In order to overcome major global challenges, especially climate breakdown and the crisis in the international legal order, it is necessary to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible. Europe also urgently needs to reimagine its role in the world, beyond its often subordinate role to US interests. To meet both these aims and find a sustainable peace for Ukraine, Sicherheit neu Denken (the rethinking security initiative in Germany) has published a ‘Positive Peace Scenario for Europe’s Role in the World’. Ralf Becker explains the concept and its reception.
Rebuilding International Consensus
In January 2025, Sicherheit neu Denken (an independent German ‘Rethinking Security’ initiative) published its new ‘Positive Scenario 2025-2040 Europe’s Role for Peace in the World‘, which proposes a possible approach to peace and conflict embedded in sovereign European partnerships and relations with other regions of the world.
The ‘Positive Scenario’ proposes a way for European states to replace the United States’ lack of willingness to participate in the necessary security guarantees for Ukraine. Instead, European states could advocate for security guarantees through a cooperative process in the United Nations (UN), with the participation of BICS states (i.e. the original BRICS without Russia) in a peacekeeping role. A positive side effect, more broadly, would be the strengthening of the UN and the role of the Global South, and thus contribute to the rehabilitation of international law.
A proposal that moves beyond the stalemate
In its new ‘Positive Scenario Europe 2025-2040’, Sicherheit neu Denken proposes a UN-secured peace zone for the states between NATO and Russia, primarily Ukraine.
For Russia, preventing Ukraine from joining NATO is one, if not the central goal of the war. For Ukraine, its sovereignty with viable security guarantees is the decisive goal of its defensive war.
In order to find a solution in this constellation that leads out of the war and is at the same time sustainably stable, the participation of third parties is needed: a security guarantee issued by the UN with – if desired by Ukraine – a UN security force stationed in Ukraine with the participation of, for example, Indian, South African, Brazilian, Swiss or other non-aligned international armed forces. Whether China, as the additional member of ‘BICS’, could be part of such a security force would need to be discussed further; the perceived potential for China to take a clearer pro-Russian position in the event of revived armed conflict might be unacceptable to Ukraine.
Contrary to what is commonly assumed, it is not only NATO or EU states that should issue such security guarantees. Any such guarantee would mean that the tension between Western states and Russia underlying the Ukraine conflict, among other things, would be maintained, creating ongoing uncertainty for all parties involved.
An international UN security force in Ukraine would draw its strength in particular from the fact that all participants would agree on its purpose, its task, its function and the rules of its deployment. A UN protection force that was not solely formed by Western states could be accepted, respected and co-commissioned by Russia and could be a sustainable stabilizing force.
Even this proposal would necessarily be combined with an agreement with Russia on the deployment of weapon systems. Given consensus on its mandate and composition, a mutually agreed UN protection force would tend to need little or no military armament, but could act as a kind of international police force with predominantly police armament.
This UN-secured peace zone in Europe could be expanded to other countries between NATO and Russia/Belarus, for example Georgia and/or Moldova, if they were willing. At the September 2025 meeting of Europe‘s National Council of Churches in Denmark, a visit to Georgia was agreed with the representative of the Georgian National Council of Churches, the Metropolitan Bishop of the Baptist Church of Georgia, to explore this question.
Support for the proposal
Sicherheit neu Denken has received many positive responses (as well as some criticism) to this proposal in European policy spaces. It is valued for giving hope, a clear orientation towards a new solution, as well as being understandable, encouraging and inspiring.
The Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper, among others, has published an article on the subject, and the scenario is also published on the website of the Munich Security Conference.
Sicherheit neu Denken has presented the Positive Peace Scenario to the Parliamentary Secretary of the Social Democrats parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, Dirk Wiese MdB, and the deputy chairman of the Social Democrats Party, Ralf Stegner MdB. The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag, Armin Laschet MdB (Christian Democratic Party), has also assured the group of a discussion on this. Together with Ralf Stegner and Armin Laschet, Sicherheit neu Denken is trying to organise a public presentation of the scenario and a parliamentary breakfast in Berlin in October 2025. In addition, Ralf Stegner is keen to invite the group to the subcommittee on disarmament and arms control of the German Bundestag.
Coordinator Ralf Becker was invited to participate in the Munich Security Conference (Europe’s largest such event) in February 2025 for the third time. In the run-up to and during the conference, he was able to present the European scenario in numerous short and longer conversations. The proposal for UN security guarantees for Ukraine was received with interest by the ARD studio in Brussels, editorial boards of major German media houses and the New York Times, as well as by the President of the Federal Academy for Security Policy Wolf-Jürgen Stahl. The spokesperson for the German Social Democrats in the European Parliament and SPD presidium member René Repasi as well as Chair of the Defence Committee of the EU Parliament Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Liberal Party) reacted very positively, the latter bringing this suggestion into a television interview a day later. Handelsblatt newspaper then quoted the initiative.
The group was also able to establish contacts with numerous parliamentarians from Poland, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia and Ukraine as well as German government representatives and the Indian Foreign Minister in Munich on this proposal. A written version of the proposal has reached hundreds of security politicians, think tanks, experts and media representatives.
Meanwhile the proposal of UN-secured Ukraine is mentioned more frequently. For example, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, in her new function as Chair of the UN general assembly, suggested this in mid-September.
In a conversation, the Foreign Minister of Bahrain expressed gratitude and openness to the proposal as it also outlines ideas for other regions to, for example, convene a series of conferences on security and cooperation in the Middle East along the lines of the successful CSCE conferences of the 1970s.
Even in these turbulent times when it can feel like there is little appetite for alternatives, Sicherheit neu Denken’s work on Europe’s role in the world shows that there are many opportunities for ideas on sustainable security to be heard.
The views and opinions expressed in posts on the Rethinking Security blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the network and its broader membership.
Image Credit: Sicherheit neu Denken, 2025.
I have already made the suggestion of this world level security solution for Ukraine in a comment to the UK Times newspaper. A similar (but European) peacekeeping force served in Georgia a few years ago. I hope Rethinking Security takes ownership of rafgermany’s proposal and gets it seen by EU and wider national governments.
Richard Seebohm (UK Quaker)