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By VELIA GOVAERE - Professor UNED
Let the cannons speak! No other voice should be heard. Anyone who cries for peace is suspect. The Pope is called "Putinian" for speaking of two empires. The Chinese peace plan is viewed with suspicion. It is alleged to respond to its own interests. What a crime, to benefit from peace! Meanwhile, the skies grow gloomier with each passing day.
Since Ukraine, darkness is spreading over all the panoramas and if the shadow is not yet upon us, if this senseless war continues, it will not be long before we realize how much it affects us. It is foolish to see it through the prism of Putin's punishment or Russia's defeat. It is naive to ignore that human destiny itself is at stake.
The historical account of the origins of the conflict is controversial. It is nonetheless fraught with unpredictable consequences. From contested versions between opposing sides, its roots go back to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the failed management of the prospects for lasting peace that opened up there. In the midst of the drunkenness, in the face of the dismembered rival, it was forgotten that there is no permanent humiliation without dangerous nationalist awakenings. The lessons of the First World War were ignored, and the fingers were stuck in the wound of a Russia that was powerless to prevent it. NATO expanded its enveloping tentacles as far as it could. And here we are, caught between equally dire choices.
Could it have been different? That no longer matters. Subjunctives do not exist in history. Of this tragedy, only what follows remains to be written. The libretto of this script would wish for a happy ending. That is no longer possible. What remains is the duration of a misfortune where we are all losers.
The United States will also discover that there are no roses without thorns. If these winds do not abate, they will reap storms. For the moment, that does not count, benefiting as they are, so far, from the revival of their war industry, from the overpriced sale of their liquid gas and from a European Union with no prospects of becoming another geopolitical rival.
In 2014, the countdown to catastrophe began, when Russia invaded Crimea. Or did the countdown begin, rather earlier, at the Maidan insurrection, encouraged by the United States to depose a pro-Russian president? It doesn't matter anymore. The reality is that Europe reacted in an exemplary manner. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe encouraged a dialogue. A peaceful agreement was reached in Minsk and the clock could have stopped there. But it did not. Hostilities continued in the Dombas. Germany and France returned for peace and the Normandy Quartet was formed with Russia and Ukraine. There was a new Minsk protocol, in 2015. It was also not observed. When its points turn out not to differ from future peace agreements, we will be aware of hidden interests that derailed that understanding. We do not talk about that anymore. So let's not talk about it.
It does not matter the origin of the winds of war in Ukraine. The only agenda should be to stop the war. But to get there you have to overcome vested interests and simplistic, black-and-white narratives, without the necessary shades of gray that end up being the only realistic ones. Marco Travaglio describes the war in Ukraine as a Little Red Riding Hood story, but only with wolves. Pope Francis warns that in that Dantesque scenario, conflicting imperial interests cannot be ignored. It is business as usual. Thucydides warned that truth is the first casualty of war. Opinions are pigeonholed on one side or the other of the trenches.
In Ukraine everyone erred. Putin erred in invading it and his calculation of an easy victory failed. Western predictions of crushing Russia with sanctions also failed. Rather, Europe shot itself in the foot. The Russian invasion restored meaning to NATO, which Macron had ruled brain-dead. The threat of expansion, which Putin claimed to stop, was rather extended to the Nordic countries. The United States took advantage of it to focus it, from now on, against China. But Putin managed to turn the war into a matter of national interest and even his opponents understand that Russia cannot lose.
Alessandro Orsini recounted many instances in the first months of the war when Zelensky expressed willingness to negotiate. In March 2022, one month after the Russian invasion, there were agreements in Istanbul. Naftali Bennet, the Israeli prime minister, went to Moscow to mediate and won important concessions from both sides. But Bennet himself later said that the West had blocked his efforts by dissuading Zelensky from making concessions. He was promised the weapons needed for a victory. Ukraine would provide the dead. That's another blunder.
Gen. Mark Milley, the U.S. Chief of Staff, warned that such a victory is highly unlikely. So where is this war going? The most likely scenario is a protracted conflict that will inevitably end at the negotiating table. Why not get there at once? We are not fighting, then, for victory, but to improve positions in a future agreement. Such prolongation is senseless. It is also insensitive. It is measured in destruction, misery, death, hunger and migratory waves. 20% of the population is already in Europe, 12% displaced from their regions. One third of Ukrainians lost their anchor in life. And the count goes on.
With all and the dimension of that pain, the itinerary that this war risks is more atrocious. According to Hegel, history repeats itself. Nietzsche makes it return again and again to the same nonsense. This "eternal return" to political cowardice is exemplified by Philip Zelikow's historical narrative. He recounts that the powers entangled in World War I were ready to stop it soon after it began. But no one dared to take the first conciliatory step. The delay cost 2 million dead and from that prolongation the Czar fell and the Russian Revolution triumphed. The consequences have lasted until today. The delayed peace was so bad that it sowed the seeds of the next war disaster.
This is known and accepted. It is easy to interpret events looking backwards. Looking forward, one cannot trust those who have shown a lack of historical judgment and, sadly, there are today's Western leaders with their record of destabilizing the Middle East. I am shocked, on the other hand, by Kissinger who, visionary, warns that in order to avoid another world war, an early peace is necessary.
Defeating Russia is unlikely and dangerous. Putin taking over Ukraine is equally unlikely. The point is to stop the conflict before an accident leads to the abyss. Dragging it out is dangerous. Already a B-52 bomber flew almost over Kaliningrad, a US drone in the Black Sea is the subject of controversy, Poland and Slovakia are sending fighter planes. Every day there are more incidents with unknown consequences. We are counting down to peace or a return to the caves.
