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In a March 2 column, Prince Michael von Liechtenstein, Founder of Geopolitical Intelligence Services -GIS- insisted on the urgent need for the strengthening of Europe’s defense as a lesson that cannot be postponed from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As von Liechtenstein rightly stated:
“Europe’s defense is weak and many European states are not willing to invest in their military (…) Today, Ukraine is paying the price (…) Tomorrow, it could be another state (…) the problems in the European security system have to be recognized (…) The invasion of Ukraine should be a wake-up call.”
The underlying problem for von Liechtenstein is the following:
“The illusion of a world order based on rules according to loosely defined Western values has proven to be unrealistic. Great powers like China, Russia and Iran are not playing this way. Supranational institutions like the United Nations have failed (…) Europe needs a credible defense (…) enhanced military capabilities to handle problematic situations (…) The European Union has proven ineffective (…) the key (…) is not a hypocritical values-based policy, but a credible military deterrence and civil defense”
Von Liechtenstein also stated that:
“In the case of Germany especially, it has to realize that peace comes at a price (…) Already during the 2014 crisis, we wrote that the best way to deter Russia (…) would be to invest in the Bundeswehr, not in sanctions. But the opposite happened.”
Another apt conclusion by von Liechtenstein is that a new European defense scheme should be organized within NATO as a separate structure from the EU to include the UK, because only:
“A group consisting of France, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom and a southern country would constitute a powerful force.”
As early as April 2021 von Liechtenstein warned that the EU’s foreign policy failures in Moscow and Ankara pointed out how a weak Europe needed to abandon its false “moral superiority” and take on “more realpolitik” starting with the realization that:
“The biggest advantage would be that the United Kingdom, a considerable military power with a wealth of experience in global politics, currently outside the Union, could be integrated into European security policy.”
In February 2017 the Trump administration increased the pressure on its European NATO allies by demanding them to raise their defense spending to at least 2% of their respective GDPs. At the same time, the then President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker showing a false moral superiority demanded at the Munich Security Conference the following:
“…a broader understanding that the word “stability” in the world means defense spending, human aid and development aid” (…) “Things look very different if we add up our defense budgets, our development aid budgets and our humanitarian efforts around the world.”
The irresponsibility of European leaders towards Tehran is now shared by Biden, adding the European blindness towards Moscow since 2014 and both added to the stubborn blindness towards Beijing, making the Trump demands valid, pushing to strengthening European defense through NATO with higher European defense spending, being admitted this by such anti-Trump media as CNBC in 2018.
Europe must wake up from a false “moral superiority” that superimposes a neo-Marxist ideological agenda on the true values of the West. And must stop invoking as a contribution to “global security” the “aid” to the Third World that in reality causes geopolitical instability, because as economist Dambisa Moyo explained in her book Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa, the reality is that:
“aid” has trapped developing countries in a vicious cycle of aid dependency, corruption, market distortion and more poverty, leaving them with nothing but the ‘need’ for more aid (…) the last fifty years, over a trillion dollars in development aid was transferred from rich countries to Africa (…) aid recipients are not better off as a result of aid, but worse off, much worse off.
Guillermo Rodríguez is a professor of Political Economy in the extension area of the Faculty of Economic and Administrative Sciences at Universidad Monteávila, in Caracas. A researcher at the Juan de Mariana Center and author of several books // Guillermo es profesor de Economía Política en el área de extensión de la Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Administrativas de la Universidad Monteávila, en Caracas, investigador en el Centro Juan de Mariana y autor de varios libros