L’Europe : un État qui s’ignore
Sylvain Kahn, who has a PhD in geopolitics and works as a history lecturer and researcher at Sciences Po, is a prolific writer with a particular interest in analysing the political life and operations of the European Union. In his latest book, he sets out to demonstrate that the EU has all the characteristics of a State if viewed objectively, setting aside the constraints of a conventional definition of a nation-state.
In his introduction, the author sets the scene by stressing the extent to which the Europeans have become aware of their vulnerability to the dangers emanating from Russia under Vladimir Putin and from Donald Trump’s treachery. This realisation is reflected in many decisions made since 2022, although the Rubicon of treaty change has yet to be crossed, even though this is vital to improve and political efficacy, particularly given the prospect of future waves of enlargement.
“Between 2022 and 2024, the real effect [of the shock of Russia’s war against Ukraine] demonstrates how robust the EU is as a society and as a territorial and political entity. This is not just a revelation, it is a consolidation and a confirmation. What is different this time is that the Europeans are now willing and able to address the major vulnerability of their dependence on the resources and imports of its third-largest economic partner, a Russia that is becoming an existential threat to them. By supporting Ukraine, which has been invaded by different means, all of them extremely serious, they understand that they are united around a certain idea of independence, freedom, pluralism and a good life”, Khan writes (our translation throughout). He adds that “Donald Trump’s return to the Presidency of the United States of America is putting this support and this determination to the test. The new US administration has undermined the alliance by espousing the narrative of the Russian President and by voting with Russia at the UN Security Council on matters concerning this war. The Europeans have been put into the position of having to decide to make good the aid no longer being provided to Ukraine by the United States, in addition to their own contribution. At the same time, they must consider their defence without the American guarantee, in other words the end of a remarkably long period of eight decades [for Western Europe: Ed]: if they wish to continue to have a credible defence that serves as a deterrent – particularly in the eyes of the Russian State, which shares nearly 2300 km of borders with the EU – they now need to become self-sufficient in the sectors of the armament industry and military capability”.
“Covid and the war show us just how much Brexit was a British crisis before it was a European crisis. Faced with the first reduction in size of its history, Europe remained itself. And that was enough. The Europeans remained faithful to the law, faithful to the treaty, faithful to democracy, faithful to the concept of win-win. Faithful to cooperation. They played the game of free and voluntary withdrawal, which is just the in intaglio version of the free and voluntary accession that has shaped the dynamic of European enlargement for half a century: they have not taken any retaliatory measures; they show loyalty towards the British; in a certain way, they were reliable and visionary for both sides; they sought, successfully, to invent a cooperation treaty between the EU and the United Kingdom, despite the bad faith and lack of willingness of a certain section of the Tory party in power across the Channel. Brexit was an absurdist demonstration that the EU is neither a prison of the people nor an anti-democratic federation:, and, incidentally, that EU membership has benefits and assets: paradoxically, it guarantees its members that they are equally, or even more, sovereign than they would be if they were not members of the EU”, Khan writes, going on to discuss the crisis of the pandemic. “The Covid response showed the EU for what it is: a State that is not a nation-state, which is the standard. In this new kind of statehood, only certain elements of sovereignty are pooled fully: the currency and the Central Bank. The latter played a decisive role during the crisis, by guaranteeing massive national public debts, whilst the Parliament, Commission and Council of the EU used European budgets and programmes to engage considerable expenses to fight the pandemic and its consequences. It was as part of this movement that the Europeans issued European Treasury bonds: an enormous step that had not been taken since the creation of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) of the Maastricht Treaty of 1993”. This set of circumstances prompt the author to name 21 July 2020 as the date on which Europe became a State.
The mutualisation that led to this, furthermore, is democratic. “Contrary to the empires and the Royal then nationalist conquests of the last millennium, it is deliberate, voluntary and negotiated. The Europeans are not building a nation, but a society. For just a few decades, they have been building a State that corresponds to a pluralist, unprecedented and future-facing society”, Kahn argues, adding that “it is for this reason that the debates and compromise agreements that produce the EU’s decisions is not a sign of disunity, but the characteristic that Europe is a multinational country that has adopted a parliamentary and supranational political regime […]. Rather than interpreting each debate as proof that the EU is and remains fragmented, divided, flawed, broken, ready to give in, can we not acknowledge the fact that it has been like this for 75 years? That these debates and hard-won arguments are the nature of a pluralist and deliberative brand of politics, those of a State called Europe?”
If it is a State, even a “Baroque, atypical and unique” one, does Europe fit the definition of an empire? This is another question the author sets out to answer, highlighting the common features (cultural and linguistic diversity, pushing back frontiers, a low degree of homogeneity etc.), but also, in the case of Europe, the absence of any true motivation of power and, a fortiori, imperialistic tendencies. “The invasion of Ukraine brought home to the Europeans what characterises them and what radically sets them apart from modern Russia; Russian policy is a policy of power; it shows that the Russian government considers imperialism and colonialism to be legitimate and relevant. By contrast – because this power is a threat to the EU – the Europeans are fully aware that they have moved away from both these things and that their European supranational territorial and political construction is not a form of power, as it is neither their project nor their vocation. In the European Union in the broadest sense – the EU, the Schengen Zone, the European Economic Area, the Eastern Neighbourhood – territory is not annexed and power is exercised jointly”, the author explains, although it could be pointed out that power is not solely expressed through coercion, invasion and annexation. It can also be used preventatively, as a deterrent, defensively to preserve interests, and its absence, or the very least, the shortcomings of European power weaken the European Union on an international stage dominated by actors (or predators) with a genuine motive of power. To sum it up, anything that is all right on the inside is not necessarily all right on the outside.
Although Kahn argues that “the European Union is a State entity with no centre, which federates, assembles and manages the diversity on a voluntary, sovereignty-sharing basis […] that is the diametric opposite of Russian imperialism and the intuitive and most common definition of an empire which extends through conquest and coercion”, he does not rule out a form of imperialism associated with the Holy Roman Empire. “Inside this Holy Empire of the modern age, state authority is exercised over large territories very different in nature, and by certain actors of various types. Between 1648 and its demise following the Napoleonic campaigns, the Empire was constructed as a legal space. The Holy Roman Empire was a pre-contemporary State of a federal nature, whose member entities, enjoying equal respect, were very different in size and form, but were still sovereign States over all the territory under their jurisdiction. This federalism is a constant heritage that has been updated over the ages and across political regimes by German society: it characterises the modern German State: the German Empire, the Weimar Republic, the Federal Republic of Germany”, the author points out. In a nod to the political observer Jan Zielonka, he notes that “the ability to include territorial entities as different [as the original Western members and the 10 States from the former communist bloc] stresses and highlights more than ever the imperial nature of the collection of territories we call the EU”.
Internally, the European Union is above all a giant network. “The statehood of the EU is co-produced by society actors mobilised and channelled by European institutions in their ability to devise or implement European public policies.. This is exemplified by the CJEU, as the reach of its boldest judgments is systematically extended by discourse and legislative action of various public and private political stakeholders […]. Predominantly, the political influence of the Court of Justice can be explained by the way its judgements are received by the institutions and private actors. In this way, the judges of national courts and tribunals are European judges at the same time, since they rely on European law to form their judgements. More broadly, the European power, with its calls for projects in numerous and varied areas, supports and prompts actions carried out by actors of more than one nationality, organising themselves within a network […]. These European public policies that build a territorial mesh benefit from the territorial meshes of the member states”, Khan argues. He goes on to add that “this makes the European Union a State that has invented the networking of States. The European Union exercises sovereignty over its territory, but the actual and material implementation of this is carried out by national or local actors, whilst the rules are made by collectives of national civil servants mandated by their governments working together in Brussels with their counterparts in the European Commission”. (OJ)
Sylvain Kahn. L’Europe : un État qui s’ignore (available in French only). CNRS Éditions. ISBN: 978-2-2711-2079-3. 320 pages. €17,00.
On hybrid warfare and “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”
“The first problem facing European defence is not money, but coherence. Unlike a budget, coherence cannot be voted through every year (…). If Europe wants to be capable of defending itself in 2050, it must not only devote an exceptional budget to that aim, but also align its research, equipment, human resources, doctrine and strategic resolve to create a coherent and credible whole (…). Defence budgets may be rising across Europe, but without a coordinated political vision they will merely produce fragmented capabilities and duplicated production lines”. Frédéric Mauro introduces his note, published by the French Institute for International Strategic Affairs (known by its French acronym, IRIS) with this quotation from the French Air Force General Éric Autellet.
In his note, Mauro stresses the vital need for the European Union finally to give itself proper planning capability, plus a proper command capability. “To achieve coherence as quickly as possible, European forces should urgently focus on establishing a European C2 system capable of operating without the Americans, making the fullest possible use of NATO infrastructure (84% which is funded by Europeans, Canadians and Turks), or else developing an entirely European capability to command military operations”, he argues, whilst once again making the case for institutional reform to allow a European Security Council to be set in place.
In view of Russian escalation, Mauro argues that “the first priority is to develop the means to identify the aggressor behind every hybrid operation, stripping away any pretence of deniability. In hybrid warfare, the investigator becomes as important as the soldier. The second is to make the aggressor pay a price, even if that price appears disproportionate to the original attack. This is what the German government did after the Leipzig attack: attributing it to Russia, then closing the Russian consulate in Bonn – the last one on German soil – and the Russian cultural centre in Berlin; proposing that additional Russian nationals be added to EU sanctions lists; and increasing pressure on Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’”.
“But Europe must go further. For every hybrid attack on European territory or targeting European interests, Europeans must increase their financial or military assistance to Ukraine and retaliate with a hybrid attack of a similar nature. For example, every cyber-attack should be met with a cyber-attack of equivalent scale. Putin must be made to understand that he can no longer count on European inaction and that every attack will carry a heavy cost: slowing the passage of his shadow-fleet vessels through the Baltic or Mediterranean, for example, and ensuring that every kinetic action, such as a violation of our airspace, prompts an appropriate kinetic response. Counter-hybrid measures also require efforts to influence Russian society. Admittedly, it seems bewitched and lulled to sleep by regime propaganda, yet it does receive information about developments in Europe, and a degree of permeability remains. The Russian diaspora living in exile in Europe could therefore provide a channel for messages that challenge the government’s monolithic narrative and, in turn, introduce questions that may create cracks, if not outright fissures, in that narrative. Supporting Ukraine is not a choice. It is a necessity, not least because European economies are undoubtedly under less pressure than Russia’s. European sanctions work like a slow-acting poison. Yet they still contain far too many loopholes, and Russian missiles fired at Ukraine are packed with Western components smuggled through countries allied with Russia. An embargo should be imposed on some of those countries, such as Kazakhstan”, Mauro argues, before going on to conclude that “Putin will stop only where we stop him – through the collapse of his economy”. (OJ)
Frédéric Mauro, On Hybrid Warfare and ‘How Many Angels Can Dance on the Head of a Pin’ 2/2. French Institute of International and Strategic Relations. October 2026. This note can be downloaded free of charge from the IRIS website at: https://aeur.eu/f/o53