Brussels 20.03.2025 The former Soviet Union nations overwhelmed the EU foreign policy, continuing to propagate the Cold War narrative, in spite of the collapse of the Soviet Union 34 years ago on December 25, 1991. In absence of the competition of the ideologies, they insist on interpreting of Russia countering NATO enlargement, as an “unprovoked aggression”, and exploiting it as a reason for redressing the civil European economies into military ones.

“As in 1938, we face a critical choice: allow the aggressor to escalate violence or stop it. We must disable the evil’s ability to intimidate us by building a credible defensive wall between Europe and Russia” said the President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda, while entering the EU Summit in Brussels (#EUCO).

The 20-21 March EU Summit will address recent developments in Ukraine and the next steps on defence enhancement. The European war hawks oppose the steps Trump administration is taking to extinguish war in Ukraine. Among the major proposals are the White Paper initiatives put forward by the EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas (Estonia), and Commissioner for defense Andrius Kubilius (Lithuania). The White Paper plan named “ReArm Europe” includes the European preference in defence procurement, ensuring Europe invests massively in its own industrial base.

However not all the EU member states are accepting voluntarily the military mindset.
“We have to speak differently, to address our citizens in another way when we speak about the need to improve security and European defence capabilities,” said Pedro Sanchez.
“The EU is a political project of soft power and also we have hard power duties nowadays. We’re very committed not only to increase our defence expenditure but also to have this angle of security.”

Southern European countries, he clarified, had different challenges to those faced by eastern flank allies, and needed to focus on strengthening border controls, fighting against terrorism and cyber attacks.

Pedro Sánchez at #EUCO:

“I don’t like the term rearm. I think the EU is a political project of soft power. We also have a duty nowadays with hard power. But it’s very important to stress our assets (of) soft power. This is my principled objection to the term of rearm.” pic.twitter.com/i0GSyrfLgg

— Jorge Liboreiro (@JorgeLiboreiro) March 20, 2025

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At a speech in Prague in January 1994, President Clinton said that “the question is no longer whether NATO will take on new members but when and how.” With his statement, he affirmed that NATO would extend membership to former Eastern Bloc states, settling a question that had preoccupied NATO and U.S. officials since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unlike the Warsaw Pact, which had been dissolved in 1991, NATO would carve a place for itself in post–Cold War Europe.

The critics of this NATO expansion strategy were prominent U.S. diplomats such as George F. Kennan, who argued against enlargement for a number of reasons, including that it would jeopardize the West’s relations with Russia. Then their arguments, however, were ultimately outweighed by the overwhelming support for enlargement in the government.

The dean of America’s Russia experts, George F. Kennan, had assessed the expansion of NATO into Central Europe “the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold War era.” Kennan, the architect of America’s post-World War II strategy of containment of the Soviet Union, believed, as did most other Russia experts in the United States, that expanding NATO would damage beyond repair U.S. efforts to transform Russia from enemy to partner.