War and politics

Erik Jones

Good evening, and welcome to this panel on War and Politics. My name is Erik Jones and I’m Co-Editor of a journal called Government and Opposition. We’re a journal of comparative politics, and this is the editorial team. I’m also Director of the Robert Schuman Centre at the European University Institute, so we’re academics who edit journals.

This is my Co-Editor, Laura Cram. Laura is Professor of European Politics at the University of Edinburgh. This is our Robert LG Fellow, who is Veronica Anghel, she’s a Lecturer in International Political Risk at the Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy. And this is our Mick Moran Fellow, Adrian Favero, and Adrian is Assistant Professor of European Politics and Society at the University of Groningen.

Now, the reason that we’re here today is to talk to you a bit about something that’s not yet in the news, and in order to have that conversation with you, what we want to do is set some very basic ground rules, and then begin to develop an argument. The basic ground rules are those with which you’ll be familiar, as regular participants at events here at Chatham House.

The first is if you could please turn off your cell phone, that would be a great assistance. The second basic ground rule is that we’re all going to engage in our conversation. I welcome you, our audience in-house, but we also have a substantial audience online who deserve our welcome and attention, as well, and so what we’ll do, at a certain point, is draw you into the conversation. When we do so, if you want to ask a question, the request from Chatham House is that you remain seated and they will bring a boom mic, so that you can speak from a seated position in comfort.

Those of you who are online, you have the opportunity to introduce your questions into the Q&A box. When you introduce your questions into the Q&A box, we’ll answer them and weave them into the conversation, as well as we can, perhaps also combining them with those questions on the floor. We have at least 200 participants online, so we’re not going to ask them to unmute themselves, but we will try to get through as many of your questions and their questions as we possibly can.

I should finish with one thing that those of you who are members of Chatham House will obviously know. As a members’ event, this event is on record, it’s being livestreamed, there’s no confidentiality about what we say in this room, but that’s okay, we’re academics, there’s nothing that we say that we would ever want to keep secret in any event.

Look, I introduced this conversation as something that’s not quite in the news. We’ve all been absorbed by the horrible violence that’s being wrought in Ukraine right now, by the back and forth of the military conflict, by the tragic events that have taken place, and by the groundswell of support across Europe and the United States to support the Ukrainians in this fight.

But there is another part of the story that we’re going to face, a part of the story that has to do with the ability of societies in Western Europe and Eastern Europe to remain committed to this support. And that remaining committed ability is going to be challenging because of the inflation that we know is already underway, because of the accelerating increases in food prices and energy prices, because of the demands of regular kitchen table items on the political agenda that must be faced, and because of the opportunities that such demands create for opposition to challenge government, and for government to become divided.

So, what we thought we would do is begin to offer you a little bit of a preview of what we think this domestic politics is going to look like. We’re not here as experts in military conflict or strategic studies, we’re here as Editors of a journal that focuses on comparative politics, that specialises in issues related to democratic dysfunction and populism, to party politics and coalition dynamics. And hopefully, with your help, we’ll begin to ask the conv – the questions and shape the conversation that we know will begin to dominate the news, as summer gives into autumn and autumn gives into winter, and energy prices and food prices become ever more important, so that’s our agenda.

In that agenda, I think the first thing that we want to ask ourselves is how people are identifying with this conflict, because we’ve looked at this European response and seen this tremendous groundswell of solidarity, but this tremendous groundswell of solidarity is refracted in some ways through the European Union, through NATO, through historic relationships, and it’s unclear just how stable this is as a construct.

So that’s why I’m going to go to you first, Laura, and ask you, when you look at what’s going on right now, how do you see identity politics playing into the Western response to Ukraine, and how durable do you see the construct of Europe as an identity, in this larger effort to keep Ukraine intact and to push back against Russian aggression?

Laura Cram

Okay, so, I think these are really, really challenging questions and I think it’s going to be a story of very, very mixed parts and mixed narratives that are going to affect the filters through which people see the European Union. So I think people will actually and in practice have very different realities in the fallout from events, it affects different countries in different ways, different countries already have different relationships in relation to either Russia or to the EU, different perspectives on NATO. But more than that, they also have different lenses through which they’re viewing the events and the fallout of the events that are likely to actually affect how they taken and process the information and then decide how it affects their behaviour.

So one of the things we might ask is, I think you would raise that question of whether or not people are going to sustain this position of being positive about the European Union and positive about NATO, or whether, once there’s more economic fallout, once all these prices rise, then they’re going to pull away. And I think one of the things that we’ve found really, really interesting, in looking at the different identity dynamics, is the way that identity actually affects our interpretation of what we might think of as objective facts. So the same price rise for different people who identify with different units can actually be perceived as higher or lower. And a great example of this is in the Brexit campaign, where we actually saw people who we thought and were presented as acting economically irrationally because it was actually the very people who might be hit hardest that voted in the largest number, and we saw that they were actually more concerned with cons – control identity with a sense of self-efficacy, if you like. And I think there’s going to be part of that in the European Union fallout, that when we have different groups, and we’ve already seen that, for example, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, have a very different attitude towards some parts of the sanctions and where we – whether we should be focusing on trade or whether we should be focusing on defence, and they have a very different attitude, too, to historic relations and current relationships with Russia.

So, what we actually find, in many of the psychological identity studies, is that depending on where you’re identifying, you might actually perceive the cost – which the cost actually, in monetary terms, might be exactly the same, you’ll perceive it as more or less punitive, and that I think will have a really fundamental effect on a really variegated fallout from this. Shall I pause or move on?

Erik Jones

No, Laura, I think that’s a really powerful idea, right, that people are going to look at the same facts and come up with a different interpretation, but I guess what we need is to introduce some kind of structure on what we mean by who the people are, right?

Adrian, maybe I could bring you in on this. The historic relationships that Laura is referring to could be the historic relationships between, say, right-wing extremist parties and the Russian Government, for example. And so is there a sense in which right and left populist and mainstream divisions in politics that we see replicated across countries are actually changing fundamentally the way people in Western Europe or Central and Eastern Europe view this conflict?

Dr Adrian Favero

I would go back a few years, because between what happens now and the war on Crimea, we did actually see that a lot of right-wing populist parties did what the media often call cosy up to Putin, for a variety of reasons. But we saw Le Pen taking loans from Russian banks, we saw Salvini going to the Red Square, meeting Putin, wearing a T-shirt in public, and that had a lot to do because for a lot of right-wing populist parties, what Putin embodied was very much how they saw themselves, relatively conservative, authoritarian, nationalist, and Putin embodied all that. And on top of that, also, anti-LGBTQ rights and looking at some right-wing populist parties such as, for example, the peace in Poland, who is not necessarily pro-Putin, but it’s an element of a lot of right-wing populist parties to be relatively conservative also when it comes to cultural issues.

Now, with the war in Russia, obviously that has changed, and a lot of right-wing populist parties did have to backtrack, and I’m sure you have seen it in the media where a lot of newspapers were saying, “Oh, now we see a shift in political attitude, we see right-wing populist parties backtracking, and they have to do some – they have some explaining to do.” Well, a matter of fact, what we should be aware is that across Europe, just because a party is right-wing populist and shares an ideology with other parties doesn’t mean they behave all in the same way. It doesn’t mean that, for example, what happened to Salvini, who was publicly humiliated by a Mayor in Przemyśl at the Ukraine Polish border, would happen to other parties.

Another example is, for example, the ruling party in Poland, Law and Justice Party, who has been throughout very anti-Russia and for historical reasons. So, when we talk about potential shifts in party politics, also looking at – predominantly at the populist political right, we should be aware that they’re not all the same and they don’t also have the same agenda, depending on the different countries.

There are some, predominantly Salvini, as I’ve mentioned, and also Le Pen, where I think before the campaign, they had to destroy 1.2 million leaflets where she did a handshake with Putin and it was a bit of an embarrassment. But other coun – other parties, populist, right-wing parties, have been less affected such as the Swiss People’s Party in Switzerland, or the RFT in Germany who has not been as affected as Salvini and Le Pen in public elections.

Erik Jones

So, this point you make about right and left, then, seems to have become a little bit more idiosyncratic, less structural, makes it harder for us to begin analysis. Maybe that’s not the cleavage we should focus on, maybe the cleavage we should focus on is between those countries that have the bad fortune of having to live close to Russia and those countries that live farther away.

Veronica, maybe you could help us out. Do you think that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are viewing this conflict in a different way from the countries of Western Europe or do you think that there’s a sense of we’re all in this together, looking at the war on Ukraine?

Veronica Anghel

Oh, absolutely. I think that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have their moment of “I told you so” right about now, or at least on February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine. But if you think about what’s going to happen next, and going back to our original conversation about domestic politics, it’s not really that hard to anticipate how the politics of several of these countries are going to be shaped in the near future. We already see that there is a trend of elites being highly opportunistic, and this is not different from what we’ve also seen in the countries of the West. But the problem in Central and Eastern Europe is that the national and supranational incentives are – structural incentives are already in place to co-opt the population in subverting democratic institutions. So when you have elites who have an interest to centralise power for their own self-interest, and at the same time you have a population that has converged significantly towards attitudes, more liberal attitudes, that you would encounter in Western European but not entirely, you took a lot of reasons, then you can have a very toxic cocktail and the outcome doesn’t sound that great.

So, if you already read the news in the last couple of days, you can see that Prime Minister Victor Orbán has taken the occasion of yet – of this crisis to extend a state of emergency in Hungary, this was highly predictable, so the state of emergency that he had imposed for COVID, that allows him to rule by decree, should have expired on June 1st, and now it will be continued because of the war in Ukraine. And under this rule, the profits of what he considers excessive profits from many companies, including energy, telecom, and other companies that are not directly controlled by his immediate friends, are going to be put in this special fund to alleviate economic problems of Hungary.

And another thing that they’ve also decided, going back to populism, is that country – cars that have a licence plate with Hungarian number will pay a different price for fuel compared to foreigners who go through the country. So right now, there are all these practicalities of, you know, populism in action that go and really hit, you know, these kind of immediate needs from the population to feel that they are being taken care of under conditions of stress. So even if the situation – and this is just one example, it’s what we all talk about, maybe we can come back with what the EU is doing to take care of this, or to not take care of this kind of situations. But you have other countries that are flying below the radar, such as Romania and Bulgaria, who we rarely talk about who are also members of the European Union and where reform has been stagnating, in terms of, you know, corruption, transparency and public procurement, and all sorts of – the independence of the judiciary, the mor – having different media outlets to not control the information environment, and these have also stalled under the conditions of this crisis.

So as long as you have these elites, opportunistic elites, who are not trained to put the idea of democracy, you know, at the top of their list, we – it may not be very different from other Politicians in Western Europe, but you couple that with the erosion of liberal attitudes and a fragile democratic structure, and, yeah, you have a very different story that comes out of Central and Eastern Europe.

Erik Jones

Now, this different story that comes out of Central and Eastern Europe is not isolated from the rest of Europe because it’s all connected through the institutions of the European Union. When we look, for example, at the debate about this sixth round of sanctions, a debate that’s still ongoing because of the rule of law controversy that’s been raised between the European Commission and Hungary and the Hungarian Government’s insistence that there be greater support for Hungary in the context of its energy transition, for them to agree for the sanctions to come into place, I have to wonder how long the public narrative of solidarity can last.

And, Laura, I guess I’m even more concerned when I look at the millions of Ukrainians who have been displaced into Poland and begin to wonder, they’re there now, and integrating into the labour market, but if this war drags on, how long are they going to be satisfied to stay in Poland and what will be the impact, when they begin to migrate to other countries, not as temporary refugees, but looking for a longer place to stay? So, maybe you can help us with that because it seems like when solidarity takes on this very personal dimension, the opportunities for European integration or European expression become diminished.

Laura Cram

Yeah, I mean, I think – I guess, like, a great starting point with all of this is any sense of European identity, no matter how vociferously it’s embraced in these kind of moments, it is contingent and it is contextual, and that’s always been the story, not just in the European Union, but at the national level, we’re willing to assign much more support at times where we feel we’re getting better benefits from whatever structure we’re in. And that was really the classic of Karl Deutsch’s understanding of functional nationalism, that we would, when – we would quite willingly, in fact, and sometimes people see this as quite controversial ‘cause they’re quite attached to their national identities, but we would quite willingly transfer our identity up or down the scale of authorities if we felt one was satisfying our functional needs better than another. And I think that’s where your question really arrives, is that at the moment, there’s this embrace and we’re all Europeans and how can we welcome everybody in, but Helen Thompson, our colleague at GNO and also very distinguished Professor, has written about the rather thin veneer of this notion of Ukrainian European identity and that that will be sorely tested, as these issues come up.

But I think there is something in that story, though, from the Deutschian perspective, that gives us maybe not hope, but brings more nuance, which is that it – really that functional benefit that you get from identity doesn’t have to be economic, and that actually a sense of belonging is something very rational to pursue. And it helps us explain the initial creation of the European Union, it helps us to explain the banding together just now, and very much in a story of almost as a security community, which is part of the – one of the early interpretations of this type of bonding together again, a Deutschian perspective. And I think when you start to look like that, that gives you some slightly different questions to ask because that’s when you do get the question of who are the ‘us’ and who are the ‘them’ in this scenario?

Are we identifying with the EU, are we identifying with our nation, are we identifying – and we know that across the European Union, there are some groups of countries that see the bad guy in this story as Russia, and others within the European Union who see the bad guys as the way that the EU and NATO are acting. And those “us and thems” are part of the lenses through which they’re going to interpret their welcome to individuals as they come into Europe. It’s how they’re going to interpret – in fact, with my other hat on, I run the Neuropolitics Research Lab and we look at how we process our understanding of people and how our identities can change our ability to humanise others, to actually understand the pain that others are in, and if we see somebody as a ‘them’ and not as an ‘us’, we don’t attribute the same mental capacity, we don’t contribute the area of mind to them, and we’re actually quite able to be quite punitive ourselves with impunity, if you like.

So, I think that will be part of that variegated story, in terms of how the fallout will come and a lot of it will depend on the narrative of whether or not the EU maintains this sense that what we’re doing is good, we all belong together, we have to be in this for the long haul, and whether those narratives can carry far enough to affect the filters through which people interpret because facts are not really facts, they interpret the realities, I think.

Erik Jones

So, what you’re saying, Laura, actually raises two questions, and I think one of them I would address to Adrian, and it actually was asked by Americk Connery online, and the question is, Adrian, you know, if we talk about Deutschian security communities, you know, is there really the possibility that the populists either within countries, Western European countries, the populist Politicians, or the populists who control Central and East European countries like Orbán, will look around and say, “Wait a minute, Russia’s not our ally, Russia is actually our threat, and the only allies we have are in the West, and they’ll break with this past behaviour that’s proven so problematic and become more part of the security community, the shared identity, the political project?”

Dr Adrian Favero

It’s a good question. Well, number one, it’s the nature of a populist party not to side with the elites, though that – that’s sort of the ground floor, and then as a populist party, I always side with the pure people against the corrupt elite. So therefore, it’s sort of a difficult starting point to say, “Are they becoming part of this whole narrative where we’re all, like, one, and we all want security?”

Of course, as I mentioned before, they had to backtrack some of them, and some of them are also now realising there are – currently, with the current events unfolding, they’re not powerful enough to have much of a say. Because Laura mentioned before that we’re having this moment of identity, but it’s not a moment that is shared across Europe because some part – countries have a different view than others. And that is also very much then met with actual politics because having this moment of identity is fine and saying, “Hey, we’re more united as an EU or also as a NATO where we have two new countries maybe joining and all,” but that also has to be met with current politics and in most countries, we don’t see populists in power.

In most countries, it’s the so-called mainstream parties that have to figure out what are the next steps, and it’s also the mainstream parties that are largely in charge to continue with this moment of identity, and it – and that’s hard work, right? We see – we saw lately, if you’ve followed the news, and there’s this debate, was Germany too late in participating with hard weapons? Why is the Chancellor Olaf Scholz not visiting Kyiv? Everyone else has, right? And that’s a debate that is bypassing the populist parties because they’re not in charge or in a position where they can influence current policies and what to do because at the end of the day, it’s very much hands-on what are the next steps. And identity is part of it, and the sort of – this Europeanisation of current political affairs is part of it, but it’s also the states that decide what to do. And in most states, Poland being the example, Hungary being another example, where populist right-wing parties are in power, but in most states it’s very much the mainstream parties. And I would like to add this. While the war in Ukraine is unfolding, unfortunately, European societies, as any other society, also has a bit of a tendency to be very excited and following in an event when it happens, and the longer it takes, the more bored we get. It’s a bit like watching a four-hour movie when at some point you’re like, “Okay, that could have been shortened to 90 minutes, would have been more interesting.”

So, what I want to say is countries are also faced with other things that are still happening, right? There’s still COVID. I’ve just seen today that in the UK now, we talk about the Partygate again, and so there’s these other issues where then populist parties may focus on that because it’s more beneficial to look at these issues, and it’s for – to gain support by their fellow countrymen instead of harping on with the war on Ukraine that is very much being dealt with at the European level or a national level by so-called mainstream parties.

Erik Jones

So this response to the first question that Laura’s comments raised, I think feeds right into the second question, and it’s something that Hans Kundnani is asking online and a couple of different issues, and it’s all about European identity as a, kind of an imagined community, but it’s – I think, given a sharper point by something that Oded Meyer asks.

Let’s imagine, Veronica, that in this context of solidarity, all Europeans are to be treated equal, but as Adrian says, it’s the states that decide, I don’t think all states are going to be treated equal, and Oded Meyer’s point is all those people who want the movie to end more quickly, how much agency are they going to allow the Ukrainians in deciding the peace? And if they don’t allow the Ukrainians that agency, what are they really saying about the Ukrainians as members of the European community? Because if we force them to settle early, are we saying that they have a lesser standing from other parts?

Veronica Anghel

Yes, that was 20 questions. Alright, so, okay, let’s talk about the war, right? And I’m – I should have – say as a disclaimer, I am from Central and Eastern Europe, so pardon the doom and gloom. It’s not going great, right? We keep having this kind of wishful thinking scenarios that at some point it will stop, the movie will end sooner rather than later, there will be some territories given up by the Ukrainians, and then the Russians, having realised what a great mistake they’ve done, they will now live in peace and harmony with everybody else, and that is just not how things are going to look like.

No matter what happens in these occupied territories, you will have insurrections that are the outcome of the Ukrainian politics and Ukrainian people’s agency, and also a highly militarised, a highly radicalised, part of the army and the population, as well. You also have – we also have to remember that, you know, Ukraine borders NATO countries, several NATO countries. That means that they will have constant access to regroup, to get more resources, to get military resources, as well. So this is not something that’s going to end soon and we can’t really think of that possibility and just thinking about it with – is really doing everyone a disservice. But going – and that’s one thing.

The other one I’m thinking about, solidarity, and how ready people are to support Ukraine in the long run, and how they perceive themselves in the East. So, the whole conversation right now is about these buffer zones, right? That there was a structural plan to keep certain areas in this very, you know, ungodly way in a twilight zone that is neither, East nor West, as long as they are in a buffer zone between the East and the West. And through desire, through agencies, through different conditions, a lot of people said no to that, but we have to, in Ukraine, in Moldova, in Georgia, in other places.

The role of this strategy that you might find or might associate with Western countries or the US or even NATO, nevertheless has also had an impact in the way that countries create their own politics, and this goes back to what also Adrian was saying. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe were also glad to buy into the whole buffer zone further to the East. As the Russians are moving closer, they’re starting to feel like, “Oh, so now are we the buffer zone?” And this will change internal politics, in the sense that all you hear about, you know, supporting the process of enlargement that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are using this rhetoric in favour of, is actually just paying lip service. It is not something that they follow on the ground. They do not invest in the enlargement process of either European Union or NATO through diplomacy, through intelligence, through army, through anything, because it’s also in their strategic planning to have these unfortunate buffer zones between themselves and Russia. And this is just, you know, real politics that also exists in the East, and in this way, these countries are not any different.

So, yes, there is solidarity in trying to keep these countries unfortunately in these twilight zone, let’s call it that way, keeping them closer to the West, but not fully in the West, don’t – not sharing that many resources with them, but some resources with them, keeping them in somehow our sphere of influence, but not really being responsible for them, because we don’t have the bandwidth to deal with other people with pol – kind of politics that are already a problem for the member states of the European Union. So it’s not an – a fortunate situation that Ukraine is in politically right not, though militarily it’s going to be supported a lot.

Erik Jones

So, I mean – and I will get to you in just a second, I’m going to ask one more question for Laura just to clear out the online and then we’ll bring conversations from the audience in the room. Laura, I guess the point that Veronica’s making really has two different aspects to it, and one is, you know, is it safe for us to say that despite all these nuances, and this comes from use of Yosef Ashik online, despite all these nuances that European identity has been strengthened, right? That there has been some baseline strengthening of affiliation identification with the European project?

And then the other aspect of this, which is a question from Beth Laffin, is really is it European identity that’s been strengthened or is it Western identity? Is it about NATO and the transatlantic relationship and the security that provides that’s been strengthened? Because I think sorting those two things out might help us a little bit in this conversation.

Laura Cram

Sure, and I think they’re also really related questions, as well. So, yeah, so des – at the moment, on the measures, yes, we have seen a rise in attachment to the European Union, and that is emergent. We’ve seen quite a lot of positivity about a lot of the activities, but that has been linked a lot in the surveys with also attitudes towards NATO, and a strengthening of a sense of efficacy in that relationship, which has always been a bit of a problematic relationship.

But that also fits, I think, with that question about imagined communities and the fact that there never really was one imagined community of the European Union, there have always been multiple imaginings. And for some people, that imagining always did involve that Western broader NATO relationship, and for others, it was never really about the European Union, it was about a broader Europe, and that also relates to that question of where do these boundaries of Europe and where do our historical narratives, and even our own reinvented mythological narratives of bringing ourselves back as a broader Europe, relate? So, yeah, I think there is a presented rise.

We know that it takes very little to create a minimal group identity, so something positive in the short-term is there, whether it has the depths and the legs or whether it’s actually shared and we’re all actually talking about the same thing when we say we’re more attached, I think not. I think it is a combination of those identities and imaginings.

Erik Jones

Okay, that’s very helpful. I’m going to come back to this, as we imagine different ways that this could go horribly wrong, not least because of the political developments in the United States. But I’m conscious that I don’t want to use up all this time without bringing in voices from the room, as well. So, you, sir, you had your hand up. If you could identify yourself, when asking your question, that would help us better to keep track of the question flow. Actually, it’s the person in the second row right here.

Igor

Hello, my name is Igor [inaudible – 39:15] and this is mostly towards Miss Anghel. I wanted to ask, so, knowing what happened with the occupations of Ukraine, that being the DPR and LPR, where those were the buffer areas from which further attacks started recently, would you say that Europe’s support for Ukraine would continue in order to stop those zones from growing? And if so, would you say that it would possibly include them putting in forces in order to make sure that those zones don’t increase any more than they have already, or even more than they have by now because that would once again bring them closer to Western Europe, so Hungary and Poland, and so on?

Erik Jones

Veronica, do you want to…?

Veronica Anghel

Should I take it?

Erik Jones

Yeah, just…

Veronica Anghel

Are you referring to the south-occupied territories or…?

Igor

So from around the South, but it can also be…

Veronica Anghel

Yes.

Igor

…wider.

Veronica Anghel

So we have – every signal that comes from both the United States Army, which is very important specifically, which more or less means NATO, and the countries that are bordering Ukraine, and member states individually, that they will keep supporting Ukraine militarily with humanitarian aid and with hitting Russia where they’ve managed to decide that they can work together and if not individually. So, in that area, yes.

You’ve asked whether there will be troops on the ground. No, absolutely not. There is absolutely no indication that there is the desire for – to put NATO troops on the ground, and you cannot send either the army of individual member states because even if you don’t say it’s a NATO operation, you send a Romanian or a Bulgarian soldier, that’s a NATO operation. That is too high a risk and it’s – that’s not likely to happen. What will happen will be covert operations that will also take place and different levels of the critical arena.

Erik Jones

I should say we don’t often speak outside of our comparative politics brief, but Veronica Anghel was Junior Foreign Affairs Advisor to Romanian President Klaus Iohannis for two years, responsible for the NATO desk during the Crimean conflict, so we allow her to speak off the reservation in that context.

Veronica Anghel

Another point…

Erik Jones

You, Sir.

Veronica Anghel

…we told you so. We told you so.

Alessandro Roselli

My name is Alessandro Roselli, Chatham House member, and what is missing, in my opinion, in this conversation, not only in this room, but also outside this room, is what is the final purpose of our policy? The reason for that is that actually, there is not a single purpose. There is, at least looking from Italy, I would say from Europe, an increasing evidence that the purposes of the Americans are at least slightly, not so slightly, different from the purpose – the purposes of the Europeans. And having this in mind, I wonder whether the purpose of this exercise might be the following.

I remember an American Diplomat, whose name is – was George Kennan, and he had the doctrine, exposed doctrine, of containment of the Soviet Union. This policy has been wonderful. We have lived for decades with the Soviet Union, a totally different system, without the liberty and so on, but in peace. This – the consequence of this have been sometimes horrible, for example, we did not intervene in the Hungarian Revolution. We were basically totally indifferent to that, and other cases.

I am saying this be – not be – I don’t want to be so rigid in this matter, but I wonder whether our approach should be different. The approach at that time was different because we were very well aware that the Soviet Union was extremely strong and dangerous. Now, after the Soviet Union, we are also aware that Russia is weak, okay, and we have the temptation to do that, to defy Russia. This is bad, in my opinion, because a weak enemy, but with, okay, the nuclear power can do things that we cannot, or possibly we can imagine. So I would say the doctrine on containment should be considered again.

Erik Jones

So, Mr Roselli, there’s an Italian Diplomat whose name is Sergio Romano, and Sergio Romano was the last Italian Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and I think what he would say is that we have find some way to live with Russia. The challenge, of course, is finding some way to live with this current group of Russian leadership, which I think has become quite challenging, not least given the way that efforts to bring some closure to the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of elements of the Donbas has only fuelled, as the gentleman pointed out, has only fuelled this further conflict. So there’s something that’s not quite going right in that context here.

Having said that, and this is the point I would embrace, I have a piece coming out in the latest issue of Survival that makes this argument, we must begin now planning how we will live with Russia in the future because Russia is not going to go anywhere. And the question that I have for my panellists is what happens if our planning goes somehow terribly wrong, which is the point that you’re raising about escalation? If there is an escalation in this conflict, what does that do to the political identities that are in play here?

Alessandro Roselli

Just one small question. Before the whole thing started in late January, I wrote a letter to the FT, and to other newspapers, and they kindly published that, where I asked for an accommodation similar to Austria after the Second World War. It is a neutral country. You – we know that Austria cannot be a member of NATO, but in time, it became – they became members of the European Union and so on. Why not to do the same for Ukraine? Now, it’s extremely difficult, possibly impossible, but when I wrote and before everything started, I wondered whether the American Diplomats in Geneva raised this openly, this question, to the Russians. Would you agree about a neutral, without NATO – a neutral Ukraine?

Veronica Anghel

Let me just briefly…

Erik Jones

Please, Veronica.

Veronica Anghel

…answer that. So – and then we can go to other questions. That is not possible because that is not Ukraine’s option. Simply put, what Austria decided, decided for itself.

Alessandro Roselli

But…

Veronica Anghel

Ukraine does not…

Alessandro Roselli

It, sort of, buffers aid.

Veronica Anghel

That is what – it’s a structure imposed from the outside. They have agency and in the end, they’re the only ones who can decide what to do. We cannot impose neutrality on a country that’s fighting for its own territory and its people.

Erik Jones

Sir.

Ramez

Ramez, a member of Chatham House, and my question is on keeping European unity. Will that be possible if some countries become less and less democratic, and how do you see that developing? Because I think that this issue is an issue people try to put away and put forward or away from the discussions at – in Brussels, but are becoming more and more problematic. How can we keep unity in Europe with that going on?

Erik Jones

Adrian, do you want to give a stab at this one?

Dr Adrian Favero

Yeah, I’m wondering if the gentleman refers to the specific Hungary and the rest in Poland?

Ramez

Poland.

Dr Adrian Favero

Yeah, because what I would say is you’re absolutely right, I mean, there have been illiberal tendencies in both of these countries, Hungary, there was a censorship of the media, there was corruption, the Polish Government undermined the justice system, the media system. There’s a lot of illiberal tendencies going on, however, they have been going on before the war in Ukraine started. So that has been an issue and something that the EU had deal with previously.

The problem is that, and this is a bit of a structural issue, the EU has only a limited capacity to interfere with what happens within nation states. So if Poland decides to fiddle with their justice system, the EU has only so much they can do to tell the Poland, “Please stick to democratic rules or stick to what we think is democratic.” Because, of course, Poland, or if you talk to the Polish Government, they would have a completely different opinion, because they think, “No, we’re actually doing the right thing,” but the EU is relatively powerless, when it comes to interference with what happens within nation states. There are certain elements and they’re loosely tied to cohesion funding and money, but they are not as widespread as we sometimes may like.

Mohammed

Yeah, my name is Mohammed [inaudible – 49:26]. I’m also a member of Chatham House. Actually, I have two questions. Well, if – it’s from international, like, perspective. What is the changes in the international arrangements that should have or that should be done after the Ukraine? Listen, I am talking about having a reference line of what is wrong and what is right, because you cannot in one moment say that what happened, the invasion in Iraq or Afghanistan, or even the inter – the Russian invasion in Syria, is right. And you can say it, like, silent about it, or support it, or even support it, and the other day you come to see that – to say that the Russian invasion to Ukraine is wrong. So what should – how we can build a reference line that we should measure and make actions according to?

And the other question is what – the change that should be done in the Security Council because if we still support the idea about the – that the devil here is Russia, then we cannot keep some devils that control all the world just for five countries who are, I mean, controlling everything, in terms of security and the decision in the world, I think, so what change should be done here? Thank you.

Erik Jones

These are challenging questions, so I’m going to let anybody volunteer who wants to answer. Veronica, do you want to…?

Veronica Anghel

Sure.

Erik Jones

That’s the Texas approach to volunteering.

Veronica Anghel

So, on the question on how do we preserve unity when we have countries that challenge democracy within European Union? At great cost. We have lowered our standards for what is democracy at different levels of the European Union, and we’re paying – and within European Union for having done that. So, we can see that these countries are now shaping the rule of law culture inside the European Union, and we can see how, at a moment of great stress, Hungary is negotiating for more money when the question is not about money right now. So at great cost we are preserving this unity, and it will come back and bite us in the…

Erik Jones

That’s good enough.

Veronica Anghel

The other question on what we – what could we do on the Security Council, how to reform it? You can’t. You can’t. This is it. The only question that we can pose right now, I mean, I’m not a specialist in this particular thing, I’m sure there are people who – and now I’m talking like a woman. I have opinions, so it doesn’t matter. So, the – you can’t change, unless you change the goal of it, so the question is how much do we still take into account what the Security Council does when it is a body that is dysfunctional and at the right times, right? So that is the larger question here.

Erik Jones

Adrian, do you want to do the right and wrong?

Dr Adrian Favero

Yeah, because I think it’s – interestingly, it’s also a question that I get often asked by my students, like, why is America allowed to invade Iraq and – you know, and Russia’s not? Like, why are we behaving differently, why is different – why are we talking differently about it, why are we taking different actions?

And I think one thing that came to mind, when you asked this question, was John Mearsheimer, and John Mearsheimer said, “In a world where there’s anarchy and there’s” – and I’m aware that it’s controversial to bring John Mearsheimer into this, I’m using a quote. He said, “In a situation where there’s anarchy and nobody trusts each other, you would rather be Godzilla than Bambi,” meaning that unfortunately, or that’s just the way it is. We say all states are equal because there’s no power above the states, but matter of fact, some states are more powerful than others. And the US is one of the most powerful countries or players among all the states, and yes, that’s why they have or can get away with things that other states may not. I usually tell my students not the Godzilla and Bambi version, but “Imagine if you could choose to be a country in a world where nobody trusts each other, would you want to be the US or Monaco?”

Mohammed

Oh, the US.

Dr Adrian Favero

Yeah, you’d…

Mohammed

But…

Dr Adrian Favero

…most likely want to be the US.

Mohammed

…they want to get more power.

Dr Adrian Favero

Yes, because they’re the US, and if Monaco says, “Hey, we’re going to take some of the country off,” we all find it super funny, because they don’t have the power and understanding to execute what – if they want to have more power and some countries do.

Veronica Anghel

I just want to add that at the end of the story, Bambi survives and Godzilla is – dies, so I don’t know.

Dr Adrian Favero

I haven’t seen either of these movies, but…

Erik Jones

Here in the front row, yes, sir.

Paul Short

Paul Short from King’s and Birmingham. I wonder if there’s a – if we’re looking at comparative politics and political reactions from different European countries, I wonder if geography and space, as well as historical memories, are good explanatory factors and to do with different kinds of strategic risk and anxiety. If you’re Russia’s neighbour, you have the risk of being exposed to Russian – direct Russian conventional attack and threats of attack, that’s preoccupying, that’s been a historical problem. If you’re further back, as Germany now is, and France certainly now is, then you’re probably not worried about Russian tanks rolling over your country again, but what you are worried about existentially is nuclear escalation. And it seems to me that the differences between those two kinds of risk and government responses to them may explain a lot of the difference between hard and soft positions on what – on how far NATO should go in fighting with the last willing Ukrainian, whatever the cost to future relations with a reduced and angry Russia. Do you think that simple spatial model explains much?

Erik Jones

Laura, I’m going to go to you, and then we’ve got one last question before we – no, two last questions before we run out of time.

Laura Cram

Yeah, I think that brought up quite a lot of interesting things as what some are to do with distance and space and direct impacts on personal interest and the impact that it’s actually likely to have. But you also raised the issue of anxiety, and anxiety causes really different ways of behaving, so when people are angry, they act and act in a positive and deliberate manner.

In anxiety, they tend to be the much more frozen, and that’s much more challenging, if it’s closer than your border, but we’re also, I think – even at a distance, we’re seeing the effects in a very real sense, in practice and in identities. You know, if you look at the Northern European countries that are having to really reconsider their whole self-perception of their own identities as neutral spaces.

Today, in fact, in The Times, they ran a poll on Scotland’s attitudes to NATO, and that’s really profound and related to their internal identities, in terms of what might happen in the next referendum. They very successfully kept that whole thorny NATO issue out of the first referendum, but now we’ve seen that’s come right back up to the top of the fore to do with the Ukrainian crisis. So even at a distance, without an immediate threat, really digging into deeply intrinsic aspects of identity, internal politics, and, yeah, what you can and can’t keep on and off your agendas in a threat scenario.

Erik Jones

Okay, I regret that we’re pressed for time, so we’re going to go to the gentleman here and the woman here, and then we’ll let the panellists respond and then we’ll close at 7 o’clock.

Member

Is it really possible Ukraine can defeat the Beast from the East and what is the cost of it, despite having NATO, as well as independent countries, supporting it? This is question A, and the B part of it, now we were talking already in the media that war crimes, the war hasn’t even finished yet. Who are we going to take to the war crimes tribunal? Is it Putin? What about the other criminals who involved in other parts, say in the Middle East? They committed massive war crimes. Are they going to be subjected to the same allegations?

Erik Jones

And you, madam?

Nikki

Hi, I’m Nikki, I’m a student at King’s. So, first question is about China, how big a role China is playing in the sustainability of European solidarity that we reached now, and do you think that’s part of the reason why Central European countries are not willing to move more decisively into, like, a European Union? And the second question actually is a following question on the challenge on democracy, so is there a bottom line in which we think, you know, this unity is not, you know, worth preserving if there’s so much, you know, cost having been caused on the democracy? Thank you very much.

Erik Jones

Well, excellent, and I think that gives us plenty to finish on in the last two minutes of our conversation. Laura, shall we start with you, then go to Veronica, and then go to Adrian?

Laura Cram

Sure. I’m just going to start straight with that democracy question ‘cause I think it’s really interesting and I think it’s part of those stories of the imaginings of Europe and many of them that were nirvana fallacy, imaginings that it never was as democratic as all that, but in terms of whether or not it can backslide and how far it can backslide, and whether it’s worth maintaining.

I think you have to just ex – realise how far institutionalised many of the interests are in the maintenance of the European structure and that over the years, whether it’s been the eurozone crisis or other crisis, we’ve seen lots of times of the thinking of it’s EUC RIP, it’s the end of the EU, it’s all going to collapse. And there’s been a remarkable institutionalisation of res – institutional resilience, if you like, and I suspect, whether we like it or not, that even in terms of democracy and democratic backsliding, that entrenchment is likely to be there and it’s not just going to collapse on that basis.

Erik Jones

Veronica.

Veronica Anghel

I was doing some calculations on how much it’s going to cost for Ukraine to win the war. We have $40 billion from the United States, we have 1.2 billion from the EU, which is going to increase, we have the whole Ukraine economy that’s also directed towards fighting the invader, and for sure we’re going to have an interest to support Ukraine in the long run. We have support at the individual level and within the European Union countries for Ukrainian refugees. There are a lot of resources that are going into this. We – there are the sanctions that are also costing Russia, so we have a lot of money bleeding out of Russia, as well, to support Ukraine in the war. The cost is phenomenal. World hunger is one of them, as well, but the – so far, there seems to be a lot of resources that are willing to be put to defeat Russia.

And on the China question, China is still deciding what to do. I think the fact that Russia is being pushed back is quite important in their decision-making process. I would like to underscore that it’s not the whole of Central and Eastern Europe that is against sanctions against Russia, this is a very Hungarian situation right now. If there are – there is a part of Europe that knows what Russian menace means, then it’s Central and Eastern Europe more than anyone else.

China’s economic ties are very important, particularly in the Western Balkans where they have a heightened presence, but right now, they’re experiencing a lot of economic problems themselves for the investments that they’ve done in the road and belt – Belt and Road Initiative, and we could talk about this more, but I think China is still deciding what they want to do in the future.

Erik Jones

Alright, Adrian, you’re all that stands between us and cocktails.

Dr Adrian Favero

Then I shall make it short. I just want to allude to what Veronica said because I think it’s a very interesting question that you asked about the importance of China in this whole conflict, and what strikes me is that currently it’s probably more Russia and President Putin who has to think about, “How much am I going to deal with China and in what way?” Because as it stands now, he will probably end up as a junior partner of China if his other endeavour in the Ukraine is not successful and the sanctions hit him too hard, because the Russian economy is just on the ground, and China being a rational player would absolutely use this opportunity to make very clear what they want from Putin.

So I think right now it – Putin himself has to be very careful how he’s going to, sort of, balance his different relations, regarding its own economy and the future economic relations with other countries. And as a last note, and Veronica mentioned this already, I think China is also in a position where they monitor the situation right now, and they’ll probably figure out how much are other countries willing to push back and what say if we move on Taiwan, how much are they going to push back, and what are their options, and how many options are there? So they’re in a position where they comfortably sit and watch.

Erik Jones

As I close this off, I want to thank Hans Kundnani and the Europe Programme here at Chatham House for their wonderful partnership with us that made this event possible in the first place. I’d like to thank Lauren, Emily and the Membership Events Team because this has been fabulously well-organised and we’re incredibly grateful for the opportunity to speak with you. I’d like to thank our audience online for giving me the questions that I had at the start of this conversation, and all of you for the questions that I had to make sure that it continued.

The only thing I’ll leave you with is if you want an antidote to John Mearsheimer, you should read the book by T.H. White called The Once and Future King, which is a series of books, in fact, that was written during the Second World War to use the Camelot story in order to imagine a better peace. A peace that I think we managed to live for about 50 years or so, and that now we find unravelling just as it happened to King Arthur and his merry knights. And the thing that I would take away from that story is that it is possible for us to recreate right and wrong, as Mohammed suggested, but it will require strong institutions, which will be very difficult to build, either at the European level or globally. And very difficult to build not just because of the international politics involved, but because of the domestic politics and each of the countries that will have to participate.

I hope you’ll take that message of domestic politics and its central importance home with you tonight, or at least upstairs for a drink, in which case you can let it go away. But that domestic politics story I think is going to be crucial because we all have roles to play in getting to a better place than we’re in at the moment, so thank you very much for being here, and I look forward to talking with you more informally after the event [applause].