What ‘New Europe’ knew about Russia

Two Western leaders have recently eaten crow.

On April 4, former U.S. President Bill Clinton admitted to having been wrong to compel Ukraine to surrender its nuclear weapons to Russia.

Then, on May 31, French President Emmanuel Macron told an audience in Bratislava that France, and by extension the West, should have listened to Eastern Europeans about Russia.

“I feel personally involved because I forced them [Ukraine] to agree to refuse nuclear weapons,” Clinton said. The Ukrainians “were afraid to let them [the nuclear weapons] go because they thought it was the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia. Putin, when he saw an opportunity, broke the agreement and seized Crimea first. And I feel terrible because of this, because Ukraine is a very important country.”

Macron, meanwhile, first criticized former French President Jacques Chirac for telling the Eastern Europeans in 2003 that they missed a “good opportunity to shut up” during the run-up to the attack on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. He then admitted that “we also lost an opportunity to listen to you” when it came to assessing the Russian threat.

Preceding both leaders was German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who said back in April 2022 that “We failed on many points. It is true that we should have taken the warnings of our Eastern European partners more seriously, particularly regarding the time after 2014.”

Such humility on the part of the West is rare, especially with respect to its neighbors in Eastern Europe. It may or may not portend a broader shift in attitudes — former German Chancellor Angela Merkel continues to insist her policies toward Russia were correct, as does the notorious ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder — but at the very least it suggests that the brute reality of Russia’s war has forced some policymakers to reassess their views of Putin’s realm and to admit that the Poles, Balts, Ukrainians, and others were right to fear a revanchist fascist Russia.

Western disregard for the Eastern Europeans has long roots in history and culture. Western Europe — France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and England — has traditionally been regarded as the cradle of European civilization. Eastern Europe — all the nations east and south of Western Europe — was often viewed as politically, economically and culturally backward; prone to bickering and squabbling; hopelessly corrupt; and inclined to irrationality and extremism. The Eastern Europeans were, in effect, infantilized. Chirac’s suggestion that they should shut up wasn’t just rude; it was, above all, indicative of the paternalism with which the West regarded the child-like East — or “New Europe.”

Russia was the usual exception to this rule, not because it was considered civilizationally advanced, but because it was huge and powerful and appeared to possess a culture that was unique. As a result, for many Western Europeans, Eastern Europe was just a dangerous and unpredictable space between the West and Russia. Many Germans still refer to World War II, which devastated the populations of Belarus, Poland, and Ukraine more than that of Russia, as a “Russlandkrieg” or “Russia war.”

To be sure, attitudes in the West have changed significantly. Who could fail to admire the Eastern European revolutions that swept the Soviet satellite states in 1989? Who could fail to be in awe of Ukraine’s ability to resist Vladimir Putin’s war machine? And who, but for the dogmatic true believers who blame NATO for Russia’s choice to embark on a monstruous war, could fail to suspect that pre-war images of Putin as a wise ruler and of Russia as a normal state were inaccurate — just as the Eastern Europeans had been insisting for decades?

“New Europe” isn’t just as old as “Old Europe.” When it comes to Russia, it’s smarter and wiser than Old Europe. Centuries of dealing with Mother Russia’s perennial fits of imperial expansion and old-fashioned bloodletting have taught the New Europeans things that their naïve siblings in Old Europe cannot even imagine. It’s high time for Western Europe and the United States to realize, fully and permanently, that only by listening to the Eastern Europeans can Putin’s imperialist designs be stopped.

The West would do well to continue feasting on crow.

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark. A specialist on Ukraine, Russia and the USSR, and on nationalism, revolutions, empires and theory, he is the author of 10 books of nonfiction, as well as “Imperial Ends: The Decay, Collapse, and Revival of Empires” and “Why Empires Reemerge: Imperial Collapse and Imperial Revival in Comparative Perspective.”