Recent events confirm that the Netherlands government runs scant risk of gaining a reputation for having too much spine. It has, however, surely burnished its obedience-standing in Washington.
Politico lately reported how swiftly The Hague moved to commandeer China-owned local chipmaker, Nexperia, headquartered in Nijmegen, headlining this story: Dutch seized Chinese chipmaker following US pressure.
Naturally, Aukje de Vries, the Netherlands’ secretary of state for foreign trade and development, denied that any US pressure had influenced this drastic move, claiming, “We take our own decision on this.” The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and CNN, however, were swiftly on the same page as Politico in rejecting this unconvincing claim of independence.
In fact, what has lately unfolded in the Netherlands is indicative of a more profound concern that applies to most of what now comprises Western Europe. Which raises the question: How has this primary global power center steadily evolved into such an emasculated version of its former robust self?
An essential part of the answer lies in the fundamental motivating factors that prompted the creation of the European Union and its predecessors, beginning in 1951, with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The Treaty of Paris was agreed to in that year by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.
Europe had incubated two horrific world wars in the 20th century, within a period of a little over 30 years. The primary aim of the ECSC was to pool coal and steel production to prevent future wars and foster economic cooperation after World War II.
In 1992, the EU, which at that time included the United Kingdom, was formally created by the signing of the Maastricht Treaty. Subsequently, the EU was enlarged in 1995 and 2004, and a common currency, the euro, was launched in 1999.
An exceptional opportunity thus presented itself for Europe to advance the essence of the abandonment of warfare embodied within the core of the EU project to the East. Indeed, this was a time when the combative profile of NATO could have been significantly reined in to build mutually agreed security guarantees between Russia and the expanding EU
By any reasonable measure, the EU, 25 years ago, was a superpower, rivaled only by the US. Although the US economy was still around 40 percent larger, the combined EU GDP comfortably exceeded that of other major nations: It was about double the size of the Japanese economy at that time, six times larger than the Chinese economy, and more than 25 times larger than the Russian economy.
As the 21st century began, Western Europe collectively appeared stronger than ever before, and even more significantly, it had found a well-grounded, mutually beneficial geopolitical formula for avoiding major future European conflicts.
Let’s remember, however, that those two world wars were built on the foundations of countless wars between European states dating back well over 1,000 years, following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century. For example, just France and England (later Britain) fought 41 wars between 1109 and 1815, including the Hundred Years’ War and the Napoleonic Wars. According to the French History Podcast, there was an Anglo-French war every 17.3 years, on average, during this period.
Unsurprisingly, the resort to extreme levels of warfare within Europe intensified as the leading European powers set about creating globalized, colonial empires, beginning in the late 15th century.
Subsequently, the torch of Europe’s incomparable partiality for war-making was vigorously picked up and embraced by America over 100 years ago, since when the US has created an unrivaled globe-straddling, imperial presence.
The Cold War, a standoff between the US-led Western bloc and the former Soviet Union (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR) led by Russia, which continued until 1991, began soon after the end of World War II. Its commencement is typically dated to the announcement of the Truman Doctrine by then-US president Harry Truman in 1947. He committed the US at that time to the containment of Soviet expansion within Europe.
Next came the creation of the multimember North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949, led by the US. It was established to counter the potent threat posed by the Soviet Union and its allied Eastern European states. In 1955, the Warsaw Pact was established, militarily uniting the USSR with its associated Eastern European states in response to West Germany joining NATO in that year.
By 1991, following radical reforms within the USSR and persistent pressure from the US, among other factors, the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, as was the USSR itself.
An exceptional opportunity thus presented itself for Europe to advance the essence of the abandonment of warfare embodied within the core of the EU project to the East. Indeed, this was a time when the combative profile of NATO could have been significantly reined in to build mutually agreed security guarantees between Russia and the expanding EU.
We now know that this approach never stood a chance of being implemented. By 1992, the US had crafted a secret plan to seize this moment of apparent Russian weakness to secure indefinite American-led, Western global hegemony. The draft of this plan, subsequently made public by The New York Times, provided that: “America’s political and military mission in the post-Cold War era will be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia, or the territory of the former Soviet Union.”
Thus, rather than being rewound, NATO’s military and alliance structures were significantly strengthened as a key component within this aggressive, Western-liberal “end of history” blueprint first outlined by Professor Francis Fukuyama in 1989.
As professors John Mearsheimer and Jeffrey Sachs have convincingly explained, the basic groundwork was now in place for the most audacious US-led Western move to discipline Russia permanently by expanding NATO into Ukraine. The specific groundwork involved telling Russia this would not happen, beginning in 1990, when, during discussions about German reunification, US and West German leaders gave verbal assurances to Russia that NATO would not expand eastward.
In fact, US General Wesley Clark, who played a key role in shaping the enlargement of NATO, confirmed in a presentation to the leading US think tank, the Atlantic Council, in 2015 that: “The Pentagon’s position in mid-’94 was we were opposed to NATO enlargement. But (then-US) president (Bill) Clinton made the decision that NATO enlargement would be a good idea.”
Moreover, James Wilson (in a highly critical article titled Jeffrey Sachs: Three Times a Traitor) confirmed last year that Clark and other US statesmen were against NATO expansion, but “they were pressurized by the Eastern European and Baltic countries who simply broke into NATO”.
Following all these precipitate developments came the US-backed ousting of the duly elected pro-Russian government in Ukraine in 2014. A scathing 2017 report from a leading American think tank, the Cato Institute, concluded that:
“It was a grotesque distortion to portray the events in Ukraine (in 2014) as a purely indigenous, popular uprising. The Nuland-Pyatt telephone conversation and other actions confirm that the US was considerably more than a passive observer to the turbulence. Instead, US officials were blatantly meddling in Ukraine. Such conduct was utterly improper. The US had no right to try to orchestrate political outcomes in another country — especially one on the border of another great power. It is no wonder that Russia reacted severely to the unconstitutional ouster of an elected, pro-Russian government — an ouster that occurred not only with Washington’s blessing, but apparently with its assistance.”
Notwithstanding the potent arguments condemning the inexcusability of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, prior, compounding US-led, NATO initiatives related to Ukraine dating back over two decades, were unforgivably provocative.
So what has led Western Europe into being so dismally warped, again, by what can reasonably be described as an almost magnetic attraction to warfare? Although there is no single, let alone simple, answer, events of the last 30 years underline some key explanatory factors.
First, despite the conspicuous success of the EU project in making war-avoidance a cornerstone accomplishment, when faced with the fresh prospect of finalized Russian containment, elite leaders across most of Western Europe stepped back into a historically resonant, deeply confrontational (and opportunistic) response.
Next, pivotal American leadership, which has been exceptionally martial since the end of the Cold War, actively shared this perspective with even greater intensity as it demanded singular European obedience to Washington’s leadership (visibly evident in the way European elites have become grotesquely complicit in the Gaza genocide).
Finally, the Eastern European states — and particularly the Baltic states — brought a vehement, historically grounded, loathing of Russia with them into the EU. Given their cumulative experience within the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War, this is understandable. What is far less comprehensible is the degree to which Brussels has allowed this (American-supported) fevered foreign policy tail to wag the dog.
Can Western Europe recover from this forbidding fix? Do not hold your breath. The Economist, probably the most influential, flagship media outlet in Europe, recently argued that continued funding of the war in Ukraine “is a giant opportunity for Europe”, adding that “the bill will be huge ($398 billion)” but “it is also a historic bargain”. Thus, audacious war-advocacy is presently intensifying despite (or because of) growing negative Western commentary about Ukraine’s prospects.
All of which brings to mind a related case.
Japan was the staunchest of US allies when Washington began to assert the fierce priority of American interests over Tokyo’s in the 1970s, notably by attacking Toshiba (US lawmakers smashed Toshiba electronic appliances on the grounds of Congress in 1987) and the imposition of the trade-sapping Plaza Accord in 1985. Japan, locked into the massive US-Japan military alliance, bowed to the demands and did as it was told. Japanese autonomy suffered a severe setback from which it has yet to recover.
The author is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Law of the University of Hong Kong.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
