Ukraine A battle over the future of Europe
The war in Ukraine marks a tectonic shift in the EU’s evolution | iStock
Published: DECEMBER 26, 2022 4:01 AM CET BY ANDREW A. MICHTA
Andrew A. Michta is dean of the College of International and Security Studies at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security and a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
The war in Ukraine is a decisive battle over the future of Europe, its geostrategic reconfiguration and, ultimately, its new security architecture.
It marks a tectonic shift in the Continent’s evolution, caused by both Putin’s historic miscalculation as well as the resistance of the Ukrainian people. And the swift, almost instinctive, response of the United States to provide military and economic assistance only accelerated this change.
This is a system-transforming war, for it has exposed the calcified skeleton of Europe’s power distribution, seemingly submerged under an overlay of institutions, generated by decades of supra-nationalism to offset the Continent’s military weakness post-1945. It has also uncovered competing intra-European interests and alignments, while forcing front and center the question of whether the existing institutions are still up to the task.
Are NATO and the European Union capable of galvanizing Europe to stand up to Russia, and exact a devastating price for starting a war unlike any the Continent has seen since 1945? Or will Russian President Vladimir Putin succeed in his imperial reconquest of Ukraine, re-establish a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and — once his military has been refitted in a few years — perhaps even challenge NATO directly?
Thus far, the Western response to the war has been notable for both its generosity and its haphazard nature. It’s also been defined by the political “muscle memory” of where Europe’s center is, and where its periphery begins and ends.
Europe’s political argument over Ukraine is about what the endgame should be or, rather, whether it’s still possible to have an endgame that’s congruent with the previously existing state of affairs once the shooting stops. This is, in part, why the conversation about Ukraine’s future has been driven by the familiar EU enlargement cant, and why core hard-security questions — such as the country’s NATO membership — have largely been eschewed until now.
NATO is ultimately about hard power and collective defense, and it will be postwar hard-power distribution that will drive institutional framing and define the new architecture of a future Europe. Just as it did at the inception of the Cold War, a new center of gravity will emerge in Europe — increasingly in the northeast. The decision by Finland and Sweden to seek accession to NATO is but the most glaring example of this unfolding change.
Historically, however, institutional solutions to security dilemmas look to the past, even though they claim to offer solutions for the future. Of course, institutional security arrangements can buttress alliances, but only when those institutions reflect real power and interests. This reality has been brought home during this war. And while the danger of Russian revanchism in Europe has re-energized NATO politically, absent real European rearmament, the venerable alliance will become hollowed out to a point of irrelevance.
Today, Europe is at an inflection point because it remains wedded to “institutional thinking” that is increasingly divorced from hard-power realities on the ground. At the same time, the Continent’s political leaders sense that what happens in Ukraine — and, ultimately, where it ends up on Europe’s political map — will define the course of Europe’s evolution and, by extension, transatlantic relations.
No matter what, one thing is certain, though: There will be real and enduring consequences for the future of Europe.
This interesting article on the future of Europe is very much in alignment with what Bible Students would expect to see develop based on Bible Prophecy ie. there will be significant changes that will reshape the EU’s traditional alliances over the coming year or so. These will include its relationship with the U.S.A and Russia. EU leaders have already said that NATO can’t save them entirely from Russian agression and that ultimate the EU needs an ‘Alliance’ with Russia. This is interesting as we know from Bible Prophecy that NATO will come to an end and Europe will be allied with Russia at the time of the end conflict of Armageddon. If the leaders of the EU believe that there long term security rests on having a Security Pact with Russia, NATO’s existence in its current form will be an issue that may see it’s demise. 
The Bible has long revealed that Russia and an EU Army will enter into a final conflict with Israel and the Middle East. Germany is the key country in what Bible Prophecy refers to as the land of “Magog”. They are spoken of militarily as the “King of the North”. Together the Bible says that Russia and the EU will invade the Middle East in the Last Days. So Bible Students expect to see Germany and France taking a greater role in leading Europe. It is also interesting to see Germany taking greater control of a continent they tried to take by war and failed.
Yet again we see in Todays News Headlines words that show how the Nations are fulfilling the latter day alignment of Nations as Prophesied by the Bible.
See this article to learn more about this and the latter day prophecies of the Bible.
See this article for more on this subject: WHAT IS NEXT FOR EUROPE
