Does the German army see the Visegrad group as the next Eastern bloc?

Much heated speculation has followed the leaking to Der Spiegel, the German journal, of a secret strategic plan drawn up by the Bundeswehr. The media excitement relates not to security considerations but to the headline-generating revelation that the plan is partly predicated on the collapse of the European Union by 2040.

So rare is any acknowledgement of EU mortality within the Franco-German Europhile axis, the discovery that the German high command is thinking the unthinkable can only send a frisson of horror/pleasure through the Remain/Leave camps both in Britain and on the continent. The first point to be borne in mind, however, is that such exercises are a form of war-gaming and the scenarios they envisage are necessarily speculative.

That said, no army can afford to distort its strategic thinking by cultivating hypotheses that are beyond the bounds of possibility. So, the kernel of truth is that the armed forces of Germany, the hegemonic partner within the European project, think it necessary to make theoretical provision for the collapse of the EU. A further reason for the intense interest this document has attracted is the fact that, although such paper exercises are routine among its Nato partners, the Bundeswehr has previously refused to engage in similar war games (the unhappy resonance of such historical military documents as Case Otto, Operation Barbarossa, etc is the obvious explanation).

The reasons for this change of practice, according to informed commentators, are the fact that the German high command was taken by surprise in 2014 when Russia annexed the Crimea and the arrival at the Bundeswehr Planning Office of Katrin Suder, a former consultant at McKinsey where she had worked on similar schemes. What is not known is the reaction to this embarrassing leak of Ursula von der Leyen, the German Defence Minister and uber-Eurofanatic, born in Brussels, daughter of a senior EU official, educated for seven years at the European School and often forecast to spend her later political career in the gilded salons of her native city.

The controversial 102-page document is entitled “Strategic Forecast 2040”. Although it was first composed in 2014, it was not officially adopted until February of this year, so it is hardly credible to suggest it has not been influenced by Brexit. It envisages six future scenarios, of which the first three are fairly standard pessimistic assessments; it is scenarios four to six, featuring escalating projections of disaster, that have provoked consternation.

The premise of scenario four is: “The EU is fraying at the edges, an ‘end of the European illusion’ appears to be possible.” Until now, most people had been unaware a vocabulary existed in German to construct the phrase “end of the European illusion” – it is surprising the computers in a German government facility did not block the expression. For good measure, the authors throw into the mix “Transatlantic alienation”.

An aggravated version of that occurs in scenario six, the worst-case projection, entitled “EU in Disintegration and Germany in Reactive Position”. In this version, “EU enlargement has been largely abandoned, and more states have left the community” amid global “economic downfall and a backsliding of world politics”. It’s not exactly the kind of forecast you would get from Guy Verhofstadt at a Brussels seminar and the media attention it has attracted is understandable.

However, the most significant projection, if one reads between the lines, is contained in scenario five, entitled “West to the East”. This envisages some eastern EU member states freezing integration, while others have “joined the Eastern bloc”. What Eastern bloc? There has been no Eastern bloc, in the classical geopolitical sense, since 1989. The few commentators who have made any analysis of this have interpreted the Eastern bloc as the Russian Federation. But does that make sense?

Granted some eastern countries have a heavy energy dependency on Russia which ultimately implies a degree of diplomatic and economic constraints, Poland has not forgotten (though the rest of Europe seems to have done so) that when it was invaded by Hitler from the west it was also invaded by Stalin from the east, followed by the experience of almost half a century as a Soviet satellite. That is why Poland welcomes a Nato presence on its soil. Of course it does not want conflict with Russia; but a proposal to reconstitute the Warsaw Pact would not be an election winner in that city.

For a document so outspoken as to verge on the apocalyptic, the Bundeswehr plan is strangely, almost coyly, imprecise about the vague notion of an “Eastern bloc”. In reality, it can only imply one phenomenon: the emergence of the Visegrad Group as an eastern-European power bloc, neutral towards Russia and hostile to Brussels, contributing to the disintegration of the EU. Poland and Hungary are great historical European nations and the natural leaders of Visegrad, as Germany and France are of the EU. Beyond that, Visegrad is now the standard bearer of an ideology intrinsically inimical to the Brussels worldview.

For instance, the Hungarian constitution is declaredly Christian; in almost every speech Viktor Orban proclaims not just Hungary’s, but Europe’s, Christian heritage and the need to defend it. Both Poland and Hungary have refused to accept Muslim immigrants. Denounced for “Islamophobia” (Hungary’s history supplies the origins of any such phobia), they have remained determined to preserve a homogeneous society. The Poles recently underlined this, on the anniversary of the Islamic defeat at the Battle of Lepanto, by lining the frontiers while reciting the Rosary.

In the constitutional sphere Hungary, for example, has taken the opposite attitude to the western elites’ horror of referenda by organizing increasing numbers of “national consultations”. The Fidesz government is currently running a seven-question consultation on the George Soros plan for mass migration into Europe, with 24 November the deadline for responses. Critics complain these plebiscites feature leading questions because of the way they are framed. Of course they do because they are promoting government policy (does anyone remember a leaflet from David Cameron before Britain’s EU referendum?), but there is a ‘No’ box for rejection just the same.

It is difficult for electorates to blame governments for specific policies when they have approved them in detail. This is a new form of democracy emerging. When was the British electorate consulted on the specific issue of mass immigration, other than when it was smothered in a plethora of other issues at a general election? New ideas should not be dismissed until they have been tested.

In the geopolitical sphere the enlargement of the Visegrad Four is highly likely, with Austria a potential candidate for entry. Brussels – which also means Germany – has met a stronger will than its own in eastern Europe: a will reinforced, unlike the EU, by popular support. Before our eyes a new power bloc is evolving. There is now evidence that some Germans are beginning to acknowledge the possibility of defeat over the European project. That is surely what the Bundeswehr crystal-ball gazers were thinking. If it was not, it certainly ought to have been.