The leaders of Norway and Finland are criticised for breaking with the European consensus on boycotting diplomacy by calling President Putin. Their decision to undermine this solidarity is seen as dividing and weakening Europe. I argue the opposite. It was a brave and necessary move, as the European consensus is based on a rhetorical trap that isolates Europe, makes it increasingly irrelevant, and risks taking it to war with Russia – the world’s largest nuclear power. I will make a further argument: we should develop a healthy scepticism towards the notion that speaking with one voice is always a strength.
Ask yourself: how can 27+ countries with different political, economic, and security interests agree on a common foreign policy and speak with one voice? A common voice can be achieved by defining collective interests or by setting a rhetorical trap. A rhetorical trap is set when politicians use shared values and earlier commitments to pressure others into supporting policies they would otherwise oppose. Disagreement is portrayed as a betrayal of these values, making it politically costly to dissent, even when the policy goes against national interests.
The easiest way to force a consensus is to frame every issue as a struggle between good and evil. Once political disagreements become moral questions, those who challenge the consensus can be shamed rather than answered. If every issue is reduced to a choice between freedom and imperialism, it becomes much easier to speak with one voice. The obsession with speaking with one voice makes Europeans vulnerable to Manichean thinking and warmongering policies.
Europeans unite around absurd slogans such as “Putin is Hitler” and “Russia wants to restore the Soviet Union”. These slogans do not help us understand Russia or develop sensible policies to mitigate the security competition. Their purpose is to establish moral clarity and enforce political conformity. Challenging these slogans with well-documented arguments is considered immoral and a threat to European unity. This rhetorical trap is extremely dangerous because, in a struggle between good and evil, we reach the conclusion that diplomacy is appeasement and weapons are the path to peace.
Consider the debate about European security after the Cold War. We once recognised the principle of indivisible security, which means that one state should not strengthen its security at the expense of others. Discussions about security entailed balancing deterrence with reassurance. These principles have largely disappeared from European political discourse. It is now only about deterrence. It is heresy to contest the notion that NATO is a “force for good”, and all concerns about NATO expansionism are framed as opposition to democracy and freedom. How can we resolve a security competition if we are not even allowed to discuss its causes?
Instead, European leaders increasingly measure the success of their policies by their moral intentions rather than their consequences. Sanctions are presented as a demonstration of resolve, the willingness to fight a war as an expression of solidarity, and refusing diplomacy as standing firm against aggression. But what happens when these policies fail to produce the intended results? The answer is usually more sanctions, more war, and less diplomacy. The policies themselves cannot be questioned without appearing to undermine the moral foundations of European unity.
The demand for solidarity is also weaponised to override reason. WikiLeaks exposed how Norwegian officials had initially expressed serious concerns that US strategic missile defence would disrupt the nuclear balance with Russia and destabilise the world. The US ambassador reported to Washington that the Norwegians could be persuaded to change their position, not through arguments, but by emphasising the need for NATO solidarity. If the Norwegians were presented with a choice between “repeating Russian narratives” and defending NATO solidarity, they would fall in line.
Later, the American ambassador sent another cable to Washington confirming that their work with NGOs, think tanks, journalists, and politicians had delivered the message, and that the Norwegians were abandoning their security concerns. This was not the result of arguments, but of pressure to show solidarity in a world where everything is framed in black-and-white terms. Since then, the nuclear arms control architecture has largely collapsed, and the world faces a dangerous future – but the political class takes comfort in the fact that it was all done in solidarity.
This is a dangerous way to organise European security. If solidarity means that countries must abandon their own security assessments to support a common position, then solidarity itself becomes a source of insecurity. The purpose of cooperation should be to reconcile different interests and develop better policies, not to pressure governments into repeating the same empty arguments.
A strong Europe should be able to tolerate disagreements among its members. Indeed, such disagreements are necessary if Europe is to correct mistaken policies. When dissent is treated as disloyalty, political mistakes become almost impossible to reverse. Leaders become prisoners of their own rhetoric.
Norway and Finland should therefore not be criticised for challenging the European consensus on diplomatic isolation. They should be encouraged. Europe needs countries willing to question policies that have become resistant to criticism, especially when those policies concern war and peace.
The current European consensus is sustained by a rhetorical trap that isolates Europe, makes the continent increasingly irrelevant, and risks dragging us into war. I therefore argue for a little less solidarity and a little more common sense.
