Ukraine’s Zelensky Nails the E.U.

On a day when “(a)pproximately 4,000 building in Kyiv lacked heating . . . as temperatures plunged to -20C amid Ukraine’s coldest winter in years, almost four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “delivered a scathing critique of European inaction at the World Economic Forum . . . , declaring that the continent ‘looks lost’ and remains trapped in endless repetition of failing to defend itself or decisively support Ukraine.”  Zelensky lamented, “Repeating the same thing for weeks, months, and of course, years. And yet that is exactly how we live now.”  In particular, he was referring to the fact that just as the U.S. had been sinking drug boats, the E.U. could have been sinking Russian oil tankers even near Greenland. “We will solve this problem with Russian ships,” he said. “They can sink near Greenland just like they sink near Crimea.”  Why was Europe repeating the same “day” over and over again, as in the film starring Bill Murry, Groundhog’s Day? Zelensky had the presence of mind to identify the root problem though his wording was antiquated.

Contrasting the U.S. with the E.U., Zelensky lamented, “The fact remains, Maduro is on trial in New York. Sorry, but Putin is not on trial. . . . The man who started it is not only free, he’s still fighting for his frozen money in Europe.”  Questioning “why Trump could seize shadow fleet tankers and oil while Europe could not, noting that oil funds the war against Ukraine,” Zelensky said, “If Putin has no money, there’s no war for Europe.”  The point is that the E.U. could have acted to thwart Putin’s military might by cutting off oil revenue. Such action even years earlier seems like a no-brainer, given Zelensky’s logic: “Today they target Ukraine. Tomorrow it could be any NATO country,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to cut Russia off from components making missiles, or destroy factories making them?”  That could be done directly by bombing the factories and boycotting Russia, and indirectly by bombing Russian oil in tankers, whether Russian or not. It was, in other words, in the interest of the Europeans in the E.U. to cut off the Russian war-machine rather than appease it with inaction. 

As for the E.U.’s reliance on a few of its states to defend Greenland amid U.S. President Trump’s intention to invade or purchase the island, Zelensky noted the significance of the weak response by saying, ‘If you send 14 or 40 soldiers to Greenland, what is that for? What message does it send? What is the message to Putin, to China? And even more importantly, what message does it send to Denmark, your close ally? Forty soldiers will not protect anything.”  Even as Zelensky was insightful in drawing out these wider implications, he made a political category mistake in mischaracterizing one E.U. state, Denmark, as an ally in the E.U., for a state in a federal union is neither an ally (i.e., equivalent) to the union itself nor an ally to other such states. Unlike allies, E.U. states have delegated a portion of their respective governmental sovereignty to a federal level (e.g., exclusive competencies, as well as qualified-majority voting).  In fact, Zelensky was undercutting his own argument in so doing.

In particular, and here we get to the main point, “Zelenskyy criticized Europe’s fragmented response to global challenges, declaring the continent ‘still feels more like geography, history, tradition, not a great political power’ and ‘remains a fragmented kaleidoscope of small and middle powers.’”  Even in sending a few thousand troops from a few E.U. states rather than a federal response going beyond loose cooperation, the E.U. showed itself in relief as having succumbed to its parts (i.e., states). Zelensky actually fed the undergirding Euroskeptic, anti-federalist European ideology by referring not to states or even member-states, but to small and middle powers as if the E.U. did not even exist. If he was referring to small and large E.U. states as “small and middle powers,” Zelensky was missing the point that whether large or small, an E.U. state is an E.U. state. Mischaracterizing E.U. states as small and middle powers, and the E.U. as the unnamed large power not only ignores the E.U.’s immense weakness, especially with regard to its own states, but also ignores that in a federation, there are only two levels: the state level and the federal level. 

In short, if Zelensky wanted a stronger, more perfect Union in Europe, a “great power,” he should have said so, explicitly: the E.U. needs more competencies, or enumerated powers, in foreign policy and defense, subject to qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Instead, the way he described “small and middle” powers in his speech at Davos undermined his own goal. He claimed that Europe needed to learn at least how to defend itself, but since his last address at Davos a year earlier, “nothing has changed.”  He lamented that in Europe, everyone “turned attention to Greenland and its clear most leaders [in Europe] are not sure what to do about it.”  Meanwhile, Europe’s “small and middle” powers were reluctant to provide Ukraine with advanced weapons systems. Relying on the U.S. had become foolish, and yet the E.U. was still not stepping up to the plate (an expression from baseball) to bat in foreign policy and defense. 

It was long since time for structural change be made in the division of competencies between the federal and state systems of government in the E.U., especially with the U.S. eyeing Greenland and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine having been going on for nearly four years by early 2026 when Zelensky delivered his speech to the world’s economic and political elite in Davos. It was time, in other words, for the governors of the states to “step up to the plate” and agree to federalize more authority in foreign affairs and defense. After all, those state governments had enough direct power at the federal level in the European Council and the Council of Ministers to act as a check, even under qualified-majority vote, on federalized foreign policy and defense. The U.S. could take a lesson in this respect and replace elected U.S. senators with governors in that union’s higher legislative chamber to step federal encroachment on the retained and residual governmental sovereignty of the member-states there.  

---

1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Zelenskyy Says Europe ‘Looks Lost’ and Living in ‘Groundhog Day’ in Scathing Davos Address,” Euronews.com, January 22, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

We Don’t Have Another America: Ukraine on the E.U.

On America’s Thanksgiving Day, 2025, Dmytro Kuleba, a former foreign minister of Ukraine, was asked whether Ukraine’s government officials could trust American officials negotiating with the Russian officials, given the fact that Steve Witkoff, the U.S. Envoy at the time, had recently been caught coaching Kirill Dmitriev, a top Russian official, on how to get U.S. President Don Trump on the side of Putin even though the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine was still in violation of international law, which, by the way, trumps historical reasons, such as a lost Russian empire. Stalin’s forced famine in Ukraine during the 1930s would seem to nullify any imperial claims from the past. Kuleba relied to the journalist’s question with, “Not really, but we do not have another America.”[1] He was really giving Europe a wake-up call, but the problem there was not a lack of consensus, but a structural deficiency in the federal system of the European Union.

Far from being able to diagnose what aspects of the E.U.’s federal system were holding the Union back from protecting Ukraine from an American-Russian one-sided plan to end the ongoing invasion, Kuleba said rhetorically, “Isn’t it embarrassing that almost four years into the war, European leaders are still jumping from one topic to another, from sending peacekeeping forces to reassurance forces to strengthening the Ukrainian army.”[2] While it may be tempting to criticize state-level officials for being “all over the map” on what the E.U. should do regarding the American-Russian negotiations, as well as on Russia itself, moreover, such divergence of opinion is only natural. In the U.S., for instance, polling officials from the 50 states would not likely find even a consensus. For example, the leaders of Arizona and Massachusetts may have been as far apart from each other on whether to help Ukraine militarily as the leaders of Hungary and France. If this comparison itself “touches a nerve,” I contend that a festering, subterranean category mistake is the root cause of the pain.

E.U. citizens had a solid basis for being frustrated, for although “two top E.U. aides joined negotiations with Ukrainian and American delegations in Geneva . . ., European leaders have been largely side-lined from the talks.”[3] As for the Coalition of “the willing,” which consisted of 33 sovereign countries, depending on a bloc rather than on the E.U. to safeguard Ukraine’s geopolitical and military interests, or treating the E.U. as if it were a bloc, can be reckoned as borderline foolishness when up against an active theatre of combat.

Kuleba’s point in lamenting that Ukraine did not have another America in Europe may imply that the E.U. could and even should be another America capable in terms of raw power to be a counterweight to American foreign policy in the world. This is not to say that “another America” would be a replica of the United States, for the European Union, although another empire-scale federal system characterized by dual sovereignty (and thus not a confederation such as U.S.’s Articles of Confederation (1781-1789)), contains differences. For example, whereas the U.S. Senate represents the member-states at the federal level, the European Council and the Council of Ministers represent the state governments at the federal level in European Union. Yet the U.S. House of Representatives and the European Parliament are much more alike counterparts, representing U.S. and E.U. citizens, respectively. The political genus of empire-scale and level federalism of dual sovereignty (i.e., state and federal) can indeed support institutional and procedural differences in the basic, or constitutional, law. Whereas the U.S. in the twentieth century had become too consolidated, the E.U. in its first few decades in the next century has been too state-heavy, as the U.S. was for many decades since it split the atom of governmental sovereignty in 1789. Even though the E.U.’s federalism contains more safeguards protecting the states from federal encroachment than did the U.S. even when the governments of the member states selected U.S. senators, those E.U. safeguards arguably have paralyzed the E.U. on the world stage.

In particular, the veto power of each state government in the European Council and the Council of Ministers, and the refusal of every state to delegate more governmental sovereignty to the European Commission to conduct foreign and defense policy, are why the E.U. president (i.e., of the federal executive branch) and the federal foreign minister were not able to defend Ukraine from the ongoing invasion for years, and to become directly involved in the negotiations to end the invasion. Put more bluntly, by even just threatening to use the state’s veto, the governor of the E.U. state of Hungary was holding E.U. policy and power regarding Ukraine and Russia hostage. Even with regard to the frozen assets of Russia’s central bank, E.U. officials were having trouble using that as political leverage to shift the negotiations more to Ukraine’s favor. It is not that President Von der Leyen was weak or not astute politically, or naïve on defense; rather it is the case that a federal system in which governmental sovereignty is held both by state governments and the Union is incompatible with the confederal device of the state veto at the federal level.

A dean of the Global Affairs school of Boston University told me in 2024 that the E.U. was a mix of confederal and modern (dual sovereignty) federalism. I countered that the two types of federalism are mutually exclusive. To conflate the two, such as by granting the federal institutions some governmental sovereignty while giving each state government a veto over such sovereignty, is self-contradictory and thus inherently implausible. To be sure, the E.U.’s states could look at the process of consolidation of power at the federal level in the U.S. and want institutional and procedural safeguards against such federal encroachment from happening down the road in the European context, but I submit that such safeguards can exist without hamstringing the E.U. internationally.

---

1. Mared Gwyn Jones, “European Decision-Making on Ukraine ‘Embarrassing,’ Former Foreign Minister Kuleba Says,” Euronews.com, November 27, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Nationalism at Eurovision: A Lack of Vision

The inherent retentiveness of conservatism benefits a society because it need not “reinvent the wheel” in “starting from scratch,” as resort can be made to customs that have been efficacious. Unfortunately, conservatism can easily be in denial as to the need for adaptation to changes whether in geopolitical institutions or in culture. The advent of the European Union as a federal system of dual-sovereignty has been easy fodder for conservatism’s proclivity of denial with regard to very new things. Eurovision, too, was an invention beyond even the European Union, and thus also of the post-World-War-II history of integration meant in part as a check on the full-blown nationalism that had twice decimated Europe in the twentieth century. So it is problematic that the EBU, the organization behind the Eurovision Song Contest, has made so many category mistakes involving Europe in favor of nationalism.

The epitome of EBU’s bias and inconsistencies is the decision taken first to ban altogether and then relegate the E.U.’s flag while giving the state flags pride of place on stage, as if Eurovision were a political rather than an entertainment event. It was as if the EBU and the Swiss government were conveniently oblivious to the notion and instantiation of an empire-scale federal system of states. The notion that a person could be a citizen both of a union and one’s own state, and thus be under two flags at once, had been invented by political compromise in 1787. So, it was odd that in 2025, the performers who were E.U. citizens were to be denied the opportunity to show the E.U. flag, whereas bringing along the state flags was permissible.  It was, in effect, to say, you can vote for your representative in the European Parliament, but you cannot hold or wear the E.U. flag under which that parliament is instantiated as a legislative body. This inconsistency is at the very least consistent with the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic political ideology, and thus partisan in nature. Even worse, the decision fuels the sort of nationalism out of which two World Wars had destroyed Europe in the last century.

Even though Switzerland is not an E.U. state, the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation announced in May of 2025 that performers would not be allowed to bring the E.U. flag on the main stage, the turquoise carpet, and even in the green room. In obfuscating the E.U. flag with those of “personal, cultural or regional identity,”[1] the Swiss government was making a category mistake, for to liken the E.U. flag with a gay-rights flag, for example, is to ignore the major difference between a cultural movement and a union that has executive, legislative, and judicial branches at the federal level. Neither was the E.U. “a network,” as David Cameron infamously said of the E.U. when Britain was a state thereof. In fact, Britain seceded in large part in rejection of the fact that governmental sovereignty had already been split between the state and federal levels. 

Lest Euroskeptics raise alarm bells, a federal union can exist in theory and practice without the federal level being recognized as a state internationally, for governmental institutions can indeed exist without constituting a state in the sense of having exclusive competency in foreign affairs. That governmental sovereignty can be divided does not necessarily mean that foreign policy and defense are completely federalized (i.e., E.U. exclusive competencies, or enumerated powers). Yet in terms of government, laws can be passed at both the state and federal level with binding legal force, hence the sovereignty enjoyed at the federal union level by executive, legislative, and judicial branches is distinct from the sovereignty retained by the states.

Therefore, that the “same rule applies to the Rainbow flag” as the E.U. flag “and the Palestinian flag” points to a logical inconsistency founded on a category mistake, but actually founded on a political ideology that is against the European Union.[2] Regarding the Palestinian flag, that Eurovision considered Israel to be European also represents a logical problem, for Israel is a sovereign state occupying Palestine in the Middle East, which is distinct from Europe geographically and culturally.

Furthermore, in refusing to exclude Israel from the competition, Eurovision was in denial, in effect, regarding the fact that the Israeli government had been blocking food and medicine from Gaza for more than a month as the 1.2 million captives in Gaza starved, as if each one had been culpable on October 7, 2023. In fact, on the day after the announcement on the E.U. flag being relegated to the background at Eurovision, essentially putting the state flags in front as if the states were still completely sovereign, Israel’s prime minister announced to the world that “full force” would be mustered against the inhabitants of Gaza.[3]

Also on the day after the Swiss announcement, lest the world of entertainment be assumed to be completely passive in the midst of the exterminating atrocity in Gaza, a “group of more than 350 international actors, directors and producers . . . signed a letter published on the first day of the Cannes Film Festival condemning the killing of Fatma Hassouna, the 25-year-old Palestinian photojournalist and protagonist of the documentary Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk. Hassouna was killed along with 10 relatives in an Israeli air strike on her family home in northern Gaza {in April, 2025}, the day after the documentary was announced as part of the ACID Cannes selection.”[4] The letter pointed to the “shame” in the film industry’s “passivity.”[5] Passivity, as well as shame, can also applied to the EBU of the Eurosong Contest because it ignored a letter yet again in 2025 “calling for Israel to be banned from Eurovision” so the EBU would not be “normalizing and whitewashing” Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.[6] That the EBU had banned Russia even though at least part of Russia is in Europe sheds light on the rule by double-standards at Eurovision.

In such a condition, perhaps no flags at all should have been allowed in the vicinity of the song contest. Why open the door to explicit politics anyway, given that EBU’s handling of the political domain was itself so controversial, and, I contend, impaired even just from the standpoint of logic and consistency? I submit that the ideology of nationalism, which had given the world two major wars in the twentieth century and was allowing Israel to so abuse its national sovereignty, had become too engrained in the song contest. If the history of European integration after World War II, which includes Euroatom and the European Coal and Steel Cooperative, can be interpreted as a series of efforts to check nationalism, then the E.U. flag should be highlighted rather than relegated to the periphery if political flags are to be allowed at an entertainment venue at all, which itself is problematic and seems to incur a category mistake. Should Eurovision be assigned as a political or an entertainment event?  Passivity on even this basic question can be regarded as blameworthy.  

---

1. Jorge Liboreiro, “Eurovision Will Allow European Flag for Fans in the Audience but Not for Artists on Stage,” Euronews.com, May 13, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Gavin Blackburn, “Israeli Military to Continue Gaza Operation ‘With Full Force’ in Next Days, Netanyahu Says,” Euronews.com, May 14, 2025.
4. David Mouriquand, “More than 350 Stars Condemn Gaza ‘Genocide’ in Open Letter in Time for Cannes Opening,” Euronews.com, May 14, 2025.
5. Ibid.
6. David Mouriquand, “Eurovision’s Israel Contestant Yuval Raphael’s ‘Expecting’ Booing During This Year’s Competition,” Eurovision.com, May 13, 2025.

On the E.U.'s Initiative for Ukraine

In March, 2025 after the U.S. had direct talks with Russia on ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the E.U. stepped up its game in helping Ukraine militarily. This was also in the context of a trade war between the E.U. and U.S., which did not make transatlantic relations any better. The E.U.’s increasing emphasis on military aid to Ukraine and the related publicity inadvertently showcased how federalism could be applied to defense and foreign policy differently that it has in the U.S., wherein the member states are excluded, since the Articles of Confederation, when the member states were sovereign within the U.S. confederation. Although both manifestations of early-modern federalism have their respective benefits and risks, I contend that the E.U.’s application of federalism to the two governmental domains of power is more in the spirit of (dual-sovereignty) federalism, even though serious vulnerabilities can be identified.

The full essay is at "The E.U. and U.S. on Defense and Foreign Policy."

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.

A European Army: A More Perfect Union

At the Munich Security Conference in February, 2025, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy bluntly asserted, “I really believe that the time has come that the armed forces of Europe must be created.”[1] He could have said in 2023 after Russia’s President Putin had sent tanks and bombs into Ukraine; instead, the inauguration of President Trump in the U.S. that was the trigger. “Let’s be honest,” Zelenskyy continued, “now we can’t rule out that America might say ‘no’ to Europe on issues that might threaten it.”[2] At the time, Trump was planning to meet with Putin to end the war without Britain and a number of E.U. states at the table. After all, they had failed to push Putin off Crimea in 2014, and even in 2025, they were not on the same page on how to defend Ukraine militarily. Amid the political fracturing in Europe, Ukraine’s president was urging that the E.U. itself have an army, rather than merely the 60,000 troops for which the union was dependent on the states. Even on being able to borrow on its own authority, the E.U. was hamstrung by the state governments that were more interested in retaining power than in benefitting from collective action. It is difficult to analyze Zelenskyy’s plea without including the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology that was still eclipsing the E.U. from realizing a more perfect union.

At the security conference, Zelenskyy put is finger on the problem: “Europe has everything it takes. Europe just needs to come together and start acting in a way that no one can say ‘no’ to Europe, boss it around, or treat it like a pushover.”[3] With foreign policy splintered—still residing primary at the state level—the E.U. could only stand by while Trump and Putin easily excluded Europe from at least the initial talks to end the war. Instead of throwing darts at the two easy external targets, Europeans could alternatively look inward in order to get the root of the problem as to why Europe was not as powerful as the size of its population would warrant. Europe just needs to come together. Even what seems like Europe coming together may really just be a perpetuation of the splintering, or fracturing, motivated by a states’ rights ideology that has compromised the E.U. since its beginning in the early 1990s.

Rather than meeting in the European Council to respond to Trump’s upcoming talks with Putin, the E.U. state of France invited ten “European leaders” to Paris “to discuss Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and strengthen their common position amid the accelerated peace process being promoted by [Trump].”[4] With Britain included, the meeting could not even be considered to be of the E.U.; in fact, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the E.U.’s Commission, and Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council were to be merely on hand, rather than chairing the meeting. Even if the two were in charge of the meeting, the inclusion of Britain would at the very least be awkward.

In short, the parts of the federal system were in charge, while the representatives of the whole were being treated as mere appurtenances. This structure itself belies collective action whose benefits could rival those of the U.S. Rather than defer to von der Leyen and Costa, the governor of the E.U. state of France presumed that his state should take the lead in uniting Europe militarily even beyond the European Union. Concerning any resolved future military action to help Ukraine against Russia, not even von der Leyen could be relied on to reconcile any disagreements on implementation that include Britain, and as merely one of the parts, France’s Macron was in no position to weld authority over the other parts and Britain beyond chairing the meeting.  

It is no wonder that Trump and Putin decided to exclude Europe. In fact, had the two men wanted to sideline the usual fractured suspects in Europe, von der Leyen and Costa could have been invited instead of the governors of the E.U. states. In such a scenario, it would really be indicative of a problem if the governors of some of the E.U. states would meet on their own anyway—even though two of the E.U. presidents would have seats at the talks. This sordid, self-aggrandizing mentality has benefitted from the political agitation of Euroskeptics (i.e., states’ rights in American parlance), but the problem is that of state officials—and their respective governments—too desirous of holding onto power rather than agreeing to delegate some of it to the federal level—by which I mean along with qualified majority voting there rather than unanimity wherein the states can retain their power at the expense of collective action, and the benefits thereof.

Zelenskyy was on target: a European—meaning the E.U.—army was needed, and not just because of Trump or Putin. A federal system in which state officials relegate federal officials—presidents no less—not only puts the interests of (some of) the parts before that of the whole, but also imperils the federal system itself from being able to sustain itself as a going concern. For Europeans, its well past time to look within rather than focus on Trump in utter disgust.

---

1. Joshua Posaner, “Zelenskyy: ‘The Time Has Come’ for a European Army,” Politico, February 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Jorge Liboreiro, “Macron Hosts European Leaders in Paris as Trump Pushes for Peace Talks on Ukraine,” Euronews.com, February 17, 2025.

Advancing the E.U.’s Strategic Autonomy: Beyond Security by Regulation

Faced with the return of Donald Trump as U.S. president in early 2025, the European Parliament debated on November 13, 2024 how the E.U. should respond and, if needed, protect its strategic interests with respect to Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine. “In their debate, MEPs considered hw to engage with the new administration to address challenges and leverage opportunities for both regions as the E.U. seeks stable transatlantic relations.”[1] The possibility of the incoming U.S. President pulling back on NATO and with respect to contributing military supplies and money to Ukraine, and issuing protectionist tariffs on imports from the E.U. had added urgency for the E.U. to come up with ways of countering those external threats from the West just as Russia’s latest forays into Ukraine were external threats from the East. On the same day, Josep Borrell, the E.U.’s secretary of state/foreign minister/foreign policy “chief” “proposed to formally suspend political dialogue with Israel over the country’s alleged violations of human rights and international law in the Gaza strip.”[2] This alone put the E.U. at odds with Israel’s stanchest defender/enabler, the U.S., and with its incoming president, Donald Trump. From a human rights standpoint alone, both with respect to the governments of Russia and Israel, the trajectory of the E.U. in incrementally increasing its competencies (i.e., enumerated powers delegated by the state governments) in foreign policy and especially in defense (given the new post of Defense Commissioner) was in motion. The question was perhaps whether the E.U.’s typical incrementalism would be enough to protect the E.U.’s strategic interests, which includes protecting human rights at home and abroad. Fortunately, on the very same day, Kaija Shilde, Dean of the Global Studies school at Boston University, spoke at Harvard on the very question that I have just raised. I will present her view, which will lead to my thoughts on how viewing the E.U. inaccurately as a mere alliance harms the E.U.’s role internationally from within. That is to say, the continuance of the self-inflicted wound, or category-mistake on what the E.U. is, was compromising the jump forward in defense that the E.U. needed at the time to more competently address the crisis in Ukraine.

Shilde began by noting the important role that the private sector had been playing within the E.U. with regard to providing Ukraine with military assets. Any state-actor has to harness markets to generate defense items, and the fact that the states were still commanding their respective militias, or armies, does not nullify this federal competency (enumerated power) that has been difficult to fully recognize given the contribution of the private sector. The E.U. and the U.S. both had been regulating their respective markets and thus encouraging their respective military-industrial industries. Therefore, both unions were more important than NATO, which has only been an alliance since its inception, in pushing against Putin who, in 2014 and again in 2022 invaded Ukraine militarily. In 2024, the E.U. was in fact doing things to generate military power. Direct lethal and nonlethal aid to Ukraine, enhancing defense integration within the E.U., and coordinating a war economy have been just three of the contributions at the federal level since the invasion of 2022. In 2024, the E.U. was the third largest military spender in Europe. Combining financial aid and military allocations, the E.U. allocated more money than did the United States.  

Europeans have been in favor of a role for the E.U. in defense. As of 2024, over 70 percent of Europeans in a poll every year since 1999 have said that the E.U. should have a role—that it shouldn’t be left up to the states. Only around 20 percent disagreed during that interval. Asked which level of governance best addresses defense threats, 43 percent said the federal level, which is to say, the European Union. In fact, the Europeans polled had specific ideas of what a E.U. army should do. Defending the E.U.’s territory was number one on the list. Shilde concluded that there must be something organic about pan-European defense, but would popular opinion be enough for the E.U. to augment its defense competencies (powers) in time to help Ukraine push back the Russian (and North Korean) army?

Since 1950, European integration proceeded by occasionally taking back-steps, and has been pushed forward by external threats. In the 1950s, the European Defense Community was prompted by the Soviet threat. In 1956, during the Suez crisis, France proposed a federal union for Europe rather than the extant Economic Community. Whereas the U.S. began with an emphasis on defense, for obvious reasons, the E.U. took off from an economic core of competencies (i.e., enumerated powers). Federal governmental sovereignty can be at both poles, as well as in the incremental powers that both unions have been able to add at the federal rather than state level. To be sure, starting with defense is more typical of federal levels than with economic regulations, which have traditionally been made at the local, provincial, and state levels.

A plurality of Europe’s military power has been due to the E.U.’s regulatory power; this is a modern way of generating military power—a modern way of exercising governmental sovereignty even if defense competencies are added later. The role of European companies in the E.U.’s shaping of markets to deliver military goods should not be minimized. In 2024, E.U. private firms spent 3 times that of American firms on defense research and development. This is because of E.U. regulations. For example, the E.U. facilitates some infant industries by means of protectionism. To be sure, given the Russian military incursion into Ukraine, the E.U. needed to become a large scale buyer of military goods and it needed a defense industrial policy in 2024, according to Shilde, even if the upcoming U.S. President were to decrease the American military support not only to Ukraine, but even NATO. Should he make a retreating dent in these respects, Shilde predicted that the E.U. would see a sizable enhancement of its role in defense, including in regard to helping Ukraine. It may not make any difference, she said, whether the federal level directly commands any military units; after all, the Confederate States of America relied on the armies of its member-states in the 1861-1865 war between the USA and the CSA.

I contend that the comparison between the E.U. and the CSA is not nearly as accurate as a comparison between the E.U. and U.S., even in 2024, especially if you take account of time, and thus development, by comparing the E.U. of 2024 with the U.S. of 1820—both unions being around 30 years old. Even comparing the E.U. and U.S. as they were in 2023 allows us to exclude the claim that one of the two was merely an alliance or an international organization. Federalism had already come to Europe within the E.U.’s borders, and, like case of the U.S., both the federal and state levels of the E.U. already enjoyed some governmental sovereignty. Hence both unions could be classified as having modern federal systems rather than being confederations, in which the states hold all of the sovereignty.

Importantly, getting the comparison right, and being realistic about what the E.U. was even as of 2024 is important to eliminating the self-inflicted handicap that had held the E.U. back since 1993. Classifying the E.U. as a mere alliance, and thus like that of NATO, has held the E.U. state governments back from agreeing to delegate additional defense competencies to the E.U. so a stronger united and collective defense of Ukraine could possibly tip the scales against Russia’s President Putin. This would be as if to say, with action as well as words: invading another country is no longer allowed. Such a twenty-first-century advance in international relations would truly be a Hamiltonian feat. Perhaps it would also be such a feat to get enough E.U. citizens to admit to themselves that the E.U. had already become a federal system, and thus has not in fact been inherently limited to the roles of an international organization or alliance. To put on a united front with one arm tied up, and to be doing so unwittingly or at the behest of an ideology is a self-infliction that the E.U. could have done without, especially with American isolationism rising in the West and Russian militarization intensifying in the East.

---

1. Euronews, “MEPs Debate Future E.U.-U.S. Relations Against Backdrop of U.S. Administration Change,” Euronews.com, November 13, 2024.
2. Shona Murray and Jorge Liboreiro, “Borrel Proposes to Suspend E.U.-Israel Political Talks over Gaza War,” Euronews.com, November 13, 2024.

Resolved: The E.U. Should Join NATO

I contend that the European Union rather than its states should be in NATO. Besides eliminating duplication from the E.U. having a nebulous observer status while the states are formally in the alliance, the increasing role in defense being played by the Commission, including there being a Defense commissioner (secretary/minister), calls for being formally in the alliance. Whereas the U.S. began as a military alliance of sovereign states, the E.U. can trace its beginnings to the European Economic Community. Both unions have since incorporated powers or competencies beyond the respective starting points. For the E.U. this has meant moving beyond economics and trade to include social policy and, last but not least, defense. It is in NATO’s interest to adapt to this change. Lastly, that the E.U. and U.S. are both instances of (early) modern federalism, which at its core has the attribute of dual-sovereignty wherein both the federal and the state levels enjoy at least some governmental sovereignty, whereas NATO, as an international alliance, is confederal in that all of the sovereignty resides in the members of the alliance, justifies the E.U. being a member of NATO rather than being misinterpreted as a comparable international organization as the state-rights Euroskeptics like to believe.

On November 6, 2024, at his confirmation hearing at the European Parliament, the Commission’s nominee to be the union’s first defense commissioner (defense secretary in American parlance), Andrius Kubilius (of the European People’s Party) said, “If we want to defend ourselves, we need to spend at least €10 billion up to 2028.”[1] In addition, €200 billion would be needed over the next decade to update infrastructure and €500 billion to build an air-defence shield. “We need to spend more,” he said, “not because it is a demand of President[-Elect] Trump, but because of Putin”, the President of Russia, who, not coincidentally, was in the second year of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.[2] Showing “that we’re able to defend ourselves” would “convince Putin not to start another military campaign” within the E.U.’s territory.[3] Strength comes in numbers, and at the time that meant 27 states united to thwart Putin’s military expansionism.

A united force would carry over into NATO, within which the E.U. would have more clout than any of the 27 E.U. states had ever had in the alliance. Furthermore, were the E.U. to replace its states in NATO, the seven E.U. states that still had not met the commitment to spend at least 2% of GDP on defense would be wiped clean because the only requirement would be that the E.U. spend at least 2% of its GDP on defense, and Kubilius was clearly signaling that the Commission was in favor of doing so.  Of course, whether the Parliament would go along is another story. For NATO, no longer would 27 states in Europe have to be watched as far as defense spending is concerned, and the integration of military infrastructure at the E.U. level would also be easier for NATO to connect to instead of doing so separately to 27 state military forces (militias in American parlance).

Perhaps most important, with the E.U. being a member of the NATO alliance and spending €200 billion over a decade on infrastructure that would integrate the fractured militaries at the state level, the chances would be lower that war would erupt within the E.U. between the states. Nineteenth-century American history reminds us that such a war is possible in an empire-scale federal system wherein the state governments are powerful, and twentieth-century European history contained two world wars that began in what would become the European Union. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it is very much in the interests of the U.S. that the E.U. not only be able to defend itself, and thus rely less on American money for the purpose and be better equipped to fend off Russian expansionism, but also join NATO. Having one voice rather than 27 to speak with would simplify the communicative tasks on both sides of the Atlantic. I suspect that the foremost obstacle to further European integration on the defence front is ideological in nature, and this resistance, not coincidentally, aligns quite well with the personal and short-run political interests of the heads of the state governments in the European Union, for it is human, all too human, to relish being in the spotlight.

---

1. Paul Soler, “Boost E.U. Defence Capabilities Against Putin, Future Commissioner Warns,” Euronews.com, November 7, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

Russian Vote-Buying: Compromising International Law and Moldova in the E.U.

As if Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were not a sufficient reason for Moldovans to vote in a referendum in 2024 to align the country’s constitution with accession into the E.U. as a state, which would entail the government of Moldova giving up some sovereignty, Russia felt the need nonetheless to buy off votes to hinder Moldova from statehood. That the pro-statehood vote won, albeit ever so slightly ahead, given the purchased votes, can be interpreted as an indication that a significant majority of the half of the eligible voters probably wanted Moldova to accede. That the vote tally did not reflect this, whether through vote-buying or disinformation, damaged both Moldova’s accession legitimacy and that of the E.U. itself. Moreover, international law’s lack of enforcement can be inferred from the sheer scale of Russia’s monetary and political invasion of Moldova. The importance of enforcement is precisely because bullies tend to overstep repeatedly rather than just once. They can smell a lack of enforcement from many miles or kilometers away.

After the referendum’s results came in, Moldovan President Maia Sandu decried the “assault on democracy and freedom” by criminal groups whose goal was to buy 300,000 votes; Moldova’s police “documented 150,000 people being paid to vote.”[1] Less than 14,000 votes made the difference in the final tally. “In any democracy,” the president said, “it’s normal to have people who have different views. What’s not normal is to have a situation where criminal groups are bribing voters.”[2] This is especially problematic if the funding source is another country’s government. According to the police prior to the election, “The persons affiliated with the criminal organization led by [Ilan] Shor [a convicted oligarch] were instructed to recruit people to participate in the electoral ballot for sums of money and to be notified on the eve of the elections through the groups on Telegram regarding the candidate to be voted for, as well as to vote with the option ‘no’ in the referendum.”[3] Additionally, the E.U.’s Commission witnessed “unprecedented interference” by Russia in Moldova.[4] Thijs Reuten, a member of the E.U. Parliament, pointed to “an investigation in the weeks and months before the election that . . . uncovered substantial amounts of money being moved, not illegally, every day on many occasions from Russia to Moldova.”[5]  A thread from vote-buying back to Russia is thus evident. If additional proof is needed, Reuten said that some “journalists went undercover in the networks that was (sic) distributing money to voters in order to use their vote or change their vote upon request of Russian actors and their allies.”[6]

In addition to the vote-buying, the disinformation campaign likely kept many eligible voters from even voting. Only about half of those eligible voted. Without a massive manipulation campaign orchestrated by a foreign government with its own vested interests in the result of the referendum, a higher percentage would be expected. By implication, even though the yes-vote won, that about half of only half of the eligible voters voted in favor of Moldova becoming an E.U. state means that only 25% of the total eligible electorate gave its consent. Such a result is spurious in terms of legitimacy. Decades after accession, a Moldovan politician could claim that Moldova should secede from the union in part because only 25% of the eligible citizens approved of statehood in the first place. So even though Moldova dodged a bullet (i.e., the yes-vote squeezed by), Russia was able to inflict damage ultimately on the E.U. itself. As the cases of Britain and Hungary show, the legitimacy of E.U. law, and the E.U. itself, was vulnerable even as late as 2024, which is just over 30 years after the E.U. began. A federal system is not the most stable of political systems, so legitimacy of a state-union relationship is crucial. Accordingly, the government of Moldova would not have been wrong were additional fortifications for legitimacy of accession sought after the referendum even though the yes-vote won.

Moreover, international law against such a massive and direct voter-manipulation of another country’s voters warranted real enforcement, such that were Russia to use the same strategy again, there would be negative repercussions. Unfortunately, that Russia was in the U.N. at the time does not mean that any such repercussions would be likely, as both Russia and Israel had been sailing through U.N. violations with utter impunity. If, moreover, the global system is to rely so much on the nation-state as the hegemonic and decisive unit of political organization, then the pitfalls that go with the principle of absolutist national sovereignty should not go unaddressed by the world.

---

1. Vincenzo Genovese, “Moldova President Alleges Vote-Buying Tainted E.U. Referendum Results,” Euronews.com, October 21, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.

Nuclear Power: Rendering War Too Dangerous in a World of Nations

Increasing integration of the global financial and business sectors and the global need to combat climate change by restricting carbon emissions are just two reasons why the impotence of the UN, which has not touched the doctrine of absolutist national sovereignty, has become increasingly problematic. The risk to nuclear technology in power-generation from war argues strongly for not only the obsolescence of war between countries, but also the benefits of transferring some governmental sovereignty from the nation-states to a global-level government, which the UN has never been. The case of the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, in the midst of Russia’s invasion in 2024 is a case in point.

In August, 2024, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) notified the world that safety at Zaporizhzhia was deteriorating. A drone strike had recently hit a perimeter access road used by employees, and a fire had been set at the plant. The plant had been subject to repeated attacks since the invasion began, with both sides accusing the other of carrying out the attacks. So it is significant that the IAEA’s director general, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said in August, “Yet again we see an escalation of the nuclear safety and security dangers facing . . . the power plant.”[1] It was not as if the plant had been in a safe condition, so the escalation is significant. With both sides of the war having been blaming the other for the attacks on the plant, there was a real danger that both sides would see continued blaming as a way to ignore Grossi’s call for restraint. “I remain extremely concerned and reiterate my call for maximum restraint from all sides and for strict observance of the five concrete principles established for the protection of the plant,” he stated.[2] Especially because of the option of simply blaming the other side, it could be said to be utopian to have confidence that those principles would be upheld in the context of the war.

In fact, as Hobbes theorized in The Leviathan, without one sovereign, whether a single person or an assembly, the chances for peace are nil, with life being short and brutish. It was in the context of the wars in the 17^th century that Hobbes lived, and he wrote to obviate war by urging all political and religious power be vested in the same person or body. In Ukraine in the midst of the war in 2024, the country was not under the control of one sovereign, as the Russian incursions prove. In such a state of nature devoid of an overarching sovereign power, the danger to the nuclear plant was very real.

Given the magnitude and severity that a nuclear accident can inflict on land and human beings, taking such a risk is arguably so much to be avoided that it is worth it to countries to delegate some of their sovereignty to an international body. Although Kant advocated a world federation, by which world peace would only be possible but not probable, it is not clear whether such a federation would have any of its own sovereignty apart from that of countries. Without such a delegation of sovereignty, I’m not sure peace would even be possible, given the impotence of the UN as belligerent countries have easily been able to ignore resolutions and even verdicts from the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice.

Of course, even were a world government to have some sovereignty and thus to ability to enforce its resolutions against warring countries, Hobbes would say that unless that sovereignty is complete, with countries no longer having any, war would be likely. But Hobbes lived prior to the invention of modern federalism in Philadelphia in the 18^th century, and so he could not have been able to consider the checks-and-balances feature by which a federal government and state governments can hold each other accountable or at least within limits such that neither devolves into tyranny. In the early 21^st century, both the E.U. and U.S. federal systems contain internal structural and procedural checks on federal and state power, though the U.S. had come so close to consolidation by the U.S. Government that it could hardly be argued that the state governments could act as a constraint on the federal government. So splitting governmental sovereignty between a world government and national governments would not be without its own risks and weaknesses.

Even so, the conduct of war in a state of nature amid nuclear power plants is such a toxic cocktail that the impotence of the UN as against the Russian invasion (and the Israeli onslaught in Gaza) could no longer be tolerated by 2024. Dangers in advanced technology in the context of a war argue against unfettered war being tolerable by our species any longer, and the UN sans any governmental sovereignty could not be the solution, given how easy it has been for belligerent members of the UN to ignore resolutions and verdicts with impunity and even continued membership in good standing. In short, technology even aside from that which is used in weapons had fundamentally changed the danger from war to the species itself, even as the world has continued to rely on the feckless UN in failure after failure as if the status quo were working anyway. It is unfortunate that so much energy of political will is necessary for a leap in political development for the species; we are so much better at incrementalism. 

---

1. Saskia O’Donoghue, “IAEA Says Safety at Ukraine’s Nuclear Plant Is ‘Deteriorating,” Euronews, August 18, 2024.
2. Ibid.

Turkey on Cyprus: Sidelining the E.U.

Imagine if Japan had invaded and claimed (and successfully held) an island of Hawaii as a protectorate and a separate country due to the number of Japanese living there, and thus not as a part of Hawaii even though the U.S. recognizes all of Hawaii as a member state.  Let’s say furthermore that the UN has proposed the unification of Hawaii as a republic composed of two federated states. Hawaii would be akin to Belgium in the E.U.—a federated state of two sub-states in a federal union. This arrangement would fit with Althusius’ early seventeenth-century theory of federalism based on the Holy Roman Empire: each level of political organization is a federation. While this exists in the E.U., none of the U.S. states is itself a federation of states. So, the UN’s proposal that Cyprus be united politically and be composed of two states even as the E.U. already recognizes the entire island as an E.U. state is not outlandish to a European eye. The problem with the proposal lies instead in Turkey, and this in itself can be interpreted as an argument against Turkey’s accession to E.U. statehood.

“Speaking at an event in the north [part of the island in 2024] to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Turkish invasion that [had] split the island along ethnic lines, [Turkey’s President] Erdogan ruled out resuming talks based on the Annan Plan which proposed the establishment of a United Republic of Cyprus.”[1] In rejecting the proposal, he was ignoring the fact that the E.U. recognized the entire island of Cyprus as a state in that union. He was thus unwittingly undermining the E.U. even as Turkey was still technically seeking statehood. I submit that this undermines Turkey’s chances of accession, and furthermore, that Turkey should not become a state. For at the very least, an aspiring state should respect the E.U., even and especially on matters that touch on that potential state. The case of the E.U. state of Hungary being found in wanton violation of E.U. law by the E.U.’s supreme court, the European Court of Justice, demonstrates just how harmful a disrespectful state government can be within a federal union.

Erdogan’s establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which is only recognized by Turkey’s government and was rejected in a 2004 referendum by more than 75% of the Greek Cypriots in the south, would, if accepted by the E.U., limit the E.U.’s common market to the south and thus create the need for customs checkpoints inside the island. While not as complicated as the case of Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. and yet also part of the Irish island—Ireland being an E.U. state—politically splitting the island of Cyprus permanently would make things more difficult for the E.U. with respect to its state of Cyprus in the south. Again, it would be a case of Turkey making things more difficult for the E.U., and yet presumably also wanting to become a state to enjoy the economic advantages of the union’s unfettered interstate commerce. This combo must surely strike Europeans as unsavory and thus as a de facto argument against Turkey joining the union. In other words, the way Erdogan was playing his hand politically with respect to Cyprus showed the Europeans that they had been right to hold off on accession talks with Turkey because its government would not make a very good state government in the union. Already Hungary was enough of a problem. That 90% of Turkey is not in Europe and the culture is not European may be what is behind not only the tension in Cyprus, but also why Turkey would be a problematic state in the European Union.

Lastly, Erdogan’s insistence on a “two state” solution for Cyprus, as if the difference between the north and south were as great as those between the Palestinians and Israelis in Israel, discounts or even perhaps dismisses the mollifying effect that Cyprus being a state in a union would have on the tensions on the island, and thus shows a lack of confidence in the E.U. in its mission to forestall war in Europe. In other words, the president of Turkey didn’t seem to have much faith in the federal institutions, including the E.U.’s court of justice, to protect minorities within the union and assuage tensions domestically, by which I mean within the union. Just as the rationale of the U.S. as a federal union of dual sovereignty was in part to use federal power to step in to stop Shay’s Rebellion in Massachusetts and the Whiskey Rebellion in western Pennsylvania, so too the E.U. has the means at its federal level mediate any excitements within the state of Cyprus. Yet Erdogan did not seem to trust Brussels enough to recognize the entire island of Cyprus as an E.U. state.

Brussels already had Viktor Orbán of Hungary distrusting the federal institutions in 2024 and actively working at odds with E.U. foreign policy on Russia even as he held the presidency of the Council of the E.U. during the last six months of 2024. Taking note of the 50^th anniversary of Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus then, Brussels could have done worse than formally end Turkey’s proposed accession. A house divided cannot long stand, or at least cannot prosper and thrive as it could otherwise. With Russia belligerently knocking down Ukraine, Europeans could surely have benefitted at the time from a basic or fundamental unity that at the very least includes respect for and confidence in the European Union, given its rationale bearing on protecting Europe from war within.

---

1. “Erdogan Dismisses UN Plan for Federated Cyprus, Reaffirms Commitment to Two-State Peace Deal,” Euronews, July 21, 2024.

Chinese President Xi Exploits a Vulnerability of the E.U.

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Europe in May, 2024 “amid concerns in Europe over Chinese support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and European markets being flooded with cheap Chinese electric vehicles.”[1] Although these matters were at the time properly matters for the E.U. rather than its states, Xi oriented his visit to the state level, and in particular to states including France and Hungary that had “special bilateral relationships” with China.[2] In other words, the Chinese leader sought to exploit the E.U.’s vulnerability wherein state governments have sufficient sovereignty to undermine the federal level. I contend that the state leaders should have refused to meet with Xi, redirecting him to meet with federal officials.

There were indeed “growing suspicions that China” was “seeking to take advantage of divisions in Europe,” which could weaken the E.U. even in its competencies (i.e., enumerated powers).[3] According to Bertram Lang, a research associate at Goethe University, China had “gradually divided Europe into two groups, ‘those friendly and unfriendly to China.’”[4] Accordingly, Xi began his trip in France to speak with that state’s president, Emmanuel Macron, even though discussions on trade imbalances with the E.U. should have taken place with E.U. officials. “Macron sought to demonstrate European unity by including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen,” as if the E.U. Commission were a guest or third party on the E.U.’s trade.[v] In other words, Macron’s accommodation could hardly count as deference.

It is not as if the E.U. were incompetent in one of its own competencies. Von der Leyen “took direct aim at what she called China’s ‘market distortion practices’ with massive subsidies for electric vehicle and steel industries.”[6] In fact, the Commission announced that “it would launch anti-subsidy probes into Chinese electronic vehicles and solar panels to determine whether to impose punitive tariffs on them.”[7] Neither Macron nor any other official at the state level pertained to the probe, and yet Macron agreed to meet with Xi.

The undermining of European unity and the E.U. itself by state officials agreeing to play into the divisive tactics of foreign governments is a good argument for E.U. institutions having the authority to limit the involvement of the state governments in foreign policy as concerns E.U. matters, or competencies. Especially as the E.U. was at the time looking at enlargement sometime in the future, the vulnerability of too much state power in federal matters, including the need for unanimity, was something that the E.U. strongly needed to address before enlargement. That Xi was able to exploit the weakness only adds to need to seek a more balanced dual sovereignty in the E.U. It runs against human nature to rely on the deference of state leaders to E.U. officials on federal matters when foreign leaders lure the limelight in front of the state politicians. Therefore, I contend that the E.U. Commission’s president should have had the power to redirect Xi from Macron and other state leaders on E.U. trade.

---

1. Yuchen Li and Wesley Rahn, “Did China’s Xi Jinping Expose Disunity in Europe?” Deutsch Welle (DW.de), May 10, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.

Democracy Waning in Former French Colonies in Africa

The subversion of democracy in former French colonies in Africa stymies the African Union from developing from a mere confederation, wherein all of the governmental sovereignty resides with the states, to modern federalism, whose chief characteristic is dual sovereignty. There is good reason for the requirement in the U.S. that the states be republics rather than dictatorships, for the latter would be more likely to ignore the federal jurisdiction within their respective states.

As of 2024, the president of Senegal “tried to cancel an election. In Niger, a military coup d’état toppled an elected president, who eight months later [was] still imprisoned in the presidential palace. In Chad, the leading opposition politician was killed in a shootout with security forces. . . . In Tunisia, once the only democratic success story of the Arab Spring rebellions, the president [was] steering the state toward increasing autocracy.”[1] With such political upheaval going on at the state level, any discussions at the AU level on whether the states should delegate any governmental sovereignty would only be stymied and thus useless. This in turn kept the AU impotent in being able to act as a check against tyranny at the state level. This vicious cycle cannot, I contend, be totally blamed on the former colonial status and the ongoing interventions of France, though both have been playing a secondary role.

To the extent that French governmental pressure led the former colonies to mimic the French system of government wherein the office of president is strong, France is culpable in inhibiting democracy in Africa. “After they won independence from France in the 1960s, nascent states modeled their constitutions on France’s, concentrating power in presidents’ hands.”[2] This statement implies that the former colonies wanted a system of government with a strong unitary leader. That the indigenous political culture in Africa emphasized the tribal chief figure likely figured prominently in the decisions to emulate the French system, rather than it being imposed from France.

To be sure, “France maintained a web of business and political ties with its former colonies” that has involved “propping up corrupt governments”—including autocratic ones.[3] The salience of news reports from Africa on France24 and TV5Monde alone attest to France’s continuing interest in Africa. France could arguably make a difference in reducing political instability and enhancing democracy in the former colonies were autocratic rulers and coups discouraged rather than encouraged. Perhaps French government officials fear, and thus seek to prevent, the potential rival power of the AU that could manifest were political stability improved at the state level. Such a narrow perspective would differ significantly from the American position that a stronger union in Europe is in America’s interest, especially considering the cost to America in having fought two World Wars in part in Europe.

Even if France has been propping up cozy autocratic rule in the former colonies, the disillusionment with democracy has been stronger in the former French colonies than in other African states, according to Boniface Dulani, a director at Afrobarometer.[4] “While a majority of Africans polled [in 2024] still say they prefer democracy to other forms of government, support for it is declining in Africa, where approval of military rule is on the rise—it has doubled since 2000. That shift is happening much faster in former French colonies than in former British ones.”[5] Such sentiment may be a preferment for political stability precisely because of the extent of political instability in the former French colonies. In an indigenous soil of tribal chieftains, the allure of a “strong man” to restore and maintain political stability could easily thrive even though it would come at the cost of political freedom. Perhaps in the former British colonies, with the notable exception of Sudan, there is less reason to bear the cost of foregone political freedom. “Eight of the nine successful coups in Africa [between 2000 and 2024] have been in former French colonies.”[6] The coups themselves reinforce the allure of autocratic rule as providing for political stability, even though such stability can only be until the ground shifts again enough for the next coup. This cycle too is difficult to break. In the meantime, the AU has been stuck as a mere confederation, powerless to provide a breakthrough. 

It is not for nothing that the founders of both the U.S. and E.U. emphasized that the states be democratic republics. This lesson finds harder ground where the historical culture is not in line with democracy. So perhaps the quest for the AU might be how to go from being a confederation to embrace modern, dual-sovereignty, federalism by making it in the interest of state-level dictators even though a system of modern federalism would include viable constraints of the power of the states. Delaying the constraints so the current dictators would not face federal strictures would be key, as well as the inevitable political deal-making that is basic to any political animal.

---

1. Ruth Maclean, “Democracy Teetering in African Countries Once Ruled by France,” The New York Times, March 23, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.