r/geopolitics2

Hi everyone, I hope it's OK to share this here. I wrote a blog post about my assessment on how Europe would react if Russia ever tried to invade the Baltics.

“Don’t poke the bear!” Russians and their Western supporters - and fearers - liked to repeat it even before the full-scale invasion. After more than four years of war and crossing every imaginary “red line” without consequences, it has become a meme at this point. The line implies that Russia is a deadly beast that has the power to lash out violently if threatened, capable of killing whoever “pokes” it.

If Russia is a bear, then Europe is a sleeping dragon. It started dozing off after 1945 and militarily and geopolitically speaking went into deep sleep after the collapse of the Soviet Union. 2022 took the dragon totally off-guard, but the dangers weren’t grave enough to make it wake up, it merely entered its REM sleep phase.

I already shared my long take about a possible Russian invasion of the Baltics, but as the topic has the habit of re- and resurfacing, I felt the urge to expand on it.

Most public debate on the topic envisions Moscow pressuring the region in order to force Europe to stop further aid to Ukraine. Despite it being understandably a more concrete and pressing threat, this - in my opinion - is much less likely than the scenario I will outline.

A limited incursion or bombing campaign against EU and NATO territories would have a much less decisive benefit for Russia, while it would still mobilize increased European support for Ukraine. The lesson the continent would learn from it wouldn’t be that Russia is strong and we should just give in, but that Russia is a threat that needs to be dealt with, and the best way to do so is by arming Ukraine and boosting defence spending.

Let’s imagine a scenario that puts Russia in the best realistic position.

US President Trump or Vance manages to cut a deal with Putin. Russia agrees to a ceasefire on the current line in exchange for US withdrawal from the Baltics and Poland, easing of sanctions, and the normalisation of relations. While this would create widespread anxieties in Eastern Europe, a renewed crisis in EU-US relationships, and further weaken NATO by decisively putting Washington’s security guarantees in question, the continent can finally breathe a sigh of relief. The war is over, Russia managed to accept that they cannot take Ukraine, and has no more reason to threaten Europe, right?

But what if Putin didn’t see it that way? What if instead of demobilizing he would rapidly reconstitute his forces from Ukraine to Belarus and Russia’s north-western borders with the Baltics? He might conclude that with NATO castrated, a friendly administration in Washington, and a Europe still in its early phase of rearmament, this is the right moment to strike and change European security architecture favourable to Moscow.

What would be his goal? The pretext might be something between the good old “protection of Russian minorities”, and the “creation of a humanitarian corridor” to Kaliningrad. His true objective would likely be to force NATO troops to fully withdraw from the region, giving the organisation a final blow, while also weakening EU unity and cohesion, creating a divided continent. This would create a reality where Russia is the de facto “security guarantor” of Eastern Europe, and use this as leverage to influence its politics. Basically, the return of the Eastern Bloc as a buffer.

Putin’s base thesis is that the “West” and its democracies are in inevitable decline. Europeans are not ready for war, and there is little to no societal resolve to defend the Baltics. Sort of “he only needs to kick the door in, and the whole system would collapse”.

How would this play out?

Let’s assume Moscow gave an ultimatum for European capitals to withdraw their forces from the Baltics while amassing its troops near the border. How would these countries react? It is possible that they might start negotiations with Russia, but it’s extremely unlikely that they would comply. The best Putin could achieve would be the status quo, and the blocking of extra troops fearing escalation. 

Then day one comes, Russian forces cross the EU border in a full-scale invasion of all three Baltic states. Putin gives another long speech watched by the entire world where he threatens to use nukes and immediate long-range strikes on Berlin, Paris, London, and anyone who is willing to engage the Russian military.

This might cause an immediate political crisis in European capitals. Perhaps many would call for an urgent troop withdrawal from the Baltics, and assuming that Russia manages to avoid killing their soldiers already stationed there, it could avoid creating an immediate rally around the flag effect. Fear might override the resolve in the vast majority of European societies. It is already a big if, but dangerously plausible enough to run with the assumption.

However, there are nations that would not be deterred, and immediately treat any kind of incursion or attack on the Baltics as an attack on themselves. This would certainly include Poland, Finland, Sweden, and crucially Ukraine. No matter what other countries do, they would do everything possible to make sure that Russia cannot reach its objectives. It would be an existential issue for them from day one.

Similarly, EU institutions would unavoidably treat it as an attack on the whole Union. Brussels cannot accept a hostile country invading any part of its territory. It would create a deadly precedent that delegitimises its entire raison d'être as a guarantor of peace.

Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Finnish, and Swedish officials occupy key positions in Brussels, and they would do everything in their power to push for a collective response. Let’s not forget that an Estonian, Kaja Kallas serves as the EU's chief diplomat. She guides the Union's common foreign and security policy and external action. She would immediately use her full political capital to make sure the EU will be mobilized to protect her country.

All in all, there would be enormous pressure from multiple directions that pushes EU institutions and member states to respond decisively.

As the days and weeks pass, it will become clear to everyone that the Baltics are not going to surrender, its population is ready to fight, and Finland, Sweden, and Poland will not back down either. Europeans would start seeing Russian bombardments and killings in EU territory. They couldn’t just ignore that nations they share decades long alliances and a common Union with are getting murdered.

These nations have not only been friendly for as long as they can remember, but essentially family. In Germany alone there are two million Poles. Many of them already have German family members, and all of them have German colleagues and acquaintances. This is true for other parts of Western Europe as well and other nations involved. 

The citizens alone would put a massive pressure on European capitals, but probably not the main one. I find it certain that Denmark, Norway, and the UK would shortly join the war as well. Geography and national identities would pull them in if NATO Article 5 wasn’t binding enough. This would create another wave of pressure on individual Europe states. As more and more countries join unilaterally, they would also start pushing everyone else for support. It would create a domino effect that couldn’t stop in Copenhagen or London.

The EU proved it time and time again that it can pull itself together to find money and political will to deal with a crisis. This was showcased clearly during the pandemic and then the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It’s impossible to imagine that Brussels would not treat this at the very least as seriously as those two instances. 

Just for the pandemic recovery fund the Union managed to come up with €750 billion, and provided $226 billion in financial, military, humanitarian, and refugee assistance to Ukraine. €100s of billions would immediately be allocated for the war and eventually it would likely reach into the trillions mark. Russia’s roughly €165 billion military spending would immediately be put to shame.

This is where the dragon would awaken. The only reason Europe was sleeping on defence was due to its conviction that the US would protect it, and Russia would not be a threat anyway. Both of these assumptions would collapse immediately.

There would be arguments, disagreements, and not everybody would provide the same level of support. Perhaps Spain, Portugal, or Greece would not be willing to send troops (they did participate in the war in Afghanistan though, one might assume that the Baltics would be a more important cause), but they would certainly send other assistance, and would not be able to justify inaction.

History teaches us that an external attack often leads to centralization and unification. The European identity’s foundation myth is based on a story like this. The Battle of Thermopylae that united the Greeks against the Persians. More than two millennia later Bismarck showed us that a talented political operator can even provoke an external attack to create a push for unification. Europe already has the pieces scattered for this unification to happen.

Ukraine

In this situation, it would be foolish to imagine them sitting on their hands. The first place the EU would turn to would be Kyiv. They have the experience, the will to fight, and they are the only ones capable of fighting the drone war of the 21st century. Ukraine would be flooded with orders for drones and demand to train European drone pilots.

Kyiv would also eagerly take the opportunity to reopen the frontline to take back its territory. Since Russia is threatening the entire continent, now Europe would be incentivised to encourage them to do so to distract Moscow.

Eventually, Ukraine would be the real winner of this war. It would lock in European support like nothing else could, and retaking its full territories would become a likely prospect. It would clearly showcase that the continent needs them, and would give a giant boost to its EU membership aspirations.

A European Army

A European Army already enjoys popular support across the EU. All it needs is a final push.

The European Union (without Norway and the UK) has 450 million people. More than three times as many as Russia, and an economy ten times larger. Even if we are pessimistic, this would mean millions - but more likely tens of millions - of people who are ready to take up arms to defend the continent, and an economic base that can easily support them.

Perhaps the initial phases might go poorly - however knowing how the Russian army fared in Ukraine and how prepared the immediately involved countries are, this is at least doubtful -, but Europe could sustain a war much longer than Russia can, simply by the size of its economy and population.

The longer the war would go on the worse the outcome would be for Moscow. Europe would eventually organise its defence, train and equip the millions of people ready to fight, create a coherent fighting force, and learn how to wage war.

At the same time this would create an emotionally powerful story for Europe. We fight and bleed together to defend our continent and our democracies against tyranny and barbarism. This civilisational founding myth would make the EU a potential global superpower akin to the US and China. What we lack in comparison to these giants is unity. The economy and potential already exists, and a clear external threat would create that urgency for unity.

Summary

Moscow cannot just attack the Baltics and get away with it, but Putin might see it very differently. Just like Saddam Hussein didn’t learn from his disastrous war against Iran and still started another disastrous war against Kuwait in just two years, we cannot rule out Putin doing the same.

Similar incentives might be at play as well: more than one million men at arms need a purpose or they might become a domestic threat. He might think it is better to wage another war than to demobilize and face the economic and societal consequences.

Europe’s most important task for the coming years is to make sure that the Kremlin understand what would happen if they invaded. We must prepare for war so we never have to fight it. We must do everything to deter Russia regardless of what the US is doing. Moscow must hear the message clearly: don’t wake up the dragon!

As far as African dictators go, there is probably no single greater illustration of the nuances and complexities that underpin dictatorships in Africa, than Joseph Desire Mobutu’s 31 year stint, as the leader of the nation known today as the DRC.

A self-proclaimed anti-communist who modelled his entire state apparatus after China’s chairman Mao. A self-styled African revolutionary, who collaborated with his country’s former colonisers to assassinate his own prime minister and a proud Afrocentric, whose love for European luxuries and prestige would see him seize control of an estimated one third of his country’s GDP and build a personal net worth nearly twice the size of his country’s national debt.

A paradoxical man from a nation of paradox. Mobutu may have been stereotypically arrogant and cruel, but he was far from a simpleton. His over 3 decades as Congo’s Supreme leader, would be built on a complex combination of evil genius, will power and good fortune.

In many ways what led to war between Ukraine and Russia was the decision by Ukrainian society to pursue a democratic future in the European Union rather than to continue to live under oppressive, corrupt, and oligarchic Russian influence. 

In 2013, the Verkhovna Rada overwhelmingly voted to approve the finalization of the EU - Ukraine Association Agreement. This decisively signalled that Kyiv chooses Brussels over Moscow and its EU rival, the Eurasian Economic Union.

In the months leading up to the signing of the agreement, Moscow launched an intense economic blackmail campaign. Russia blocked critical Ukrainian imports at its borders, and threatened to cut off natural gas supplies and increase fuel prices. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych folded under this pressure, and scrapped the deal just days before its signing. Instead, he accepted a personal bribe of $1 billion, a $15 billion financial bailout package, and a 33% discount on natural gas directly from Vladimir Putin, going against both popular will and the country’s democratic institutions.

This betrayal has sparked immediate outrage. Protesters flooded into Kyiv's Maidan Square, demanding European integration and the dismantling of Russia's influence in the country. Yanukovych decided to crush the protests by shooting in the crowd, which lead to his removal and eventual fleeing from the country.

The Revolution of Dignity succeeded, but Ukraine had little time to celebrate. Using the interim chaos as a pretext and opportunity Russian “Little Green Men” entered Crimea, swiftly took over the peninsula, and annexed it to Russia. Emboldened by this success, one month later Putin tried to replicate it in the Donbas, but the reorganised Ukrainian forces managed to stop them. The attempt failed, and ended with the creation of the Donbas mockublics.

From a Ukrainian perspective, the confrontation with Russia, the following annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas, and now the full-scale invasion were always about the right to join the EU.

The Recent History of Ukrainian EU Accession

Before the events of 2013-2014 Ukrainian EU membership was nothing but an afterthought both in member states and in Brussels. It was certainly something for the EU to strive for geopolitically, but also an undertaking that would cause more issues than it was worth. A realistic Ukrainian EU accession was somewhere between that of Turkey and Bosnia.

After 2014 with a significant portion of Ukraine’s territory and population being under Russian occupation it became even more difficult. The bloc aimed to keep Moscow as a neutral and transactional partner and was careful not to antagonize it. Europe benefitted from buying a substantial amount of its gas and oil from Russia. This kept the continent under the delusion that economic entanglement would deter the Kremlin’s revisionist tendencies. In reality, it only emboldened them and made the country more stable, richer, and provided it with immense leverage over Europe.

After the 2022 full scale invasion, Ukrainian membership has begun to steadily rise in importance for Brussels as well. As the war dragged on it slowly but surely became not only Ukraine’s struggle but essentially the EU’s first own war as well. A Ukrainian defeat no longer meant only a disaster for Ukrainians, but also for Europeans, and especially for the European Union as an entity. It would be a significant prestige and legitimacy hit for Brussels along with a geostrategic nightmare having progressively more authoritarian and militaristic Russia with more than 140 million people strengthened with a Ukraine of 35 million people.

By 2026 this dynamic became even more pronounced. Europe effectively became the sole external guarantor and provider for Kyiv’s survival and its war efforts. Weapons production in Ukraine became tightly linked with the continent, and Kyiv possessed Europe’s most technologically advanced arms industry and the only military prepared for the wars of the 21st century.

The battle hardened country has found itself with enormous leverage over Europe. With the US becoming an unreliable ally at best, on whom it would be borderline suicidal to base the entire continent’s defence strategy, and an actual threat at worst demonstrated by Trump’s threats to take Greenland, Ukraine’s accession became a near existential issue. Today Ukraine has the only military and society who are both capable and determined to stop Russian imperial ambitions. With Washington creating a defence vacuum, Kyiv became the only one that can fill that gap on the short to medium timeframe.

The Member State’s Concerns

With Orbán out of the picture many hoped that the EU barricades in font of Ukraine would be demolished, but it just highlighted the fact that many other capitals are weary of letting Kyiv join as well. They often cite that it would be unjust for other aspiring members that have been waiting for decades. Besides ethical concerns, the real obstacles are about economics and internal politics.

One of the most difficult issues is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Ukraine is called the “Breadbasket of Europe” for a reason. Under current rules its massive food production infrastructure would destabilize the EU’s agricultural subsidy system, causing major and potentially stinky political headaches in the member states capitals.

The CAP takes up nearly a third of the entire EU budget. If Ukraine were to join under the current framework, it would become the largest recipient of these funds. Current major beneficiaries like Poland, Spain, and Romania would transform into "net payers." As it became evident with the border blockades in Poland, cheap high-volume Ukrainian agricultural imports mobilise influential European farming lobbies, who wield massive leverage over their national governments.  

Other than the CAP, the financial burden of integrating Ukraine would be staggering on EU Cohesion Funds designed to lift poorer member states up to the EU average*.* Given the destruction of Ukraine's infrastructure, factories, and energy grid, Kyiv would consume much of this capital for decades. To fund this, Western European countries would either have to significantly increase their contributions to the EU budget or accept severe cuts to domestic European infrastructure projects. With voters already fatigued by inflation and slow growth, this is a huge issue for leaders in Paris, Berlin, and other net contributors.

Then there is the giant elephant in the room, the veto system. The EU is already struggling with institutional paralysis with 27 members under the current rule of unanimity for foreign policy, taxation, and budgeting, designed for only 6 countries. Orbán’s ghost will hunt European capitals for years to come. There are deep anxieties about bringing in a politically volatile country with an ongoing battle against corruption.

Many states also view Ukrainian accession as a potential security risk. The EU treaty contains its own mutual defence clause, Article 42.7. Bringing a country into the bloc while parts of its territory is occupied by a nuclear-armed Russia raises an uneasy legal question: will the EU automatically find itself at war?  

The EU’s Incentives

Integrating Ukraine is a geopolitical necessity to ensure the long-term survival of the European project.

The EU’s original raison d’être is to guarantee peace on the continent. The lesson from 2014 and 2022 is that strategic ambiguity doesn’t work, leaving aspiring members in a limbo invites conflict. Locking Ukraine into the EU’s legal, economic, and institutional framework as fast as possible is crucial to shrink Russia’s sphere of influence and deter future armed aggression. As an added factor, this deterrence only works with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and its unmatched defence sector.

Beyond immediate security considerations, the EU’s stated aim is to build strategic autonomy by derisking from China. Ukraine offers rich industrial and natural assets that the EU needs for the green and digital transitions. It holds massive reserves of lithium, titanium, cobalt, and rare earth elements. These are the raw materials needed for EV batteries and advanced electronics currently monopolized by China.

Not being able to integrate Ukraine would also deeply hurt the EU’s credibility on the world stage in a time when the old order is falling apart. The bloc spent half a decade providing hundreds of billions of Euros on aid, weapons, and based its entire foreign policy on promising Ukraine EU membership. If it started treating the country as one of the many aspiring members it cannot accept for decades, that would signal to Moscow, Beijing, and Washington that Brussels lacks the political will to follow through as a global actor.

Brussels’ Plans to Overcome the Obstacles

Ukraine’s accession is already de facto underway under a gradual integration model since 2022 February. Today Ukrainian citizens can practically work and travel freely in the EU, and use their mobile plans without roaming charges. The country is in the final stages to join SEPA, and is gradually gaining access to the EU Single Market.

What is likely to follow is Kyiv’s increasing participation in EU agencies and committees as an observer without voting rights, and incremental access to specific funds tied to strict rule-of-law benchmarks. This approach protects member states from an overnight budget nightmare, while giving Kyiv tangible integration milestone achievements.

Eventual however, full Ukrainian membership or any EU enlargement cannot happen without significant EU reform. The most important part of this will be either the scrapping, or - with typical EU fashion - the muddying of veto powers. The Commission, currently backed by France and Germany, is pushing to replace unanimity with Qualified Majority Voting in areas like foreign policy and sanctions. This, however, will inevitably put the Brussels in direct conflict with smaller member states.

To address Common Agricultural Policy and the Cohesion Funds issues, it will be interesting to see what the next EU budget for 2028–2034 will look like. Brussels intends to restructure CAP away from land-mass-based subsidies which would heavily favour Ukraine's giant corporate farms toward cap-limits, environmental outcomes, and small-farmer protections. This restructuring intends to be designed specifically to prevent Western European farmers from being wiped out by Ukrainian competition.

Keep your Friends Close, or you’ll be Forced to Keep your Enemies Closer

With Ukraine becoming a European military heavyweight - beyond the obvious benefits of the country’s integration - keeping it out of the bloc poses some much less discussed dangers.

With the newfound and tested powers Ukraine possesses, halting its EU integration process runs the risk of gradually alienating the country and its society, forcing it to increasingly go its own way.

Ukrainians already began viewing the EU as a slow, ineffective, and often unreliable entity they need less and less to survive. If this trajectory continues with diminishing hopes for EU integration with a population radicalised and brutalized by war, the risk of the emergence of a radical leader will increasingly become a real possibility.

This possibility and its military potential and determination could transform the country into something that looks like the combination of Turkey and Israel. A powerful state that follows its own rules, and not afraid to use political and military blackmail - or even force - to get what it wants, increasingly destabilizing Europe. Together with being under constant existential danger like Israel (or Prussia) would create a total wild card on the EU’s borders. It would run the risk of transforming Eastern Europe into the Middle East.

Ukraine needs serious reforms to become a full member, and they are highly incentivised and proven capable to work towards that goal. But simultaneously the EU needs to reform itself as well. Without the latter the former process might stop entirely, making the continent a more dangerous place for everyone.

I’m not an expert on the GCC but I’m willing to learn . In particular I am curious about the role that the GCC plays in the Middle East with regard to Gaza, Palestinians and Southern Lebanon . I’m trying to work out whether the contribution made by the GCC extends beyond announcements of public support and humanitarian aid. Alternatively, maybe I should be asking myself whether the GCC does in fact have a role to play beyond providing this type of support. Can someone help me understand if the GCC could be doing more?