In the wake of the U.S. presidential election, which saw a return to power of Donald Trump,  European leaders at the Political Community summit in Budapest this week reiterated their stance that the EU must stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. Ireland’s prime minister, Simon Harris, said this in a resolute statement:

The US had its election, and it made its decision but that doesn’t change European values, and European values around  the importance of the UN Charter, the importance of territorial integrity remain.

However, if championing the importance of territorial integrity was a paramount European value, should not that principle have been applied equally to all members of the European community? If my memory serves me well, two decades earlier, the European Union consented to NATO bombing of Serbia in support of secessionists in Serbia’s Kosovo region.  The grievances of warring parties in Kosovo prior to the conflict in 1998 seem to closely mirror those leading up to war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine in 2014. Donbas secessionist claims of an ethnic purge by Ukrainian nationalist forces were as credible as Kosovan secessionist claims of the same type by Serbian nationalist forces.

If it is not just an unwavering adherence to the principle of territorial integrity that is driving the European Union’s decision to support Ukraine in its prosecution of a war, what is really motivating their determination? It is their vision that nothing should stand in the way of  Western liberal hegemony. It is not so far-fetched to say that this generation of European leaders adheres to a doctrine of historical determinism. They see Western liberal hegemony as inevitable and Putin’s vision of pan-Slavic brotherhood as an impediment to that goal.

This same generation of European leaders, which champion Western liberal hegemony, are not only contemptuous of Putin. They are also scornful of populist leaders in the West that  do not march in lockstep with their globalist agenda. They make no secret of their displeasure with the American electorate’s decision to restore Donald Trump to power. Trump is not an adherent to the globalist agenda and regarding the war in Ukraine, he is pragmatic.  He believes that a deal can be brokered. He is not intimidated by shouts that appeasement will only lead to Putin ratcheting up his demands on the West.

After all, it was Western liberal delusions that provoked Putin. Putin’s pushback should have come as no surprise. The West had been encroaching on Russia’s sphere of influence and jeopardizing its key strategic interests, a concern that Putin consistently and forcefully highlighted. U.S. and European leaders made a critical error by trying to transform Ukraine into a Western foothold on Russia’s border. With the consequences now clear, persisting with this misguided policy would be an even graver mistake.

Image generated by AI.