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The conference “A Vision of a United Europe: Shared Defense, Diplomacy, and Geopolitical Agency” was held in Kyiv on Sept. 18, bringing together Ukrainian and European politicians, diplomats, researchers and security experts to discuss Europe’s ability to respond to Russia’s war against Ukraine and growing geopolitical challenges.
A recurring message throughout the conference was that Europe cannot continue relying on assumptions that a major war is impossible on the continent.
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Several speakers argued that Russia’s war in Ukraine should be viewed as part of a broader confrontation with the European security order, while others warned that Europe is already losing, or has nearly lost, the hybrid conflict being waged against it.
The conference is set to continue in Vienna from Oct. 2-4, when a Paneuropa Congress will take place. A draft Vienna Declaration has already been prepared and is expected to be presented after the two events.
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Reinhard Kloucek, president of Paneuropa Austria, said a generation of European politicians had grown up believing that war was something that happened elsewhere rather than on the continent.
“That makes you lazy,” he said.
Kloucek argued that the international order is already changing and that Europe needs to become an independent geopolitical actor rather than remaining dependent on the US, China or Russia.
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Kloucek also added that Ukraine is central to Europe’s ability to develop such a geopolitical role.
“The clear point is if we, as Europe, want to play a geo-political role, we need Ukraine,” he said, adding that Russia’s success in conquering Ukraine would demonstrate its ability to divide Europe despite the continent’s greater economic potential.
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Valeriy Pekar, chairman of the board of the NGO Decolonization, offered one of the conference’s most detailed scenarios for how a wider European conflict could begin.
He argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 should not necessarily be viewed as the model for future Russian military action. Instead, he pointed to what he described as Russia’s concept of “liminal war” – a conflict designed to create uncertainty over whether and how an adversary should respond.
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Pekar said a future confrontation could begin with a combination of missile and drone strikes, sabotage, cyberattacks, disinformation, political influence operations and covert activity, potentially without the immediate deployment of ground forces.
He used Poland as a hypothetical example, saying a combination of attacks and infrastructure disruption could create a refugee crisis and undermine European decision-making.
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From purely a practical perspective, I think the Russians cannot afford another conflict. No money, no guns. And just naked people with shovels aren’t going to do something against people with guns. So I’m not too worried about an open confrontation.
I am worried about cognitive warfare however. if the Russians somehow manage to infiltrate our democratic institutions with their puppets, then they don’t need guns to win. They can just take over the country without a single shot being fired. It’s the right-wing extremists I’m worried about.
RIP world. War between Europe and Russia means nuclear war.
We used to make our own ammo in Denmark. Then the production facilities were sold off to Expal. Expal moved the production to Spain, that factory blew up and now we can’t get the ammunition we need.
After Putin started war criming in Ukraine, we decided to start up production again. But oh no, the buildings aren’t up to code anymore. And the neighbors don’t like having an arsenal next door. So the project got stuck in various bureaucracies and environmental impact studies. So the project started in 2023, and earliest production start up is summer 2027.
Meanwhile civilians and allied soldiers are getting creamed in Ukraine and we can’t even train defensive strategies.
Why bring this up? Denmark has been one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine relative to GDP. If we suck this badly at getting back in gear, I shudder at thinking what other countries are doing.
oh and the invasion started in 2014 but nobody gave a shit when they annexed crimea, this complete inability to act directly leads us to today…
Trusting the USA with security was the biggest mistake of the century
If history should have taught us anything, then that appeasement of imperialist fascist dictators doesn’t work.
nah, it’s fine. just one more country and he’ll feel complete, i swear!
But where would Germany buy cheap gas from?
Look, I know this is the easy take on the story but I don’t think many people understand the sheer gravity of what that “cheap” gas enabled Germany to do. Like it was close at a delivered €/MWh level to what nuclear was able to deliver, and without having to manage building more nuclear stations. Remembering that even the most positive forecasts of solar/batteries at the time didn’t think we would get anywhere close to where we are now.
Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOT
Can I understand why the politicians did it? COS THEY ARE GREEDY AND LINED THEIR OWN POCKETS TO KILL THE ECONOMY/WORLD
…buuuut! It was an easy sell as a win-win and arguably helped reach political stability and allow growth that might not be seen again for a long time …BECAUSE WE ARE KILLING/KILLED THE PLANET WITH GAS AND OTHER FOSSILS.
Like it was close at a delivered €/MWh level to what nuclear was able to deliver
They could just use nuclear you know… expect organization like Greenpeace, which I’m sure were well funded and controlled by Russia, convinced everyone that nuclear is bad. It was basically a double whammy by Russia: make people afraid of nuclear and sell cheap gas as the only alternative. German politicians simply got fooled twice. Well, some got fooled, others were simply bought.
I mean, no one really had a hard time convincing the world to shut down nuclear after Fukushima. The entire OPEC and beyond would have been thrilled with the opportunity to hamstring nuclear deployment.
But those times are over. Nuclear makes even less sense now, given its cost and time to build with solar, wind and batteries more or less ready to go. Just gotta build those local supply chains, partially deregulate and never need to build another ccgt plant again.
France didn’t close them. Spain didn’t close them. Many countries left them on. Germany got fooled. Twice.
People should be able to admit that Russia is already doing exactly what is described here.
Yep. We are at war. Not the typical kind with armies and frontlines but a silent quiet cold war
This has been going on for at least 20 years in its current form (and in some ways, it’s a continuation of Soviet tactics from the Cold War).
Russian bots started invading comment sections on German websites pretty much exactly 20 years ago. It wasn’t just a trickle, it was a flood from day one, completely drowning out any kind of civilized discourse on major websites. Articles that would normally get four or five comments suddenly had dozens. Every topic where they saw an avenue for incitement, misinformation, hate speech and/or division was being brigaded to death.
They were also nasty from day one, aggressive in tone, immediately trying to offend as much as possible, often starting fights, sometimes even playing both sides in an argument, but intentionally badly. Moderators had no chance to keep up with this. Some sites even shut down their comment sections entirely for years, but when they reopened, the same thing happened again, just this time a tiny bit more subtly, trying to not get sock puppets banned immediately.
There should have been an immediate reaction to this, but policy makers pretended nothing was happening and left sites alone in this fight in order to not endanger the sweet flow of cheap Russian gas into Europe. Hell, this was seven years before Angela Merkel called the Internet “Neuland für uns alle” (“uncharted territory for us all”), for which she was widely ridiculed. Most politicians were likely neither aware nor cared, still living entirely in the world of print media and TV. This same generation of politicians is still in charge today, even if Merkel herself has retired. German secret services might only got the legal right to hack foreign attackers back this year, at least two decades too late.
More like a lukewarm war, because the cold war was more of a heavily armed staring contest, while currently, at least one side is conducting actual (mostly sabotage) operations against the other.
True. Fair
“Wider War III”
I think I’m not alone in having already conceded to the inevitability of a war with Russia.
Theoretically there is a lot that Europe could have done to re-arm and to halt Russian aggression, but the reality is that we have national politicians that are both unable to grasp the risks and implications of war and consumed with fending off the far right.
Our intelligence agencies and lawmakers are also failing to combat the information war and the hybrid attacks on European infrastructure, and the EU (as an institution) is just not up to the task of leading and governing an continent-wide military and geopolitical response. Now, top that off with the absolute political crisis that’s happening in the US and you’re presented with an historic opportunity for Putin to try and redraw the map in Russia’s favor.
It’s like hearing the echo’s of the 1930’s: societies are deeply divided, armies ill equiped, politicians are clinging to idle hopes and appeasement and everyday people already suspect what’s coming.
and consumed with fending off the far right.
I wish. Then, at least, something would come out of it. They’re consumed with…I don’t even know whatever that shit is they’re doing. But it’s certainly not fending off the far right.
Appeasing the far-right electorate and shifting right is what they are doing. The 30s are about to be fucked up again.
russia has nothing except nukes
the only thing we need to invest in is more spies to counter the cold war
and consumed with fending off the far right.
You mean consumed with fending off Putin’s paid stooges? What is so bad about that?
ukraine is fighting them for 4 years at this point but all of europe is scared shitless???
People, in general, don’t like dying.
what is this statement?
true
Good point, but it’s worth considering that Russia’s war effort largely depends on ‘volunteers’. Russia has refrained from deploying its regulars and hasn’t committed to any large scale mobilization. Its air force and navy are mostly intact and it still holds considerable armor reserves.
More consequently, Russia is currently producing drones and missiles at a massive scale and Europe is mostly defenseless against either. We also lack a nuclear triad and are vulnerable to nuclear blackmail.
Unless Europe fully commits to re-armament (which it isn’t) we’re going to be ill-prepared by the time the Russians choose to attack.
With Russia, or with Trump?
Or both?
I, for one, am ready. Bring it on!
are you serious?
