An American official in Brussels recently informed me of a meeting he had with a highly placed European Union diplomat during which the latter “stressed that Ukraine is an ‘almost existential’ issue for Europe.”
The phrase “almost existential” is worth looking at more closely. Existential issues concern the life or death of the subject concerned. A Russian attack on Germany would be an existential issue for Germany. A Russian attack on Tajikistan would be an existential issue for Tajikistan, but a non-existential issue for Germany. An almost existential issue for some country is thus something that almost concerns—or is almost equivalent to—the life and death of that country. Seen in this light, the claim that Ukraine is almost existential for Europe amounts to saying that Ukraine’s life or death is almost equivalent to the life or death of Europe.
Another way of making this point is to say that Ukraine is a vital strategic interest of the West. That is, Ukraine isn’t just an interest to Europe: lots of countries are. Nor is it just strategic: something on which the well-being, security, and survival of Europe depend. Ukraine is also vital: the well-being, security, and survival of Europe depend on it directly.
These are very strong words. They’ll come as no surprise to Ukrainian policymakers and analysts, who’ve been making just this point for at least a year—if not since Ukraine’s independence in 1991—to no avail. Although the United States and the United Kingdom supposedly guaranteed Ukraine’s security in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, no Western country paid much attention to Ukraine or its security for more than two decades. Quite the contrary, the EU and NATO expanded all the way up to Ukraine’s borders and few Western policymakers considered what that meant for Ukraine: its relegation to a security no-man’s-land between a visibly indifferent West and a visibly aggressive Russia.
Had Europe recognized Ukraine’s almost existential importance one or two decades earlier, Russia might not have invaded Crimea and the Donbas and the human tragedy of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war could have been avoided. Put this way, Europe’s very belated understanding of its own vital strategic interests is a terrible indictment of its self-absorption, hypocrisy, and inefficiency. Clearly, Ukraine has to reform itself radically. But so, too, does the EU.
One Western analyst has recognized Ukraine’s strategic importance from the get-go: the former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who’s consistently argued that the only thing standing between Russia and empire is an independent Ukraine. Just recently, Brzezinski expanded on these sentiments in an interview with Poland’s Gazeta Prawna:
If the war in Ukraine turns into an easy military success for Russia, its victory, then we must reckon with something in the Baltic states. That would be the first step. Further flare-ups could take place in Moldova, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. That would be the logic of events. Next in line could be Poland.
When asked whether NATO would defend Poland, Brzezinski offered sobering advice. “Poland should arm itself,” he said. The complexity of NATO procedures mean that the alliance “could be paralyzed for some time” after a Russian attack on Poland, which “should count on itself so as to be able to defend itself for as long as possible.” These are scary recommendations for a country that’s been partitioned four times in modern history.
Sadly, Brzezinski is right about NATO’s inability to rush to the rescue even of its own members—not to mention such non-members as Ukraine. But his comments also suggest that Europe’s perception of Ukraine’s “almost existential” importance still has some way to go before it becomes more than a rhetorical claim. As Russian analyst Vladimir Ryzhkov says:
The West’s reaction [to Putin’s aggression] was not only weak, but is growing weaker by the day. It only reluctantly and belatedly imposed sanctions, without imposing an oil or gas embargo or disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT banking system—moves that would have threatened the survival of Putin’s regime. What’s more, after less than a year of sanctions, a growing number of Western states are already clamoring to weaken or repeal them.
Europe will truly understand the meaning of “almost existential” when it appreciates that its commitment to Ukraine must be “almost” as great as its commitment to itself.
