Jeffrey D. Sachs – The Unz Review May 13, 2026

Europe’s political class is sleepwalking into a catastrophe of its own design. In a sweeping, blistering conversation with Glenn Diesen, economist and diplomat Jeffrey Sachs lays out how the continent—once poised to build a “common European home” with Russia—is instead resurrecting the most dangerous instincts of the 20th century. What began as NATO expansion for “security” has metastasized into a new, explicitly European military bloc built not with Russia, but against it, and without the American umbrella that once restrained escalation.

Sachs argues that this isn’t strategy—it’s madness: a lethal mix of Eastern European Russophobia, German political amnesia, British imperial nostalgia, and Washington’s long project of hegemony. The result is a Europe preparing for a war it cannot win, against a nuclear superpower, over a security architecture that could have been inclusive, stable, and peaceful.

This interview is a warning flare: Europe is not drifting toward war. It is building the machinery for it.

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Highlights “NATO would not move one inch eastward.” Sachs cites the explicit 1990 U.S.–German promise to Gorbachev—now erased from Western memory—as the original betrayal that set today’s crisis in motion.

The rejected alternative: a “common European home.” Gorbachev offered a demilitarized, inclusive security system “from Rotterdam to Vladivostok.” Europe and the U.S. chose bloc politics instead.

NATO expansion wasn’t about defense—it was about hegemony. Sachs: U.S. strategists like Brzezinski saw NATO as the military arm of a unipolar world, with Ukraine as the “geopolitical pivot” to keep Russia permanently weak.

Germany broke its own word—and its own strategic brain. Sachs argues that German leaders—from Merkel’s capitulation in 2008 to Mertz’s open militarism today—abandoned the country’s historic role as Europe’s peace‑anchor.

Eastern Europe’s “visceral Russophobia” is steering the EU. The Baltics and Poland, shaped by Cold War trauma, now drive Brussels’ most aggressive policies—while Western Europe follows to preserve EU unity.

The 2008 Bucharest Summit was the point of no return. Merkel knew NATO’s pledge to bring in Ukraine and Georgia was a casus belli—and folded anyway. Sachs calls this the moment “Europe lost it.”

The Maidan coup as the hinge moment. Sachs describes the 2014 U.S.-backed overthrow as the event that finally installed a government willing to pursue NATO membership despite prior Ukrainian neutrality.

Europe is now preparing for war—without the U.S. shield. Sachs: A new European military bloc including Ukraine “just means war with Russia. It’s nuts.”

Drone programs = escalation, not deterrence. Mass‑produced long‑range drones aimed at “striking deep into Russia” reveal Europe’s shift from defensive posture to offensive capability.

“This is madness. It’s suicidal.” Sachs’ blunt assessment: Europe is remilitarizing into a nuclear confrontation it cannot control and does not understand.

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