China, Russia, peace: the three incompatible visions tearing the West apart

NATO members can’t unite because they don't all want the same future

The Washington Post gets the symptoms right, but fumbles the diagnosis in Thursday’s piece by Ellen Francis , headlined “Europe strains to speak with one voice as US, Russia decide Ukraine’s fate.” The noise inside the Western camp isn’t really about “values” or virtue, rather it’s concerned with cold hard strategy and geography; and old stubborn priorities that won’t go away.

Different blocs want different futures, and they’re all tugging in directions no amount of Atlanticist sermonising can reconcile. That’s the real truth behind every row over Ukraine, Russia, China or military spending. They’re not actually arguing about principle, that’s for irrelevant fanatics in think tanks and over in the hothouse of X.

For Washington the hierarchy is clear and cold: China is the existential problem, the only rival capable of closing the distance. Russia is an irritant. It’s well-armed and has plenty of motivation but it’s considered volatile and ultimately regional in its reach. Previous administrations used Ukraine as a tool, a way of punching Moscow hard enough to free America’s hands for Beijing. The trouble is, that trick has been played, and everyone knows it.

Across the water, the current (deeply unpopular) leadership of the Germany–France–UK axis sees things through the harsher lens of proximity and history. Russia is the threat that sits across the fence, whereas China is a profitable abstraction (Poland and the Baltics disagree with this, but they have no real say). Meanwhile, the United States is the security blanket they all clutch at night, praying it won’t be snatched away after the next electoral mood swing in Iowa.

But even this loose alliance buckles under its own contradictions. The Baltics and Poland want Russia ground into the clay. France and Germany want it bruised but still breathing; they will need its resources and huge market again when this is all over. The UK, now reduced to being a freelance actor, wants whatever preserves the illusion that it still matters in the grand game after Brexit.

This is sold as a “united front.” But it isn’t, it’s a choir where every singer insists they’re singing lead.

Then there are the southern Europeans (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, plus the Hungarian and Slovak outliers). They are not closet Russophiles. They are simply grown weary of the endless crusades. What they want is cheaper energy and a foreign policy that doesn’t behave like an unpaid internship for Washington. And above all, no spiritual sequel to the Cold War, this time with China because they’ve all experienced enough imperial hangovers to know how those usually end.

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Americans still harbour the fading hope that Russia might pivot against China. Moscow won’t do this, especially not while the West insists it must get down on its knees first, so the most Washington can realistically hope for is a neutral Russia. That’s not a fantasy because the Kremlin has recently been shown more than a few glimpses of what dependency on Beijing actually means. And it doesn’t like what it’s seen.

So yes, “Europe” strains to speak with one voice because it’s a mishmash of regional interests and no underlying unity of vision or purpose.

In short: Washington wants a China-first strategy, Northern Europe wants a Russia-first strategy and Southern Europe wants cheap gas and the return of Russian tourists who spend without looking too closely at the bill.

Once you see the map for what it is, a collection of competing anxieties stitched together, the discord starts making sense. Then, of course, there is the final conundrum: Russia itself is just as European as France or Britain (if not even more so the way demographics are headed) and that reality will eventually have to be confronted and accommodated.