The EU is on the front line of an international system whose barriers have crumbled

The war in Ukraine has dispelled the last illusions of Europeans, who had relied on the primacy of law and the virtues of multilateralism to ensure peace and security, writes former French ambassador Pierre Buhler.

Le Monde, September 27, 2023

The surge of Russian tanks into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, sounded the death knell not only of an era but also of an idea: that of peace through law, which, despite its setbacks, had prevailed for over a century. Woodrow Wilson's [president of the United States from 1913 to 1921] plan to make the "world safe for democracy," with the League of Nations, certainly met its well-known fate. But Franklin D. Roosevelt [1933-1945] had learned his lesson with the United Nations Charter, a treaty prohibiting the use of force except in self-defense and with a Security Council tasked with ensuring compliance. The fact that the five victorious powers of the Second World War sat on the council as permanent members, with the right of veto, was supposed to guarantee its effectiveness.

Although paralyzed during the Cold War, this system had, since the war's end, raised hopes of the advent of a world governed by law, illustrated in 1990 by the restoration of sovereignty to Kuwait, which had been invaded by Iraq. However, this hope gradually faded as military interventions violating international law – in Georgia, Serbia, Iraq, Ukraine and so on – unfolded one after another.

The implosion of the Soviet Union dealt a fatal blow to another idea: that of world peace through the abolition of capitalism and its "ultimate stage, imperialism." However, it mainly gave substance to the notion of the "end of history" and the triumph of liberal democracy, an illusion nurtured by a widespread movement of support for this model around the world. It suggested the prospect that respect for the rule of law – an attribute of democracies – would gradually influence the conduct of states outside their borders.

The trend was reversed some 15 years later. Today, there are only around 30 genuine democracies left, after two prosperous decades for the dictators, autocrats and juntas that seized power in their countries. Yet the aspiration for freedom, rights and dignity has not died out, as the regular uprisings in Myanmar, Hong Kong and Iran remind us.

Another illusion has been shattered by this war: that of "peace through trade." In 1910, British essayist Norman Angell [1872-1967] postulated that the interdependencies woven between states during the first wave of capitalist globalization would eventually dissolve political rivalries and ambitions within the well-understood interests of rival industrial powers. Though disproven by the First World War, this theory won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933, and the idea, once again refuted in 1939, has continued to resurface. Its most recent incarnation, embodied by the slogan "Wandel durch Handel" ("Change through trade"), which Germany had championed, collapsed in 2022.

A bitter illustration of these lost illusions, the Russian invasion has driven the final nail into the coffin of an era of collective security already in its death throes. It marked a return to the pre-1945 paradigm when force was dominant. The resurrection of collective security based on respect for the rule of law seems out of reach. The idea that nations would agree to pledge their security based on mere legal acts, guarantees or treaties is a fantasy. Similarly, the concept of a mythical "security framework for Europe" is illusory.

Among the various repercussions, we should expect the erosion of arms control systems, notably nuclear non-proliferation regimes, and even trade, which will be eaten away by sanctions, embargoes and protectionism. Power and reassurance strategies [seeking protection] will take shape within alliances, whether multilateral or bilateral, guided by the principles of protectorates, spheres of influence, client states or circumstantial alignments.

For the Europeans, who had based their project on the primacy of law and the virtues of multilateralism as a guarantee of security and peace, the sobering effect has been brutal. They now face a number of challenges.

First and foremost, the European Union is on the front line of an international system whose protective barriers have crumbled. Navigating these turbulent waters will be a rigorous test of its structure.

The second challenge is that of a new expansion, put back on the agenda by the Russian aggression, to include countries whose security – or even existence – is determined by their relationship with Russia, as well as by American protection. This prospect, which opens up the possibility of a union with some 35 member states in the long term, would create an even more complex system of governance and decision-making than the one in place today.

The evident divisions regarding the use of qualified majority voting on foreign policy issues highlight – and this is the third challenge – the union's inability to move beyond its status as a normative power to become a fully-fledged geopolitical player.

The final and most insidious challenge is that of its own disintegration, through the internal erosion of a model defined by the principles of representative democracy and the rule of law. This model, which underpins the European project, is being called into question by the Euroskeptic and sovereignist surge in Europe, as populist and illiberal movements that have come to power or are nearing it seek to dismantle the legal framework of the "European order."

However, it is only by remaining true to its principles, and by ensuring their adherence by all its member states without succumbing to the temptations of complacency, that the EU can act in favor of law and multilateralism, and continue to demonstrate that there is an alternative to anarchy and the law of the jungle.

It is only by rallying around its founding principles that it can legitimately remain the compass of the democratic ideal and the beacon of peoples' aspiration to freedom. By helping these people to bring their nations back into the community of democracies, this strategy is our only chance of returning to the path of peace.