“Putin’s Russia will remain one of the most serious security threats. Not only for Europe, but also for the world order. Its goal remains the permanent destruction of the European security architecture.” These words came from Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski at an event earlier this week in Warsaw that brought together the top diplomats from the European Union’s (EU) key powers – Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland.
After solemnly marking 1,000 days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the foreign ministers committed to increasing military support for the government in Kyiv as well as to EU initiatives to enhance Europe’s ability to defend itself. The latter included a breakthrough agreement on EU defence bonds, financial tools that enable the member states to jointly issue debt securities in international markets in order to bolster their collective military spending. The other backdrop is the Republican president-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to abandon the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) if European states fail to make a greater effort for the continent’s defence. On this issue, Sikorsky was insistent on differentiating real threats from empty threats: “We are convinced that in the current geopolitical situation, cooperation between Europe and the US remains crucial for the security and prosperity of the Euro-Atlantic community. Only strong transatlantic ties will allow us to effectively counteract the growing threats from Russia and other countries.”
The savvy foreign ministers strategically ignored yet another major challenge to “the current geopolitical situation” – Europe’s own radical right. Inseparable from broader transnational, international, and global relations, European radical-right politicians and parties have been gaining the centre ground for at least a decade. This matters a great deal because the strength of transatlantic ties does not depend only Trump’s wild whims. It also depends on the agency of his radical counterparts on the continent.
Consider the aforementioned “Euro-Atlantic community.” Coined during the Cold War, this construct gained popularity in the immediate post-Cold War years, when the “European security architecture”– another key geopolitical phrase Sikorsky used in Warsaw – moved “West to East.”
Large swathes of Europe’s radical conservative elites – from party leaders to various têtes pensantes – never acquiesced to these ideas and the realities they purported to represent. On top of meeting American power with trepidation and hostility, they rejected virtually every aspect of what became known as the “liberal international order”– trade liberalization, economic integration, supranational bodies, human rights and democracy, etc. To them, Trump signals a return to more natural order – national interest, ‘illiberal’ sovereignty, economic ‘re-nationalization’, and freedom from “a global liberal managerial elite, the so-called New Class of experts and bureaucrats.”
Europe’s radical conservatives are not a monolith, however. From Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in France to the German Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), and from Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary to Greece, with its three far-right parliamentary parties, the foreign policy positions and roles of these radicals vary. Same for the radical-right parties who now form three rival blocs in the European Parliament.
My ongoing research has identified three main schools of thought. The labels are provisional. “National populists” say they want a functional NATO and for Europe to take on more responsibility in security – things a good majority of Europeans wants, too. But national populists also want to recast the Euro-Atlantic community morally and politically. This means “strong transatlantic ties” are conditional on the two sides “rediscovering” themselves as, respectively, “America First” (Trump’s slogan) and “Christian Europe” (Orbán’s term).
“Megafortress Europe” rejects both NATO and the EU in favour of Europe’s own defence alliance. In their view, centrists are not wrong to call for European strategic independence and European sovereignty so long as they drop the liberal pretences. Instead, a worthier future should be defended – the autonomy of Europe’s constituent “authentic” cultures, in turn enabling continent-wide experiments in federalism, participatory democracy and far-right ecologism.
The “Russophile” school wants to replace the Euro-Atlantic community with a rival community – a Eurasian one. In this world, the governing elites in Moscow, Paris and Berlin would work together to balance US hegemony. (No word on the joint Euroasian defence bonds, however.)
Importantly, all three schools make lofty claims of difference and diversity, alongside even loftier disclaims of Western exceptionalism and superiority. In doing so, they converge on one key idea – that a multipolar world defined by the incommensurability of civilizations – or civilization-like ‘great spaces’ – is replacing, or has already replaced, the post-liberal, post-American world. National populism appeals to a united ‘Judeo-Christian West’ and a stronger NATO as its shield. Megafortress Europe wants ‘civilizational multipolarity,’ with Europe and (Anglo-)America each charting their own paths. Russophiles wants civilizational multipolarity, too, but in a strategic partnership with the Kremlin.
On one level, these geopolitical imaginaries are just that – ideas lacking factual reality. Yet imaginaries can collapse fiction and reality in ways that influences the shape of foreign affairs.
Alice Weidel of AfD and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni both enthusiastically greeted Trump’s triumph. Yet their positions on Russia and China fundamentally differ. The AfD leadership tends to think strategic deals with both Moscow and Beijing are needed to free Europe from the US. In contrast, Meloni’s government has taken Italy out of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, while doubling down on NATO, EU defence spending, and support to Ukraine – hence the presence of the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, next to Sikorsky in Warsaw.
Sustained attention to the geopolitical imaginaries of the radical right ideas matters not only for International Relations, political geography and nearby fields in a narrow sense. It also matters for everyday political and policy efforts to make sense of our turbulent, rapidly changing world.
This blog is part of the ‘NATO’s Eastern Flank’ series. Find all of the blogs here.
Learn more about the upcoming conference NATO’s Eastern Flank: Challenges and Implications in the Context of the Ukraine War.
