we were in the winter war.

Gideon Rachman
And you think that an application will be within months?

Alexander Stubb
Yeah, I do, because, you know, we do have very clear procedures on this. So right now, the government is preparing a so-called white paper about the security situation. It goes into the defence committee and foreign affairs committee of the Parliament. And then, what’s gonna happen after that, is that the government, of course, together with the president, takes a stand on this question. So I do think that we are months, not weeks, but months away.

Gideon Rachman
That’s obviously would be part of a redrawing of the western alliance, and Finland’s decision would be very, very significant. What else do you think we should be doing, not just specifically in the Finnish context?

Alexander Stubb
Well, I obviously look at things a little bit with a bias towards north-eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea region. I think we need to start from the basic premise that this is a long-term situation whereby the security structures of especially Europe have changed fundamentally. And I would argue that we are moving towards a Europe which is completely split into two. On one hand, you have an authoritarian, sometimes dictatorial but certainly aggressive Russia, which is still a revisionist power where Putin is looking for his legacy, his place in history, a unification of Russia, and to use an old term, make Russia great again. On the other hand, we have an alliance of democracies, some 30 to 35, with varying memberships in the European Union, in Nato. And of course, this is an alliance where, you know, freedom, co-operation and international law stands. So if this is the starting point, I just don’t see another option than for Sweden and Finland to join Nato.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. Are you worried that the non-west has been rather less enthusiastic? I mean, we focused so much on transatlantic unity and so on. But if you look at countries like India, Brazil, South Africa, they’re not really lining up with this sanctions effort or even really rhetorically.

Alexander Stubb
I think you’re absolutely right, and I think you’re one of the few international pundits from Europe who are spotting this. One of the big problems we have at the moment is that our discussion, and for understandable reasons and I say this coming from Finland, is very Eurocentric. It’s all about us and the rest of the world is looking at this and saying, yes, you know, we understand your grievances. We see what you are doing. But please understand that we are not an intimate part of this conflict. And here we come to the bigger problem of the new world order, and I think the west, whatever that means, needs to understand that the world order set-up post-world war two was skewed towards the west and of course, to a new system in a cold war, you know, Yalta and the rest of it, the division of powers. You look at all the international institutions that were created in the aftermath of world war two, they all have a nexus of power, which reflects the victors of that war. And now we live in a different world. The role of China, the role of the African continent, the role of India, the role of South America, and we need to understand this in the west. This is not only about Russia and the west. It is about the international order.

Gideon Rachman
Maybe we should draw some conclusions here about China, another authoritarian country, another revisionist power, and maybe even about globalisation generally. That this dream that we had of an integrated world in which only a very few countries, you know, your North Koreas and so on, Myanmars, were not participants in a rules-based global economy. That dream is really disintegrating and maybe something we’re gonna have to let go of.

Alexander Stubb
I don’t think that we are moving towards an era of deglobalisation, but probably more an era of regionalisation of power. Now there is, of course, this discourse, and I think very well put in a book by Mark Leonard about an age of unpeace where the things that we thought that were supposed to bring us together to connect us like internet, technology, energy, language, trade, they are actually pulling us apart. And I think this is something that we have to watch for, that the sort of whole line between war and peace has been blurred. Of Kyiv, now we have conventional warfare, but the bottom line is that we’re moving towards a world, which is much more regional, probably, you know, much more isolated in its various forms. So certainly the sort of thinking that I’ve had about, you know, end of history and co-operation will bring us together doesn’t hold true at the moment. And this is the new reality that we have to live with in this new great fragmentation.

Gideon Rachman
Does it affect your attitude to China? I mean, Finland is a very high-tech country, presumably does a lot of tech trade with China and so on. Do you think that’s gonna be the next thing that comes under pressure?

Alexander Stubb
Yeah, it’s a really tough one. I remember that probably in my DNA living next to a great member, Russia, I’m always more for the co-operation rather than isolation. In the Russian case, it didn’t work. Now, for China, I think, the question is they have three options — one, they pivot to Russia, two, they pivot to the west and three, they sort of hover with neutrality. I think they will hover with neutrality. And this, if I may, gives a little bit of a power tic to Europe because now Europe is able to play a little bit in between the US and China on this. But it’s going to be a very careful balance to deal with. So I would certainly not decouple from China. I don’t think China can afford that, and I don’t think we can afford it either. Remember that the size of the Chinese economy is ten-fold that of Russia. The stakes between the west and China are much higher than between the west and Russia.

Gideon Rachman
So if it’s just a question of cutting Russia out of the system, I mean, how fundamental a change is that in a way, it’s back to where we were pre-89, where there was very, very little contact between Russia and the west. I still remember the impact of hearing Russian spoken on the streets of London by normal seeming people in the 1990s. And, you know, they became part of our world. Is it a stable status quo or is it actually, in some ways, even a more dangerous situation than the cold war because at least during the cold war, you had a Soviet bloc and you knew where it ended. You now have a revoltuous as Russia, which, OK, is struggling in Ukraine but does seem to really want to overturn the order and to use military means if necessary.

Alexander Stubb
Probably more dangerous, actually, than the cold war. And the reason is that Russia feels very much alone. You see, there are a lot of western pundits who don’t necessarily get the Russian psyche or the Russian DNA, culture and history. And, you know, ever since you’re a kid in Russia, you’re told a narrative whereby you, Russia, is isolated. You’re a great power but isolated and attacked from all different angles — the Mongols, the Nazis and now the west so you always have to protect. And Putin is looking for his legacy. He still tries to keep sort of Russia intact. He’s looking at things from demographic perspectives and understanding that his chances are very small. So what I think we need to do again in trying to think a little bit ahead is that when this is over, we need to start thinking about a way of bringing Russia back, but that is not gonna happen under Putin. And I must admit that this is where, sort of, idealism meets realism. When are we going to get Russia back? I really don’t know. Are we going to force regime change from the outside? No. It’s gonna have to happen from the inside. But you have to understand that the bear is wounded. The bear feels isolated. The bear feels scared. And that makes me scared as a Finn as well.

Gideon Rachman
Do you think, though, that the EU now has a settled view of Russia because obviously there was a big division? Germany was much more interested in rapprochement and change through trade and all of that. They’ve had a revolution in their foreign policy. Their increasing defence spending. But I still wonder whether six to nine months down the road, this war still going on, our economies are suffering whether the Putin understand us will make a comeback and there will be new voices saying, you know what, we need to get back to something closer to normal with Russia.

Alexander Stubb
You know, could well be. There’s nothing that unites people more than a war. Either, you know, for or against. And I really mean it when I say that I’ve never seen the European Union as united as it is right now, and I’ve been doing this stuff as an academic, civil servant and politician since 1989. But, you know, time will change this. And I think what the European leaders will be facing in the next few weeks and months is, of course, you know, rampant inflation, food prices, energy prices, petrol prices. And then you start looking inward. And yes, the general population might have a lot of solidarity with Ukraine at the moment, but at some stage we all start looking at our own situation. What does this mean for me? So there gonna be two issues that need to be dealt with — one is that political leaders in Europe have to, they simply have to communicate the cost of both war and peace and make people understand that we are paying a high price of this and that price is actually the quality and welfare of our life at the moment. The second one is to make sure that when this war is over, we still stay united in the way in which we deal with things. But here we come into the game of interests that different member states have, the different connections that they’ve had previously with Russia so it’s never gonna be as unified as it is at the moment.

Gideon Rachman
One of the clichés, though, in Brussels is that Europe moves forward in times of crisis. So if we’re to avoid this kind of whiplash in mood that you describe, presumably some of this needs to be baked into institutional change. So what kind of thing, as somebody who spent a lot of time thinking about EU institutions, should happen and do you think plausibly might happen to make sure that the European Union stays together over this?

Alexander Stubb
Sure, I guess the nerdy or Brussels bubble thing to do here is, of course, to give two quotes from Jean Monnet, right? I mean, he was the one who talked about that the EU only advances through crisis. And he also was the one who said that nothing is possible without humans. Nothing is lasting without institutions. And, you know, I agree with him on this. Now, the problem is that the EU usually advances in three phases. This is not Monnet; this is me. One is crisis, two is chaos and three is suboptimal solution. OK, now we actually skipped the chaos part in this particular crisis. But of course, at the end of the day, the solution is going to be suboptimal, but it’s always a step forward. And when there’s a step forward, it always sticks. So in the financial and euro crisis, European Stability Mechanism, banking Union, etc. And then, of course, in the next stage, we have corona and Covid. What does that mean? It means basically that we take huge steps in the mutualisation of debt and big rescue packages. And now we also take big steps in common foreign security and defence policy.

Gideon Rachman
One of the things that’s really happened is that the transatlantic relationship is back, and America’s central role in European security has been reasserted. But lurking in the background is the thought that Biden is, he’s a Democrat. The Democrats are doing badly. Trump might win the next election or a Trump-like figure. Is that something we can even factor into our thinking at the moment? Or do we just have to take the situation we’re in and hope for the best?

Alexander Stubb
I think we have to factor it in, and the way in which I would frame it is to say that we, the Europeans, have been naive on two accounts. One is to rely on Russian energy and the other one is to rely permanently on American security. And I think the Trump episode, whether it’s gonna be a footnote of history or not, we don’t know, and we simply have to factor it in. And I think the interesting thing here is that if you look at two elections coming up right, one is the French presidential election. Emmanuel Macron is going to ride in back into the Élysée because of the war, right? Very clear. Whereas in the US, it’s gonna be a completely different narrative, both in the midterm elections and in the presidential election. It’s gonna be about inflation. It’s gonna be about the cost of gas, as they say in the US at the pump. So, you know, we have to be very careful where this goes. Of course, we, as Europeans, should be grateful for what the Americans are doing at the moment. I mean, you know, Biden, Blinken superb work, American intelligence, bar none, the transatlantic relationship. This week, Biden coming to Europe. Great stuff. But is Biden gonna be there in a couple of years? Is it gonna be a Democrat a couple of years? Or is it gonna be a Trump-like figure? We simply don’t know. So whatever strategy we do, we have to look at all the different options.

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Gideon Rachman
That was Alexander Stubb, ending this edition of the Rachman Review. Thanks for joining me, and please join us again next week.

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