High time for a paradigm shift

In the most precarious security situation since the end of the Cold War, the third conference on Eurasian security took place in Minsk, an hour’s drive from the new Iron Curtain. In an increasingly unstable world order – or rather world disorder – participants from 48 countries in Europe and Asia emphasised the need for Eurasian cooperation and pragmatic security policy beyond Western ideology. Western Europe, which largely sought to ignore the conference, must rethink its position and undergo a paradigm shift.

Since the second Minsk Security Conference in 2024, the global situation has changed dramatically, and one can only watch with amazement at the pace of the transformation process.¹ A few weeks after the conference, Donald Trump came to power in the US with a landslide election victory, translating an isolationist tendency among the US population into policy, generally prioritising pragmatism over ideology and only waging war if there is money to be made from it. The new administration is probably not driven by a whim in the US, but by a constant current in US domestic politics. The midterm elections in the US in a year’s time will be an important indicator of how things might proceed. Trump, who does not have to seek re-election, will certainly strive to put his party and his candidates in pole position. In addition, he will probably continue to refine his political legacy. These are likely to remain the constants in his sometimes-erratic foreign policy.
  This creates certain prospects for strategic stability for perhaps even a decade. However, responsible politics in the countries of Eurasia must reckon with a relapse into the period of ideological confrontation that dominated under the Obama and Biden administrations, but must not miss the opportunities of the moment. While in the 1990s and the early years of the 21^st century it was the US that sought to motivate its sometimes-reluctant European allies to engage in global military adventures, it is now the Europeans who are desperately trying to draw the US into their wars. Merz, Macron and Starmer represent a change in the world whose implications they may not yet fully understand.

Ideology replaces
professional competence

In the long term, the West faces the task of relinquishing its role as the headmaster in the area of values. While the values of human rights and the rule of law are themselves undisputed, it is the claim to leadership that the West derives from them that meets with resistance. Countries that have experienced colonialism, that have been confronted with Western arrogance and had to put up with being bossed around perceive the new sense of mission of the “western world values” as, at best, a new form of colonialism. Today, they feel the time is ripe for resistance. Weak political elites in the West are encouraging them in their decision.
  The West is happy to demand political reforms, but then initiates regime change operations and repeatedly calls on entire societies to fight by imposing so-called “new values” on them. That was the recipe for defeat in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. It took the shock of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis for the superpowers to find their way to a pragmatic approach that transcended ideological boundaries. This approach was lost after the end of the Cold War because the collapse of the Soviet Union was interpreted as an ideological victory and there was no longer any reason to compromise. The people of the former Soviet Union paid dearly for the ideological upheaval of the 1990s, when an entire generation was impoverished and entire countries were literally plundered. Anyone who fails to understand this cannot comprehend what is happening in these countries today.

Eurasian cooperation
as an opportunity

Western hegemonic ambitions went well as long as there were no serious conflicts between the West and Russia, which remained the leading power in the post-Soviet space thanks to its size and resources. Russia was left out of the restructuring of Eastern Europe in the form of the dissolution of Yugoslavia and NATO’s eastward expansion, and had to accept it all due to its inability to resist. But twenty years of relative calm from outside was enough for Russia to get back on its feet. Sometime after 2010, Russia felt strong enough to say “no”.
  Nowhere was the turnaround more evident than in the organisation that had been created at the height of the Cold War to prevent ideological differences from escalating into World War III. After a decade of optimism in the 1990s and a decade of stagnation after 2000, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) completely lost its sense of pragmatism. The organisation’s forums became a platform for ideological exchanges, as evidenced by the meetings of the so-called Permanent Council and the Forum for Security Cooperation, where mutual recriminations replaced dialogue.² With their bickering, Western diplomats conceal their ignorance of the post-Soviet space and their inability to recognise the complexity of the problems there. As helpless as they are in dealing with the problems of national minorities in their home countries, they have little to contribute to resolving the numerous contradictions between the Kola Peninsula and the Mekong Delta. The Minsk Security Conference offers an opportunity to turn Eurasia into a showcase for Europeans to see how conflict management can work.
  Western capitals have little use for the concept of national diversity, let alone that of multipolarity. After the end of the Cold War, according to the Western interpretation, there was only one pole in world politics, and it was characterised by nation states in which, after long struggles, the peoples had established political borders that largely corresponded to linguistic boundaries. Multi-ethnic states had disappeared with the break-up of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires. With it, understanding of such states also vanished. Yugoslavia experienced this first-hand in the 1990s. A new generation of Western diplomats, who grew up with Western dominance, must now adjust to the fact that other players want to have a say in global politics. They will find this difficult too.

Good versus evil?

Western conflict management is largely based on self-assessment as a global “good guy”, which in turn is based on the belief that democracies are fundamentally peaceful – and therefore morally superior. The history of the past eighty years does not confirm this belief. According to this belief, in the event of a conflict, it is sufficient to look at the rankings of the various democracy indices assigned by certain US think tanks, and then you immediately know who to support.³ With this ideological approach and by exaggerating the conflict in eastern Ukraine into a battle between good and evil, no favours were done to Ukraine as a whole or to the inhabitants of eastern Ukraine. In 2014, when the conflicts in Ukraine began to overlap and escalate, the problems were still solvable. After that, every aspect of public life and government activity was subordinated to the needs of the conflict, to the point where enjoying Russian food and listening to Russian music is considered treason.⁴ Fanaticism versus education is the slogan in the battle for hearts and minds.
  A naive belief in an indestructible “good guy” status gives rise to a one-sided understanding of security: for Western ideologues, security always means the security of democracies against autocratic regimes. However, such an ideological approach is foreign to international law. All states are equal, with same rights and obligations. The principle of equality of security is a direct consequence of this. This has very concrete consequences – including for Belarus. The geography of the Baltic Sea creates unequal conditions. This problem could perhaps be addressed with a treaty on conventional forces in the region, combined with a verification mechanism. Talks alone would be helpful. In an atmosphere where a willingness to negotiate is interpreted as weakness, such talks fall victim to bellicose rhetoric.
  The aggressive rhetoric that Western Europeans have been using for years is an integral part of warfare and is based on the experiences of the US in the Vietnam War, which, according to the US military, was not lost on the battlefield, but in the living rooms of the US itself, whenever US citizens turned on their televisions and saw images of death and destruction. Allegedly, the US armed forces never lost a battle against the Vietnamese. While this alone sounds implausible, it has become the starting point for a new stab-in-the-back myth.⁵ After an entire generation in Russia and Belarus became disillusioned with Western neoliberalism in the 1990s, aggressive anti-Russian rhetoric is now angering a second generation.

Security through intimidation?

Western aspirations for dominance find their military expression in the expeditionary forces that have been established in Western Europe since the end of the Cold War. Parallel to the reduction of land forces, which were intended to protect the alliance from a Soviet-led invasion, naval and air forces and special operations forces were built up.⁶ Despite scaremongering about an allegedly imminent invasion of the whole of Western Europe by Russia, the majority of Western European states are making no serious moves to replace their professional armies with conscript armies, which alone could reach the size necessary to counter the alleged Russian threat.
  At the same time, calls for long-range stand-off weapons are growing louder. These weapons are now apparently intended to serve as a way out for all those who want to confront Russia but do not want to introduce conscription. The latest step in this direction is the deployment of the US Army’s Multi-Domain Task Force, which essentially consists of strategic missiles and is nothing more than a means by which the US land forces are now also supposed to “break down doors”.⁷ It is intended to punch holes in the much-cited anti-access/area denial devices with which states protect their territory, territorial waters and airspace from enemy access. The US Army’s missiles thus create a breach through which other countries are supposed to bring in their cannon fodder. The whole concept is touted to us as security through deterrence. Deterrence involves the element of retaliation, but when applied by the stronger party, it often results in intimidation, which no one is obliged to tolerate.⁸ We saw an attempt to implement such concepts last June, when two countries that do not even share a land or sea border waged war against each other across the territory of other countries, namely Israel and Iran.⁹ The countries of Eurasia have every right to demand a paradigm shift in security from the West: security not through intimidation and dominance, but through the ability to defend themselves.¹⁰

Trump in a quandary

The call for strategic weapons does not simplify the security situation and puts pressure on the Trump administration. The US is currently preparing to wage three nuclear wars simultaneously, against Russia, China and North Korea.¹¹ Washington is likely to expect a massive arms build-up. This presents the Trump administration with a dilemma in the short term: On one hand, it is seeking strategic cooperation with Russia, but at the same time does not want to impose contractual obligations in the area of strategic weapons that could hinder it in an arms race with China, and does not want to enter into negotiations with Russia from a position of weakness.¹² And Russian President Putin is seizing the opportunity to pillory the US by occasionally offering Trump an extension of the New START agreement, which is due for renewal in February next year. So far, Trump has only been able to respond with threats to resume nuclear testing.¹³
  There is still an opportunity to benefit from the relatively simple circumstances that currently exist, namely that only two countries in the world, the US and Russia, have a significant arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons. The arsenals of all other countries are comparatively modest – for the time being, at least. However, once a larger number of countries have strategic weapons at their disposal, whether conventional or nuclear, arms control will become infinitely more difficult. The creation of a red conference call system as a modernised version of the red telephone would be absolutely essential. However, in an unstable system, it would be nothing more than a sedative.
  The only way to improve the situation in the long term is for Western Europe to rethink its position, recognise that its influence has waned and that it needs to undergo a paradigm shift in terms of military security: security through the ability to defend itself rather than through intimidation. Anyone who is prepared to risk a war with strategic weapons today cannot credibly claim to have the slightest thing to do with national security. •

¹ See “Second Conference on Eurasian Security in Minsk in the face of the United States’ ongoing quest for military dominance” in: Current Concerns No. 2 of 28 January 2025, online at https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2025/nr-2-21-januar-2025/zweite-eurasische-sicherheitskonferenz-in-minsk-angesichts-anhaltenden-strebens-der-usa-nach-militaerischer-dominanz
² The author regularly attended the meetings of the OSCE Permanent Council between 2014 and 2020 and those of the Forum for Security Cooperation sporadically.
³ Among the best-known democracy indices is the one calculated by the British magazine The Economist (see https://www.eiu.com/n/campaigns/democracy-index-2024/), the V-Dem Democracy Index (see https://www.v-dem.net/), the BertelsmannTransformation Index (see https://bti-project.org/de/?&cb=00000), as well as the annual report of Freedom House (see https://freedomhouse.org/country/scores).
⁴ The author experienced this himself during the years 2014 to 2020, when he worked at the OSCE.
⁵ The stab-in-the-back myth arose as an explanation for the German defeat, claiming that the supposedly strongest army of the First World War was not militarily defeated, but rather betrayed by a “stab in the back” on the home front. This betrayal was attributed specifically to the revolution in Germany. This lie was primarily spread by nationalist circles, particularly by General Erich Ludendorff. The defeated nationalist military leaders blamed the civilian population, especially the Social Democrats, while the National Socialists blamed the Jews. See, among others, Arnulf Scriba: “Die Dolchstosslegende” at Lebendiges Museum online, German Historical Museum, 1 September 2014, online at https://www.dhm.de/lemo/kapitel/weimarer-republik/innenpolitik/dolchstosslegende.
⁶ The two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are the largest warships in the history of the Royal Navy. HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are designed to operate modern aircraft such as the F-35B, which, as multirole combat aircraft, can both protect the carrier strike group and conduct offensive strikes. See the Royal Navy website for more information: https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/equipment/ships/queen-elizabeth-class.
  France’s aircraft carrier “Charles de Gaulle” is France’s largest warship and the only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier outside the US Navy. See the French Navy’s website at https://www.defense.gouv.fr/marine/forces-surface/porte-avions, which describes the Charles de Gaulle as a “vecteur majeur des missions de projection de puissance et de maîtrise de l’espace aéro-maritime” (major powerhouse for power projection and maritime space control missions). The construction of an even larger aircraft carrier is planned under the designation “Porte-avions de nouvelle génération.”
⁷ See Wolfgang Richter: Stationierung von US Mittelstreckenraketen in Deutschland Konzeptioneller Hintergrund und Folgen für die europäische Sicherheit, at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Regionalbüro für Zusammenarbeit und Frieden in Europa, July 2024, online at https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/wien/21371.pdf. Cf. Kelley M. Sayler: Hypersonic Weapons: Background and Issues for Congress Updated 2 January, 2025, at Congressional Research Service, online at https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/R45811.pdf. Cf. also Dave Makichuk: Mach 5 monster; Germany to get Dark Eagle missile, in: Asia Times of 14 November 2021, online at https://asiatimes.com/2021/11/death-at-mach-5-germany-to-get-lethal-dark-eagle-missile/ and Mark Gunzinger, Lukas Autenreid, Bryan Clark. Cost-Effective Long-Range Strike, in: Air & Space Forces Magazine of June 30, 2021, online at https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/cost-effective-long-range-strike/, sowie Mark Gunzinger, Jacob Cohn, Lukas Autenreid, Ryan Boone. Towards a Tier One Royal Air Force, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), Washington DC, 2019, online at https://csbaonline.org/uploads/documents/RAF_Final_Report_WEB_1.pdf. Cf. also “Second Conference on Eurasian Security in Minsk in the face of the United States’ ongoing quest for military dominance”, in: Current concerns No. 2 of 28 January 2025, online at https://www.zeit-fragen.ch/en/archives/2025/nr-2-21-januar-2025/zweite-eurasische-sicherheitskonferenz-in-minsk-angesichts-anhaltenden-strebens-der-usa-nach-militaerischer-dominanz, and “Die Grenzen der Kanonenboot-Diplomatie – keine Angst vor Flugzeugträgern!”, in: Global Bridge of 28 November 2023, online at https://globalbridge.ch/die-grenzen-der-kanonenboot-diplomatie-keine-angst-vor-flugzeugtraegern/. 
⁸ For more on nuclear deterrence in general, see the article by a prominent critic: Heinz Gärtner. “Die Logik der nuklearen Abschreckung”, in: Der Standard of 15 January 2024, online at https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000202494/die-logik-der-nuklearen-abschreckung. A resource comparison between the EU and Russia; the GDP of the EU member states, most of which are also NATO members, is currently around 18 trillion euros, and the population is almost 450 million. See Bruno Urmersbach: Europäische Union: Bruttoinlandsprodukt (BIP) in den Mitgliedstaaten der EU im Jahr 2024, of statista.de of 13 May 2025, online at https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/188776/umfrage/bruttoinlandsprodukt-bip-in-den-eu-laendern/, as well as “Facts and figures of the European Union”, on the homepage of the EU, online at https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/facts-and-figures-european-union_en. This contrasts with Russia’s GDP of approximately 2.5 trillion US-dollars and a population of approximately 145 million, which is expected to decline slightly in the coming years. See Bruno Urmersbach. Russland: Bruttoinlandsprodukt (BIP) in jeweiligen Preisen von 1992 bis 2024 und Prognosen bis 2030, at statista.de of October 23, 2025, online at https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/19373/umfrage/bruttoinlandsprodukt-in-russland/ and ibid.: Russland: Gesamtbevölkerung von 1950 bis 2023 und Prognosen bis 2050, ibid. online at https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/19330/umfrage/gesamtbevoelkerung-in-russland/.
⁹ see: “Israels Angriffskrieg gegen den Iran: Kein Applaus für Dummheiten!” in: Global Bridge of 22 June 2025, online at https://globalbridge.ch/israels-angriffskrieg-gegen-den-iran-kein-applaus-fuer-dummheiten/
¹⁰ Typical of this attitude are the aerial warfare theories of US Colonel John Warden, which can be considered the most authoritative today. In an article, he said: “Our objective should be to expand the lead we have over the rest of the world throughout the next century …We must develop and field new systems rapidly … to force potential enemies to devote impossible efforts to defense … In other words, we become the threat”. Emphasis by the author. See: John Warden. “The New American Security Force”, in: Airpower Journal, Volume (13) 1999, online at https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/ASPJ/journals/Volume-13_Issue-1-4/1999_Vol13_No3.pdf, pp. 76 and 81.
¹¹ See Theodore Postol: “Biden’s ‘new’ nuclear strategy and the super-fuse that sets it off”, at Responsible Statecraft of 29 August 2024, online at https://responsiblestatecraft.org/trump-biden-china/.
¹² See Guy Faulconbridge, Maxim Rodionov, “Russia tests nuclear-capable Poseidon super torpedo, Putin says,” in: Reuters of 29 October 2025, online at https://www.reuters.com/world/china/putin-says-russia-tested-poseidon-nuclear-capable-super-torpedo-2025-10-29/. As is typical after such tests, the Western press declared the weapons to be paper tigers, either not ready for use or pure fiction. For example, see Christian Mölling, András Rácz, “Moskaus Schreckenswaffe – die wohl kaum eingesetzt wird,” in: ZDF heute of 30 October 2025, online at https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/ausland/russland-torpedo-poseidon-ukraine-krieg-100.html. A more realistic assessment can be found in H.I. Sutton. Poseidon Torpedo, at Covert Shores of 22 February 2019, online at http://www.hisutton.com/Poseidon_Torpedo.html. Cf. Matthias Koch. “Nukleare Drohung aus Moskau; Unterwasserdrohne Poseidon: Putins teuflische Tsunamiwaffe”, in: RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland of 10 May 2022, online at https://www.rnd.de/politik/poseidon-putins-teuflische-tsunamiwaffe-im-krieg-gegen-die-ukraine-WYT36PNNTBEF7H5IWSEA46YFXI.html. About the US-American tests of the use of nuclear weapons under water see Samuel Glasstone, Philip Dolan. The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (3^rd ed.), U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC, 1977, p. 52ff, online at www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_2.pdf und S. 249, online at www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/effects/eonw_6.pdf. David Ehl. “Wie viel Propaganda steckt hinter Putins Atomrakete?” In: Deutsche Welle of 28 October 2025, online at www.dw.com/de/wie-viel-propaganda-steckt-hinter-putins-atom-rakete-burewestnik-sturmvogel-nuklear-waffe-nato-v2/a-74514291. Cf. also “Speziell die Europäer sollten sich warm anziehen”, in: Global Bridge of 15 January 2025, online at https://globalbridge.ch/speziell-die-europaeer-sollten-sich-warm-anziehen/ 
¹³ See “Trump wirft Russland und China Atomwaffentests vor”, in: Tagesschau of 3 November 2025, online at https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/amerika/atomwaffen-trump-tests-100.html. Trump spoke of underground tests, from which is known exactly what happens during the tests. See also “‘Prozess sofort beginnen’: Trump bekräftigt Plan für US-Atomwaffentests”, in: Der Standard of 6 November 2025, online at https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000295188/trump-bekr228ftigt-plan-f252r-us-atomwaffentests. Trump was immediately criticised for this by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. See Stewart Battle, IAEA Chief Grossi Criticizes Trump’s Threat to Resume Nuclear Testing, in: Executive Intelligence Review of 6 November 2025, online at https://eir.news/2025/11/news/iaea-chief-grossi-criticizes-trumps-threat-to-resume-nuclear-testing/. Russia does not intend to conduct any nuclear weapons tests for the time being. See Carl Osgood, “Kremlin Spokesman Stresses Russia’s Commitment to Nuclear Test Ban”, in: Executive Intelligence Review of 6 November 2025, online at https://eir.news/2025/11/news/kremlin-spokesman-stresses-russias-commitment-to-nuclear-test-ban/

* Ralph Bosshard studied general history, Eastern European history, and military history. He attended the Military Leadership Academy at ETH Zurich and completed the general staff training of the Swiss Army. Subsequently, he completed Russian language training at Moscow State University and additional training at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Russian Army. As a member of the Swiss teams within the OSCE (for six years), he is intimately familiar with the situation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where he served, among other roles, as a special advisor to the Deputy Permanent Representative of Switzerland.