Russia Seizes French Firms' Assets Amid Rising Hybrid Threats in Europe
Russia’s Asset Seizures Are Not Policy but Usurpation
When a state seizes foreign enterprises and couples that act with hybrid threats against its neighbours, it ceases to govern by law and begins to rule by fear, which free peoples are not bound to endure.
I begin from the bare facts that are reported, taking care not to outrun them. The government of Russia has, by decree, transferred the Russian operations of certain French firms to a new entity, managed by a general of its Ministry of Interior. The same government has summoned the envoy of another European state for supporting Ukraine, while its foreign minister warns that sending troops to that country would be taken as a declaration of war. At the same time, the president of France speaks of Russian “hybrid” attacks and threats against Europe, and orders increased protection of critical infrastructure. There is here a pattern of economic seizure joined with intimidation.
In the Second Treatise of Government, when I defined political power as a right to make laws with penalties only for the public good, I had in view the lives, liberties, and estates of those under that power. Property, I there argued, is not only land and money, but also the free use of one’s faculties and industry, under known rules and an impartial judge. A government may tax, regulate, even in extremity requisition, but only on terms to which free and equal persons could reasonably consent for their common safety. The moment it departs from that trust, it does not govern but usurps.
By that measure, what shall we say of a decree that simply removes established enterprises from their owners and vests them in a new management, under a military officer of the interior, without any impartial adjudication between the parties? I do not see, in the facts given, any claim that these French firms violated standing law, nor any hearing in which their rights were weighed by an independent tribunal. I see only the naked fact of transfer by command. This is not the execution of a known rule; it is one state making itself judge in its own case, which is the very mark of arbitrary power.
It will be said that these are foreign companies, operating within another state’s territory, and so must abide whatever that state chooses to do. But when men enter into civil society, they do not thereby put off their humanity, nor the law of nature which teaches that no one ought to harm another in his life, liberty, or possessions. A foreigner trading under licence remains a man, the workmanship of one Maker, whose labour has mixed with materials to produce an estate that is his. That states bargain, tax, or even, upon fair terms, require local partnership, may be within their right. To confiscate at pleasure is something else.
The same union of seizure and threat appears in the wider conduct described. Russia’s leader is said to affirm that he does not intend to attack Europe, yet his foreign minister warns that if European nations send troops to Ukraine, this will be taken as war. French and Polish leaders speak of hybrid attacks, drones, cyber operations, and a growing “Russian hybrid threat” across Europe. Here again, I do not pretend to know all the hidden springs; I take only what is reported. Yet when a state couples assurances of peace with notices that certain acts, lawful in themselves, will be treated as casus belli, it does not persuade by reason; it seeks to command by fear.
In such a case, the question is not whether the threatened states are faultless, but whether they retain the right of self-preservation and of assisting others. If supporting Ukraine, or defending one’s own infrastructure, be met not with argument but with economic punishment and covert attack, then those on the receiving end are not bound to sit still under it. As I argued when treating of the dissolution of government, when rulers “invade the property of the people, or endeavour to bring them under absolute power” (I paraphrase my own words), they put themselves into a state of war with those they wrong. The people, and here I include independent nations, may then seek security by all lawful defensive means.
I do not yet see, from these sparse reports, a complete “long train of abuses” such as I once required to justify open revolution within a commonwealth; that judgement demands time and a steady view of many acts all tending one way. But I do see, in the seizure of foreign enterprises by decree, in the use of hybrid attacks against neighbours, and in warnings that ordinary acts of assistance will be treated as war, the lineaments of arbitrary power reaching beyond its own borders. Powers so exercised are not held on trust, and where trust is broken, others are not obliged to bow; they are obliged to prepare.
From the works cited
- Second Treatise of Government — Political power defined narrowly as the right to make laws, with penalties, only for the public good — anything beyond that definition must justify itself or stand condemned.
- Second Treatise of Government — The state of nature as analytic baseline: perfect freedom and equality under the law of nature, so that government must be shown to improve on that baseline for everyone who leaves it.
- Second Treatise of Government — The dissolution of government and the right of resistance: when legislators invade property or set up arbitrary power, they rebel against the people, not the people against them.