The doctor is in: diagnosing Europeans’ ‘imaginary American voter syndrome’
A necessary theoretical introduction: the least of Europe’s problems, or at least of its current ruling elites, is that it is acutely suffering from what one may call the ‘imaginary American voter syndrome’. Observing international relations, which obey quite different rules than the ones applying to domestic politics, one surveys states, countries, and their foreign policies. From a strictly realist international relations perspective, states’ internal affairs are ‘black boxes’: their polities at home might be liberal democracies, majoritarian democracies, absolute monarchies, military dictatorships, whatever — yet allowing these categories to claim too much space in international relations considerations obfuscates the crucial vector, which comprises states’ foreign and international policies, i.e. their ad extra conduct. Unless, that is, one operates within the expired liberal international relations theory of globally spreading US-modelled liberal democracy in the context of the certainty of the ‘End of History’, which itself ended at the expiration of the US’ unipolar moment — a historical ‘anomaly’, to quote the US Secretary of State. This also entails that one is to focus on states and their policies, not on persons as if these were dramatis personae in a play. Alas, however: the ‘imaginary American voter syndrome’ consists in Europeans understanding the world as if they are stakeholders in the American political system itself — as if they are voters in Wisconsin or Iowa, and their preference among US presidents or American political parties would mean anything whatsoever at the international level. Certain European leaders seem to have a beef with US President Trump, as if there is any other and alternative current US foreign policy on the horizon. This is not just an error in judgement or analysis: this is a pernicious delusion with crucial implications and consequences. To recapitulate, in the same way that President Biden’s (and, previously, Trump’s, Obama’s, etc.) policies were the only actually existing US policies while he was President of the USA, now President Trump’s policies are the only actually existing US policies of the day. These are not this person’s or that person’s policies: for all intents and purposes of peoples residing on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, these are the policies of the country named USA. (The previous comment should not be inverted and misconstrued as voicing the present author’s own preference for President Trump, who cold-bloodedly proposed the dictionary definition of Gaza’s ethnic cleansing at the White House as the preferred US policy, while actively supporting what the International Court of Justice is presently adjudicating as Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians — a stance that is more pernicious still for global stability than the Ukraine quandary in toto.) These points are crucial, not trivial. The same applies to the European discourse of ‘Putinocentrism’ — a fixation on the person that is the current President of the Russian Federation rather than the state called Russian Federation, as if this is personal. To all this, one might object that the shift between the previous and the current US administration is gigantic and abrupt — however, (i) seen from a distance, continuities trump discontinuities, and (ii) the greatest discontinuity is premised on a simple fact of life: a major war has been lost, rather than won, in the meantime.
Whose war is this?
The official representatives of the country named USA on foreign policy describe this war as ‘a proxy war between nuclear powers’, i.e. the USA together with its NATO allies and the Russian Federation, to quote the US Secretary of State. (The fact that this war has already resulted in seven-digit Ukrainian casualties, a partition of the country, and no defeat for Russia or regime change in that country as initially desired, subtly entails that this was a war against Ukraine by all other participating countries, from the perspective of the end result — and no amount of European virtue-signalling shall ever erase this fact.) This is not new, this is not a Trumpian plot twist: Boris Johnson had declared it as such, and all declarations by NATO member states’ representatives to the effect that ‘We are at war with Russia’ demonstrably comprise tacit admissions of the fact.
The previous US administration would repeatedly insist and spread the message that this was an utterly ‘unprovoked war’ of aggression, in the root causes of which the US has no share. The course of the war, rather than the mere change of US administrations —i.e., the present danger of it escalating into a nuclear war between the belligerents named by the US Secretary of State above, if it is not peacefully resolved— has changed the US narrative and tone into a tacit and at least partial admission of US and NATO involvement in the war’s root causes: what top US officials only elliptically and indirectly now admit is made more explicit and detailed in Columbia University’s (and the UN’s) Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs in his recent speech at the European Parliament on 19 February 2025. Countless leaders have set the objective of the war as a ‘strategic defeat for Russia’: it is now abundantly clear that further pursuing this flirts with a nuclear war amounting to an annihilation of civilisation.
And thus, peace negotiations between the two nuclear powers at play have commenced. Inter alia, this already resulted in the first United Nations Security Council resolution for an end to this war since its commencement — in which Europeans (British and French) voted by abstention against non-Europeans (Americans, Russians, Chinese), instead of Westerners against non-Westerners. How are we to divine the Russian Federation’s terms for such a peace? Would the Russians like to invade and conquer —for the sheer joy of it— Berlin, Paris, the English Channel, Piccadilly, Watford Gap service station, and The Reform Club? (University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer’s 7 March 2025 Der Spiegel interview indicates that he does not quite think so.) As the American top officials now seem to acknowledge, the Russian terms —apart from what has been annexed by force in the meantime— are quite clearly laid out in negotiating documents sent and published before the Ukraine war, in December 2021: one to the USA and one to NATO countries, mainly on a new (and objectively long overdue) security architecture of mutual and indivisible security for the European continent. Back then, the US stance was adamant: we negotiate nothing. It took quite more than a million deaths of human beings in the European continent for us all to arrive precisely where we were back in December 2021, to negotiations for a European security architecture that would not exacerbate tensions between nuclear powers on the European continent. We are back at square one. Yet there is more: we are also aware of what had already been agreed between Ukraine and the Russian Federation during the April 2022 negotiations in Istanbul (a summary may be found in the main provisions document)— before the US and the UK talked Ukraine out of signing the agreement.
Europe: the grave dangers of delusion
Yet European leaders are not on board. What they still proclaim is, essentially, a strategic defeat for the Russian Federation — which is nowhere in sight, lest nuclear war sets in, as few seem to have understood. Yet there is one leader who has understood it — and, consequently, proceeded to proclaim precisely such a war. France’s President Emmanuel Macron (i.e., the French Republic — remember this text’s introductory section). In a televised presidential address of absolutely extraordinary recklessness on 6 March 2025, President Macron assured his French and European audience that ‘the Russian threat is ever present’, that ‘Russia has already turned the war in Ukraine into a global conflict’, that the threat is rising in the East, and wondered ‘who is going to say that Russia is going to stop at Ukraine’ (at a time when every non-European state is saying precisely that). Perplexingly for anyone in possession of a map of the European subcontinent and a modicum of common sense, the French President announced that ‘Russia has become a threat for France’. The very outcome of a three-year war with casualties amounting to seven-digit numbers, i.e., what we could term ‘actually existing reality’, is of no concern to the French Republic; its president is at ease in proclaiming that ‘peace cannot come with Russia dictating its terms’. Here we go again: the alternative is to attempt inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia. This is codified in Macron’s speech as ‘peace will return to Europe with Russia pacified’. Of course, there is a significant disparity of military power, to put it euphemistically. Macron did clarify that France and the EU will ‘increase their military spending’ (for a re-arming that, entertain no doubt, requires many, many years), but he is also aware that this shall not suffice.
What is Emmanuel Macron’s solution to this quandary?
Nukes. Nuclear weapons.
The French President talked of sharing France’s nuclear deterrent capabilities with European allies, e.g., resulting in an indirectly nuclear-armed Germany. Because nothing screams ‘peace’ louder than Estonian Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat as High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, having a hypothetical say in the use of nuclear weapons — a figure famous for statements such as ‘it is not a bad thing’ to try to break up Russia into a number of smaller statelets and, paraphrasing, ‘if Europe can’t defeat Russia, how will we defeat China?’.
What adds context to Macron’s address is the summit of (some) European leaders in London under PM Sir Keir Starmer a few days earlier, concerning a ‘coalition of the willing’. There, the British PM proclaimed that the UK ‘is prepared to back [Ukraine’s security guarantees] with boots on the ground and planes in the air’, yet with an all-important caveat: ‘this effort must have strong US backing’ (i.e., precisely the backing that is unequivocally denied by the US, as it would trigger WWIII, to quote the US president). Despite all the rhetoric, most leaders seem to understand that without the US, European security guarantees with ‘boots on the ground’ of Ukraine amount to nothing, or rather to recipe for catastrophe. Macron may have aspired to add the nuclear element that would seem to make a difference — to France’s grandstanding, that is. Yet such official, historic statements are, by definition, not without consequences: nuclear talk is no reality show.
At the same time, Poland seeks access to nuclear arms and looks to build half-million-man army. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told the parliament that, apart from gaining access to nuclear weapons, the country will ensure that every man undergoes military training as part of an effort to build a 500,000-strong army ‘to face off the threat from Russia’: ‘by the end of the year, we want to have a model ready so that every adult male in Poland is trained for war’. The Polish PM proclaimed that ‘Russia will be helpless against united Europe’.
There is more: Danish PM Mette Frederiksen explaining why peace in Ukraine is more dangerous than the continuation of the war. And, last but not least, the Financial Times cites an unnamed ‘major eastern European politician’ as responding to the journalist’s question as follows: ‘That’s why some of our countries are asking, Why don’t we attack Russia now, instead of sitting waiting for it to attack us?’.
Orders of magnitude
Diplomacy, as opposed to warfare, consists in talking to each other and figuring things out. The Europeans staunchly refuse to talk to the Russians — diplomacy seems to be considered ‘pro-Putin’ these days, whereas war is preferable. Diplomacy is one of the three possible ways wars end — the others being total victory and total defeat. Diplomacy also prevents (further) wars. This is basic stuff.
Perhaps one way to understand the Europeans’ chaotic, warmongering statements —at a time when the US and Russia are actively negotiating for peace— would have to consider their profound unpreparedness for the sheer scale of what is happening: the realities of the Ukraine war and its mobilisation of forces are orders of magnitude greater than anything any European leader has seen or engaged in after WWII. An argument could be made that the dead and wounded of the Ukraine war heretofore, if we employ the numbers cited by top American officials, already numerically trump the EU’s combined active-duty military personnel. Processing all this takes time — time that does not exist, that is. People tend to forget that arms and military personnel are not 3D-printed, and that funds for military spending are eventually taken from something else. Perhaps some among the European elites need to ‘save face’ after three years of very different political narratives, perhaps they see this as a media and PR game or as a way to stay afloat domestically, which would amount to a perniciously inexcusable level of petty leadership. And perhaps arms manufacturers are lobbying European politicians only too successfully, to add this dimension. After all, ‘we are at war with Russia’, as the Greek PM has (in)famously declared. The profound incapacity hypothesis for European leadership does not absolve it from its responsibilities in waging escalating sabre-rattling, and there are many ways things could go terribly awry in such a political climate. As a viral X post put it:
Yet the question persists: how have we come to this?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- ‘Imaginary American voter syndrome’: European leaders often perceive global politics as if they are American voters, failing to engage with geopolitical realities beyond US domestic politics.
- The war in Ukraine is increasingly recognised as a proxy war between US/NATO and Russia, e.g., by the US Secretary of State. While initially denying any role in provoking the conflict, US officials now tacitly admit NATO’s involvement in the war’s origins. European leadership struggles to adjust its narrative.
- Failed strategy of Russia’s ‘strategic defeat’: European rhetoric about defeating Russia has not materialised, with a nuclear escalation becoming a growing risk.
- Despite prolonged conflict, negotiations are returning to the same security concerns Russia raised in 2021, highlighting years of unnecessary devastation and death.
- Macron’s nuclear remarks: The French president proposed sharing nuclear deterrents within Europe and only stopped short of declaring war on the Russian Federation.
- Poland is pushing for nuclear access and mass military training, while Britain and others discuss direct military intervention in Ukraine — though only with US backing, which has already been denied.
- Diplomatic paralysis: European leaders refuse diplomatic engagement with Russia, branding negotiations as pro-Putin while advocating for continued war.
- Military reality check: The Ukraine war’s scale has surpassed Europe’s military preparedness, with casualty numbers exceeding the EU’s combined active-duty personnel.
- Increased military spending and mobilisation efforts drain resources, with arms manufacturers potentially influencing European political decisions.
- At a time when the US and Russia negotiate for peace, Europe’s warmongering stance (including the UNSC abstentions by France and the UK to a normative peace resolution backed by the US, China, and Russia among permanent UNSC members) is difficult to explain, but this makes it neither excusable nor less dangerous. A spirit of mass delusion proliferates.
