United States, Russia, Europe: Forget Malta?

On 4 December 1989, Presidents George Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Malta, without the presence of Western European states, despite the fact that they were seen as the likely battlegrounds for conventional and nuclear Cold War conflicts. This bilateral summit was preceded by several important steps in reducing the dramatic tensions of the Cold War. At the Moscow summit of May 1972, Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT I agreements and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. This was followed by the Reykjavik summit in October 1986 and the Washington summit in December 1986, where the INF Treaty was signed, reducing nuclear weapons in Europe.

The Malta summit was widely hailed in the international press as the beginning of a “new era,” where the spectre of nuclear war, so close during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, seemed to recede. President George Bush declared at the press conference: “There is virtually no problem in the world, and certainly not in Europe, that an improvement in Soviet-American relations would not help simplify.”

However, the “new era” was extremely brief. The momentum created by the two presidents failed to overcome mutual mistrust and the accumulation of relational problems, eventually leading to the war in Ukraine. This war logically triggered a rejection of Russia in the Western world, which in turn fueled fierce opposition to the attempted Russian-American rapprochement launched by Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.

What can the Malta summit and its failures teach us about the viability of the current rapprochement between these age-old enemies and the future of Europe?
Throughout the Cold War, Europeans sought protection under the umbrella of the United States, with its army and nuclear missiles largely deployed on their territory. However, they also demonstrated significant defence efforts within NATO. France, with its autonomous First Army/FATAC and nuclear forces, contributed a significant capacity and strategic uncertainty. It is important to recall that the Soviet threat was indeed perceived as such, and all manoeuvres by the First Army/FATAC, in which the author participated, ended with the use of nuclear firepower against the Soviet operational manoeuvre group (OMG) that had broken through towards the Rhine, while in the streets the slogans “Better Red than Dead” resounded. Ultimately, the political rhetoric at the time was laconic, but the gestures were energetic.

The Emperor’s New Clothes: “The King is Naked!”

Then came Malta, and an immense sense of relief. The American umbrella remained, NATO sought a new international destiny (Iraq, Afghanistan—policeman of the world, etc.), and European countries sank into the comfortable slumber of an appeased continent, lazily following their American mentor: the abolition of conscription, a democratic pillar of the people guaranteeing defence; drastic reductions in military budgets to “reap the dividends of peace”; a paradoxical two-faced international policy. On one side, the naïve following of American strategic missteps, notably the policy of pushing back Russia[1], the Total War on Terror (GWOT), and the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (currently a major grievance of Russia). On the other, democratic hubris giving lessons, sometimes by force, to sovereign nations; the accelerated development of European economic integration without defence tools; the continuous expansion of NATO towards a Russia entrenched in its obsessive paranoia. And all this in the name of defending our values, but not our territories.

Temporarily powerless, Russia sought to regain the status of a great power akin to the Soviet Union. It gradually locked itself into internal authoritarianism, a desire to control its “near abroad,” and a hardening of its positions vis-à-vis the United States. Ukraine, the last barrier between the West and Russia, became the theatre of the catharsis of its sad geopolitical passions.

And the Words Became Prolific, the Action Rare

In 2021, Russia conducted a large-scale military exercise, ZAPAD 2021. The West, for its part, conducted various exercises in Ukraine itself, all clearly focused on defending Ukraine against a potential Russian invader. The most important, the Sea Breeze exercise in June, co-organised by the United States, NATO, and Ukraine, involved 32 countries from six continents, 5,000 soldiers, 32 ships, 40 aircraft, and 18 special operations teams, all united by the fervent commitment to defend Ukraine against Russia: “NATO supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, extending to its territorial waters.”

We must make three observations: a few days before 22 February 2022, all the countries and NATO that had military presence in Ukraine withdrew their forces; none of the participants in Sea Breeze used the expertise gained during the exercise to send troops to join the Ukrainian army; out of the 42 countries, six (and not insignificant ones) did not implement the sanctions imposed by the United States or the European Union (EU) against Russia. It was only when the United States became involved in supporting Ukraine that the European machinery began to move (April 2022): “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”
The challenges Europe faces are not only the result of the election of a new American president or the brutality of a Russian president, but also of its own mistakes, if not faults, over the past 33 years, compounded by three years of war at its doorstep.

Reshaping Government, People, and Armed Forces for Defence

Let us now explore the security dimension. It rests on the trinity of government, people, and army, whose necessary coordination is a difficult task even within a single nation, but becomes a challenge in a conglomerate of nations, especially when the main goal is a large market and its civil regulations.
Politically, two challenges emerge: finding a formula to ensure the political leadership of the European Union at war while respecting democratic principles and the choices of its populations; and not weakening nuclear deterrence (French). We observe here that French nuclear deterrence was always considered during the Cold War, due to its autonomy and the rarity of our leaders’ speech, as a multiplier of uncertainty. The decision to employ nuclear weapons is the responsibility of the French head of state: “Nuclear deterrence, it’s the head of state, so it’s me[2]” it implicitly includes European territory in the name of “vital interests” that, in strategic dialogue, should not be explicitly stated.

The people are “by their character, […] the strength of the city.[3]” It is not by designating the enemy that one forges the character of a people, but by valuing its civilisation, culture, identity, and customs to give it the desire to protect and perpetuate this heritage. A soldier does not fight “against another,” but “for his own.” In Europe, there are sovereign nations, indispensable crucibles of democracy, and a European people. The task of the politician is to reconcile, not oppose, the two: “Europe is ancient, older than the peoples that make it up,[4]” but the peoples still exist.

The army, in a democracy, is the emanation of the people, serving the nation, directed by the politician. The latter has the responsibility to set strategic objectives, recruit, organise, and equip it. The brutal jolts of the transatlantic relationship have the merit of shaking political energies, the billions, essential “nerves of war,” seem to be blooming again.

But we must not forget the necessary European consciousness, the product of national identities, and not of an ethereal project to build the rampart of the European city.

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[1] Gérard Chaliand, “Preface to the French edition of The Grand Chessboard,” in Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard (Paris: Pluriel, 2011).

[2] François Mitterrand, L’heure de vérité, Antenne 2, 16 November 1983.

[3] Thucydides

[4] Jacques Santer, “Preface,” in Wim Blockmans, History of Power in Europe (Antwerp: Fonds Mercator, 1997).