One of the most distressing aspects of the way the situation in Ukraine is dealt with is the regularity with which the fundamental nature of the aggressor’s political regime is ignored. Today’s Russia is certainly not Stalin’s – or even Brezhnev’s – USSR, nor is it Nazi Germany, Italy in Fascist times or even Bolshevik-Confucian China. It is a bit of everything and, at the same time, “completely different”. It is a new type of power, surprisingly modern, which has replaced the single party system – the former regime’s central structure – by structures of force (primarily intelligence services) while gradually depriving the democratic structures that were introduced in the 1990s of their substance.
As far as public opinion is concerned, its support for the government is surprisingly steady. If that support weakened, the government can count upon a formidable system of repression, which has successfully mutated from “quantitative” to “qualitative”, from general surveillance and repression to repression and control targeting opponents within the system.
Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, has taken sides with the apologists of the master of the Kremlin. “Warnings” are becoming more and more common, the latest involving the kidnapping of an Estonian policeman by members of Russian secret services and the unannounced fall in gas deliveries to Poland.
This army’s strategic guidelines and deployment decisions would be submitted to the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs and the European Parliament for ratification.
While contributing to the security of European citizens, the creation of this common European army would help Europeans to perceive themselves collectively or, in other terms, to “think European”.