Beyond the media manipulation, what Ukraine materially received from visiting Western European leaders last week was a single battery of French self-propelled howitzers and some pretty words.
Ukraine has previously been clear that it requires 1,000 guns – or some 330 batteries – and has thus far been pledged around 150 guns.
France is estimated to currently have 77 howitzer-type weapons and is upgrading to around 100 by 2024. Australia has, in the meantime, donated six guns.
Only on June 22 did Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov announce that the first German self-propelled howitzers Panzerhaubitze 2000 had been transferred to the country, which at least is more encouraging.
Indeed, the relatively lacklustre support for Ukraine – underscored by the Hollywood-like choreography of the visit from the elected officials of Germany, Italy, France and Romania to Kyiv last week – shows how technocracy is practically enabling terrorism by Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Europe’s technocratic governments emphasize evidence, pragmatism and rigorous process over ideology, idealism or vision. As a result, policy frameworks and political statements – like the overdue support of Ukraine’s EU candidacy – count for more for European technocrats than providing life-saving heavy weaponry.
There is nothing wrong with technocracy per se – it permits greater merit in decision-making. The problem is when it leaves no space for other considerations like experience, historical understanding, beliefs, commitment to preservation of human life, and even emotion. It’s like when the tools become more important than what they’re meant to be building.
Indeed, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine shows how technocracy struggles to recognize a massive threat to Europe or to make a simple choice between good and evil.
This is because of European technocracy’s characteristics:
- Vast bureaucracies that must consult on everything and with everyone before making decisions, no less acting on them: Germany, for example, keeps asserting its pro-Ukraine stance at public and political levels, but its administrative structures have failed to produce a single howitzer for Ukraine. Processes continue with no real results;
- The incapacity to deal with the personal motivations and behaviors of a despot: It is a huge strategic error to think that Putin, a former KGB agent who has now publicly stated his imperial intentions, looks at the West the same way the West looks at him. Yet, French President Emanuel Macron continues to defer to Putin’s ego needs, as if they were somehow normal;
- The blind spot that other governments – including Putin’s – live by similar norms. It’s downright stupid to think that government under an autocrat – based on loyalty – is in any way similar to that in a democracy. Yet, stupidity is a usual product of group-think;
- The tendency toward ‘safe’ internal compromises: This concept is flawed because they are just that – compromises – rather than positions of principle. The risk management approach that technocracies follow basically rules out all but the safest options. Hence, broad signals of diplomatic virtue win out over tougher strategies like spending money on weapons;
- The elimination of values in decision-making: These are deemed “subjective” and so a discarded in favor of “objective” considerations such as the risk of increased energy costs. It seems the Europeans place a zero against the cost of a lost Ukrainian life in their calculations;
- Predominant narratives are rarely questioned: Western European experts, after decades of conditioning, continue to fall for the myth of Russian might. Ironically, this is despite all the hard evidence of Russian failure now before them.
These constraints have classically combined this month with Western Europeans being basically incapable or unwilling to do anything more than adopt the minimum common denominator – support for EU candidacy for Ukraine.
A cynical view is that the Western Europeans are actually waiting for Ukraine to fall, thus never having to actually decide on its candidacy.
It was interesting to note that the Ukrainians had to formally present their visitors with a sanctions package proposal developed by the Yermak/McFaul group at Stanford University, including further energy bans. This was a less than subtle reminder that Europe’s response to date – as significant as the Europeans may think it is – is not proportionate to the tasks of defending Ukraine, winning the war, and establishing a truly safer and more prosperous global order.
Or, as Serhiy Zhadan, Ukraine’s poet laureate, pointed out with a litterateur’s sense of justice that, in three months of invasion, Ukraine has acquired more weaponry from its Moscow enemy [through stealth, cunning and prowess] than it has from Rome, Paris and Bonn. In those three months, it is believed that Germany has paid Russia a record $12 billion for energy supply, with energy revenue accounting for 66% of Russia’s budget.
Another writer, Michael Hnatyahyn, commenting about President Zelensky, told me: It’s not every week that you meet with those funding the genocide of your people and are then expected to thank them for their rhetorical flourishes.
So as Russia’s war on Ukrainians further shifts to one of psychological terror and “ethnic cleansing by artillery”, it is clear that Ukraine cannot and should not count on real support from Western Europe’s political elites, even as Europe’s citizenry seems to take the opposite view.
This is neither a revelation nor a surprise to Zelensky, his team and his military commanders, but a useful confirmation of the status quo.
They can now further build their plans to fight the war with their genuine allies outside Western Europe. While the logistical challenges are formidable, Ukrainian planning and execution has been successful to date, as seen from the victories in Kyiv and Kharkiv.
It’s just plain dumb to rule out the probability that they will continue to be.
Along the way, whether it’s standing in a military tee shirt amongst his besuited Western European visitors, or whether in his unique style of communication and administration, Zelensky may well be building an inclusive, values-based and agile form of government, which is in direct contrast to both technocracy and autocracy.
The emergence of such a new form of government – or rather the reinforcement of democracy – may well be another of Ukraine’s future victories and examples to the complacent and privileged political elites of Western Europe.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of the Kyiv Post.
