On the ruins of realism sprouts a new idealism

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 came as a surprise to many in Western Europe, including myself. But we had been warned. Politicians and analysts in Central and Eastern Europe had been sounding the alarm for years about the resurgence of Russian imperialism, about Putin's dream of restoring the Russian Empire, and about his determination to demolish the whole edifice of rules and institutions that was supposed to ensure peace in Europe in favour of a Russian-dominated ‘Eurasia’. We should have listened better to our eastern allies’ warnings.

Central and Eastern European governments were also the first to supply arms to the Ukrainian military – while the rest of Europe and the United States thought Ukraine would soon be over. Even today, in proportion to their GDP, the Baltic countries and Poland are among the biggest donors to Ukraine in its struggle to survive as an independent and democratic country.

Moral bankruptcy

Neo-idealism stands in contrast to realism, a widely branched tradition in international relations theory that focuses on the competition between great powers. To increase or maintain their might, these powers pursue spheres of influence. If a smaller country happens to be in such a sphere of influence, it has bad luck. Then it is no more than a pawn in the chess game between great powers. A satellite state of one great power, or a buffer state between two. What the citizens of such a country want is irrelevant. Realists like to quote the Athenian historian Thucydides: “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” 

Turning this analysis into policy leads to whole nations being denied the right to democratically choose their future, or their allies. Leading realist John Mearsheimer, for example, blames the US and its European allies for the Russian invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. He argues that the West should not have pushed for Ukrainian membership of NATO, and advocates making Ukraine “a neutral country”. The fact that Ukraine itself wants to join NATO carries no weight for him.

The realist frame of thought overlooks not only the aspirations, but also the agency of smaller countries. Professor of International Relations Maria Mälksoo, who hails from Estonia, points out that the weaker side is not suffering its fate meekly in this war; Ukrainians surprise the world with their tough resistance to the aggressor. Central and Eastern European countries within NATO and the EU have also proved that they are not clueless pawns. By taking the lead in supporting Ukraine, they have built up moral authority. Kallas owes her appointment as EU foreign policy chief to it.

The way Russia is waging the war is difficult to explain from a realist perspective. If Putin’s goal is to turn Ukraine into a buffer state, why is his war so genocidal? The Ukrainian government realised soon after the invasion that it was not about neutrality, writes Ukrainian researcher Kseniya Oksamytna. She points to the town of Bucha. The massacre that the Russian army committed there in March 2022 involved systematic rapes of girls and women. “Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn't want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children,” the BBC recorded. Understandably, faced with a murderous great power seeking to erase Ukrainian identity in the name of a superior Russian culture, Ukraine does not want to be a lone buffer state but seeks the protection of allies.

Might is right – that is what great power realism boils down to. Mälksoo calls on her realist colleagues “to probe the moral weight of asking another state to serve as one’s buffer zone.” For Tallis, this kind of realism amounts to “moral bankruptcy”.

Trump's imperialism

Realism is influential in Western capitals. The awe of great powers partly explains why Western European governments and the Biden administration remained deaf to the calls of Kallas and other neo-idealists to help Ukraine not just survive but win. The country was and is not getting enough military support. 

With Trump back in the White House, we are witnessing great power realism on steroids. Trump sides with the aggressor: he blames not Russia but Ukraine for the war. After all, the weak must endure rather than resist. Trump extorts Kyiv to cede land to Russia and natural resources to the US, while he refuses to give the Ukrainians security guarantees, let alone NATO membership. A ‘peace deal’ on such terms would be a prelude to new Russian aggression in the future. It would also risk destabilising Ukraine’s fledgling democracy.

Trump has already dealt severe blows to the international rule of law by laying territorial claims to Greenland, the Panama Canal, and Canada, and by advocating the ethnic cleansing and US takeover of Gaza. For Putin, Trump's imperialism constitutes an encouragement to grab land beyond Ukraine. If great powers are free to expand their territories or spheres of influence, why would he not take back the Baltic states once his military has recuperated? Russia's sabotage actions in the Baltic Sea and elsewhere have already brought us in a twilight zone between war and peace.

To make matters worse, Trump and his servants cast doubt on NATO's core promise (‘an attack on one is an attack on all’), loathe the EU, and cheerlead for far-right parties that want to paralyse European cooperation. Team Trump is doing the work for Putin.

Trump's contempt for international law, his bromance with war criminal Putin, the rapid breakdown of US constitutional democracy – little to nothing remains of the transatlantic bond. Europe now stands alone. That should come as no surprise, but it is still a bitter pill to swallow. Especially for Central and Eastern Europeans, including neo-idealists. For decades, NATO under US leadership was the insurance policy against Russia. Trump is now a test case for neo-idealists: if they start kissing his ring, downplay his imperialism and authoritarianism, sacrifice Ukraine's chances of survival for a vestige of hope that Trump will honour security guarantees between NATO partners, what will be left of values-driven politics?

“The route to Ukrainian victory still exists,” a group of (neo-idealist) thinkers, (green) politicians and former military officers wrote last year, just before Trump's re-election. “Using new military technology we can quickly leverage Europe’s industrial capacity to build the capabilities Ukraine needs to disable Russia’s war machine.”

Democracy vs. autocracy

As the US under Trump crosses over from the democratic to the autocratic camp, we see its traditional allies, such as the EU, the UK, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Australia, gravitate towards each other. The recent talks between these countries on an international security force for Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire could lay the groundwork for a Western alliance without the US. “They would have to redefine their self-image and mission, find common principles for closer cooperation,” argues Teun Janssen, a foreign affairs adviser for Volt in the European Parliament: “Perhaps they will end up with something like neo-idealism, with its emphasis on democracy and law.”

Such a club of democracies would be stronger against Trump, Putin, and Xi if it found partners in the Global and Plural South. That is where the world's largest democracies are, including India and Brazil. Their governments, however, don’t want to be drawn into a struggle between autocracy and democracy. They do business with Russia or China as easily as with the EU. Rapprochement stands a better chance if the focus is not on democracy but on the international rule of law.

Ukrainian diplomacy has already drawn that lesson. “Kyiv’s message has been that supporting Ukraine means to stand not by a ‘Western’ camp but by the UN Charter,” notes Polish-Mexican researcher Ivan Kłyszcz. In a speech to the UN last September, Zelenskyy put the spotlight on Russia's violation of the right to self-determination of peoples and the prohibition of violence between states. “The world has already been through colonial wars and conspiracies of great powers at the expense of those who are smaller. Every country – including China, Brazil, European nations, African nations, Middle East – all understand why this must remain in the past.”

To deepen partnerships with democratic countries in the South, Western democracies will have to rally behind their demand for a greater say in the UN Security Council, the IMF, and the World Bank. Saving these institutions from Trump's wrecking ball will require broad coalitions anyway. 

It is even more important to avoid double standards. The limp response of many European governments – including neo-idealists – to Israel's genocidal violence in Gaza has undermined their credibility in the South. Do the lives of Ukrainians matter more than those of Arabs? This selective approach to international and humanitarian law makes it easier for southern governments to look away from Russian imperialism and cosy up to Putin. European double standards, therefore, harm the country that neo-idealists care so much about: Ukraine.

In a world facing not only geopolitical but also ecological crises, we cannot always avoid cooperating with autocracies. China, for example, is an indispensable partner in the fight against climate change – especially now that Trump is once again stepping out of the Paris Agreement. Competing values sometimes force trade-offs, yet neo-idealism can guide our approach to autocracies in the Global South. It challenges us to look beyond governments. Even in countries ruled by dictators, there are many people who yearn for democracy. How can we amplify their voices? And if it comes to a democratic breakthrough, how do we help democratic institutions take root?

We need to see democracy promotion as part of security policy, especially since democracy offers the best chances for peace and a sustainable future. This insight should permeate the trade and development policies of the EU and its member states. If we need to import green hydrogen from solar- or wind-rich countries to decarbonise our heavy industry, do we go into business with autocratic Saudi Arabia or democratic Namibia?

Hopeful future

A crucial element of neo-idealism, according to Tallis, is the ‘right to a hopeful future’. Democracies must prove both their material and moral superiority to win the systemic competition with autocracies. But is the promise of material progress still tenable in an era of ecological disruption? 

A growing number of climate and environmental scientists warn us that continued economic growth in rich countries cannot be reconciled with a liveable Earth. If ecology retaliates so strongly against the economy that GDP growth grinds to a halt, the resilience of democracies will be tested even more severely than now. Could a ‘hopeful future’ also mean growing our well-being rather than our economy?

That thought finds support from Tomas Tomilinas, a member of the Lithuanian parliament and co-founder of the progressive-green party Union of Democrats for Lithuania, a junior partner of the country’s ruling coalition. “Because we have focused too much on material things, we no longer know who we are and what we defend. I see neo-idealism as a means to reconnect Europe on the basis of values and to rebuild a common narrative. The war in Europe makes it necessary to return to a romantic understanding of our European identity and provides an opportunity to do so.”

Teun Janssen of Volt points out that Trump too harks back to a romantic notion from the past. The term ‘manifest destiny’ in his inauguration speech refers to the 19th-century idea that the US is destined by God to enlarge its territory. By tapping into this expansionist and white supremacist tradition, Trump manages to sell his annexation plans to the isolationist MAGA crowd.

Putin dreams of a reborn Russian Empire and Trump promises new conquests. Ask yourself who will pay the price for this and you will find elements for a European (counter)narrative. That narrative must not beautify the past. World wars, the Holocaust, totalitarian oppression, and colonial exploitation cannot be swept under the carpet. We can, however, draw inspiration from the moments of resistance, liberation or reconciliation, and from the lessons we have learnt the hard way: choose cooperation among democracies instead of authoritarian great power politics; the strength of law instead of the law of the strongest; voluntary ‘spheres of integration’ (Tallis) instead of spheres of influence; human rights and inclusion instead of dehumanisation and exclusion. Neo-idealism can help us rediscover the ideals behind the creation of the EU and the international rules-based order. In 2025, the narrative should not only be about soft power, but also about hard power. And about a hopeful future for people here and now that does not bring hardship to people elsewhere and later.

Severely challenged by autocrats and by the far right, the EU needs more than ever a values-driven mission statement in order to operate as united as possible, avoid getting lost in Trump-style transactionalism, and find allies. Such a narrative can gain traction as Russia, China and the US step up their aggression towards Europe – or see their status as great powers diminishing. 

Russia has long been in decline; it is a spoiler state that excels only in death and destruction. China is no longer a growth miracle and is ageing at a record pace, due to the authoritarian one-child policy of the past and the persistent aversion to diversity that prevents active migration policies.

Even the US is not immune to decay. Erosion of the rule of law, dismantling of the federal government, unprecedented corruption, intimidation of the press, science censorship, overt racism, demonisation of migrants, erasure of transgender people, redistribution from poor to rich, denial of the climate crisis, betrayal of allies, loss of international prestige, trade wars: Trump is not only demolishing the world order, but also his country. Thucydides provides a precedent: when powerful Athens, corrupted by “private ambitions and private interests”, went full imperialist, allied city-states turned against it, ultimately leading to its downfall.  

Democracy versus autocracy, the outcome is not yet decided.

Earlier versions of this essay were published in de Helling and the Green European Journal.