The End of Peace in Europe and the Western-dominated World Order? | Amb. Chas Freeman

## How Wars End: Lessons from European History The way a war concludes often determines whether peace will endure. Drawing on historical patterns, the conversation highlights a recurrent truth: durable peace arises from inclusive settlements that recognize the interests and status of major powers. The Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars is held up as a model. By reconciling defeated and victorious states into a working concert, Europe achieved an uneasy but lasting stability for nearly a century. Conversely, punitive exclusions and the denial of a role commensurate with power sowed the seeds of later catastrophe. That pattern — reconciliation versus exclusion — frames the argument that the present crisis in Europe is not a standalone failure but part of a predictable cycle rooted in how victors treat defeated or rival powers. This historical framing matters because it shifts scrutiny from isolated policy choices to structural prescriptions for order. Peace built on humiliation, disenfranchisement, or denial of security inevitably breeds revisionism. The interrogation here is therefore systemic: did Western strategy after the Cold War create mechanisms for long-term accommodation with other European great powers, or did it privilege short-term gain and ideological dominance at the expense of sustainable arrangements? The conversation answers plainly: the failure to integrate Russia into a stable European framework is a repeat of past errors with grim consequences. ## Exclusion, Revenge, and the Cycle of Great-Power War The analysis returns repeatedly to a single causal chain: exclusion begets resentment; resentment, when left unmitigated, legitimizes force. The interwar period is an instructive warning: after World War I, the marginalization of Germany and Russia helped produce World War II. In the Cold War that followed, the bipolar order—anchored in mutual deterrence—contained violence but did not resolve underlying rivalries. The present moment, then, is not an aberration but the next phase in a long history of contested European balances. Ambassador Chas Freeman frames the current breakdown as a failure of imagination and policy on the part of the West. The argument is not that states have a moral right to invade neighbors, but that when major powers perceive existential threats and see no peaceful avenue to secure their interests, they will accept war as a tool. This is an argument in realist register: security dilemmas, spheres of influence, and the management of great-power interests matter as much as, if not more than, normative commitments. If the aim is a durable continental peace, the remedy must be political structures that make aggression costly and accommodation rewarding — not rhetorical assurances that lack mechanisms for enforcement. ## Ukraine: A Case Study of Failed Accommodation Ukraine is presented as the tragic exemplar of what happens when security concerns are dismissed and geopolitical competition is left to accumulate. According to the remarks, Moscow’s grievances were not merely rhetorical but concrete: a NATO trajectory that would place hostile forces and US power along Russia’s western borders; the protection of the linguistic and cultural rights of Russian-speaking populations; and a broader, negotiated architecture for European security. The refusal to negotiate, the account contends, left Russia with stark choices and a predictable decision to use force to prevent a future in which its security would be compromised. The subsequent course of the war, in this reading, has been calamitous for Ukraine and humiliating for Western strategy. With four years of conflict at the time of the talk, Ukraine appears exhausted — demographically depleted, economically shattered, and politically strained — while Russia, far from being isolated, continues to pursue limited objectives and to harden its demands. The most consequential claim is that battlefield outcomes have narrowed the space for meaningful diplomatic compromise: when one party believes it can shape facts on the ground, negotiating leverage tilts accordingly. The lesson here is stark: excluding security interests from early diplomacy makes a political settlement more costly and less likely. ## The Erosion of Western Moral Authority A central line of critique concerns the West’s credibility. The speaker argues that the United States and its allies have eroded their moral and legal authority through selective application of international law and a pattern of coercive measures. The reference points are broad — from perceived double standards in responses to Ukraine and Palestine, to the willingness of the West to impose sanctions and punishments unilaterally. The consequence is a global skepticism toward Western leadership and a collapse of faith in the reliability of Western commitments. This loss of trust has concrete strategic implications. If Washington is seen as a “serial violator” of pacta sunt servanda — the principle that treaties must be kept — potential mediators and nonaligned powers will be wary of American-brokered settlements. That matters because many states outside the Atlantic alliance prefer solutions that preserve sovereign equality and limit coercive intervention. The remarks suggest that this moral deficit limits Western options: their capacity to rally broad international support or to persuade rising powers to align with Western-led initiatives is diminished. The global majority, especially formerly colonized states, perceive Western policy as hypocritical and unjust, and that perception is reshaping alliance behavior in ways that reduce Western leverage. ## The Global Repercussions: A Fractured International Order Beyond Europe, the conversation sketches a world in which the West’s monopolistic grip on global governance is fraying. Emerging powers — notably China, India, and Brazil — are portrayed as increasingly independent actors, uninterested in automatically endorsing Western positions. Their growing readiness to help broker or influence outcomes in Europe, coupled with dissatisfaction about Western behavior elsewhere, means the geopolitical field is becoming multipolar in both material and normative senses. Two outcomes are posed as likely by the ongoing trends. One is mounting chaos: a world of competitive blocs, reciprocal sanctions, proxy conflicts, and fractured institutions. The other is a new international system that privileges sovereign equality and mutual accommodation. Which path prevails depends largely on whether rival powers can find mechanisms to assuage mutual security fears. The stakes are therefore existential for the post-1945 order: either the West adapts to a genuinely plural world in which its privileges are curtailed, or the present rivalry intensifies into a prolonged and destabilizing contest. ## Pathways to a Durable Peace If inclusion rather than exclusion is the key, what practical steps follow? The conversation suggests several, even if cautiously. First, meaningful negotiation about Ukraine’s status must grapple with hard security questions: borders, neutral status, protections for ethnic and linguistic minorities, and enforceable guarantees that blunt the security dilemma. Second, Europe-wide security arrangements should be reimagined to accommodate Russia as a legitimate stakeholder rather than treating it as a pariah. Third, rebuilding trust requires consistent adherence to international agreements by all parties, including the West — a restoration of pacta sunt servanda in practice, not only in slogans. None of these steps are easy. Each demands political courage, domestic compromise, and the willingness to accept imperfect outcomes in the short term for long-term stability. The conversation is unambiguous that military victory is unlikely to deliver a sustainable order. Instead, it endorses a political settlement in which both Russia and Western states commit to reciprocal concessions

The End of Peace in Europe and the Western-dominated World Order? | Chas Freeman Remarks to an international conference on ending the disaster in Ukraine organized by Radio Roma News TV / Amici Network. Full conference video here: https://youtu.be/bEkgZZs4MR4? si=X42Y9c_OZfSxIPka Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.) Remarks delivered on February 22, 2025 How wars end matters. The Napoleonic wars ended in the reconciliation of Europe’ s great powers, including the defeated French, at the Congress of Vienna. The resulting, inclusive “Concert of Europe” ensured a long, if imperfect, peace that ended only in World War I. That war was fought mainly in Europe. It was followed by the vindictive exclusion of two great European powers from any role in or commitment to sustaining stability in Europe. The excommunication of Germany and Russia laid the basis for World War II, which – for Americans – was both transatlantic and transpacific. That war ended not in a peace but in a cold war – a tense but stable order sustained by mutual deterrence through military confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. The failure to include a role for Russia in Europe commensurate with its power has now once again brought war to the continent. The lessons of history are clear. There can be no stable order in Europe that excludes any of its great powers. Those with no peaceful way to ensure respect for their security interests will see no reason not to use force to defend them. And if there is no prospect of a sustainable framework to safeguard their interests, they will prefer outcomes on battlefields to those contrived at the negotiating table..... #M2 Hello, everybody. Today, I'd like to share an assessment of Ambassador Chas Freeman, who has been on this channel several times. On February 22nd, Ambassador Freeman gave the following remarks, entitled "The End of Peace in Europe and the Western-Dominated World Order," at an international conference on ending the disaster in Ukraine, organized by Radio Roma News TV. You'll find the full version linked in the description. It's the YouTube homepage that you can see right here. Ambassador Freeman asked me to share his presentation as a standalone video, which I'm more than happy to do as I regard him, next to people like Chuck Matlock, John Mearsheimer, and Jeffrey Sachs, as one of the United States' greatest and most humanist international relations thinkers. Among other positions, Ambassador Freeman served as U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1993 to 1994 and as U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1992. He was also Richard Nixon's principal interpreter during his 1972 visit to China, which led to the normalization of U.S.- China relations. Here you go. -- 1 of 3 -- #M1 Good evening. I'd like to speak to you this evening about the question of peace in Europe and whether the dominion of the West over the world has now ended. The two are connected. How wars end matters. The Napoleonic Wars ended in the reconciliation of Europe's great powers, including the defeated French at the Congress of Vienna. The resulting inclusive concert of Europe ensured a long, if imperfect, peace that ended only in World War I. That war was fought mainly in Europe. It was followed by the vindictive exclusion of two great European powers from any role in or commitment to sustaining stability in Europe. The exclusion of Germany and Russia laid the basis for World War II, which for Americans was both transatlantic and transpacific. That war ended not in peace, but in a Cold War—a tense but stable order sustained by mutual deterrence through military confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States. The failure to include a role for Russia in Europe commensurate with its power has now once again brought war to the continent. The lessons of history are clear: there can be no stable order in Europe that excludes any of its great powers. Those with no peaceful way to ensure respect for their security interests will see no reason not to use force to defend them. And if there is no prospect of a sustainable framework to safeguard their interests, they will prefer outcomes on battlefields to those contrived at the negotiating table. This is the story of the Ukraine war. After nearly three decades of indifference and rejection of Russian security concerns by the United States and NATO, Russia issued an ultimatum demanding negotiations on three of these concerns. First, neutrality for Ukraine, rather than its incorporation into NATO, an alliance premised on armed hostility to Russia. Second, respect for the linguistic and cultural rights of Ukraine's large Russian-speaking population. And third, agreement on Europe-wide security arrangements that could mitigate and relieve Russian security anxieties, as well as those of the West. The West flatly refused to discuss these issues. This left Russia with a choice between abandoning its ultimatum and accepting NATO and American forces everywhere on its western borders, or going to war to prevent this. Russia quite predictably chose war, though it limited this to what it called a special military operation. Russia's invasion of Ukraine was followed within weeks by a draft treaty in which Ukraine agreed to meet the basic Russian requirements. But the West was more interested in isolating and weakening Russia than in a ceasefire. It persuaded Ukraine to repudiate what it had agreed to. The Ukraine war is now about to enter its fourth year. It has been catastrophic for Ukraine and humiliating for the West. Ukraine is on its last legs, depopulated, deindustrialized, depleted of military manpower, shorn of its democracy, bankrupt, and territorially reduced. Meanwhile, Russia has not been isolated or weakened. It has continued to limit its objectives, but its terms for peace are hardening. Ukraine's options continue to narrow. Russia will not cease to insist on a Ukraine that -- 2 of 3 -- does not threaten it and a broader framework for peace in Europe. There will be no ceasefire or Korean-style demilitarized zone between Russia and the West in Ukraine. The West has failed to prevail on the battlefield. It will not prevail at the negotiating table. The alternative to war in Ukraine is nothing less than a peace that sets agreed borders between Ukraine and Russia and prevents the division of Europe into mutually hostile blocs. Achieving this will require Russia and the West each to address and take actions to alleviate the other's fears and suspicions. That will not be easy for either side, but it is time for both to try. An agreement to end the war has clearly been made more difficult by the ways in which the world has changed since it began. The United States has become a serial violator of the principle of pacta sunt servanda: agreements must be kept. No one, least of all Russia, now trusts Washington to honor its word. The collective West's shameless backing for Israel's sadistic genocide in Palestine, attacks on its neighbors, and territorial expansion have made it clear that the Atlantic community no longer adheres to or feels bound by international law. The blatant double standards the West has applied to Ukraine and Palestine have cost it its moral authority with all of the peoples it formerly colonized. The global majority sees Western policies as unjust. The promiscuous imposition by the United States and G7 of sanctions and other coercive measures on other countries has resulted in their almost universal withdrawal of respect for Western leadership and willingness to follow it. Strained and worsening relations between the West and resurgent powers like Brazil, India, and China, which are interested in helping broker peace in Ukraine, ensure that they will be less supportive of the West than they otherwise might have been. The cumulative effect of these and other recent changes in the world order will be either mounting chaos or the emergence of a new international system in which renewed respect for the sovereign equality of nations and for their security concerns replaces the current global anarchy. How the war in Ukraine ends will determine which of these alternatives rules our future. Thank you. -- 3 of 3 --