Dynamic Openness for Peace in EU Foreign Policy

Human Dignity and Peacebuilding through Principles Inspired by Quantum Mechanics

by Michael Breisky

The following reflections are intended to stimulate a fundamental shift in the EU’s intellectual outlook. The seemingly endless war in Ukraine and the return of Donald Trump to the White House threaten to plunge the European project into a spiral of pessimism and paralysis.

What is needed above all is a renewed spirit of initiative, embodied in the policy of “dynamic openness” outlined here. This is Europe’s invitation to follow, in advance of classical diplomacy, the maxim attributed to Metternich after the Congress of Vienna in 1815: *“It is better to overcome the harmful interests of others than to impose one’s own interests.”*¹ Such an approach requires a continuous bilateral dialogue with all geopolitical actors. It was precisely this practice that helped spare Europe from major wars until World War One. Within such a dialogue, all domestic and foreign policy issues should be explored together in order to identify and pursue opportunities for peaceful cooperation.

In Understanding and Learning to Love Europe and in harmony with prominent Christian and rational-humanist voices, I have described the dignity of every human being as the Archimedean point of democratic Europe. To abandon it, even gradually, would mean the end of Europe. Three simple characteristics give human dignity its profound ethical significance:

It is undefined, yet certainly “something” rather than “nothing.”
Its “magic” lies in mutual entanglement: my dignity is no less than yours, and your dignity implies mine as well.²
It belongs to every human being and is therefore present wherever human beings exist.

Human dignity is, however, an ambivalent concept, since its universal realization has so far failed. It was anchored in the Preamble of the Charter of the United Nations and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), adopted by consensus among the UN member states of the time, and was reaffirmed at the major UN World Conference on Human Rights in 1993. Yet this consensus has long since broken down.³ Furthermore, under President Trump, the United States appears to be moving away from rule-based politics. This leaves human-rights-conscious Europe as a striking minority in the world.

A New Copernican Revolution

A second source of this ambivalence is the growing realization that we are living through an epochal transformation, comparable to the emergence of a new worldview at the beginning of the modern age 500 years ago. In the early twentieth century, this transformation was represented by quantum mechanics and modern physics, but also by upheavals in art, literature, and philosophy—especially in Vienna, with Karl Kraus’s “laboratory of the end of the world,” Kafka, Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, and Wittgenstein’s injunction to remain silent about what cannot be known.⁴

Equally significant is the misleading tendency toward the “unambiguity” of language.⁵ Clear, fixed terms are static, and their dominance over more ambiguous, “softer” concepts is increasingly criticized. Today it is becoming evident that meaningful information, departing from traditional notions of scientific certainty, must also employ concepts understood dynamically. Information itself may well lie at the heart of this new Copernican revolution—now extending into foreign policy.

Quantum Physics and Other Analogies for Foreign Policy

The concepts associated with human dignity—indeterminacy, entanglement, and ubiquity—correspond remarkably well to the perspective of quantum physics. Other quantum phenomena are also relevant to foreign policy: the constant motion of particles and, above all, the relativization of cause and effect, according to which the precise observation of a quantum phenomenon already constitutes an intervention with consequences.

All of this is foreign to everyday intuition and is not intended to reshape ordinary reality directly.⁶ Yet it opens new possibilities of interpretation. What we regard as certain knowledge is, like the “atomic” certainty of Newtonian physics, ultimately only a borderline case of the indeterminacy within subatomic processes. We can approach it only through probability calculations, that is, through a holistic exploration of patterns of movement and potential developments.

In short, this method of going around an issue and approaching practical certainty through approximation should also apply beyond physics, including foreign policy. Here, what is initially indeterminate can gain clarity through shared observation and can, at least in the form of deliberately ambiguous compromise formulas,⁷ buy valuable time. Metternich’s diplomacy was entirely in line with this approach. Today, moreover, artificial intelligence could assist by verifying facts and applying probability-based analysis to clarify ambiguous arguments.

Several established theoretical approaches already treat indeterminacy as a resource:

Agonistic Democracy (Chantal Mouffe): Democracy thrives not on consensus but on open, never definitively resolved contestation that is constructively channeled through institutions. The indeterminacy of political identities enables pluralistic cohesion.
Complexity Theory: Political systems should not seek to impose certainty but rather to develop adaptive capacities. Here, indeterminacy is not a disturbance but a precondition for learning.
Jürgen Habermas’s Ethics of Communication: The ideal speech situation depends on openness to the better argument; discourse is not teleology but process.

The EU as a Pioneer of Dynamic Openness

To emerge from its current highly defensive posture, the EU should make productive use of indeterminacy and adopt an information policy of dynamic openness. This concept addresses situations in which meanings, roles, or political options have not yet been fixed and where precisely this openness can be used productively to enable adaptation, creativity, and consensus-building.

Dynamic openness would generate the intellectual input for classical diplomacy through a continuous dialogue with all geopolitical actors.

Such an approach could serve three political functions:

Integration: Ambiguities make it possible to accommodate different values within a common framework.
Innovation: Indeterminacy allows alternatives to remain open and prevents the premature narrowing of options.
Legitimacy: Politics is understood not as the implementation of “truth” but as a shared process.

Why should Europe, and specifically the EU, assume this role? Because European identity rests upon a rich superposition of diverse traditions—Christian, humanist, scientific, legal, “Faustian,” all culturally varied. Despite this diversity, Europe’s identity remains sufficiently defined to provide orientation within an open and dynamic canon of values.

Furthermore, following President Trump’s return to office, Europe and the EU appear to be the only major geopolitical actors whose political systems remain fully democratic and rule-based. This brings many long-term advantages, though it also necessitates slower and more complex decision-making procedures.

“Dynamic openness” is open above all in its thematic scope and is grounded in profound respect for the dignity and sovereignty of all partners. It seeks a shared exploration of the totality of interests involved, including domestic political concerns.

Following the quantum-mechanical principle that observation itself can have effects, dynamic openness should identify conflicting interests through continuous dialogue and deliberation, developing potential solutions even before classical diplomacy begins. Atmosphere and tone are essential in this process. As a sign of mutual respect, the morally charged and openness-reducing terms “democratic” and “authoritarian” should, where appropriate, be replaced by the more neutral concepts of horizontal and vertical forms of organization.⁸

Formal Objectives and Practical Effects

A minimum degree of agreement on substantive and procedural rules is required, however. With each partner, it must first be determined at which political level the dialogue should take place.

In accordance with Metternich’s maxim, the clear objective of this information policy is the preservation of peace through the reduction—or ideally the elimination—of conflict potential arising from opposing interests, above all through the correction of mutual misconceptions.

The hoped-for effect derives from respect for the principle of entanglement. What applies to human dignity should also apply to relations among states, especially geopolitical actors:

“Your claim to my respect is no stronger than my claim to yours.”

There are two reasons for recognizing the dignity of states.

First, even those who take pride, as Europeans do, in the development of horizontal governmental structures must acknowledge that elsewhere, vertical structures are rooted in socio-cultural traditions or ideologies far too deeply entrenched to be abandoned merely because they are incompatible with other systems. In such cases, peaceful coexistence must be found.

Second, world history demonstrates that both forms of organization always contain elements of the other. The balance between them fluctuates with the cyclical changes of the Zeitgeist. During the past 250 years, since the American and French Revolutions, vertical and power-oriented forces have repeatedly dominated and contributed to major wars. After devastating conflicts, however, they have often been replaced by horizontal, rule-based forces inspired by the aspiration of “Never Again War.”

Thus, the periods of peace following 1815 and 1945 lasted a long time, whereas the peace after 1918 survived only a few years before giving way once again to a cycle of war in the late 1930s—hopefully for the last time.

Substantive Topics

In dialogues conducted under the framework of dynamic openness, the first priority should be establishing consensus on the historical facts of bilateral relations. Different interpretations of these facts should then be discussed and, ideally, reconciled.

Ideally, the dialogue would start with every side presenting a concise and timeless self-portrayal in a manner that synthesizes their most enduring historical experiences with plausible future expectations; this would sharpen the focus on commonalities, thereby facilitating the handling of unresolved issues beyond a merely atmospheric improvement.

All parties must also openly address the challenge of overwhelming complexity generated by the development of information technology—complexity that may no longer be fully manageable even with the assistance of artificial intelligence.⁹

Where necessary, the dignity of states should also be discussed, beginning with the unconditional respect due to differing political structures. The same principle can, in general, be applied to human dignity and the individual human rights derived from it, albeit subject to the limitations required by mutual respect, particularly concerning freedom of expression and assembly.

At the same time, where Europe shows profound respect for others, it may legitimately demand reciprocal respect for its own internal cultivation of values, especially human dignity.

Specific issues should also be addressed with particular partners:

United States: Facts contradicting the notion of Europe as an American “backyard”; questions relating to Europe’s interest in a return of the United States to rule-based politics; and the current deep divisions within American elite formation.
Russia: Examination of the causes of the Ukraine war and Russia’s fear of encirclement; discussion of the definition of a “new Nazism” in Europe; and the future of bilateral economic relations.
China: Commonalities arising from several millennia of national culture; parallels between Taoism and subsidiarity (including thinkers such as Leopold Kohr and E. F. Schumacher¹⁰) and the Opium Wars as an important lesson in the abuse of free trade.
Southern BRICS States: Moving beyond spheres-of-influence geopolitics; strengthening not only economic but also cultural self-confidence; and an apology for post-colonial “lecturing policies.” With some of these states, Europe’s current “elephant in the room”—the complex issue of migration and integration—would also need to be discussed.

Conclusion

A dynamic foreign policy of indeterminacy, characterized by radical openness, an emphasis on the fluid nature of reality, and the necessity of continuous dialogue, should become a defining hallmark of both European domestic and foreign policy.

At a time when information—whether in the form of fake news, data, or algorithms—plays an increasingly central role, the insight that reality is not always unambiguous and that knowledge and truth coincide only in exceptional cases can foster a valuable culture of caution, reflection, and peace-building.

Vienna, 25 January 2026

¹ Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York, 1994).

² A humorous illustration from Viennese folklore runs: “I don’t grant myself anything either!”

³ Most recently, at the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in June 1993, 171 states adopted by consensus a common action plan for strengthening human rights worldwide.

⁴ Marjorie Perloff, Edge of Irony: Modernism in the Shadow of the Habsburg Empire (Chicago, 2016).

⁵ Thomas Bauer, The Simplification of the World (Reclam, 2018).

⁶ As emphasized by the 2022 Nobel Prize laureate in Physics, Anton Zeilinger, in the Salzburger Nachrichten of 5 May 2025.

⁷ An example is the 1946 Paris Agreement on South Tyrol, which became a success model only decades later.

⁸ Constitutional systems not based on universal, equal, and secret elections cannot be regarded as horizontal.

⁹ See the author’s essay on European complexity.

¹⁰ During a lecture tour at six Chinese universities in 2008, the author was repeatedly told of strong similarities between Taoism, Small Is Beautiful, and subsidiarity.

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