Vanquishing the Principle of Unanimity in E.U. Foreign Policy: On the Impact of Oil

There nothing like a sudden dramatic spike in the price of oil in Europe from a war in Iran to prompt E.U. leaders to make speeches as if hell is freezing over and drastic action is urgently needed in terms of federal rather than piecemeal-state foreign policy. Behind President Von der Leyen’s call for the E.U. to do more in foreign policy was her point that the union could no longer afford the principle of unanimity in the European Council in foreign policy. The Iran War had raised the price not only of oil, but also of the unanimity requirement in the Council not only in foreign policy, but also defense. With 27 states at the time and an increasingly belligerent international context, including military aggression against Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran, the E.U. could not rely on a world order regulated by international law. The spike in gas prices, even more than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, brought this point close to home.

As the U.S. began its military attacks in Iran, “European benchmark gas prices jumped 80% in two days while brent crude edged closer to 84 dollars a barrel.”[1] When oil prices surpassed €87 ($100) per barrel roughly a week into the war, Viktor Orbán of the E.U. state of Hungary “called on the European Union to suspend sanctions on Russian energy imports.”[2] Never mind that Russia’s 4 year-old unimpeded invasion of Ukraine was a threat on the E.U.’s eastern border; restoring cheaper gas prices was more important, at least to Hungary. The E.U.’s geopolitical interests do not reduce to a state’s economic interests, however, and so President Von der Leyen spoke on the need for a more active E.U. foreign policy.

It was not the first time that the president had warned that the traditional world order was “rapidly crumbling under mounting violations of international law.”[3] In her speech, she said, “Europe can no longer be a custodian for the old-world order, for a world that has gone and will not return.”[4] There had been too many cases of breaches of international law with impunity as the UN and the International Criminal Court stood by utterly impotent. E.U.’s foreign minister, Kaja Kallas “pointed the finger at Russia’s decision to launch the full-scale invasion of Ukraine . . . as the cataclysm that precipitated the ‘erosion of international law’ . . . and enabled the return of what she described as ‘coercive power politics.”[5] In her speech, Kallas said, “That (invasion) did not go unnoticed. Instead, it sent a signal around the world that there is no more accountability for one’s actions: the rulebook has been thrown out of the window.”[6] Netanyahu’s government in Israel could unleash a holocaustic genocide in Gaza with a presumption of impunity, and Trump’s government in the U.S. could forcibly remove the president of Venezuela and kill Iran’s highest figure without fear of being held accountable by the U.N. or the International Criminal Court. Militaristic aggression was gaining a foothold in the world as international organizations stood by in utter impotence. The very notion of law at the international level could be surmised to be a misnomer.

Finally, E.U. officials were feeling a sense of urgency from war abroad because the sudden spike in oil and gas prices in Europe from Trump’s military attacks in Iran could not be ignored. Kallas stressing “that a rules-based international order is vital to avoid the inevitable anarchy” was no longer enough.[7] “Von der Leyen added another key priority on which the EU should focus to reinforce its geopolitical clout: its internal decision-making rules.”[8] Problematically, the E.U.’s foreign policy was bound by the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of the E.U. such that “the 27 member states must agree on a common line of action before moving forward.”[9] So it only took the E.U. state of Hungary to veto the $91 billion loan for Ukraine, and the E.U. was stymied in coming up with a foreign policy on Trump’s military attacks against Iran because of differences between the states. Alternatively, going by qualified-majority voting would have enabled a consensus (i.e., short of unanimous consent) that could have become the E.U.’s foreign policy, which would have been much stronger in the world than were the various positions of the 27 state governments.

The relationship is clear between calls for a rules-based international order “with teeth” and a stronger decision-making rule in the European Council in foreign policy (and defense): a more active E.U. in foreign policy (and defense) was necessary due to the increased militaristic aggression abroad because the latter could have a very significant detrimental economic affect in Europe. Political pressure was thus building for the E.U.’s 27 state governments to finally relinquish their veto-power in foreign policy (and defense). Power is not relinquished easily, so not even higher oil and gas prices could be enough pressure for the states to agree to apply qualified-majority voting to foreign policy (and defense).

The mechanism called “enhanced cooperation,” which I contend elsewhere is a misnomer for what is really increased federal authority for at least nine states but not all of them, could be a means to bring qualified majority voting to the E.U.’s foreign policy that would cover only those states that have agreed to relinquish their veto power in that domain. I suspect that eventually, all of the E.U. states would be included, so “enhanced cooperation” can be understood as a temporary device that gets around the conflict of interest facing the state governments in their decisions on whether to allow the E.U. to become more active in foreign policy (and defense) than the principle of unanimity would permit.

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1. Eleonora Vasques, “Middle East War Shows ‘Europe Must Reinforce Its Autonomy’, EIB Chief Tells Euronews,” Euronews.com,  4 March 2026.
2. Sandor Zsiros, “Hungary Demands EU Lift Sanctions on Russian Energy as Prices Spike amid Iran War,” Euronews.com, 9 March 2026.
3. Jorge Liboreiro, “Von der Leyen and Kallas Call on Europe to Adapt to Chaotic, Coercive World Order,” Euronews.com, 9 March 2026.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

E.U.-India Free Trade

Early in 2026, “(a)fter months of intense negotiations,” the E.U. concluded “a free-trade deal with India,” which, if ratified by the E.U.’s upper and lower chambers (the European Council and the European Parliament), would sharply reduce “tariffs on E.U. products from cars to wine as the world looks for alternative markets following President Donald Trump’s tariffs.”[1] Signaling that something more than trade was involved in the treaty, “(b)oth countries hailed a ‘new chapter in strategic relations’ as both sides” sought “alternatives to the US market.”[2] The E.U. had just engineered a free-trade treaty with four South American countries. Competition for better, cheaper, trade was reducing Trump’s bargaining power by means of tariffs. Using them to inflict geopolitical harm on other countries, including the E.U., would become less effective as free-trade deals excluding the U.S. materialized. The implications, and even the motive in the free-trade negotiations between the E.U. and India, extend beyond economics.

At the time, India was “facing tariffs of 50% from the Trump administration.”[3] Half of that percentage was a penalty on India for buying Russian oil. The tariffs “severely dented” India’s exports and thus gave India a huge incentive to negotiate with the Europeans. On the European side of the equation, Trump had just threatened to impose tariffs on any country opposing the American purchase of Greenland before relenting at Davos. Such market uncertainty had momentarily stirred Wall Street and shaken European export-oriented businesses. Quite understandably, given such uncertainty, E.U. President von der Leyen was emphatic when the India deal was reached. “We did it—we delivered the mother of all deals,” she said.[4] “This is the tale of two giants,” she added, “who choose partnership in a true win-win fashion. A strong message that cooperation is the best answer to global challenges.”[5] The American president, von der Leyen’s counterpart, was without doubt among the challenges, which also included Russia’s militaristically aggressive president and the wholly unrepentant genocidal state of Israel. The broader message from the E.U.-India trade announcement is that the bad boys can be obviated, and that really good trade deals can be reached as a result.

The E.U.’s trade minister Sefcovic observed that the pressing need to find other markets and thus insulate E.U. trade from whimsical American impediments to E.U.-U.S. trade gave an incentive for negotiations to proceed “with a new philosophy” of avoiding subjecting sensitive goods to free trade. “If this is sensitive for you, let’s not touch it,” he explained as the new modus operendi in the negotiations.[6] I contend the pressing mutual interests to render Trump’s threats powerless fostered this new strategy. That is, both countries looked “to de-risk their economies from the threat of Trump’s tariffs.”[7] The hurdles that had scuttled E.U.-India trade negotiations beginning in 2007 were thus obviated at least in part due to the erratic trade policies coming out of Washington.

It is significant that the E.U. characterized the deal with India as an instance of “rules-based cooperation.”[8] Russia and Israel were both severely breaching international rules, and even U.S. President Trump’s whimsical application and withdrawal of tariffs can be viewed as contrary to the constancy of rules. Business abhors such volatility, and so do most governments. The bad boys are the exception, and the good boys and girls were smart to work around the baddies. Given the extent and depth of corruption (i.e., lies and refusals to enforce criminal law with impunity) and the sheer, unprovoked aggressiveness in the police departments of too many of the U.S.'s member-states and at the federal level, where the aggression directed at Minnesota citizens was nothing short of animalistic in January, 2026, the challenge to a rules-based rather than power/whim-based order was a major American problem beyond “merely” Washington having supplied weapons to Israel to wipe Gaza and its people off the map—literally into cold, wet tents.  

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1. Peggy Corlin and Maria Tadeo, “EU Inks ‘Mother of All Deals’ with India Trade Agreement Amid Global Turmoil,” Euronews.com, January 27, 2026.
2. Ibid., italics added.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

A Hobbesian World of Might-Makes-Right

In his famous text, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes the state of nature as one of might, or raw force, being the decider of what is rightly and determinatively so. If one person physically harms another person such that the latter’s food may be taken by the former, then that food belongs to the victor even without any overarching normative, or moral, constraint that says that the food still belongs to the vanquished. If Trump's statement that Putin has "won" some regions of Ukraine by military means is correct, then those occupied lands will have been decided by might as if that constitutes right. That Israel has physically decimated Gaza's cities and placed its indigenous residents in concentration camps without enough food or access to medical care with impunity means that the plight of the Palestianians has been decided by might, not right. 

In short, possession is really 99 percent of ownership. Might makes right. Stephen Miller, Trump's deputy chief-of-staff, described this world "order" in responding to questions on whether the U.S. planned to invade Greenland. "Nobody's going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland. . . . We live in a world, in the real world, . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."[1] In this system, the International Criminal Court, or ICC, simply does not exist or is a target. Evolution has not changed human nature from the hunter-gatherer “stage.” To be sure, not all of humanity is on board with this sort of global order, even if guns have a way of pushing down or even silencing the more progressive elements of the species. The Trump administration’s attacks on the ICC represent a case in point.

The absolutist interpretation of national sovereignty feeds into the functioning of a might-makes-right world. “Global standards for how civilians must be treated and how to wage war are often, in the eyes of the Trump administration, a hindrance and a violation of national sovereignty.”[2] The implication is that unimpeded national sovereignty not only comes without danger, but is also the best system for international relations and thus the prosperity and happiness of the species. Rather than merely criticizing Trump’s “unprecedented campaign against a core institution of international law, the International Criminal Court,” the assumptions underlying a global system of unfettered national sovereignty merit critique, given the unnecessarily unheeded power-aggrandizing actions of Stalin and Hitler in the twentieth century. The military exploits of the Empire of Japan can be added to the list as well. In the next century, the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the mass-killing and starvation of Gaza’s indigenous residents by Israeli Zionists demonstrate the fallacy of a stable world to be brought about by unrestrained national sovereignty, given the underlying human nature that manifests too easily as the instinct of power-aggrandizement. In short, the Israeli genocide in Gaza demonstrates that the Nazi holocaust was not a “one off” deviation from human nature, but rather is closer to mainstream human nature than was realized during the last half of the twentieth century. Indeed, the genocide in Gaza may be reckoned by history as yet another holocaust writ large.

Nevertheless, and as evidence that might-makes-right can continue even amid such atrocities in progress, the Trump administration “used America’s disproportionate global financial power and threats of further repercussions to hinder the [ICC’s] work and create a chilling effect—even as Palestinians [continued] to face U.S.-backed Israeli policies that ICC judges said could constitute grave crimes, and that could undermine Trump’s own stated vision of peace for Gaza.”[3] Rather than focus on the role of private investor-capital in planned development projects being planned for Gaza absent its indigenous population, I want to highlight the disproportionateness of a might-makes-right superpower as itself being a problem unless might-make-right is deemed salvific for humanity. For the ICC, the raw power in the disproportionate military and financial power of the Trump administration over other countries presented “an existential paradox: The ICC’s pursuit of accountability over Gaza is both the reason it has a target on its back, and proof that it [i.e., the ICC] is necessary.”[4] But to be necessary and largely impotent against the power of the disproportionate enabler of Israel (and perhaps even Russia) is to be in the worst of two worlds, as it were.

Put another way, the very existence of a partisan “world police force” presents the ICC with its greatest threat as well as its highest raison d’etre. With such a police force operating on the basis of might-makes-right internationally, that same rationale can be seized upon by other partisans internationally to engage in power-aggrandizement activities of their own, even against the global police-force itself. Such a system is inherently self-contradictory, in other words, and thus weak as a system in which the world order can be in order rather than chaos and upheaval. That the dogma of absolutist national sovereignty sanctions and protects parchment-constraints at the national level (and below) saves such a system from being chaotic from top to bottom, but as Trump’s second presidency demonstrated, a might-make-right foreign-oriented attitude can easily be translated into efforts to walk through constraints at the national level, such as legislatures and courts. 

Arresting and deporting a person deemed to be an illegal immigrant before one has the chance to challenge the actions judicially enjoys the default of a fait accompli. Quelle domage. The Trump administration could simply inform a judge that the suspect is no longer under U.S. jurisdiction so there is nothing that can be done. Such a tactic is well-known to the might-makes-right mentality.  This point should not be taken to excuse or accept illegal immigration as if it were not a crime and one worthy of punishment and expulsion by the rule and thus due process of law. 

Might-makes-right hates to be subject to, or constrained by the rule of law as the mentality sees itself as the law. It is easy for this mentality oriented to foreign affairs to be turned inward while using absolutist national sovereignty as a shield both domestically and internationally. Trump, "himself convicted of felonies, has promoted impunity for various violations of domestic and international law; in addition to opposing the ICC warrant for Netanyahu, Trump is supporting the Israeli leader's bid for a pardon over his corruption charges from Israeli prosecutors."[5]

I contend that such a world of both domestic and international impunity from the constraint of an externally imposed law represents a step backward for the species. Given the foregone benefits that political development could otherwise deliver, the phenomenon worthy to be examined goes beyond the legitimacy and functioning of the ICC and the American foreign policy on Israel and even Russia. The post-World War II international efforts to subject might-makes-right to constraints internationally were being cast off and even attacked a few decades into the next century with the implication being that nothing but might-makes-right might be left standing.

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1. Chris Cameron, "Miller Says Imperialism Is Justified in Greenland," The New York Times, January 7, 2026.
2. Akbar S. Ahmed, “Trump’s Pressure Campaign on the ICC Is Falling Apart,” The Huffington Post, December 3, 2025.
3.. Ibid., italics added.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., italics added.

President Nicolás Maduro: Captured by the U.S.

In the early hours of January 3, 2026, the sitting president of Venezuela was captured by the U.S. military and sent to New York, where he would face a federal indictment involving the trafficking of narcotics to the United States. President Trump’s decision to go forward with the military plan no doubt had to do with the South American state’s tremendous oil reserves, just as President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq surely had something to do with that Middle Eastern state’s oil fields. Elected representatives at the federal level of the U.S. have known since 1974 that skyrocketing gas prices could easily result in voter-resentment. Whether the capture of Maduro was motivated by his drug activity reaching the U.S. or Venezuela’s oil, the invasion and capture by U.S. forces is in line with the Hobbesian notion that might makes right, and even that 90% of ownership of property lies in possession. Lest it be thought that President Trump broke with precedent internationally in capturing the sitting president of another country, his strategy can be understood as being along the trend that had been gaining traction because the post-World War II international order had become hamstrung in the impotence of international bodies including the International Criminal Court and the United Nations.

The various reactions of the leaders of other South American sovereign states provide a sense of the confusion regarding the “new way” that was taking hold internationally amid the power vacuum. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s reaction, for example, treated the U.S. military strike as crossing “an unacceptable line,” and thus as establishing a precedent wherein one country can legitimately invade another.[1] “Attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos and instability, where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism,” Lulu wrote.[2] Apparently he was unaware of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza—both of these cases being flagrant examples of raw military aggression in violation of international law. So, President Trump’s military action can hardly be described as a “first step toward world of violence, chaos and instability.” Furthermore, Lulu’s appeal to multilateralism flies in the face of the paralysis in the UN Security Council due to the five permanent veto-powers—at least one of which had been protecting Russia and another backing up Israel even in committing a holocaust against a people that at least some high officials in the Israeli government viewed as subhuman (i.e., dogs). It was not the first time in modern history that a people has been viewed as subhuman, and thus as deserving, like rats, of extermination. Unlike that case, no coalitions of the willing were willing to take on Russia and Israel in 2023 and even in at least the two subsequent years, which has allowed the naked aggression to take hold and actually become a precedent before the U.S. military captured Maduro.  

Also, apparently oblivious to the intractability of the post-WWII world order, Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for an emergency meeting of the Organization of American States and the United Nations. Because the General Assembly is militarily impotent and the U.S. has veto-power in the Security Council, and the Organization of American States has no actual power, Petro’s plan demonstrates the utter lack of redress against the “new way” of might makes right then gaining even more traction. Perhaps at least China could then stage a military strike in Israel to capture Netanyahu and his henchmen and deliver them to the International Criminal Court. At least then the Hobbesian state of nature would paradoxically be aiding in the enforcement of international law against genocides and holocausts. Waking up to such news on January 3, 2026 would indeed have been quite a Christmas present, albeit delivered late.

Also oblivious to the military aggression of Russia and Israel, Chilean President Gabriel Boric stated, “Chile reaffirms its commitment to basic principles of international Law, such as the prohibition of the use of force, non-intervention, the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and the territorial integrity of States.”[3] Chile’s commitment means absolutely nothing, as that South American state had done nothing to organize an international coalition to push Russian troops out of Ukraine and Israeli troops, who were gangraping young Palestinian boys, out of Gaza (and the West Bank). A precedent for such a coalition can be found in U.S. President George H.W. Bush removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait in the early 1990s, without invading Iraq because the coalition did not support that. Unfortunately, the international community of nations did not act on that basis against Russia and Israel. Hence Boric’s demand that the “Venezuelan crisis must be resolved through dialogue and the support of multilateralism, and not through violence or foreign interference” can be likened to one hand clapping alone in a forest.[4] That such a demand is even made as the post-WWII world order laid wayward largely defunct as regards military invasions and even a genocide begs the question of why no governments were working constructively toward international institutions that could enforce international law against aggressive national leaders.

To acknowledge that the ICC and the UN had become utterly impotent and yet to do nothing to give rise to a new world order, especially as military invasions and even a holocaustic genocide were being allowed to run their respective courses unincumbered, was where the world was as 2026 began. In 2025, a former undersecretary of the UN admitted to me at Harvard that the UN could not be adequately reformed because the veto-powers in the Security Council would never divest themselves of that power. A new institution would be necessary for international law to mean anything more than a guideline for governments to voluntarily follow when doing so suits them. In the meantime, the U.S. and Israel could circumvent the International Criminal Court with impunity, and the E.U., mired in anti-federalist ideology, could not step up to push Russian troops out of Ukraine. President Trump had plenty of precedents for his military strike in Venezuela even though capturing a sitting president was admittedly novel. It is precisely through such incrementalism that a series of precedents becomes ensconced as a new status quo in international relations.

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Trump Hails ‘Brilliant Operation’ in Venezuela that Led to Maduro’s Capture,” Euronews.com, 3 January, 2026.

2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

Russia’s President Putin: Political Realism with Lies

As a former KGB agent, Russia’s President Putin could probably write a book and teach a course on the art of lying, or fabrication, as means of doing foreign policy, which manipulation being the not so subtle subtext. The tactic can be reckoned as being expedient, with the loss of value in reputational capital being assessed to be a cost worth incurring. That Putin lied to U.S. President Trump in Alaska in 2025 on the Russian’s intention to “put an end to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine” should have caught the American off guard, if the claim made by Kurt Volker, an American envoy to Ukraine that Putin had indeed lied to Trump about being willing to meet and negotiate with the Ukrainian president is true.[1] The American president was, in short, naïve even in being willing to meet with his Russian counterpart, especially without the president of the E.U. present too, at least to serve as a reality-test regarding Putin’s real game, for Europe had more to lose—more on the line—than did America from incursions from the east. Political realism is the theory that best fits the Russian president.

In realism, states act in their own interests, even in multilateral negotiations, rather than forsaking any such immediate interests for the good of the global order, if indeed such an order exists institutionally. Power is the name of the game, and, as Nietzsche observed, the strong have incentive to give up their position of strength to the weak (so the weak can only hope to beguile the strong into feeling ashamed ethically of using their strength). In other words, Putin still had a winning hand when it came to extending his invasion farther west in Ukraine, so why would he unilaterally offer to sit down at a negotiating table unless any such territory were to be offered to him? Equality in terms of power is the only context in which justice is possible, Nietzsche wrote, and Hume as well as Nietzsche hold that equality does not really exist; more counter-power is needed for an invaded power to arrest the insurgency of a greater power. With Putin stating that the force of arms would decide the political matter of Ukraine, the world should have realized that political realism best fit and that any common good, or world order, would be nugatory in comparison to the interests of strong, powerful states. The impotence and fecklessness of the United Nations had created the vacuum in which both Russia’s Putin and Israel’s Netanyahu could blatantly pursue their respective military interests even at the expense of the civilian populations of their respective enemies. In other words, impunity, even in being able to arrest peaceful protesters in international waters, and throw them in prison, invites political realism to fill the void and come to characterize international relations. The world itself has been culpable in this by refusing to reform the UN or establish an alternative international body sans vetoes and with an enforcement mechanism of its own that could stand up to aggressors internationally, as Mo Di, the founder of Mohism, had done in China during the Warring States period of the Zhou Dynasty.

Political realism is dangerous, not only because states nakedly pursue their own interests without regard to the common good—that of the world—but also because the personal, emotional reactions of presidents can easily come into play. As Volker said of the effect of Putin’s lie on Trump: “He made Trump look weak and Trump doesn’t like looking weak, so this is now a personal issue for him.”[2] So Trump was considering sending long-range Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine, whether doing so was in the strategic interest of the U.S. or not. Without a world order as a viable constraint as political realist states pursue their own interests in relation to other states, political realism can easily lapse into personal vengeance and retaliation even at the expense of state interests. In short, political realism can lapse in to something much worse—and much more dangerous. The Cuban Missile Crisis is a case in point, as nuclear weapons were in the mix.

So political realism is in need of a major constraint beyond what Koehane and Nye suggest in their theory of neo-realism; especially in the nuclear age when “force of arms” is still being relied on by some state actors to settle political questions and such actors are all too willing to lie, our species should engage in a stepwise political development resulting in a world federation of the willing—countries that are willing to subscribe without a veto and even be willing to transfer some military hardware and troops so the common good has a means of clamping down on state actors who seek to invade weaker states with impunity. It is interesting that even as our species has advanced technology so much, political development has been stalled for centuries. Perhaps a new millennium can mean something, politically, such that deciding questions by the primitive means of force of arms can finally be treated as antiquated.

1. Sasha Vakulina and Shona Murray, “’Putin Lied to Trump and Made Him Look Weak,’ Former US Envoy to Ukraine Says,” Euronews.com, 6 October 2025.
2. Ibid.