Using psychology to make sense of EU policy

To make sense of the growing irrationality in Europe’s political debates — particularly those concerning Ukraine — we shouldn't turn to geopolitics or economics, but to psychology

I’ve written for Compact about the increasingly irrational nature of Europe’s political debates — especially those concerning Russia-Ukraine — and why lately I often find myself turning to psychology to make sense of them:

The latest panic over Trump’s threat of withdrawing military aid to Ukraine — and the debate over whether the EU can raise enough money to “fill the gap” — is a perfect case in point. This is a classic example of the phenomenon known in psychology as displacement or avoidance behaviour, which describes the tendency to focus on less important or unrelated issues as a way to avoid confronting the primary, often more distressing, problem.

As EU leaders scramble to devise solutions to increase their military aid amid limited budgets, logistical challenges and internal political divisions, everyone is avoiding discussing the real issue: should the EU be offering more financial and military support to Ukraine in the first place?

The reality is that continued military aid, even at current levels, wouldn’t just fail to significantly improve Ukraine’s position on the battlefield, but by delaying peace negotiations, it would actually worsen it. Moreover, ending the war and renormalising relations with Russia — a stance that enjoys growing support among European citizens — would also clearly be in Europe’s best interest, from both an economic and security standpoint.

So why do European leaders continue to deny these fundamental truths? Once again, psychology comes to our aid. Reversing their policy on Ukraine would mean admitting its catastrophic failure, not just in military terms but in economic ones as well, and facing the political consequences. Moreover, such a volte-face would oblige the Europeans to finally take Russian security concerns seriously and the fact that NATO’s disregard for them played a key role in triggering the conflict — a shift that would instantly undermine the anti-Moscow narrative they’ve been honing for years.

Hence, they are resorting to self-deception — lying to themselves as a way of avoiding the cognitive dissonance resulting from the growing contradictions between reality and their own narratives.

Psychology also helps us understand Europe’s irrational response to Trump. To the extent that the US has always viewed NATO as a way to ensure Europe’s strategic subordination, Trump’s threat of reducing US commitments to the alliance could present an occasion for Europe to redefine itself as an autonomous and peaceful actor. The problem is Europe has been locked in a classic dominant-subordination relationship with America for so long that now that Trump threatens to destabilise its historic security dependence on the US, Europe is unable to seize this opportunity to redefine itself as an autonomous and peaceful actor; on the contrary, it is attempting to replicate the US’s aggressive foreign policy — to unconsciously “become” the US, in a sense.

Read the article here.

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Thomas Fazi

Website: thomasfazi.net

Twitter: @battleforeurope

Latest book: The Covid Consensus: The Global Assault on Democracy and the Poor—A Critique from the Left (co-authored with Toby Green)