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

Originally published on Mar 3, 2025.
Remarks to an international conference on ending the disaster in Ukraine organized by Radio Roma News TV / Amici Network. Full conference video here: • ENDING THE DISASTER IN UKRAINE: AN IN...

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.....