“The geopolitical incompetence of the Europeans is staggering”

by Guy Mettan,* Geneva

(21 February 2025) If you want to understand what is happening in the world, it is useless to listen to the experts who abound on our radio and television channels. They live in a parallel world that has nothing to do with current international realities. Even American commentators are sometimes overwhelmed.

It is better to follow some of the best analysts in Asia from time to time, such as Shashi Tharoor and M. K. Bhadrakumar in India, Zhang Weiwei in China or Kishore Mabubhani in Singapore.

In a recent podcast, the latter expresses his amazement at the “geopolitical incompetence of European leaders”. He is also not shy about criticising the blind arrogance of the US intellectual elite.

The diplomatic offensive launched by the Trump administration at the beginning of the week to end the war in Ukraine proves him right. The Europeans and the British, blinded by the warmongering of the von der Leyen-Baerbock-Kallas-Rutte-Starmer quintet and bewitched by the lamentations of the comedian and charmer from Kiev, saw nothing coming. They didn’t see Trump coming, they didn’t see the tornadoes he would unleash with his threats of conquest and his tariff wars. Nor did they see the peace, or at least the silence of the weapons he wanted to bring to Palestine and Ukraine.

And yet all this had been anticipated for months.

The result: the hour-and-a-half conversation between Trump and Putin on Wednesday took them all by surprise. They were left at a loss, having staked everything on Russia’s “diplomatic ostracism” and “economic collapse.” Even the media remained silent, barely mentioning the event the next day or ignoring it altogether.

And yet this is an important turning point after three years of war. No fewer than four of the Trump administration’s most senior representatives were sent to Europe after the president himself, Vice President J.D. Vance, Pentagon chief Peter Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Special Envoy Steven Witkoff, to deliver the message that the US no longer wanted this war and that it would enter into direct negotiations with Moscow without asking the Europeans for their opinion. It is easy to guess that the angels will be swarming at this weekend’s Munich Security Conference.

The irony is that Trump is proving to be the best defender of Europe’s long-term interests in this matter. Not only is he willing to renounce the economic benefits that the war in Ukraine has brought the US, but he is also helping Europe’s ailing economies back on their feet after it had broken all energy and trade bridges with their nearest neighbour Russia, he is investing 500 billion in the reconstruction of Ukraine (in exchange for rare earth elements) and he is forcing the Europeans to take responsibility for their own defence and to resume their geopolitical role. Ultimately, all of Europe, including Ukraine, will have to thank him for it.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a former adviser to Volodymyr Zelensky, was not mistaken when he recently admitted in his blog that Ukraine had done everything wrong, relying on Russophobic nationalism since 1991 and starting a hopeless conflict with Russia in 2014.

For Asians, who look at Europe from afar and follow the United States closely, this incoherent attitude and blatant ignorance of the physical, economic, geographical and political realities of their own continent by the European elites is downright baffling.

Why do the Europeans ignore that they are condemned to live with their big Russian neighbour for all eternity and that intelligent cooperation with it is preferable to war? Why do they ignore that after centuries of common neighbourhood, Russia, which has been invaded by them repeatedly for a thousand years, is primarily concerned about its security and puts this concern above all others? Why do they ignore the effects of the insults which they constantly hurl at the Russian leader, to whom they attribute all the errors and abominations? Why don’t they want to see that the US, frightened by its relative decline, is now trying to refocus on itself, hoping to regain the place it has held in recent decades? Why is it that the Europeans, who live in a continent that is just as diverse, complex, complicated and sometimes antagonistic as Southeast Asia, do not practice this Far Eastern principle of wisdom, which consists of talking to one’s enemies and rivals, no matter what happens and how much one detests them, knowing that one has to live with them anyway?

These are the questions our Asian friends are asking about Europe. They are not unreasonable by any means …

* Guy Mettan (1956) is a political scientist, freelance journalist, and book author. He began his journalistic career in 1980 at the “Tribune de Genève” and was its director and editor-in-chief from 1992 to 1998. From 1997 to 2020, he was director of the “Club Suisse de la Presse” in Geneva. Guy Mettan has been a member of the Geneva Cantonal Parliament for 20 years.