Europe these days reminds me of the early weeks of the pandemic: We are living with a sense that the end of the world is just around the corner. But this time, anxiety over Russia’s nuclear weapons has replaced talk of the virus.
European media is plastered with grim headlines about energy shortages, disruptions and blackouts. Analysts agree that inflation and the escalating cost of living could easily bring millions to the streets in protest. The number of migrants that have come to the European Union this year is already much higher than the number that came from Syria in 2015. And the Kremlin’s war machine will only drive the figures higher as the destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure deprives people there of electricity and water.
Vladimir Putin’s winter is nonetheless unlikely to end Europe’s commitment to Ukraine. Allied governments may change, but sanctions will remain in force. Just look to Italy, where the newly elected far-right government has signed on to the European consensus.
A majority of Europeans are morally outraged by Russia’s brutality. And the recent successes of the Ukrainian Army add hope to the outrage. In fact, as the Ukrainians have made advances on the battlefield, support for them is surging. But the most important factor is, in fact, on the other side of the Atlantic. When Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary, Mr. Putin’s closest ally in the European Union, recently proclaimed that “hope for peace is named Donald Trump”, he expressed something that all of Mr. Putin’s allies in Europe have realized: Only a change in American policy can change the West’s position on Ukraine. It is America rather than Europe that is the weak link when it comes to sustained support for Kyiv.
But this war will not go on forever. And it’s in the peace, rather than the fighting, that the tensions in Europe will become clear.
There are three distinct camps when it comes to thinking about how this war should end: the realists, the optimists and the revisionists. Representatives from each can be found among politicians and voters in almost all European countries, but they are not equally represented everywhere: In Western and southern Europe the debate is mostly between realists and optimists; in Ukraine and some of the East European countries, it is between optimists and revisionists. Geography and history best explain the differences. West Europeans primarily fear nuclear war. East Europeans fear return of the Russian sphere of influence in their countries in case of Ukraine’s defeat.
The so-called realists believe that Europe’s goal should be that Russia does not win, Ukraine does not lose and the war fails to broaden. Look to the statements of President Emmanuel Macron of France for this view. By this logic, Ukraine should be helped to liberate as much of its territory as possible but a Ukrainian victory must have its limits, because seeking this goal would greatly increase the risk of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons. The most obvious limit, it bears stating, is that Ukraine not go as far as trying to reclaim Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The realists rightly view the current conflict as more dangerous than the Soviet-American confrontation during the Cold War, because the Cold War was a clash between two forces that both believed that history was on their side. The West now confronts a leader with an apocalyptic mind-set, haunted by the specter of a world without Russia.
The second camp are the optimists. They see the end of war as not just Ukrainian victory but the end of Vladimir Putin. They argue that Russia’s military defeat and the continued effects of sanctions — which will only become more devastating — are clear signs that the Russian president’s time in office is limited, and they support President Volodymyr Zelensky’s unwillingness to negotiate with Mr. Putin. The proponents of this view, including German Greens and most of the East Europeans, argue that only unrestrained support for Ukraine can achieve a lasting peace. Russia should not be just stopped but defeated.
Revisionists see the war in Ukraine not as Mr. Putin’s war but as Russians’ war. For them, the only guarantee for peace and stability in Europe after this war ends would be the irreversible weakening of Russia, including the disintegration of the Russian Federation. They argue for supporting separatist movements in the country and keeping Russians far away from Europe regardless of political changes in the country. In their view, the war that started with Mr. Putin’s claim that Ukraine does not exist should end with the final dissolution of the Russian empire. The “End of Russia” strategy is, perhaps not surprisingly, most popular in countries that have suffered under Moscow’s rule in the past: Poland, the Baltic republics and, of course, Ukraine.
Each of these schools of thought has its sensible detractors. Critics of the realist approach rightly insist that realism was already tested in 2015 after Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and it did not work. The magical realists suffer from an excess of optimism that Mr. Putin’s days are numbered. Moreover, the regime change that optimists desire is harder in practice; how, after all, can negotiations proceed based on their desired ends? And revisionists’ appeals to dismantle or disfigure Russia could have the unintended and unwelcome effect of giving Russians reasons to fight in this war, something Mr. Putin has failed to do.
When Russian troops were on the outskirts of Kyiv, the differences between realists, optimists and revisionists were not critical. The only goal was to prevent Ukraine from being overrun and Mr. Putin from winning a victory. But the triumphs of the Ukrainian Army over recent months have brought these differences closer to the center of the European debate. It is the diverging views of how the war should end rather than Mr. Putin’s threats that is the real risk for European unity. We will feel this already in the winter when public pressure to start negotiations with Moscow will increase.
Diverging narratives and visions about the desired end of the war are so emotionally and morally charged that any agreement will be painfully complex. But some common framework for a resolution to the war is urgently needed. Without it, Ukrainians’ fear that they will be betrayed by the West and Mr. Putin’s fear that Russia will be militarily humiliated fuel escalation to extremes.
Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies, a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and the author of Is It Tomorrow Yet? Paradoxes of the Pandemic.