Speech by Marco Ghisetti at the European Conference on Multipolarity

Speech by Marco Ghisetti at the European Conference on Multipolarity

The importance of the European position  in the struggle between unipolarity and multipolarity 

The victory of liberal ideology in the twentieth century came about through the destruction of continental Europe and the establishment of the English-speaking empire by means of three European civil wars (two hot and one cold), which always had Mitteleuropa, i.e. Central Europe, as their main theatre of conflict. Moreover, these wars led first to the power-deposition of Europe, which until then had been at the pinnacle of world-power, and finally to the beginning of American-led unipolar globalisation and to the universalisation of liberal values. In regards to this American-led globalisation, Atlanticised Europed has acted as the bridgehead. 

The process of Atlanticisation of Europe, now about a century old, has been twofold. On the one hand, it has entailed a most profound and pervasive re-education of the European peoples to the dogmas of liberal-Atlantic ideology. On the other hand, it has integrated continental Europe into a core-periphery relationship with North America that, from the American perspective, is irreversible. 

Precisely just like the three previous European Civil Wars, also the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which can be understood as a phase of the fourth act of the European Civil War or even of the Second Hundred Years’ War (1914-202x), has Central and Eastern Europe as its epicentre. Just like the first two wars, it is waged by the English-speaking empire against Germanised Europe and, in this case, also against Russia as the only European power which has not been fully Atlanticised.  That is so because American-led globalisation has reached an impasse whereas Russia’s and China’s project for a polycentric multipolar world is gaining momentum. 

Indeed, while the industrial base of China works as the main engine and factor causing the US’s relative decline, Russia’s economic robustness and military capabilities not only facilitate and protect such a process, but also prevent the world balance of power from becoming too sinocentric. In other words, Russia’s strategy is to facilitate the diffusion of power towards many centres of powers, i.e. towards multipolarity, and does not intend to turn its back to American-lead globalisation just to accept a Chinese-led globalisation or a globalisation with Chinese characteristics. Because of this, Russia would likely welcome a more independent European centre of power in order to counterbalance the ever-growing Chinese influence in Eurasia. Also China has made attempts to partly detach Europe from the United States and to draw it into Greater Eurasia, as it is proven by the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment signed with the EU in December 2021 or by the many State-to-State treaties and memorandums of understanding already signed. Europe too, especially following the process of economic Germanisation which has undergone following the Cold War’s border dissolution and German reunification, has in recent years shown a strong inclination towards the construction of deeper economic and political ties with the eastern Powers. This eastward march of European interests has threatened the transatlantic region, for it could have caused the breakup of the core-periphery relationship undergoing between the United States and Europe and possibly even the affirmation of Germanised Europe as an independent centre of power. In such circumstances, if and when the barycenter of power of Germanised Europe were to move (not only economically) eastward, the American project for a unipolar world or of an American-led multilateral world will vanish dans l'espace d’un matin altogether with its liberal values. This is a scenario which has notoriously been predicted by the very fathers of geopolitics of contemporary world politics, such as Mackinder and Haushofer, and that has been haunting the strategic concerns of the Anglosphere since its first outline. 

For the United States, therefore, the war in Ukraine is a step towards the military disempowerment of Russia and the economic disempowerment of Europe: a crossed-eyes war looking with one eye on Moscow, and the other one on Berlin. Moreover, it is a step certainly to be followed by the political, economic, and military confrontation between the United States and China: the main challenger of the U.S.-led world order. As for Russia, the war has accelerated Moscow’s implementation of its plans aimed at dethroning the U.S.: the alteration of world trade geography and de-dollarisation. 

It cannot be excluded that the final victory between unipolarity and multipolarity will depend on whither the European barycenter of power positions itself. This means that the control of the European peninsula, and especially Central-Eastern Europe, has become one of the main fields of confrontation between the two trends – if not the “big prize”. 

Currently, Europe finds itself between the hammer and the anvil. From the East, while China and Russia are interested in pulling Germanised Europe eastward and might even welcome the affirmation of it as a (relatively) independent centre of power within Greater Eurasia, it is also true that they are aware that the road is being blocked by the United States. Moreover, the more Europe decouples from the Eastern Powers and the more its economy is impaired, the least incentivises the Eastern Powers will have to take European interests into consideration. But decoupling from Easter Powers and de-industrialisation of Europe is precisely the strategy implemented by the United States in order to strengthen its hold over Europe and to relaunch its global posture. From the West, the more Asia grows, the more divergent the interests of Europe and the United States become. The risk of Germanised Europe slipping away to join the opponents’ field is not, for the English-speaking empire, tolerable. Thus, the United States is likely to be willing to do whatever it takes to prevent it, starting from the suffocation of the German economy and the overall de-industrialisation of Europe. 

It appears clearly that the European Union (which does not constitute Europe in its entirety) has chosen to side with the Western field, i.e. the English-speaking empire. This should come as no surprise, for this bureaucratic organisation suffers from two “original sins” that prevent it from doing otherwise. Firstly, this organisation was created and promoted precisely in order to affirm and safeguard the euroatlantic relationship as an unequal partnership between Europe and North America. Thus, one can say that by acting as the American headbridge against Russia and by decoupling the economies of its member States from the Russian one, the E.U. is simply doing its job. Secondly, the neo-functional, mercatist and institutionalist ideology that has so far guided the process of European unification not only denies any assignment of meaning or spirit, but also disavows and cancels the many European cultures and identities inherited from the past. In their place, an ersatz nationalism of a techno-mercantile type is promoted, which – due to the first original sin – is nevertheless precluded from becoming a centre of power autonomous from the U.S.-led transatlantic relationship. A similar argument can be made for the E.U.’s member States themselves taken individually, which are also far too small to become a main international actor in an era when only States that enjoy a continental size can truly be protagonists on the international arena. 

Overall, the E.U.’s decision to take firmly the U.S.’s side after the escalation of the war in Ukraine on the 22nd February 2022, and to refuse to play an intermediate role between the two sides by turning its back to Eurasian integration projects is turning the European peninsula into a discharge zone for international tensions. This means that in the next future not only economic wars but also the military ones are likely to take place and escalate on the European peninsula. One must understand that the European powers ceased being great powers after the destruction of Europe (1914-1945) and its reduction into an object of the power politics of non-European powers. However, while during the Cold War Europe did enjoy a period of peace and prosperity, this will not be the case if Europe does not balance its interests between the West (the United States) and the East (China and Russia). In other words, a “Second Cold War” would not be cold for Europe. 

However, in Europe there are some structural, long-term elements that are resisting this drift. These are elements that go from a work culture that prefers the production of exportable material goods over the speculative games of finance, to a “weak individualism” as opposed to the “unbounded individualism” of the Anglo-Saxon societies. It is difficult to say how much of this European difference has survived the post-destruction of Europe re-education process. But it is nonetheless worth noting that had it disappeared completely, i.e. had not Germanised Europe built its growing wealth and economic power upon these characteristics, it would have not been subject to such a fierce Anglo-Saxon antagonism. 

Within the ongoing phase of deep international transformations and struggles, the quest for finding and affirm a role for Europe that is not that of the discharge zone for international tensions cannot but insist on and valorize such an European difference. In fact, one must understand that the Powers situated on the European peninsula ceased being great powers after the destruction of Europe (1914-1945) and their reduction into an object of power politics of non-European powers. This means that any discussion on the possible affirmation of Europe as a subject and not as an object of international politics must be aware of what lays at the root of European lack of agency. Any type of European affirmation of its agency as well as any type of European “reconstruction” will be a geophilosophical and geopolitical path. As the rise of the East and the upheaval of the balance of world power push Europe and the world into unknown waters, it is not at all clear whether Europe will be able to forge such a path and to face the dangers correlated to the clash between American-led unipolarism and Sino-Russian polycentric multipolarity. Should it be unable to do that, Europe will not only lose its economic prosperity and identity alongside the political agency it already lost in 1945, but it will also end up like a little nut crushed between two claws.

Speech by Marco Ghisetti at the European Conference on Multipolarity

The importance of the European position  in the struggle between unipolarity and multipolarity 

The victory of liberal ideology in the twentieth century came about through the destruction of continental Europe and the establishment of the English-speaking empire by means of three European civil wars (two hot and one cold), which always had Mitteleuropa, i.e. Central Europe, as their main theatre of conflict. Moreover, these wars led first to the power-deposition of Europe, which until then had been at the pinnacle of world-power, and finally to the beginning of American-led unipolar globalisation and to the universalisation of liberal values. In regards to this American-led globalisation, Atlanticised Europed has acted as the bridgehead. 

The process of Atlanticisation of Europe, now about a century old, has been twofold. On the one hand, it has entailed a most profound and pervasive re-education of the European peoples to the dogmas of liberal-Atlantic ideology. On the other hand, it has integrated continental Europe into a core-periphery relationship with North America that, from the American perspective, is irreversible. 

Precisely just like the three previous European Civil Wars, also the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which can be understood as a phase of the fourth act of the European Civil War or even of the Second Hundred Years’ War (1914-202x), has Central and Eastern Europe as its epicentre. Just like the first two wars, it is waged by the English-speaking empire against Germanised Europe and, in this case, also against Russia as the only European power which has not been fully Atlanticised.  That is so because American-led globalisation has reached an impasse whereas Russia’s and China’s project for a polycentric multipolar world is gaining momentum. 

Indeed, while the industrial base of China works as the main engine and factor causing the US’s relative decline, Russia’s economic robustness and military capabilities not only facilitate and protect such a process, but also prevent the world balance of power from becoming too sinocentric. In other words, Russia’s strategy is to facilitate the diffusion of power towards many centres of powers, i.e. towards multipolarity, and does not intend to turn its back to American-lead globalisation just to accept a Chinese-led globalisation or a globalisation with Chinese characteristics. Because of this, Russia would likely welcome a more independent European centre of power in order to counterbalance the ever-growing Chinese influence in Eurasia. Also China has made attempts to partly detach Europe from the United States and to draw it into Greater Eurasia, as it is proven by the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment signed with the EU in December 2021 or by the many State-to-State treaties and memorandums of understanding already signed. Europe too, especially following the process of economic Germanisation which has undergone following the Cold War’s border dissolution and German reunification, has in recent years shown a strong inclination towards the construction of deeper economic and political ties with the eastern Powers. This eastward march of European interests has threatened the transatlantic region, for it could have caused the breakup of the core-periphery relationship undergoing between the United States and Europe and possibly even the affirmation of Germanised Europe as an independent centre of power. In such circumstances, if and when the barycenter of power of Germanised Europe were to move (not only economically) eastward, the American project for a unipolar world or of an American-led multilateral world will vanish dans l'espace d’un matin altogether with its liberal values. This is a scenario which has notoriously been predicted by the very fathers of geopolitics of contemporary world politics, such as Mackinder and Haushofer, and that has been haunting the strategic concerns of the Anglosphere since its first outline. 

For the United States, therefore, the war in Ukraine is a step towards the military disempowerment of Russia and the economic disempowerment of Europe: a crossed-eyes war looking with one eye on Moscow, and the other one on Berlin. Moreover, it is a step certainly to be followed by the political, economic, and military confrontation between the United States and China: the main challenger of the U.S.-led world order. As for Russia, the war has accelerated Moscow’s implementation of its plans aimed at dethroning the U.S.: the alteration of world trade geography and de-dollarisation. 

It cannot be excluded that the final victory between unipolarity and multipolarity will depend on whither the European barycenter of power positions itself. This means that the control of the European peninsula, and especially Central-Eastern Europe, has become one of the main fields of confrontation between the two trends – if not the “big prize”. 

Currently, Europe finds itself between the hammer and the anvil. From the East, while China and Russia are interested in pulling Germanised Europe eastward and might even welcome the affirmation of it as a (relatively) independent centre of power within Greater Eurasia, it is also true that they are aware that the road is being blocked by the United States. Moreover, the more Europe decouples from the Eastern Powers and the more its economy is impaired, the least incentivises the Eastern Powers will have to take European interests into consideration. But decoupling from Easter Powers and de-industrialisation of Europe is precisely the strategy implemented by the United States in order to strengthen its hold over Europe and to relaunch its global posture. From the West, the more Asia grows, the more divergent the interests of Europe and the United States become. The risk of Germanised Europe slipping away to join the opponents’ field is not, for the English-speaking empire, tolerable. Thus, the United States is likely to be willing to do whatever it takes to prevent it, starting from the suffocation of the German economy and the overall de-industrialisation of Europe. 

It appears clearly that the European Union (which does not constitute Europe in its entirety) has chosen to side with the Western field, i.e. the English-speaking empire. This should come as no surprise, for this bureaucratic organisation suffers from two “original sins” that prevent it from doing otherwise. Firstly, this organisation was created and promoted precisely in order to affirm and safeguard the euroatlantic relationship as an unequal partnership between Europe and North America. Thus, one can say that by acting as the American headbridge against Russia and by decoupling the economies of its member States from the Russian one, the E.U. is simply doing its job. Secondly, the neo-functional, mercatist and institutionalist ideology that has so far guided the process of European unification not only denies any assignment of meaning or spirit, but also disavows and cancels the many European cultures and identities inherited from the past. In their place, an ersatz nationalism of a techno-mercantile type is promoted, which – due to the first original sin – is nevertheless precluded from becoming a centre of power autonomous from the U.S.-led transatlantic relationship. A similar argument can be made for the E.U.’s member States themselves taken individually, which are also far too small to become a main international actor in an era when only States that enjoy a continental size can truly be protagonists on the international arena. 

Overall, the E.U.’s decision to take firmly the U.S.’s side after the escalation of the war in Ukraine on the 22nd February 2022, and to refuse to play an intermediate role between the two sides by turning its back to Eurasian integration projects is turning the European peninsula into a discharge zone for international tensions. This means that in the next future not only economic wars but also the military ones are likely to take place and escalate on the European peninsula. One must understand that the European powers ceased being great powers after the destruction of Europe (1914-1945) and its reduction into an object of the power politics of non-European powers. However, while during the Cold War Europe did enjoy a period of peace and prosperity, this will not be the case if Europe does not balance its interests between the West (the United States) and the East (China and Russia). In other words, a “Second Cold War” would not be cold for Europe. 

However, in Europe there are some structural, long-term elements that are resisting this drift. These are elements that go from a work culture that prefers the production of exportable material goods over the speculative games of finance, to a “weak individualism” as opposed to the “unbounded individualism” of the Anglo-Saxon societies. It is difficult to say how much of this European difference has survived the post-destruction of Europe re-education process. But it is nonetheless worth noting that had it disappeared completely, i.e. had not Germanised Europe built its growing wealth and economic power upon these characteristics, it would have not been subject to such a fierce Anglo-Saxon antagonism. 

Within the ongoing phase of deep international transformations and struggles, the quest for finding and affirm a role for Europe that is not that of the discharge zone for international tensions cannot but insist on and valorize such an European difference. In fact, one must understand that the Powers situated on the European peninsula ceased being great powers after the destruction of Europe (1914-1945) and their reduction into an object of power politics of non-European powers. This means that any discussion on the possible affirmation of Europe as a subject and not as an object of international politics must be aware of what lays at the root of European lack of agency. Any type of European affirmation of its agency as well as any type of European “reconstruction” will be a geophilosophical and geopolitical path. As the rise of the East and the upheaval of the balance of world power push Europe and the world into unknown waters, it is not at all clear whether Europe will be able to forge such a path and to face the dangers correlated to the clash between American-led unipolarism and Sino-Russian polycentric multipolarity. Should it be unable to do that, Europe will not only lose its economic prosperity and identity alongside the political agency it already lost in 1945, but it will also end up like a little nut crushed between two claws.