In April 2023, French author Raphaël Glucksmann published a book titled The Great Confrontation: How Putin is Waging War on Our Democracies. The book won the 2023 Jean Daniel Prize. Glucksmann, a writer and member of the European Parliament, chairs the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in the European Parliament. This adds significance to the book, as it highlights real-world indicators and events demonstrating the extent of Russian infiltration into European countries. The author argues that a remarkable blindness (Incroyable Cécité) within the European continent has led it to succumb to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has plunged it into a war it does not want. According to the book, Putin exploited the greed, corruption, and selfish interests of certain European elites, while taking advantage of the naivety of others to penetrate Europe’s core.
Western Penetration
The book focuses on several indicators of Russia’s success in employing key officials in European countries to work in its favor. Here are the key points:
1. Elite Financial Corruption in Favor of Foreign Countries:
The book delves into the financial corruption that has ensnared some European leaders, who promoted the ideas and policies of foreign countries like Russia in exchange for personal gain. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is portrayed as the symbolic figure of this group, which accepted the Russian regime as a service provider to secure a golden retirement. The book recounts the details that led to the inauguration of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, stretching from Russia to Germany, in September 2005. This pipeline, the longest offshore gas pipeline in the world at the time, was inaugurated just ten days before Schröder left office after losing the election to Angela Merkel. Russian President Vladimir Putin himself attended the celebration in Germany.
2. The Former German Chancellor’s Cooperation with Moscow:
According to the book, it is ironic that Schröder immediately became a board member of the Nord Stream pipeline after his term ended—essentially becoming a paid employee of Gazprom. Schröder also took with him Marion Scheller, the head of the energy policy department at Germany’s Ministry of Economics, to work for Gazprom. Even after Schröder left office, Angela Merkel didn’t prevent the launch of a new project, Nord Stream 2, on November 8, 2011. This was because Schröder had planted former associates in Merkel’s government who continued promoting the pipeline.
3. Moscow’s Control Over Germany’s Gas Reserves:
The German agreement with Gazprom allowed the Russian company to control Germany’s gas reserves. Glucksmann reveals, based on discussions in the European Parliament following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that Germany’s strategic gas reserve was empty. Gazprom had been draining the reserves six months before the Russian attack, forcing Germany to increase its purchases of Russian gas to refill them, thereby helping fund the Russian war effort against Ukraine. Glucksmann notes that the daily cost of this war for Russia was one billion dollars, while daily revenues from Russian gas sales to Europe provided about 800 million dollars. This situation recalls a famous quote from Lenin, who once said that a capitalist will sell the rope that will be used to hang him to his enemy.
4. Various European Officials Working for Russia:
In addition to Schröder, the book lists several other European politicians who have worked for major Russian companies, including former Austrian Finance Minister Hans Jörg Schelling, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl, former Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, former Finnish Prime Minister Esko Aho, and former French Prime Minister François Fillon. Glucksmann argues that, unlike Germany, which is addicted to Russian gas, France had more noble reasons for its agreement with Putin. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed these reasons in his speech on August 27, 2019, during the Ambassadors’ Conference. Macron emphasized that an effective and credible European security framework could not be built without including Russia, and that stability in Europe could only be achieved by clarifying and calming relations with Russia.
Employing Power
The book emphasizes Russia’s efforts to employ power against Western countries in various ways. The key points are outlined as follows:
European Inattention to Russia’s Actions
The book attributes European leaders’ failure to recognize Putin’s hostile intentions toward their countries—despite many warning signs—to their lack of close attention to his public statements and speeches. They also overlooked the statements made by those close to Putin, as well as opposition figures within Russia who had repeatedly warned of his expansionist goals.
Western Leaders Ignoring Russia’s Move Towards War
For example, Anna Politkovskaya, a Russian opposition journalist who was assassinated on October 7, 2006—coincidentally Putin’s birthday—insisted that Putin would go to war and would eventually surprise Europeans, whether sooner or later. Here, the author, Glucksmann, asks: Why didn’t our leaders believe Anna? Why didn’t they want to see what she predicted, especially after witnessing firsthand the annihilation of Chechnya, the dismemberment of Georgia, and the first intervention in Ukraine in 2014?
Expansionist Ideas Taking Root in Russia
The book highlights comments made by Russian General Vyacheslav Borisov, a leader of the 2008 Russian attack on Georgia, who stated, “Putin will go everywhere Russia once was.” In a November 2021 article, Vladislav Surkov, one of the key Russian thinkers influencing Putin, argued that spreading chaos abroad helps Russia overcome internal tensions. Another quote attributed to him reads: “We must return tomorrow; we will either win or die, there is no third way.” A significant event occurred in November 2016, during a televised Russian Geography Society celebration, when Putin asked a nine-year-old boy where Russia’s borders ended. The child answered that Russia ended at the Bering Strait, which separates Siberia from Alaska. Putin smiled and corrected him: “Russia’s borders don’t end anywhere.”
Support for Wagner’s Military Operations Abroad
The book also includes excerpts from speeches by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group, which align with the same narrative. Some of these quotes include: “We are a criminal group,” “My comrades enter African countries and leave nothing alive,” “Your decision to serve Wagner is a pact with the devil,” “World War III has begun, and you can be part of it,” and “Everyone should understand that mobilization and world war to the death await us.” For the author, these statements underscore the ruling Russian mindset, which views Western democracies as fundamentally incompatible with their worldview. The survival of the Putin model, according to this logic, necessitates the destruction of Western democracies.
The Governing Framework
The book also explores various intellectual contexts influencing the interaction between the West and Russia, and vice versa:
Western Leaders Influenced by “The End of History”
The author argues that many European leaders were influenced by Francis Fukuyama’s thesis of the “end of history,” including figures like Macron. They held firm beliefs that they no longer had ideological enemies or adversaries willing to sacrifice their interests to oppose the European project. For example, after signing a commercial agreement between France’s Total and Russia’s Novatek, they thought Putin would become more like them. As a result, they were reluctant to abandon this belief system, even in the face of alarming reports of Russian military incursions here and there.
European Policies Justified by “Realism”
The book argues that these leaders justified their actions in the name of realism. In reality, they were far from realistic and could be described as “irenic,” meaning they attempted to gloss over differences with Putin and focus only on commonalities. Glucksmann poses a hypothetical question: What if Ukrainians had not resisted the Russian attack on February 24, 2022, and Kyiv had fallen into Russian hands within weeks, as most intelligence reports had predicted? What if Zelensky had accepted Biden’s offer to evacuate him from Kyiv and said, “We need weapons, not a taxi”?
Glucksmann answers his own question: “We would have found ourselves in a catastrophic situation. Instead of worrying about which weapons to send to Ukraine, we would have been preoccupied with how to defend ourselves if Putin decided to attack one of the EU member states, as everything would have seemed permissible to him.” He goes on to argue that the only way to make the Kremlin treat us with respect and caution is by confronting it with firmness and decisiveness. In his view, this is the true realism that will guarantee European security. Weakness, on the other hand, only invites further aggression from figures like Putin, pushing them to take things further with each step.
Ignoring the Ideological Priority of War in Russia
The book explains why Western political elites ignored the real intentions of Russia, which had already become clear to some: that war is Russia’s national ideology. The elites preferred to turn a blind eye to Russia’s repeated attempts to ignore international law and replace it with mafia-like practices, treating Russia as if it were a normal country. This was because they favored their own moral, financial, and cultural comfort.
Moscow’s Use of Corruption to Influence the West
The author highlights how Russia used corruption as a tool of war to influence the ruling classes in various EU countries. This corruption, he claims, turned into treason because it resulted in a well-planned and precisely executed operation. The book brings attention to the strategic role played by a German figure, Matthias Warnig, who was instrumental in organizing this operation. Warnig’s name kept resurfacing during the author’s investigations into corruption networks connected to the European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Interference, which he chaired. Warnig had previously worked for the East German political police, spying on key commercial companies in West Germany. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he worked for the Dresdner Bank, where he successfully encouraged German capital to invest in Russia, leveraging his past connections with Russian intelligence (KGB). He went on to open the first Western bank branch in Russia, in St. Petersburg, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Warnig’s bank became the gateway for European capital seeking to invest in Russia, and during this time, his relationship with Putin flourished. When Putin came to power, he assigned Warnig to facilitate Russian investments in Germany and Europe. Glucksmann credits Warnig with the idea of establishing the Nord Stream pipeline, which led Germany into an era of energy dependence on Russian gas. He also claims that Warnig convinced Chancellor Schröder at the time not to coordinate this project with EU institutions in Brussels.
In conclusion, the author asserts that the belief that Ukraine needs Europe because it relies on European weapons and financial support only represents half the truth. The reality is that Europe also needs Ukraine. Ukraine has demonstrated a vitality, energy, and courage that Europeans lack. Moreover, Ukraine has provided Europeans with a painful and difficult awakening, making them realize that resistance is necessary in the face of a systematic and meticulously planned attack. Glucksmann concludes that Europe needs Ukraine to relearn the value of the unified European project and to rediscover their own capabilities and self-belief.
Source: Raphaël Glucksmann, La Grande Confrontation – Comment Poutine fait la guerre à nos démocraties, Allary, Paris, April 2023.
