WILL FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN AND GERMANY CROSS THE RUBICON?

The Alliance of the Willing: a “Little Entente” of Three - France, Great Britain and Germany

Taking up the analysis of the “Alliance of the Willing,” which brings together Great Britain, France, Germany and others as a kind of anti-Russian “little entente” under American tutelage, it becomes clear that a regional conflict with planetary repercussions cannot be played out by only two parties (Western Europe / Russia) on a limited stage and in a sort of “covert war.” It necessarily involves a dance among three or five major players and a global geopolitical chessboard.

If the goal is continental stabilization, the Alliance of the Willing would be wise to adopt a policy of integrating Russia - a kind of “common European home” that takes into account the Eurasian dimension as a new security pole. Without the security integration of Russia, the objective of bloc antagonism would take on the dimension of a global restructuring of the international system. That, however, cannot be the aim of a heterodox, asymmetric and limited alliance that has already left the terrain of moderation and in no way prefigures a “reverse alliance” for Russia.

In the case of a European “little entente,” one could, purely as conjecture, imagine the project of a Euro-Russian or German-Russian community of destiny, distinct from any multipolar conception of the world and especially from the hypothesis of a rising Chinese hegemony. Conversely, in the case of a systemic overhaul, the conflict would become planetary, with unlimited stakes, and would involve the intervention of all poles of power on several theatres of conflict. It would pit, on one side, Russia, China and Iran, united by an imperative of survival, against, on the other, the United States, NATO, Israel, Japan, Oceania, the Gulf and Europe. Any policy of “containment” of the Heartland would be obsolete, for it would rest on acceptance of a “status quo” on the model of the Cold War and thus of a renewed form of bipolarism between the collective West and the multipolar world, aggregating the “Global South” and a not-insignificant diplomatic space of the Non-Aligned.

Eurasianism and Multipolarism

In the comparative analysis of poles, Eurasianism stands opposed to multipolarism, principally for geopolitical reasons, but also for strategic and cultural ones. Eurasianism is first and foremost the “inner Rimland”- a dividing line between the continental mass of the Heartland and the oceanic mass of the North Atlantic. This space covers the peninsula of the Asian continent (France, England, Spain and Portugal), Central and Eastern Europe (the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, the Hanseatic countries, Poland, Hungary), the Scandinavian peninsula (Sweden, Norway), as well as Southern Europe and the south-east of the continent (Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania).

Simplifying to the extreme at the level of ideas and political regimes, the concept of Eurasia covers, outside the Western European space, a “cultural area” and a bloc of countries and forces whose centre of gravity lies in an autocratic state, whose historical “sense” is rooted in the Orthodox tradition, and whose type of unity is found in imperial consciousness.

Regional Containment or Weakening of Russia?

Given this cultural and historical heterogeneity, the “Alliance of the Willing” could serve a function of regional containment and prompt Russia - whose appetites are alleged to be inextinguishable - to calculate the opportunities of a reversal of alliances, a possibility cherished by Trump. Since, within the framework of a global policy, Eurasianism is regarded as an alternative to the multipolar vision of the planetary system, its project could be converted in Europe into a grand compromise of East-West coexistence.

Appearing initially as a Russian Weltanschauung around the 1920s, the Eurasianist current overturned the idea of political rupture caused by the Soviet Revolution and recognized itself in the notion of Empire and in the religious mystique of the “Great Tradition”—the Orthodoxy of Byzantium. That is why the notion of Eurasianism integrated into its ideological corpus traits common to the “Conservative Revolution” of the Weimar Republic (R. Steuckers) and to the sovereignist right of the contemporary West (A. de Benoist). One may add that from this amalgam arises a geopolitics rooted in the mastery of the “great spaces” of C. Schmitt, the deep Heartland of Mackinder, and the culturalist postulates of S. Huntington. Fertile ground for a new utopia from which, for some, a today-declining Europe might be reborn by historically conjugating the two opposites, East and West.

Foundation of a New Equilibrium?

Yet the purpose of the “Alliance of the Willing” is reactive and antagonistic in nature and is, moreover, disconnected from any geopolitical project or strategic vision. Its most obvious shortcoming is that it cannot constitute the foundation of a new European equilibrium guaranteeing long-term peace and stability. Born of Europe’s exclusion from the great debate on peace negotiations to end the Ukrainian conflict and from the resumption of Russo-American dialogue, it accumulates two structural handicaps: a divergence of intra-European interests over the collegiality or leadership of the initiative, and a mismatch between the regional perspective and global prospects.

Does Kyiv Hold All the Cards?

As for the Ukrainian knot, the fundamental divergence between the Europeans and Moscow concerns the diplomatic prism of the conflict and, above all, the mode of its resolution. Begun as a “special military operation” by Russia, then pursued as an indirect and covert war by the Westerners, and intensified as co-belligerence through the constant supply of weapons, financial aid, personnel, logistical, satellite and informational support, this conflict has remained indeterminate in its goals and in the security conditions acceptable to both sides. Beyond Europe, it feeds a revisionist or revanchist spirit in many other centres of tension and crisis around the world. Given that the EU and its principal member states are unable to make their voices heard, the Alliance of the Willing displays the will to exert autonomous diplomatic and military influence by making its essential interests heard through a logic of interposition.

The Logic of Coalitions: A Doctrinal Reminder

The imperative of a military coalition facing an opposing coalition consists in preventing the other from acquiring superior capabilities and from bringing them to bear, permanently or circumstantially, in order to achieve a perilous supremacy.

It follows that, within each alliance, the foreign policy of the component units excludes total solidarity among the allies, for the strength of a coalition is always less than the sum of the capacities it appears to possess on paper. The reasons are multiple: from the irreducible divergence of national interests and discord over strategy among the military leaders of the coalition, to misunderstandings between strategists and political decision-makers. The principle of peace, which is a balance of forces and a relationship of equilibrium like any other, can have no other foundation than that which is essential to it: the assurance of equilibrium and security. Yet this principle cannot be the same for an island power such as Great Britain or for a continental power such as Germany, and, for the same reasons, for France and Germany considered singly, because of their different territorial vulnerability to threat. Thus, just as the peace that is sought influences models of conflict and governs the dialectic of antagonism, a different interest manifests itself in one for a bellicose peace (or peace of submission), in another for a peace of persuasion (or compromise), and in the third for a deterrent peace (or nuclear peace).

The Alliance and Stability in Europe

Has the Alliance of the Willing conceived a plan for stabilization or peace in Europe? Has it reflected on the future role of Kyiv and its status, outside an improbable accession to the EU and NATO? France under Hollande and Germany under Merkel were the first sponsors of Kyiv, but Zelensky’s volatility constantly shifts the positions and hierarchies of the sponsors. The idea of a future European treaty between Kyiv and Moscow must not be split into separate or thematic agreements and must take account of the ambient climate and, in particular, of the link between national interest and collective interest.

Russia’s Tug-of-War between Centripetal and Centrifugal Logics

In fine, Eurasianism, since the collapse of the USSR, recalls the unprecedented tug-of-war that has unfolded in Russia between the centrifugal logic of Balkanization of Eurasia coming from the Empire of the Sea and Western hegemonism, and the centripetal, pan-Russian and pan-Slavic logic aimed at the unity of the ensemble of countries issuing from the Soviet past. This tug-of-war has been articulated in two conjoint and hostile strategies: one stemming from the successive enlargements of NATO and the European Union, the other arising from the very heart of Asia and taking the form of multiple attempts at destabilization - the “Colour Revolutions” and masked coups d’État (Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Ukraine) - supported and manoeuvred from the West.

Eurasianism and the Outcomes of the Doctrine

In view of the complexity of the situations, the doctrine of Eurasianism has directed its conceptualizers toward three different paths:

- a reflection of an alternative, globalizing and systemic order;

- an analysis of the duality of Russia, astride the two continents and maintaining a dual relationship with the rest of the world—little permeable to the West and more open to the East;

- a positioning of Russia as a sovereign polarity, in a posture of rivalry toward the dominance of the Hegemon and the multipolar pre-eminence of America.

Thus, the resulting geopolitics, founded on culturalist postulates, inserts itself into the theory of the multipolar world as an anti-hegemonic doctrine raised against the United States, the first global empire in history. In this sense, Eurasianism has accompanied the transition of post-Soviet Russia from its self-definition as a “resistant power” (E. Primakov), capable of counterbalancing the world pre-eminence of the United States, to its reclassification as a “sovereign power” (V. Putin), “capable of defending its sovereignty militarily, if need be, in an autonomous manner.”

It is precisely in a period of his country’s weakness that S. Lavrov, the “Russian Kissinger,” advocates the implementation of the “Primakov doctrine” with the aim of achieving an equalizing multipolarity more favourable to Russia than any other geopolitical equation, by reason of its central position and its immense strategic depth, which enable it to foster the emergence of the “Global South” as the pole of the Non-Aligned. This choice would confer greater weight on Russia in the global balance of forces as well as in international organizations.

Facing the Rubicon. Who Is the True Caesar?

Caesar did not hesitate to cross the Rubicon and confront the Senate of Rome, so that the dagger of the partisans of the imperial republic struck against him and against the future of the Empire. To cross the Rubicon is to know whether Zelensky can decide without America, whether the Europeans can decide without Trump, whether Netanyahu can advance without the Pentagon, whether NATO still exists, or whether Macron, Starmer or Merz have made their calculations without the boss of the counter. But indecision cannot proceed without the calculations of the enemies, real or virtual - Trump, Putin or Xi Jinping. Each of these Caesars has already decided on his own Rubicon and on his own enemies, internal and external, as well as on their combinations and forces. The only question that history will decide is who is the true Caesar and who are the conspirators of the old-style Republics. If every Prince has his Brutus, where and when will the dagger of the plot be raised, and who will fall first, plunging the world into collapse and blood?