The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, which is expected to end 14 months of fighting, began this morning. It is not clear when the Israeli army will withdraw from the villages it has occupied, but those who were forced to leave their homes due to the attacks in southern Lebanon are returning to their homes.

Assoc. Prof. Yasin Atlıoğlu answered Harici’s questions about what the ceasefire means for Israel and Hezbollah, whether it will be successful and how it will affect Gaza.

Atlıoğlu summarised the process leading up to the ceasefire announcement as follows: “In September, rumours and initiatives about a ceasefire started for the first time. This continued in October. But nothing was finalised until the American elections. In the meantime, the conflict intensified. In particular, the air strikes organised by Israel caused great destruction in the cities, especially in Beirut. The situation was similar in southern Lebanon. However, Israel did not make much progress in its ground operation. Under these circumstances, many people were uncertain whether there would be a ceasefire.”

Atlıoğlu explained that a strange situation had indeed arisen with the announcement of the ceasefire in the evening, saying: “As far as we understand, a ceasefire has been reached between Israel and the Lebanese government under the mediation of America and France. It is still unclear where Hezbollah stands in this process. Atlıoğlu recalled that there has been propaganda that Hezbollah has accepted the ceasefire, but Hezbollah has not yet made a clear statement: ‘In fact, an MP said last night that there are some differences between the text that came before us and this latest text, so it is still unclear whether Hezbollah will fulfil the conditions of the ceasefire.

Atlıoğlu said that the parties had adapted to the ceasefire, which came into force in the morning despite the uncertainty, and said: “With the rapid start of the return of the Lebanese to the south, propaganda is being made that this is not a defeat. On the other hand, the Israeli side is declaring this agreement as a great victory’.

Atlıoğlu recalled that the text of the ceasefire has not yet been published and pointed out that according to Biden’s statement and media reports, there are some points in the agreement that Hezbollah has always objected to: “Especially the issue that Biden said last night that Israel can organise counter-attacks in the framework of the right of self-defence in case of an attack. Moreover, this issue of withdrawal is very complicated. There is the deployment of the Lebanese army in the region, and as of this evening some units of the Lebanese army have come out of hibernation and have been mobilised. But, of course, Israel says that I will not leave the narrow strip of the border that I occupy until Hezbollah withdraws north of the Litani River. So it is unclear when and how the withdrawal will take place.”

“There is talk of an American-led mechanism to monitor the ceasefire. How will this be set up? How will there be communication? More importantly, how will the Lebanese army be deployed? Is the ceasefire sustainable? Can the Lebanese army establish authority in the region in such a fragile environment? These are all question marks. The possibility of a resumption of the conflict is also quite high.”

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Atlıoğlu said the following about whether the ceasefire was a victory or a defeat for Hezbollah: “The war has led to some changes in Hezbollah’s stance since last year. The organisation has been seriously weakened by the losses it has suffered in terms of military capacity and leadership. We do not know the extent of this. But in September, in his last speech before he was killed, Hassan Nasrallah said something he had repeated many times before: The only condition for the return of Israeli settlers to the north is a ceasefire in Gaza. Now, with this ceasefire, it seems that Hezbollah has abandoned this objective.”

“This could cause some problems within Hezbollah. Because the reason why Hezbollah went to war was to support Gaza. So the fact that Hezbollah has abandoned that could create problems for the organisation. There is a situation where the organisation cannot stand behind the words of Hassan Nasrallah.”

“One of the reasons, of course, is that the domestic political situation is different from a year ago. Hezbollah’s rivals can now make their voices heard. So there could be some serious battles in domestic politics.”

Atlıoğlu also commented on whether the ceasefire could mean a victory for Israel, given the Israeli army’s unwillingness to fight in Lebanon and the losses it has suffered:

“The Israeli side had air superiority, but Hezbollah showed good resistance in the land attack. The Israeli army could not advance. In terms of the sustainability of the war, some of the weaknesses of the Israeli land army were exposed. Israel, which occupied the whole of southern Lebanon in 2-3 days in the 1970s, could barely capture a few places on the border this time. At the same time, there is a lack of population and human resources in Israel. Add to this the issue of drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the army and the domestic political turmoil that this could cause, and victory seems out of the question. After all, Israel had originally planned to remove the settlers from the north militarily, but in the end the deal had to be done.”

“All this is true, but if we look at it from a broader perspective, if someone had said 2-3 years ago that Israel would kill the entire leadership of Hezbollah, including Nasrallah, and cause such serious destruction in Lebanon, no one would have believed it. So Hezbollah has certainly suffered serious damage. But is this compatible with Israel’s extreme goals or not? We will have to wait and see.”

“Netanyahu has already declared victory as the man behind this. He even went a little further. He said that after the Lebanon chapter is closed, Iran is their target. He warned Assad. At the moment, Israel seems to be in an advantageous position. There is criticism from within, but the general opinion is that Hezbollah has been seriously damaged.”

Atlıoğlu responded to our question about the impact of a Trump presidency on Gaza, if the ceasefire succeeds and the Lebanese front is closed to Israel, as follows:

“The fact that Trump is a leader who is more sympathetic to Israel creates a picture in which Israel can do something at a higher level in Gaza. However, Trump, who is an unpredictable leader, may have other plans. When he comes to power, he will either try to find a middle ground or further pave the way for Netanyahu, who already wanted Trump to be elected president. So if he paves the way, the situation in Gaza will get worse. Perhaps Gaza will be completely dehumanised. At the same time, a similar situation could arise in the West Bank. So there is a possibility that Trump will allow this, at least Netanyahu thinks so.”

We asked 6 questions to Eduard Galimullin, an expert at the Centre for Comprehensive European and International Studies (CCEIS) at the HSE (Higher School of Economics) University, one of Russia’s most prestigious educational institutions. In our interview on the impact of the Trump administration on the war in Ukraine, Galimullin drew attention to ‘Trump’s unpredictability’. Galimullin believes that the Kremlin is cautiously optimistic and emphasised that the Kremlin has not yet given a definitive response to actions that violate Russia’s red lines.

The US and the UK have authorised Ukraine to use weapons capable of delivering deep strikes against Russia. This step came on the eve of the change of power in the United States. How do you think this step will affect the course of the war?

I think the temptation to wait for the switch of the U.S. leadership is quite strong. Although the Kremlin says that the U.S. course of containing Russia will remain unchanged no matter who is occupying the White House, I think there is still some hope for Trump’s return. Especially given the intentions to end the conflict that he has publicly voiced.

Therefore, I expect that the Western countries’ authorization for Kyiv to use missiles to strike Russian territory will not fundamentally affect the course of the war. As we can see, Moscow still has various options for a non-nuclear response. The situation on the battlefield will also not change significantly for such a short time.

However, a dramatic escalation is possible if, for example, the use of Western long-range missiles leads to mass civilian casualties. But I don’t think Kiev will be keen to do as much damage to Russia as possible in the shortest possible time. Yes, so far it seems that Trump is rather unlucky for Ukraine. But the paradox is that both Moscow and Kyiv have certain hopes for him. This is because he is unpredictable.

The US and NATO in general are constantly eroding Russia’s ‘red lines’ in Ukraine. How far do you think Russia will show ‘strategic patience’?

Russia has so far taken a rather responsible approach to the issue of using nuclear weapons, unwilling to allow the escalation of the crisis into a conflict between Russia and NATO. However, the U.S. and many European countries interpret this as a weakness, continuing to push the Kremlin to escalate. Yet it should be obvious to an outside observer that military provocations against a nuclear power are extremely dangerous. Diplomatic measures to resolve the conflict are necessary. One can jest at Russia’s “red lines,” but the fact is that when a decisive response is forthcoming, there will be no reason for joking.

We can say that the Ukrainian army is a continuation of the Soviet military tradition. Do you think the process of adapting this army to NATO systems is complete? Or are these modern Western systems being used directly by Western military experts and personnel. Does the Russian side have any precise information or intelligence on this? What is your opinion?

Unfortunately, since I am not a military expert, I cannot provide precise information on this matter. However, the media have already repeatedly leaked information that the Ukrainian army is once again returning to the Soviet military tradition in terms of battlefield planning. I think that this is true. As for Western weapons, it is at least known that Ukrainian soldiers are trained to operate them in Western countries. However, practice has shown that these weapons so far have not had any significant effect on the course of the conflict.

Do you see a risk of the conflict in Ukraine turning into an inter-state war in Europe? ‘We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against the military targets of countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities,’ Putin said. Can this be directly interpreted as meaning that Western states could also be targets of Russia?

I think that’s the way it is. The question of to what extent are Western countries involved in the conflict has been raised almost from the very beginning of the conflict. Starting at what point is it possible to claim that the U.S. and Europe are directly involved in the war with Russia? Of course, the most obvious answer is to send ground troops to Ukraine. But so far that has not happened.

North Korean troops are alleged to have participated in the war in favour of Russia. Is it too early to say that the polarisation created by the Ukraine war has triggered a global military bloc? Or is such a trend gaining strength?

I do not think that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, even if its hot stage lasts for a few more years, will divide the world into opposing blocs. We see that even within European countries there is no unity on the issue of confrontation with Russia. On the other hand, it is unlikely that India or Latin American countries will take sides.  In my opinion, the technological rivalry between Washington and Beijing will probably polarize the world into two opposing blocs.

Are there any expectations in Russia from the next Trump administration? Have the conditions put forward by Russia for the start of the dialogue and peace process been met?

I think that definitely, the Kremlin looks forward to Trump’s return to the White House, although it has little hope for a shift in U.S. policy. Trump’s figure is extremely contradictory. On the one hand, he intends to end the conflict as soon as possible. On the other hand, he is unpredictable, and facing the first difficulties in organizing the negotiation process, he may take tough measures to accelerate escalation.

Regarding the conditions for dialogue, Russia’s demands, such as recognition of annexed territories and lifting sanctions, have not been met. These remain major sticking points that complicate any prospect of meaningful negotiations under the current geopolitical climate.

With the Ukraine war, anti-Russian sanctions, the economic downturn and US-China tensions, Europe seems to be once again engulfed in a major crisis. The level of integration that the Old Continent has reached once again calls for a pan-European rather than a “national” way out.

German researcher, writer and publisher Hauke Ritz has been analyzing Germany, Russia and West-Russia relations for more than 15 years. Ritz says that this work dates back to 2007, when he began to realize that in the future there would be a strong geopolitical confrontation, if not war, between the US and Russia. “And once you understand that,” he says, ”it’s hard to find a more important topic.”

This issue, the German author says, has “to some extent taken over” his life. In order to grasp the “deeper causes” of this tension, he says, he began learning the Russian language and visiting Russia.

One of Ritz’s most striking theses is that the concept of “the West” and “Europe” do not coincide. For him, “the West” refers to the post-World War II order and is clearly the name of US hegemony over Europe. “Europe”, on the other hand, is a continent that dates back thousands of years, a continent of both peace and war, a continent of Enlightenment, revolutions and Reformation, but never ruled by the hegemony of a single power, an oasis of multipolarity, culturally united but politically separate, a place of balance of power…

Hence, when Europe finds itself again, free from the “Western” hegemony of the last 75 years, it will not only become one of the poles in a “multipolar world”, but will also enter a “multipolar” era within itself. How will this happen and through whom? Whether Rtiz has an answer to this is up to the reader.

Hauke Ritz’s new book: Vom Niedergang des Westens zur Neuerfindung Europas [From the Decline of the West to the Reinvention of Europe] To order: https://mediashop.at/buecher/vom-niedergang-des-westens-zur-neuerfindung-europas/

First of all, I didn’t refer to Oswald Spengler in the book because I think the decline we see today is a very different kind of decline. At that time, the West as we know it today didn’t really exist. We will come back to this fact later. I just want to point out that today we are seeing the collapse of the West at a tremendous pace in many areas, and we get the impression that it is really accelerating year by year, month by month, and it is becoming very visible.

Compare the current situation with 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down. At that time, most of Eastern Europe and even the Soviet republics were influenced by the West, its products, its music, its way of life, its model of civilization. The same was true for many countries in the south, in the Global South and in the east. At that time, the West was the only manifestation of modernity in the world.

After the Soviet Union collapsed and the system of socialist states dissolved, the West had a kind of monopoly on modernity, on the interpretation of the modern world. And everyone wanted to be connected to this world, whether it was through movies, through products, or by emigrating to a Western country. The West also had the image of democracy, of a just, rich and prosperous society, of innovation.

Now look at what the West stands for today. For sanctions, for war, for strange ideologies like the LGBT movement… which is causing heads to shake not only in the Global South and the East, but also in the West itself. So the Western world has lost not only its moral superiority, but also its soft power, its charm.

And not only that. We no longer see the interpretation of modernity in modern China, we started to see modern India, and Russia has also come back as a great civilization. So the West is in a very different situation now, and the loss of the appeal of its status as a model of civilization is something that I think is too serious to be repaired in a short period of time.

That’s what I always use: Western world. Of course, the opposite term that should be used in this context is Europe. And Europe is something quite different from the West.

We will come to that in a moment. I think you see Europeans and westerners as separate identities and civilizations. Do you think that the US is what we should understand by the West at the moment? And what is the difference between the US vision of the world and the European world?

There are so many differences. I really think that western civilization and European civilization are quite different concepts in many ways.

First of all, the West is something quite new. How long has the West really been around? The West as we know it today first appeared after the Second World War, and at that time it was basically the American sphere of influence that was created by military expansion during the Second World War, and where the soldiers stopped, the West stopped.

North Korea was not part of the West, but South Korea was. The same is true for Germany. East Germany was not part of the West, but West Germany was. So the accidental movements during the war created a sphere of influence and it was called the West.

Of course, you can make an argument, “No, the West is older.” There were revolutions in Western European states. The French Revolution, the English Revolution, the Dutch and others. Yes, but these were also countries that not only made revolutions, but also established colonies in overseas empires. Maybe this is also connected. If you have a big trade over the seas, you have a lot of merchants who start competing with the aristocracy and then you are more likely to have revolutions.

But these early stages of the West were not united. There was a lot of competition between them. But in the late 19th and early 20th century, we see that this rivalry started to turn into a kind of alliance. For example, the Entente Cordiale between Great Britain and France, then the alliance between Great Britain and the United States. This could be a kind of embryo of the West as we know it today.

But the West in general is not more than 100 years old. So it’s a very young entity and it includes North America on the one side and the Europe of the European Union today, which includes the Slavic states like Poland on the other side. And then you have South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. So culturally speaking, these are very different countries, very different parts of the world, influenced by different religions, and all united by one factor: American domination, American hegemony.

So in the end, you come to the conclusion that the West is basically this American hegemony. There is a lack of a cultural base, there is a lack of history.

Europe, on the contrary, is something quite different. Europe is 2500 years old. Europe started with the model of democracy in ancient Greece and democracy came back to Europe in modern times with the French revolution and other revolutions.

But there is a long period in between when Europe had quite different models of government and a different way of organizing its society.

So Europe is an entity that has a vast history of quite different periods and epochs, but there is still something that can define the whole of this time, which is more than 2000 years. So the concept of Europe is much more complex and much deeper than the concept of the West.

Do you think Europeans have some antidote to the West?

Europe, of course, belongs to Western Europe and Western Europe is that part of Europe that started to have colonies expanding overseas and then it became the west. So maybe some Western elements also belong to Europe.

But Europe is more the center of Europe. Germany, Italy are not usually seen as part of the West. They didn’t have big empires overseas for centuries. They were organized in a decentralized way. Then you have the Slavic peoples in the east. So Europe is all of that.

And the term Western suggests that there is a single model for this whole area and the whole history of Europe. Europe is also defined by its achievements in art, literature, music and philosophy. It is also defined by Christianity and Christian history. It is also defined by references to antiquity. That is, by the memory of the ancient Greek culture in ancient Rome, which was common to all European states and created a kind of unified field of knowledge and reference for all European states, for example through Latin and the ancient Greek language. So there is much more to Europe than the West.

There is also a big difference in terms of the concept of world order. The US is protected by two oceans. Nobody can harm them. If they wage a war on another shore, they can be sure that there will be no repercussions for them, that nothing will come back to them.

This was not the case in Europe. Europe has had enormous wars for as long as it has existed. One of the most brutal periods in European history was the Thirty Years’ War in Germany in the 17th century. But there were also civil wars in other European states.

What Europe learned from this war was that you cannot wage war and foreign policy on values. If you start making the issue of Catholicism and Protestantism part of your foreign policy, part of your national expansion, then you will have never-ending wars.

You are pointing to the Westphalian system.

Yes, it is. So after this war, the Westphalian system was created, where these young nation states learned to respect their differences, that each state has the right to manage its own internal affairs and that there should be no outside influence.

Every state, despite its population size and power, was equally a subject of international law, and this was a great civilizational achievement, which of course was lost again and again in the centuries that followed. But this was a very different concept of world order. A world order that accepted multipolarity, that did not interfere with each other, that started to think about each other’s otherness, that accepted the simultaneous existence of various powers.

The US has a completely different conception of world order. First of all, they think that they are somehow chosen by God, that they have a manifest destiny given to them by God. The concept of a sacred mission means that they think they can only get stronger, stronger and stronger. Therefore, the task of ruling the world belongs to them. And they are an indispensable nation. American exceptionalism. That’s why the whole history of American foreign policy is defined by the fact that they cannot be partners. They cannot partner with anyone else because they always think they are superior to others. They always think they have a better system than others.

And that’s why the Americans have so far found it difficult to make a treaty with, for example, Russia or China that they can really stick to because they always think that other nations, other states don’t have the kind of democracy that we have, that the people there are oppressed.

So the contract that we have now is only for a while, because the state that we have this contract with is not as developed as we are. It is not elected in the same way as we are.

This is basically a tragedy because the United States has not been able to create partnerships because of this notion of sacred mission, exceptionalism, indispensable nation. Instead of creating partnerships with Europe, with Germany, with France, with Italy, it has slowly but surely transformed Europe into a kind of colonial status. This is also a tragedy for America itself, because if Europe was a partner for the United States, it could have influenced it in a positive way. For example, we could have avoided many of the mistakes that American foreign policy has made in the Middle East or with Russia.

But because America does not see Europe as a partner, it has learned nothing from us. They always acted as if they already knew everything. This has led to a foreign policy that has antagonized much of the world.

The US now has a contradictory relationship not only with Russia, which is at war, but also with China, with Iran, increasingly with Turkey, with the Arab world, with Africa and Latin America, where they have waged enormous wars and destruction. So there is no area of civilization left in the world where the US has a normal relationship, not even with India.

And this is very destructive for the US because the US has basically created a kind of counter-alliance by antagonizing all the other major nations or civilizations in the world.

BRICS was created by the US, the US created BRICS, even though they were not intended to do that, but BRICS is basically the child of US foreign policy.

So you talked about two very, very different mindsets. On one side you have the manifest destiny, American exceptionalism, and on the other side you have the Westphalian system of Europe. After the Second World War, the unity of Europe was against the Soviet Union and communism, but at the same time it was doing it in conjunction with the hegemony of the United States on the continent. How did they achieve this hegemony over the continent? Or in other words, why did the Europeans allow the Americans to lead them against the Soviet Union?

Europe, as I mentioned earlier, had been organized for centuries as a kind of balance of power. After the Second World War it was difficult to go back to this system. I think the Soviet Union would have wanted to go back to that system because the Soviet Union was already a very large country and it was a burden to control more states outside of itself, especially if you think of the huge destruction that the Second World War caused in the most populated areas of the Soviet Union.

So the Soviet Union had no interest in controlling a large part of Europe and it certainly had no interest in controlling all of Europe. This may explain why, for example, in 1952, the Soviet Union made the offer that it would withdraw its forces from Germany for neutrality, that Germany could be reunified if it became neutral like Austria. But this offer was rejected by the West German government and by the United States, which wanted to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down.

Now the Americans were there and they started. For them Europe was a kind of gegenko, as we say in German, the opposite shore. So for the US, as a naval power, it was very important for them to control the opposite shore of the ocean and that was Europe and they wanted to stay there.

In their mentality, they saw their presence in Europe as a kind of trophy or a victory because they had the impression that they had a better system. And the US was populated by people who fled Europe because of political oppression or religious oppression. That is why to this day many Americans have a negative impression of Europe. For them Europe is a place that is not as free and democratic as they are. Returning to Europe after the Second World War meant for them that now they had to fix Europe.

They didn’t really do that. Of course there are some Americans who admire European art, literature and philosophy, but on the whole they look down on Europe more than they respect it. For them it was not a problem to reshape, to reorganize European culture. They also wanted to unify it, to create a kind of alliance against the Soviet Union. Because the United States saw itself as an exceptional nation with a sacred mission, they could not accept that there was another nation like the Soviet Union that had a project of socialism and an idea for humanity. So they wanted to dominate, I think.

For the Soviet Union, of course, the American presence on the European continent was a danger because Russia had experienced for several centuries that it could live in peace with Europe as long as there was a balance of power. But every once in a while Europe unites, for example under Napoleon, and then attacks Russia. Or Europe united under Hitler and the conquest of Nazi Germany and then attacked Russia. Now the American presence on the European continent means that Europe is once again united under American rule. For Moscow, this meant the danger of being attacked once again. That’s why they were in Eastern Europe.

Even so, they didn’t really want that.

Which brings us to Russia, to the question of Russia’s relationship with the West. Do you think it is possible to have, for example, a European security architecture that includes Russia again? Or will the Kantian idea of “perpetual peace” prevail? Or will post-EU Europe be a continent of wars? Because even if Europe, even if the European Union disintegrates, it is possible that the axis of Germany and France or only the axis of Germany will prevail. A post-EU Europe because Germany is still the biggest economy in Europe. It has a lot of opportunities to steer other countries.

No, no. It is not possible for the reason I just mentioned. I just said that Europe has always been organized as a balance of power, which means that if there is only one power ruling Europe, it means that Europe is destabilized. This is not good for Europe.

Germany may be the most powerful country in Europe, but it is not strong enough to rule Europe on its own. That’s the beauty of Europe, there are so many states in Europe and some of them are equally powerful: France and Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain, they are all similar, they are the biggest and they balance each other. I think that Europe can only be governed in such a balance, and the countries between which this balance is realized may differ from century to century.

In the era of the European Union, there was the German-French axis, which was a way of rebuilding or replicating this balance. Also, Germany is not very popular in the rest of Europe because of the legacy of the Second World War. Germany has friends. In China, in Japan, in Russia, Germany is highly respected. If you are far away from Germany, Germany is respected. But if you are close to Germany, in Poland, in France, in Great Britain, Germany is not so respected. For all these reasons Germany cannot unite Europe, it cannot and must not lead Europe. Europe has to organize itself in this similar balance of powerful forces.

Then you mentioned the issue of Russia. As soon as the European states or Europe as a whole understands its interest, it will very quickly start organizing a peace with Russia, if peace is possible. Because it is in Europe’s interest.

If you look at European history, you will see that Europe has been strong in times of peace and weak in times of war. In the United States it is the opposite. The US is strong in times of war and weak in times of peace. That’s why Europe needs peace.

Moreover, Russia is part of Europe. So when we talk about Europe, we are automatically talking about Russia and if we exclude Russia from Europe, it is like excluding a large region from China or an important province from India.

So in addition to the integrity of the continent, which can be shown geographically on a map, to exclude Russia from Europe culturally would be to exclude, for example, a great achievement of classical music from Europe. Tchaikovsky, Rahmaninov or the legacy of literature, philosophy or socialism is also part of Europe. The whole history of Eastern Europe during the Cold War is linked to Russia.

So Europe can only be healthy and have a future if it includes all of Europe. A Europe that excludes Russia will be badly divided and will probably have no sovereignty over its own cultural development.

Then we are once again in this distinction between the concept of the West and the concept of Europe. For the first time in history Europe is ruled by an outside power, a power that is located in a completely different geography, on a completely different continent, and it is called the West. You have pushed Russia and Russian culture out of Europe in order to maintain this artificial entity called the West. You have removed the memory that Russian culture and Russian influence is a natural part of Europe, like Italian culture and Italian influence or Spanish culture and Spanish influence. If you have the concept of the West, you will always have borders in the East.

But if we look at the concept of Europe, there is no need for a border in the east. Because Europe has been organized for centuries in a kind of balance of power, it can extend this concept even beyond the borders of Europe. And to some extent, the idea that Europe is organized in a balance of similar powerful states is a concept that very well represents the idea of BRICS, the concept of bricks of a multipolar world made up of similar powerful states like China, India, Russia, which are completely different from each other, but which accept certain ideas about the organization of the world order.

So we can say that we need to cut Russia off from Europe in order to have a US hegemony on the continent, in Europe.

Yes, this is in the interest of the United States. They want to sanctify this European interpretation of the West. So what we call the West today is basically the American interpretation of European culture.

The Americans themselves came from Europe, so they carry the heritage of European culture with them. But for a long time they lived on a different continent, in a different climate, in a different geographical situation. They are also a melting pot of nations. They have a completely different life experience and a completely different space than you have in Europe. Under these conditions, this European culture changed, which became the United States. Now American culture still has European roots, but it has become something different.

This half European, half non-European culture of the United States came back to Europe after the Second World War and started transforming Europe, reshaping Europe in the image of the United States and the EU. The European Union was an attempt to create a kind of copy of the United States in Europe.

And this is also the mistake of the European Union. The mistake of the European Union is that the European Union is not European. It has no connection with the history of European ideas. It does not refer to the 19th century. It does not refer to the 18th century, to the 17th century. It does not even refer to ancient times.

More than 20 years ago, when the European constitution was being planned, some people wanted to write a quote from the famous ancient Greek politician Pericles. Later this quote was removed because it was not politically correct. Pericles might have said something wrong about some minorities. They could not accept Pericles any more and so the quote was removed. This shows you the relationship of the European Union to European history.

Or look at the banknotes of Europe. Maybe I have one in my pocket. This is very meaningful. Here it is. This is a five euro note. Here you see a kind of building. This building is not real. It’s artificial. Fantasy. This bridge isn’t real either. It’s just an artificial bridge imagined by a painter.

So Europe has a very negative relationship with its own history and culture. So much so that we cannot even represent our own architecture on our banknotes.

So you think that in order to become more European, you need to get rid of the European Union as an institution?

This is of course dangerous. We have to look at the reality we have now. Right now we have the euro. There is a huge interconnection between different economies. We have a lot of interdependence within the European Union. The dissolution of the European Union would be catastrophic. Just like the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which created a lot of poverty and civil war. So nobody wants that.

So I think this is a very complex question and I don’t have a final answer to this question. Of course the EU needs at least some kind of restructuring. It needs to be fundamentally reformed. I don’t know whether it is possible or not. Maybe history will show how it will happen, what will happen. Maybe some states will start to leave the EU. Because history shows very clearly that a state that has no real identity of its own, that is built only on the basis of dependencies and laws, is a very weak entity and can disintegrate. And this could also happen to the EU.

Of course, if the European Union really disintegrates, it could be a very ugly process because the economic consequences would be enormous.

But one way or the other, do you think we are heading towards a post-EU era?

You see, there is the emergence of BRICS in the world right now. I just mentioned that BRICS is basically built by the shortcomings of American foreign policy, by its arrogance and selfish behavior.

What is interesting about the BRICS concept is that it includes very different civilizations and some of these civilizations are also states. For example, China is a state but it is also a civilization. India is a state but it is also a civilization. The same can be said about Iran.

In the case of Russia it is more complicated because Russia is also part of the European civilization. Some Russians deny it and say no, we are Eurasian in a similar way to Europe. But if you are in Russia, you see and feel European culture in every corner. So it is really difficult to separate Russia from Europe.

But the concept of civilization state is a very interesting concept or a very interesting term. The question is: Can Europe be a civilization state? The answer is both yes and no.

Yes, it can be, because for the whole history of Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe was somehow united. Europe was politically divided but culturally united through the church and the Christian faith and also through the monasteries that were established in many different parts of Europe, all trying to remember the old history, the old literature and writings.

And this went on for 1500 years, Europe was united either through Christianity, through religion, through the church, or later on through the philosophy of humanism, the Enlightenment and the exchange of literature.

For example, different European writers wrote in different languages, but they were always reading each other. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it sometimes took only months for the first translation. All important authors caused a reaction in other countries where they were introduced in translation. German philosophy influenced not only Germany but the whole of Europe. The same is true for the French Revolution.

So Europe is a kind of, in Germany we call it a resonance chamber, a resonance chamber where cultural styles, architectural and painting styles ripple across the continent.

At the same time, we have political fragmentation. This is unique in the world because all other parts of the world are organized differently. If you look at China, for example, China was politically united even though it had many different languages and peoples. The same is true for India. I think the same is true for the Arab world and Russia. So in most parts of the world, at some point you have some kind of political unity.

In Europe, it never happened. It never really happened. There were attempts, for example Napoleon tried, Hitler tried with his strange and brutal ideas, but it always failed.

In the end, we have again political fragmentation with a kind of cultural unity. I think this is a model for the future. If Europe can represent this model, it will also be a mirror of the multipolar world, because in the multipolar world there are different centers of power that are in some kind of balance with each other.

Europe can become a pole of the multipolar world and at the same time represent multipolarity in itself.

This brings us to the second and last part of the title of your book, which is the reinvention of Europe. How can Europe reinvent itself and what elements in Europe have that energy?

First of all, we need to understand the difference between Europe and the West. We need to understand that we have lost a lot in the last 80 years because Europe has tried to make itself more like the West, or because the European Union has tried to reconstruct Europe as a mirror, a kind of copy of the U.S. We need to recognize these differences and then we need to start reclaiming what we really are.

I think these processes are going on in a different way in every European country. I think once we understand once again what Europe really is, what Europe can offer to the world and what has been done to us in the last 80 years, I think we can start to build a kind of European union that will once again be built on culture, history and a complex understanding of culture, which will once again have a kind of utopia in terms of education and civilization.

In the 21st century we are facing great challenges. For example artificial intelligence, genetic engineering. Europe has something to offer in this regard. We have the heritage of humanism and Enlightenment. So we can start with a kind of intellectual discourse, if we really need to do everything we can, because in other parts of the world, especially in the United States, there is a tendency to do everything possible in the field of technology.

Europe can make a different proposal to the world. Let’s try to control technology. Let’s try to put the human being first so that technology adapts to the human being and not vice versa. Europe can also become a neutral part of the world, like a global Switzerland, where intellectual discussions can take place on artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, but also on the preservation of culture.

Europe has a special opportunity to play this role in the 21st century. This is because Europe has influenced the rest of the world for the last 500 years. Since the rise of the Spanish and Portuguese empires, world culture has gradually become Europeanized. If we are in Latin America today and there are political debates, people use terms from European political philosophy to discuss their internal differences. The same is true for other parts of the world.

There is only one world culture in the world, and it has been largely shaped by Europe for several centuries. That is why Europe is now in a very good position to offer a place for discussion, meeting and exchange of ideas on civilizational issues in the 21st century, which will perhaps also be accepted by other civilizations, although they are interested in developing their own traditions.

Maybe in the future we will see a Chinese world culture or an Indian world culture, an Islamic world culture. I don’t exclude it, I welcome it, but it will take time, because if you want to transform your regional culture into a world culture, you have to create art, you have to create, you have to create, you have to write books, you have to create a philosophy, you have to create music that can be attractive to other people in other parts of the world, and this cannot be done in one generation. It cannot be done even in two generations. It needs time.

Europe has already done it for the last 300, 400 years. This is a kind of heritage not only for Europe but for the world and it has to be preserved. That’s why Europe has to be sovereign, it has to be independent, it has to be an independent pole in a multipolar world, not some kind of appendage of the United States, not some kind of American colony that sees itself through American glasses and unfortunately has a kind of colonial consciousness as it is today.

So we have to overcome the colonial consciousness that we have today and start to see what we really are, what we are with our good sides, what we are with our bad sides.

Of course a lot of bad things have happened in Europe. You mentioned colonialism, especially from the Western European states. Yes, there is a bad legacy, but at the same time Europe has given something to the world and we have to see both, the bad and the good. It is not very healthy to see only one side.

So do you think Germany can play a special role in this process? I mean, when you talk about Germany and its special role, it’s a bit terrifying because Germany has historical burdens. But is it still possible for Germany to play a leading role in what you call multipolarity in Europe, as a pole in a multipolar world?

Yes, Germany can be a pole in a multipolar Europe. Of course, like France, like Italy, like other important states and regions, there should be such a pole.

Of course, at the moment Germany is most affected by the current crisis, by the war in Ukraine, for example, the high energy prices have led to a kind of deindustrialization in Germany. So we are starting to feel it.

Usually Germany is not a place where active revolutions take place. Our revolutions, the German Peasants’ War or the Revolution of 1918, of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, all failed.

If there was a revolution in Germany, it was a political revolution. Of course you can say that fascism was a kind of political revolution, which was quite ugly and of course not something we want to point out.

But if you look at history, there were spiritual or intellectual revolutions that came out of Germany. Martin Luther, for example, came up with the idea of Protestantism, which was a reform of the church, which was also a kind of revolution. But it was more of a mental thing, it was not an active political revolution.

The same was true of the idea of socialism, which was rooted in the history of German thought. Marx was, after all, a German philosopher. So maybe in this sense something can come out of Europe, maybe out of Germany. Maybe some Germans can offer an idea.

But I think other European countries are also important. France is important, with its legacy of revolution and activism. Italy is important, Eastern European countries are important.

I think in the end we will see something coming from various corners of Europe. From one side comes an idea, from another side comes political turmoil. And from another corner of Europe a reasonable reform can be realized. In the end they will contribute and help each other.

But right now we are at a crossroads. What if Europe remains as it is now, it will become an insignificant part of the world; it will not be able to play a role as an appendage of the United States; its wealth will decline, its population will probably decline; European societies will lose their coherence and identity and Europe will become an insignificant and poor part of the world.

Nowadays we are beginning to see the situation and we are beginning to come back to ourselves. I think there are forces in Europe that are interested in this. Not only the normal population, but also what we have in Europe, in Germany, what we call Mittelstand in Germany, which are small-scale factories with a hundred or 800 employees, but big businesses that are very specialized in a certain product.

So there is still a lot of wealth in Europe. So there are forces that can do something. I think these processes are already going on.

I can’t see what will happen in the future. I can’t describe to you how this change will happen. Maybe it will come in a surprising way. Just like the change in 1989 happened in a surprising way. Many people thought that the wall would be there for the next 20 years and suddenly, overnight, it disappeared.

So history is completely unpredictable. History is always a surprise. If we have a vision of the future, we can be sure that this vision will not manifest itself 100%. History is always different from what we think.

But I am sure that there is a lot at stake right now. 2500 years of history, 2500 years of emerging cultural complexity, emerging civilization. All this should not be for nothing. Europe is important not only for Europe but for the world.

And I think a Europe that is once again faithful to its tradition of history, literature, philosophy will be respected in the world. Still, we have the legacy of colonial atrocities. But there are always two sides. So I see a future for a cultural and intellectual consciousness for Europe. Maybe this is possible.