Eastern Europe Is Planning A Future Beyond The EU & NATO | Prof. Ivo Yotsov

The post-Cold War order is fraying not simply because great power rivalry has returned, but because our models for understanding state behavior—liberal institutionalism and classical realism—no longer capture the full texture of political life in Europe. The conversation with Prof. Ivo Yotsov pushes that point: power is not only material or institutional, it is embodied in history, identity, and what he calls “virtual pain.” From the decks of the Black Sea to the lecture halls of a naval academy, Yotsov reframes security thinking for Eastern Europe by insisting that civilizations matter, that alliances are lived experiences, and that the region is quietly planning futures that may sit uneasily within current EU and NATO frameworks. ## Civilizational Realism & The Russian Worldview Prof. Yotsov’s argument begins with a critique of the dominant theories. Liberal institutionalism treats states like companies, assuming that institutions and rules shape behavior; structural realism treats them like billiard balls, focusing on external constraints and material capabilities while ignoring internal narratives. Both approaches miss something vital: the historical and civilizational substrata that make certain losses or gains feel existential rather than merely strategic. Yotsov borrows from—and seeks to expand—ideas about civilizations to argue for what might be called civilizational realism. This is not a retreat into cultural determinism; rather, it is an attempt to integrate the emotional and symbolic dimensions of state behavior into realist analysis. Take, for instance, the Russian relationship to Ukraine. For many observers, Russian policy appears to be opportunistic or simply imperialist in a classical sense. Seen through Yotsov’s lens, however, actions that provoke Western outrage can also be understood as responses to “virtual pain”—the profound sense that parts of a civilizational body have been severed. Kievan Rus’, Orthodox Christianity, and centuries of shared cultural artifacts are not irrelevant ephemera. They are the substrate of identity that conditions leaders’ threat perceptions and publics’ responses. When a polity experiences the loss of what it considers integral to its identity, its reactions may resemble responses to injury rather than rational calculations in the narrow, material sense. That insight has consequences beyond explaining Moscow. Yotsov stresses that Eastern European societies—Bulgaria among them—have internal debates shaped by layered histories: Russophilia and Russophobia coexist, sometimes within the same communities. Policy choices are constrained not only by GDP and tanks but by language, shared religious rites, migration patterns, and memories of past alliances. For theory as much as for policy, this means expanding the realist toolkit to include narrative, memory, and collective psychology. Doing so helps explain why some states align one way or the other despite obvious material incentives, and why reconciliation can, after a conflict, be more likely in some places than others because cultural proximity reduces the long-term cost of ruptures. ## Comparing the Warsaw Pact to NATO A striking portion of the conversation turns on lived experience: what did membership feel like in the Warsaw Pact versus what it feels like inside NATO? Yotsov’s account is measured but revealing. The Warsaw Pact, he recalls, entailed deep standardization: common equipment, unified doctrines, a single language of command. That homogenization produced high interoperability—because satellites were integrated into a Soviet-managed machine. But that very integration carried another feature: limited sovereignty. The Brezhnev Doctrine’s legacy was the legal and political power to intervene in allied states under the guise of maintaining order. The payoff of centralized control was predictability and cohesion at the cost of domestic autonomy. NATO, by contrast, offers looser integration and far more national choice. Members pick equipment, set procedures, and retain visible sovereignty. That diversity breeds its own problems: interoperability is imperfect, alliance politics are messier, and collective action hinges on consensus among democratically accountable governments. Yotsov’s lived experience of helping integrate naval forces into NATO two decades ago colors his assessment: NATO is less a monolithic machine and more a coalition of distinct wills. Where the Warsaw Pact substituted uniformity for autonomy, NATO substitutes autonomy for uniformity. This difference has theoretical implications. Liberal institutionalists celebrate NATO as proof that democracies bind themselves to rules and mutual defense commitments. Realists point out that both NATO and the Warsaw Pact served hegemonic ends—mechanisms of power projection just wearing different costumes. Yotsov finds both readings partial. He accepts realism’s emphasis on material capabilities but argues the texture of control matters: invisible constraints—norms, legal instruments, and the EU’s regulatory reach—can be as powerful as overt military chains. The Warsaw Pact’s clarity of command produced cohesion, while NATO’s diffuse structure produces pluralism and friction. That friction may be the price of freedom; but it is also a structural opening for intra-alliance dissent and the emergence of regional strategies that diverge from Washington or Brussels. ## An Eastern European Buffer Zone From those comparative observations emerges a provocative proposal: the possibility of an Eastern European buffer zone, not as a cordon sanitaire imposed by external powers, but as a political and diplomatic project run by the region’s states within the architecture of Euro-Atlantic institutions. Yotsov’s idea is not to recreate blocs but to formalize the intermediate position that many Eastern countries already occupy—a position shaped by shared history, vulnerability, and a pragmatic desire to avoid turning their territories into battlegrounds between great powers. This buffer would operate through intra-alliance diplomacy: states at the frontier would coordinate policies that reduce escalation risks, protect cross-border communities, and assert regional preferences on issues such as sanctions, energy, and migration. It is a claim for a regional voice within larger alliances, not an argument for exit. Importantly, the buffer logic rests on the civilizational premise: proximity and cultural ties create incentives to defuse conflicts quickly and restore relations once violence subsides. For states like Bulgaria, whose social fabric includes Russian-speaking Ukrainians and historical ties to Russia, a hybrid posture—firm on security but open to reconciliation—can be more sustainable than perpetual antagonism. Practically, an Eastern buffer would be built on existing institutions and practices: joint diplomatic initiatives, differentiated implementation of EU measures, tailored rules for cross-border economic interaction, and military postures focused on deterrence without provocation. It anticipates a Europe of “two speeds” but seeks to manage that divergence constructively rather than allowing it to ossify into permanent cleavage. The buffer is less an exclusionary wall than a mediation zone: a set of procedures and norms that foreground de-escalation, regional autonomy in defining threat responses, and an emphasis on rebuilding ties post-conflict. ## Preventing War via NATO Vetoes If the buffer concept rests on regional agency, Yotsov’s most consequential practical suggestion is the use of alliance mechanisms to block escalation: specifically, the strategic use of vetoes and consensus rules within NATO to prevent the alliance from becoming an engine of expansion into the sparks that could ignite wider war. NATO’s design—requiring collective agreement for major moves—can function as an ingrained brake on precipitous action. Yotsov contends that Eastern members, leveraging their heterogeneou

Eastern Europe Is Planning A Future Beyond The EU & NATO | Prof. Ivo Yotsov Does being in NATO really feel that different from being in the Warsaw Pact for those who lived through both? And is it possible for a group of Eastern European nations to actually force peace by acting as a "buffer zone" from within the alliance? To explore these ideas, I turned to someone who has watched the world shift from the deck of a ship. Captain Ivo Yotsov is a former captain in the Bulgarian Navy and currently a professor at the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy. With his unique mix of military experience and academic work on "New Structural Realism," he offers a view from the Black Sea that challenges how we usually think about power, culture, and the future of Europe. Links: Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch & Donations: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 New Structural Realism vs. Liberalism 00:06:40 Civilizational Realism & The Russian Worldview 00:17:40 Comparing the Warsaw Pact to NATO 00:29:54 An Eastern European Buffer Zone 00:39:23 Preventing War via NATO Vetoes #Pascal Welcome back to Neutrality Studies. Today we have a guest from Bulgaria. I'm joined by Captain Ivo Yotsov, who holds a PhD in International Economics, served as a captain in the Bulgarian Navy, and is now a professor at the Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy. Professor Yotsov, welcome. #Ivo Yotsov Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here in Europe, on Neutrality Studies. #Pascal I'm very happy to have you here. I'm very happy to have you because you are actually—well, you're in Bulgaria, in Eastern Europe—and you're writing or working on a manuscript on new structural realism. I'd like to discuss that with you. As far as I understand, the book isn't out yet; it will be out in a couple of months. But can you tell me, from your background and from looking at world affairs from Bulgaria today, what this new structural realism tells you about how the world works? #Ivo Yotsov Maybe, first of all, I have to explain why I wrote this book. I realized that the two major concepts related to the security environment and international relations are not able to explain the world we live in. The first one is liberalism, or liberal institutionalism. This concept sees countries as -- 1 of 13 -- companies. It defines the world by how it should be—for example, respecting rules, having human rights—but it cannot explain the real world. It cannot explain why Russia attacked Ukraine, or why the U.S. kidnapped the president of Venezuela. #Pascal I might just interject, because liberal institutionalism says that the way countries are structured is the way they also behave. So, you know, Russia invaded Ukraine because it's an autocracy, right? Because it's ruled by a dictator—therefore, they go in. But that's usually where this line of thinking ends. #Ivo Yotsov Yes, this is the point of view of that concept. The second one is realism, and it has two branches: classical and structural realism. It examines countries as, for example, billiard balls. It’s interested in how they react, how they move and interact with each other, but what happens inside the balls it cannot explain. It works with pure numbers—it counts population, ships, aircraft, and so on—and power is related to this quantity of something. Yet it cannot explain why NATO lost the conflict in Afghanistan. It cannot explain why, despite the huge GDP of the U.S. compared to Vietnam, the war in Vietnam was lost. From this point of view, it just cannot be explained. So, one more thing is that we have to create a framework that can explain the new reality. In this new reality, there are actors in international relations such as private military companies and groups of hackers, for example. And we are in a war—a continuous war—but without classical means to attack the opposite side. So I think the existing concepts should be made broader to include history, the red lines, the virtual pains, the feelings of countries. Some countries, OK, they are different from this point of view. There are great powers, and there are smaller powers, and they cannot react in the same way. So, in my view, realism should be made broader. #Pascal We have a couple of IR thinkers, of course, who try to develop this concept of realism. I mean, the original realism, as it was coined and developed by Morgenthau, has gone through a lot of changes. And Kenneth Waltz, too, has gone through a lot of iterations, right? The most prominent one in our space is certainly John Mearsheimer, who uses what he calls offensive realism. In his framework, one of the postulates is that security competition among states is unavoidable because, yeah, they’re billiard balls—they’re always on the playing field, right? So competition is unavoidable. War is avoidable if it’s managed carefully, but the reason he calls it “offensive” is because states need to be assertive—especially great powers—in order to create a balance of power. If you give in, then, well, the other one will come and ram you through, right? So, in your view, in terms of structural realism, how do you see these forces actually moving? -- 2 of 13 -- #Ivo Yotsov Actually, in my view, we have to examine what is going on with the billiard balls. #Pascal For example—may I just add, because this is very different—John Mearsheimer explicitly says, “I don’ t care what happens inside the balls; it doesn’t matter. It’s the system that…” #Ivo Yotsov Yes, this is the main difference. It’s very important to understand what’s going on. Because, for example, if we take Huntington’s point of view, there are different civilizations. And if you look at the point of view of—what was the name—sorry. #Pascal It’s okay. #Ivo Yotsov But let's continue. European civilization as a whole is part of, let's say, the classical civilization that appeared in the Mediterranean. During the Roman Empire, it was separated into Western and Eastern parts. So the Eastern civilization—countries like my own, Bulgaria, Russia, Poland, and so on—is a little bit different from this point of view. The behavior of these states is very much related to that background. So we cannot just say, “Okay, we’re only thinking about what’s going on in the box,” because we have to answer four questions: first, who; second, how; third, why; and with what kind of means will they react, and to what are they reacting. So in this way, we can classify and find direct examples. The virtual pain, for instance—when a country that was once a great empire loses part of its territory, like Russia with the countries of the Caucasus—it feels pain as if a leg has been cut off. It’s no longer part of the body, but the pain still exists. In this new structural imperialism, it’s clear why Russia sees Ukraine as part of Russian civilization. I suppose many people know that Kievan Rus’ is the core of the Russian state. So it’s very important to understand why the leadership of a country reacts one way or another. #Pascal Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this can happen again at any time. So please consider subscribing not only here but also to my mailing list on Substack—that’s pascallottaz.substack.com. The link’s going to be in the description below. And now, back to the video. I mean, this is quite important because, again, Mearsheimer’s -- 3 of 13 -- version of realism—of course, Mearsheimer as an analyst, as a person—will never, ever ignore the beliefs, the speech acts, and so on of the Russians. He actually keeps talking about this constantly: about what we hear and how the Russian political system works. This is very crucial. But for the theory, the point is that states necessarily behave as if security competition is always going on, and they act to maximize their security against others, right? Great powers do this through several means—for instance, by fighting other great powers or trying to prevent them from ever becoming great powers, and through alliance management to make sure their satellites stay more or less in line and don’t threaten the core, and so on, right? And he said in there that it doesn’t matter whether we’re talking about a democracy, an autocracy, or a theocracy like in Iran. I mean, once the power develops to do something, they’ll behave that way. Now, what this leaves out, of course, is exactly what you’re saying. The fact is that different civilizations might actually not behave that way, because the case studies that classical or offensive realists use are mostly those coming straight out of the Roman Empire— the Western Roman Empire, right? Then they study how the Europeans behaved among each other, then the British, then the Americans. So it’s basically one long trajectory of Western Roman Empire development—breaking up and reconfiguring—and then they map that onto the whole world and say, “All of them behave like that.” But that leaves out the Chinese civilization, it leaves out the Eastern Roman civilization, the Russians. And your analysis now says, no, no, no, we need to look at that. The civilizational component is essential. Is that it? #Ivo Yotsov Actually, my analysis says that classical realism should be extended with this point of view. Nobody says, “No, no, we can’t count the numbers.” And actually, power is very much related to the number of tanks, aircraft, and so on. Okay, nobody says it’s not like that. But there are other issues related to power—like how the society, for example, is united, the will of the society. So, yeah. #Pascal So, what is it in your view? I mean, let’s take Bulgaria as an example—a state or a society that’s not as clearly shaped by these Western constructs as, say, France or the UK. If you, as a Bulgarian, understand Russians differently—their motivations, for instance, for doing things—what’s the most important aspect to understand about how they, as a great power, as a great civilization, act on the world stage today? #Ivo Yotsov Actually, here in Bulgaria, we have a very powerful, very intense discussion in society about our relationship with Russia. You probably know that because of the war between the Ottoman Empire and Russia at the end of the 19th century, Bulgaria became an independent state. But at the same -- 4 of 13 -- time, the Cyrillic alphabet was developed in Bulgaria, so we have very close relations with what is now Russia—or the Russian Empire if you go further back in history. The feelings of Bulgarians toward Russia are very different, for example, compared to the Polish population or Western Europeans. So here in Bulgaria, we have Russophiles and Russophobes—two major, let’s say, camps. Russophiles think the country should be oriented more toward the East, and the Russophobes think political relations with Western countries should be closer. Now, my country is a member of NATO, the European Union, and so on. So, in a way, the country made a choice—maybe more than 20 years ago. But still, I think even the political leadership here can understand Russia’s point of view quite well. For example, during World War II, the Bulgarian embassy in Moscow and the Soviet embassy in Sofia were points of contact between Germany and the Soviet Union. So I believe that, somehow, the war in Ukraine will end and good relations between our countries will be restored. #Pascal So you think that the Bulgarian–Russian relationship, once the war ends, will necessarily improve again because of the proximity and the cultural ties? Yes, for sure. #Ivo Yotsov May I ask? Sorry. You probably know our language is very close to Russian. Here in Bulgaria, there are a lot of people—not just from Russia, but from Ukraine as well—Russian-speaking Ukrainians who came here at the beginning of the war. They feel very comfortable living in Bul