The Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA): Europe Living in the Past

In the midst of the ongoing military invasion by Russia in Ukraine, countries in Eastern Europe could hardly afford to dwell on the past and react against each other at the expense of being proactive and united in pushing Russia back to within its borders—coloring within the lines rather than unrestrained. Therefore, the E.U.’s parliament can be criticized for having spending time and effort on 8 July, 2026 on a resolution that criticizes Ukraine’s then-sitting president, Voladymyr Zelenskyy, for having renamed an elite military unit after the World War II-era Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Even though a large majority of representatives in the Parliament voted in favor of the resolution, the legislative chamber could have been oriented constructively to combatting Putin’s push into Ukraine rather than play into his hands by stoking division between Ukraine and the E.U. state of Poland. Generally speaking, European culture may be criticized for putting much weight on the past at the expense of the present and future. “The past will never change, but tomorrow is still open” should be taught in European classrooms as a maxim. In 2026, as in the immediately preceding few years, the E.U.’s self-handicap in responding sufficiently to helping Ukraine militarily can be chalked up to not letting go of the past to embrace the present in a way that is oriented to the future.

Regarding the resolution that a vast majority of elected representatives in the European Parliament viewed as being worth their time and effort, whereas in Ukraine, “the UPA is widely commemorated for its role in opposing Soviet rule and fighting for Ukrainian independence,” in the E.U. state of Poland the UPA “is widely associated with the Volyn massacre of 1943-45, during which tens of thousands of Poles were killed under Nazi occupation. Poland has recognized the massacre as a genocide, a label Ukraine has rejected.”[1] Debating whether it was or was not a genocide, and, moreover, how opposing Soviet rule stacks up against the Volyn massacre is a luxury that Europe’s anti-Russian powers could not afford when Ukraine was still being occupied by the invading Russian army and eastern E.U. states fretted that they might be next for dinner by the empire-hungry Russian bear. In fact, engaging in a historical obsession rather than moving on to the twenty-first century implies that the E.U.’s political elite was not taking Putin’s invasion seriously enough. It was not as if dislodging the Russian army from roughly 20% of Ukrainian territory would require just little thought and a bit of easy effort, so the opportunity cost to thrashing over the previous century was high. An opportunity cost (in economics) is the benefit that is given up from an alternative course of action that is not taken. Besides the opportunity cost in terms of lost time and energy devoted to thwarting Russia’s invasion, squabbles between Ukraine and a state of the E.U. stood to benefit Putin’s military position and strategy because both thrive if the opposition is divided. As the old adage goes, a house divided cannot stand.

Zelensky had recently admitted to some “difficulties in our history,” and yet urged all parties opposing Russia’s invasion to live more “in the future than in the past” by uniting against Russia rather than turning on each other.[2] To be sure, he could have easily obviated the diplomatic tension by not having renamed the elite military unit after the UPA; more important than a name is how well a military unit performs on the battlefield. Also, no shame goes with publicly admitting a mistake and moving on, for we are all human.

The proclivity in the European psyche—an admittedly cultured entity, which I admire “across the pond” as a native, gruff Midwesterner—to hold onto the past even when it is antiquated and thus obstructs a stronger present and future has impaired the European Union’s federal system. Most crucially generally and especially in terms of the foreign- and defense-policy domains, the E.U. really needed to reform itself by losing the paralyzing veto that the state governments still held in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. (i.e., the Council of Ministers) when the resolution against Zelensky was passed in the parliament (by qualified-majority). Because unanimity was still required for a federal policy or law to pass in foreign policy and defense, the E.U. can be said to be holding itself back, as if having one arm tied behind the back, from adequately supporting Ukraine’s military efforts, especially given the Trump Administration’s preoccupation with Iran, given the extraordinary power of Israeli money in Washington. How, then, is the state veto in the two Councils tied in with the European tendency to hold onto the past?

The very existence of the veto can be viewed as a residual from when the E.U. states were fully sovereign, before they delegated some of their governmental sovereignty to the Union. Qualified-majority voting itself is such a delegation of sovereignty because a state on the losing side of such a vote is still subject to the federal policy, law, or regulation. Even in the case of having considerable discretion in how to implement directives, the states still have to implement them. Were the states still sovereign, as the U.S. states were before and under the Articles of Confederation (1781-1789), the E.U. states could legally ignore even E.U. laws. Such a lapse in understanding of the dual-sovereignty feature of the E.U.’s federal system had been repeatedly demonstrated by Viktor Orbán when he governed the E.U. state of Hungary. It is no coincidence that he abused the power of his state’s veto in the federal councils, for the veto itself was established to reflect the sovereignty still retained by the state governments in the Union. Similarly, but not as extreme, the filibuster in the U.S. Senate, which is roughly equivalent to the Council of the E.U., is a hold-over from the full sovereignty that U.S. states enjoyed before 1789.

I contend that holding onto the time when E.U. states were fully sovereign countries, even though the future of E.U. decision-making could benefit greatly in turning to qualified majority voting instead of unanimity, is itself a significant problem. In other words, besides the obvious governmental conflict of interest that exists on questions of whether additional sovereignty should be delegated, the resistance of state-level officials to relinquishing the veto at the federal level can be said to at least be intensified because they hold onto the political past excessively. Because the E.U. stood to enlarge in 2026 by adding additional states in the future, the Union could ill-afford to hold onto the “old-sovereignty” veto because it had already been too obstructionist (e.g., Viktor Orbán) at the federal level in the councils. Just as division between the E.U. and Ukraine played into Putin’s hands, the historically-based rationale for retaining the veto power put the states at odds with the Union, essentially handicapping the E.U. from within. A self-inflicted wound predicated on not being willing to let go of the past, politically. Looking backwards while walking forwards, a person is likely to trip and fall. Similarly, self-inflicted political weakness is never good. In his text, On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche points to the self-imposed (i.e., voluntary) self-abnegation of impotent Catholic priests as the epitome of weakness. Relative to the U.S. Senate, which admittedly is too prone to political sloth and stalemate at the expense of action, the obstruction occasioned by the veto in the Council of the E.U. and the European Council beats that of the filibuster, which, incidentally, can be overridden by 60 out of 100 votes. Qualified-majority vote is thus consistent with a nod to state sovereignty—plena in the past and non-plena in the present. Perpetuating history need not stand in the way, especially while an invasion is in progress close to the eastern border.

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1. Vincenzo Genovese, “European Parliament Condemns Zelenskyy for Naming Military Unit after UPA Heroes,” Euronews.com, 8 July, 2026.
2. Ibid.

The E.U.: A Step Toward a World Federation?

Does the European Union represent a novel paradigm and thus a step in political development? Whether this is so or not, can the E.U. be thought of as a step on the way towards a world federation? In a talk at Harvard in 2025, Anthony Pagden, a professor at UCLA, addressed these questions when the E.U. was just a few years over thirty—comparable to the U.S. in 1820. The question was not whether the E.U. too would lean towards political consolidation around a federal head, but whether the world was making its way institutionally toward the creation by compact of a world federation, which in turn could presumably stave off war. In 2025, the need for global accountability on willful, militarily-aggressive national governments was on at least some minds. The implication is that the global order based on national sovereignty was insufficient, especially given the advanced destructiveness of military weapons.

According to Pagden, the nation-state concept is at its core an ethnic concept that was extended in the 19^th century to include states that had territory extended beyond that of a particular ethnic group.  Although nation-states had existed, the concept came into its own in the 1800s, so the modern notion of the nation-state is ahistoric, and thus perfectly capable of being superseded should political development occur. The related notion of sovereignty only became salient in the 16^th century (e.g., Jean Bodin) and this continued in the next century in Hobbes’ Leviathan.  Hobbes’ assumption was not that governmental sovereignty could not be split like an atom, but that it should not be divided lest civil war break out. Europe was no stranger to war in the 1600s, given the Thirty Years War, which was based on religious differences bearing on political power.

Of course, the atom of sovereignty was split in the U.S. Convention in the following century, with the checks-and-balances in federalism being relied upon to keep the inherently unstable division stable. Although Pagden didn’t mention this point, he did say that relations between nation-states had historically tended to be through empires but more recently (in centuries) has been through federations. In the process, the very notion of sovereignty has been undergoing a gradual transformation. Whereas Russia’s President Putin once claimed that either a country is sovereign or it’s a colony, Pagden claimed that at least as of 2025, sovereignty had reached international organizations. Together with nation-states, the notion of multilevel sovereignty had come into its own. From this notion, Pagden claimed, a world federation would someday be likely. He cited Durkheim’s prediction that at some point humanity would form a global “social order” may be correct, but Kant’s claim that peace would only be possible but not probable under a world federation also deserves attention. Even if the world’s shift from empires to federal governments and international confederations (which actually extend back to antiquity--Sparta and Athens having headed military confederations) makes a world federation more likely, the question of whether having one would stave off war warrants reflection too. I think the key would be whether such a federation has enforcement power, for the U.N. has arguably sidelined itself because it lacks the authority and power to enforce its own resolutions and the veto mechanism on the Security Council is a contributing factor that relegated the U.N. to the sidelines as Russia invaded Ukraine and Israel ravaged Gaza—both cases evincing an utter lack of accountability from beyond the sovereignty of the nation-state.

Pagden stressed that even though historically, empires have shaped the geography of the modern world, federations will likely make an indelible imprint on the world in the future. “Empires and federations have much in common,” he said. Both are legal societies. But with respect to confederal international organizations, including the United Nations, “international law is controversial.” I would add that the lack of enforcement power renders such law de facto impotent in its own right, although such law can be used by nation-states in the exercise of their sovereignty on the world stage.

Even though empires and federations have elements in common—indeed, originally federations were exclusively international--empires are created by conquest, whereas federations begin by consent. In European history, countries that had sovereign states in Medieval times became political sub-units of federal nation-states in the early-modern period. Pagden characterized Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium as “centralized federalism.” U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin once told me that Congress delegating functions to the state governments is “decentralized federalism.” Relatedly, Pagden said that the notion of subsidiarity comes from Roman law; only legislation that affects all of the political sub-units should be at the empire level. In his Political Digest (1603), Althusius relates this point to his claim that only the members at a level in a federal system are to be represented at the next-highest level: individuals belong only to the first-level. That Germany and Belgium are themselves states in the E.U. federal system resembles the structure of Althusian federalism, which is based on the Holy Roman Empire. By implication, geographically diverse U.S. states, such as California and New York, could federate and still remain as states in the U.S., just as Belgium and Germany in the European Union. Once you get the levels right, comparative federalism gets very interesting (and contentious, for most people compare apples with oranges—a state in one Union with another Union).

The ECJ says that the EU treaties evince a constitutional order, so common law from the ECJ is indeed law. Pagden disagreed with the European Court of Justice on this point, whereas I agree with the court. Even so, he said, “The E.U. is a federation even if not in name.” The contradiction is only apparent. The E.U., according to Pagden, is an exception—thus instantiating a new paradigm and thus a step in political development. He could have cited the Athenian League and Sparta’s confederation as evincing the close association that federalism has had with distinctly international rather than national political entities. The British Commonwealth too is international, but it being voluntary differentiates it from federalism, which has tended to be treaty-based.

I contend that to classify the E.U. as an international organization is incorrect. Unlike NATA, the UN, ASEAN, and the AU, the E.U. has a federal government of three branches: the European Court of Justice, a legislature (the Council of the E.U., the European Council, and the European Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens rather than states), and an executive branch (the European Commission). Like the U.S. the E.U. has federal institutions based on national (e.g., the ECJ, the Parliament and the Commission) and international (e.g., the European Council and the Council of the E.U.) principles. The U.S. House is based on national principles whereas the U.S. Senate is based on international principles—the same ones that the UN is based on). Both empire-scale federations, the E.U. and U.S., fall under the rubric of federalism wherein governmental sovereignty is “dual,” or split, whereas the UN and NATO are not, for full sovereignty is retained by the countries. Applicable to the E.U. as well as the U.S., John Stuart Mill claimed not only that federations are not stable over time, but also that a federation can become a nation-state. Indeed, the E.U. and U.S. effectively split the very notion of nation-state between two governmental systems over the same territory.

The basic paradigmatic likeness of the E.U. and U.S. flies in the face of Pagden’s argument that the E.U. evinces something politically sui generis; this point in turn he uses to claim that the new type of federalism is more useful than the American type as a basis for a world federation constructed by regional federations. I submit that the E.U. and U.S. are empire-scale federal systems and thus can be characterized as regional with respect to the global level. The E.U. doesn’t need to be unique for the construction of a world federation by consent to be achieved; the U.S. and E.U. both evince the useful step in that both federations fall under “modern federalism,” which Ken Wheare distinguishes from confederalism because only in the former type is governmental (not popular!) sovereignty split, whether by treaty, basic law, or constitution. Furthermore, that the interstate heterogeneity in both the E.U. and U.S. is a leap from intrastate diversity whether in terms of political ideology or culture qualifies both unions as being a useful step potentially if a world federation is someday to be constructed. The diversity within the E.U. is much greater than is the diversity within Germany, for example. The same applies to France. Hence federalism, in being able to accommodate differences, is more useful at the level of the E.U. (and the U.S.).

Pagden rightly points to Europe’s shared political and legal culture from Roman law, and all of the delegates at the U.S. convention were of European extraction at some point. A world federation would be another leap in terms of inter-state diversity because no such common cultural basis would apply. The distinction between British common law and the French code pales in comparison between ancient Roman and Chinese law. Also, the absolutist interpretation of sovereignty by the governments of Russia and China is a world away from the notion of dual sovereignty that characterizes “modern federalism” as evinced in the E.U. and the U.S, both of whose federal institutions are based on national and international principles depending on the institution. This hybrid is precisely what a world federation might need, and yet the notion of applying federalism to making a nation-state and yet one whose members are semi-sovereign (with residual sovereignty!) was even by 2025 foreign to a Hobbesian notion of sovereignty as unitary and absolute.

Therefore, I do not think that a new paradigm or type of federalism will be necessary for a world federation to be constructed. In fact, the hybrid that is at the federal level in the cases of the U.S. and E.U. can be useful, and even perhaps necessary, for such a federation not to succumb to impotence on enforcement. Yet I suspect this would be the sticking point for countries like Russia and China. Simply put, the absolutist view of national sovereignty must give way to make way for Wheare’s notion of dual-sovereignty in federalism for national governments, whether federated or not, to consent to a global federation. Staving off war is arguably worth scrapping the absolutist view, but try convincing Presidents Xi or Putin of this; after all, a very intelligent man, Immanuel Kant, thought that world peace would only be possible—not probable.

Applying Justice to Nazi Jurists in the Context of the Cold War

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) is a serious film that enables the viewers to wrestle with the demands of justice for atrocities enabled by German jurists in NAZI Germany and the post-war emerging Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., for which the American military needed the support of the German people against the Soviet Union. The film accepts the need of such support as being vital in 1947, when the actual trial took place (the film has it as 1948). To the extent that acceptance of this assumption is deemed spurious, the viewers would likely view the tension as being between the need for justice, a virtue, and expediency, a vice. Accordingly, the pressure from an American general on the prosecutor to recommend light sentences so not to turn the German people against the Americans and thus from helping them in the Cold War can be viewed as being astute political calculation in the political realist sense of international relations, or else undue influence or even corruption of a judicial proceeding. 

The full essay is at "Judgment at Nuremberg."