Imperialism is not an opinion, it is a fact. Better: an injunction of history. The cycle of civilizations has only partially to do with their will. They suffer more than they determine, any party claiming to be disqualified imperialism. Otherwise, the term “imperialist” would be understood as the summary of an oppressive program when it is generally used to describe situations of a geopolitical nature. For example, although China and the United States are accused of imperialism, often with good reason, it would never occur to the president of either country to claim such ambition. What if we live today in an imperialist era that the European Union should recognize in its way of reacting to the war in Ukraine?
This is a remarkable situation in view of the world order established after the Second World War, most nations have acted since the conflict between Moscow and kyiv according to imperialist criteria. Starting with the European Union, which, with sudden jolts in renewed vigor, is never so happy as when it manages to speak with one voice. She then congratulates herself, and with pomp, on the accomplishment of her project: the slow but certain march towards the federation. This term is intellectual and historical nonsense that does not refer to any organizational model known since the Bronze Age, with the possible exception of Switzerland. We hardly go beyond the classic tripartition between city-state, kingdom or empire. The European Union is stepping up its efforts to transform itself into an empire without ever wanting to behave like one.
Contradictions
The most striking example of this dysfunction was given by its contradictions on the occasion of the war between Russia and Ukraine. By a salutary reflex of defense, even of survival, Brussels has precisely taken the measure of the provocation of a Russia determined to threaten its territorial integrity. His only choice was to defend a Ukraine, in fact a border, which until now had not interested him. It multiplied outstretched hands, arms deliveries, subsidies and diplomatic meetings. kyiv is now a candidate for entry into the Union. However, this membership takes an infinite time, obeys inept deadlines given the urgency of the situation. The Heads of State mentioned several possibilities: accelerated membership, intermediate status, privileged relationship, etc.
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In short, Europe realizes that, faced with the offensive of a neighboring empire, it can only react as an empire, that is to say by mobilizing disparate forces, entities foreign to each other , sometimes contradictory interests, in the service of a common cause and power. It’s not impossible, the Roman Empire succeeded for centuries. Yet Europe does not admit that the only possible outcome of its project is imperialist, and it is difficult to understand why. China and the United States, without the slightest politeness, reorganize the planet according to their polarization. As for Europe, it gives lessons in morality and banking management, which would be excusable if this strategy had a purpose. But she has almost none. The proof, when it wants to play the role that is geographically assigned to it, it is unable to do so for the good and simple reason that its rules correspond to a legal ideal, an abstract entity unknown to history, this kind of federation of peace and money that would manage to escape the laws of war. If the European Union matched its ambition to reality, it would not allow, for example, Germany to buy arms from an empire other than its own, the United States would have the possibility of welcoming whoever it wants and when she wants it in the name of pragmatism. Bureaucrats are made to obey, it’s time to remind them. Instead, it offers the world a legal straightjacket and an institutional gas plant that it justifies by virtue of variable geometry.
The European Union is not an optional subject for the old nations of the West. It is, in this form or another, the only solution to face the revival of empires. May it keep its values, noble, civilized, but put them to the benefit of an unlimited power. It is less to the question of its unity that it must answer than to that of its form and its ambition, of the efficiency of its rules vis-à-vis a world where history has returned under its most brutal form. One does not decree peace without preparing for war.