 Loud cries of outrage and passionate support for war At the recent G7 Summit at Schloss Elmau in Germany seven Western leaders expressed their moral outrage over the Russian war of aggression and promised their unwavering support for Ukraine. There seems to be no end to the spiralling self-confidence and self-righteousness of Western leaders out to humiliate Putin and Russia. Just take a look at these belligerent statements from the G7 Summit and NATO’s Madrid Summit. The loud and passionate intensity of the G7 group of countries G7 Condemnation of Russia “We remain appalled by and continue to condemn the brutal, unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine by Russia and aided by Belarus. We condemn and will not recognise Russia’s continued attempts to re-draw borders by force. This devastating war has produced dramatic consequences far beyond Europe. It constitutes a blatant violation of international law, in particular a grave breach of the United Nations Charter.” (G7 Statement on Support for Ukraine). An annex to the G7 Statement promises a united effort to hold Russia to account: “The G7 has been united in holding Russia to account for its unprovoked war against Ukraine. Our coordinated sanctions impose severe and enduring costs on Russia to help bring an end to this war. Russia cannot remain a member in good standing of the global economic and political system as long as it flagrantly violates the international norms at the cost of others.” (Annex to G7 Summit Statement). Russia must lose “We reiterate our demand that Russia put an end to this war of choice, and immediately, unconditionally cease all hostilities and withdraw its troops and military equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.” In an interview the French Foreign Minister, Le Drian, argues that it means “that Russia pulls out of the Donbas, pull out its forces from the Ukrainian territory it is occupying. There’s an invader; the invader must withdraw. If you want to call that a victory, let’s call it a victory, but the invader must withdraw and no longer be present in Ukraine.” (BFM TV). To have any hope of achieving this goal the West appears to willing to continuously escalate their passionate proxy war against Russia, by providing Ukraine with a growing stream of more and more potent and advanced weapons. As long as it takes “We are committed to helping Ukraine to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to defend itself, and to choose its own future. It is up to Ukraine to decide on a future peace settlement, free from external pressure or influence … We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.” (Emphasis added). The G7 is acting without thoughts about the future relations with a humiliated Russia. A Russia armed to the teeth with extremely powerful nuclear weapons. A Russia that won’t just go away. What is the chance that it will give up in Ukraine? What the risk that it will escalate? Does Europe really want that to happen, or will they realise that Russia may be so important for Europe, that some form of accommodation must reached even at the cost that Ukraine will have to limit its ambitions in the war. Sanctions “We remain steadfast in our commitment to our unprecedented coordinated sanctions measures in response to Russia’s war of aggression, the impacts of which will compound over time. We are committed to sustaining and intensifying international economic and political pressure on President Putin’s regime and its enablers in Belarus, depriving Russia of the economic means to persist in its war of aggression against Ukraine.” Steadfast G7 leaders may sound in their passionate war of words, but what happens when the cost of sanctions hit back on the West with a vengeance as we are beginning to see, with worldwide repercussions. NATO’s passionate follow up on G7 promises Condemnation of Russia “We condemn Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in the strongest possible terms. It “gravely undermines international security and stability. It is a blatant violation of international law. Russia’s appalling cruelty has caused immense human suffering and massive displacements, disproportionately affecting women and children. Russia bears full responsibility for this humanitarian catastrophe.” (NATO’s Madrid Summit Declaration). No thought for the suffering that is caused in Ukraine as a result of the West’s escalating proxy war. Solidarity with Ukraine “We stand in full solidarity with the government and the people of Ukraine in the heroic defence of their country. We reiterate our unwavering support for Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders extending to its territorial waters. We fully support Ukraine’s inherent right to self-defence and to choose its own security arrangements. We welcome efforts of all Allies engaged in providing support to Ukraine. We will assist them adequately, recognising their specific situation.” (Emphasis added). Full solidarity with Zelensky and those calling the shots in Ukraine that is, but is this really in the interests of suffering people of Ukraine and its Russian speaking minorities? Perhaps we get an indirect indication of a split in the Ukrainian population from poll carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) in May 2022. Asked whether it would be acceptable not to join NATO if Ukraine instead got security guarantees from NATO countries, 35 per cent in Western Ukraine found this acceptable in, while 50 percent found it acceptable in Eastern Ukraine, which is directly affected by the war. President Biden’s expressions of moral outrage On March 26 2022 President Biden tweeted: “We are engaged anew in a great battle for freedom. A battle between democracy and autocracy. Between liberty and repression. This battle will not be won in days or months either.” In essence he is talking about a battle between good and evil, between light and darkness, an almost hyper ideologic argument for the proxy war in Ukraine. Biden even expressed his moral outrage at President Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by blurting out: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” Later arguing: “I was expressing the moral outrage that I feel, and I make no apologies for it.” In an unusual guest essay in the New York Times he later wrote “Standing by Ukraine in its hour of need is not just the right thing to do. It is in our vital national interests to ensure a peaceful and stable Europe and to make it clear that might does not make right.” One is reminded of President Clinton’s argument for the bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999. “My fellow Americans, today our armed forces joined our NATO allies in airstrikes against Serbian forces responsible for the brutality in Kosovo. We have acted with resolve for several reasons… We act to stand united with our allies for peace. By acting now, we are upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the cause of peace… Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative. It is also important to America's national interests.” (President Clinton addressing the nation on March 24, 1999). To understand President Biden’s moral outrage and belligerence towards Putin and Russia it may also be worthwhile to cast a glance at Biden’s attitude back in 2014 when Russia made what Obama called an incursion into Crimea, and Russia supported pro-Russian separatists in Luhansk and Donetsk. “When Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2014, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. pressed President Barack Obama to take decisive action, and fast, to make Moscow “pay in blood and money” for its aggression. The president, a Biden aide recalled, was having none of it.” (NYT). With Biden now being president, he may finally be able to act on a grudge he may have carried with him since 2014. Drowned out voices of dissent While Western leaders seems united in their “intense passion” to punish the Russians with the help of Ukraine, there are isolated voices calling for a cooling of the passion. In the media we don’t hear these voices, they are drowned out by Western medias own enthusiastic support and encouragement for Ukraine and for the leaders who want to punish and humiliate Russia and Putin. The picture painted is black and white with no thought for long term consequences for the West or indeed for the World. Realism is out and passionate enthusiasm is in, at least for the time being. The warning voices of realism “Realists of various stripes repeatedly warned that Western policy toward Russia and Ukraine would lead to serious trouble, warnings that were blithely ignored by those who claimed that NATO’s open-door policy would lead to lasting peace in Europe. Now that war has broken out, lives are being lost, and Ukraine is being destroyed, you would think proponents of open-ended NATO enlargement would have set aside their idealistic illusions and think about these issues in a hard-nosed, realist fashion. Yet the opposite has occurred: The people who got it right are singled out for attack, while those who believed that enlarging NATO would create a vast zone of peace in Europe are insisting that the war continue until Russia is totally defeated and greatly weakened.” (Stephen M. Walt in Foreign Policy). Among the realists we find John Mearsheimer, professor of Political science at the University of Chicago. In a recent speech on the cause and consequences of the Ukraine Crisis he argued: “The war in Ukraine is a multi-dimensional disaster, which is likely to get much worse in the foreseeable future. When a war is successful, little attention is paid to its causes, but when the outcome is disastrous, understanding how it happened becomes paramount. People want to know: how did we get into this terrible situation?” (John J. Mearsheimer) Mearsheimer has two main arguments. “First, the United States is principally responsible for causing the Ukraine crisis. This is not to deny that Putin started the war and that he is responsible for Russia’s conduct of the war. Nor is it to deny that America’s allies bear some responsibility, but they largely follow Washington’s lead on Ukraine. My central claim is that the United States has pushed forward policies toward Ukraine that Putin and other Russian leaders see as an existential threat, a point they have made repeatedly for many years.” “Second, the Biden administration has reacted to the outbreak of war by doubling down against Russia. Washington and its Western allies are committed to decisively defeating Russia in Ukraine and employing comprehensive sanctions to greatly weaken Russian power. The United States is not seriously interested in finding a diplomatic solution to the war, which means the war is likely to drag on for months if not years … Furthermore, there is a danger that the war will escalate, as NATO might get dragged into the fighting and nuclear weapons might be used. We are living in perilous times.” (emphasis added). Mearsheimer regards the war as on unmitigated disaster for Ukraine: “Russian forces have conquered 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and destroyed or badly damaged many Ukrainian cities and towns. More than 6.5 million Ukrainians have fled the country, while more than 8 million have been internally displaced. Many thousands of Ukrainians—including innocent civilians—are dead or badly wounded and the Ukrainian economy is in shambles The World Bank estimates that Ukraine’s economy will shrink by almost 50 percent over the course of 2022.” Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, indirectly confirms the disaster for Ukraine in a recent estimate of the size of damages resulting from the war and the cost of recovery: “Direct infrastructural losses are worth over $100 billion, and full-fledged Ukraine recovery plan is estimated at $750 billion.” (Denys Shmyhal at Twitter). Like others Mearsheimer sees a real risk of a drawn-out war with continued escalation on both sides. “There is a danger that the United States and its NATO allies will get dragged into the fighting, which they have been able to avoid up to this point, even though they are already waging a proxy war against Russia. There is also the possibility that nuclear weapons might be used in Ukraine and that might even lead to a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. The underlying reason these outcomes might be realized is that the stakes are so high for both sides, and thus neither can afford to lose.” Mearsheimer is not alone in warning of the dangers of an escalating war in Ukraine: In an essay published by “Responsible Statecraft” Anatol Lieven warns of the horrible dangers of pushing a U.S. proxy war in Ukraine. Arguing that former U.S. presidents like Truman and Eisenhower adopted a strategy of containing, but never fighting the Soviet Union in Europe and never tryed to “roll back Soviet power through armed support for anti-Soviet insurgencies in eastern Europe,” he argues that leaders today should remember this and not try to push back Russia in military proxy war in Europe. The consequences would be disastrous for themselves “and still more disastrous for the wretched people on the ground who became the pawns of these great power agendas. Have we really learned nothing from history?” At this year’s Davos meeting, 99 years old former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, argued: "Parties should be brought to peace talks within the next two months. Ukraine should've been a bridge between Europe and Russia, but now, as the relationships are reshaped, we may enter a space where the dividing line is redrawn and Russia is entirely isolated. We are facing a situation now where Russia could alienate itself completely from Europe and seek a permanent alliance elsewhere. This may lead to Cold War-like diplomatic distances, which will set us back decades. We should strive for long- term peace." Even the New York Times’ influential Thomas L. Friedman is warning that the war in Ukraine is getting more dangerous for America. He even postulates that Biden knows it, although that seems doubtful giving his rhetoric and the amount of resources, he is allocating to fight the proxy war in Ukraine. Friedman argues “We need to stick as tightly as possible to our original limited and clearly defined aim of helping Ukraine expel Russian forces as much as possible or negotiate for their withdrawal whenever Ukraine’s leaders feel the time is right.” The last condition seems very dangerous, giving the views expressed by president Zelensky. Who now sems convinced that the might of Western military assistance will allow Ukraine to aim for goals that would never have been possible before the Russian invasion. Zelensky insists that he must be given everything he needs to defeat the Russians and push them back from every corner of Ukraine, even the areas occupied in 2014. “The ultimate goal of Ukraine is to restore territorial integrity, including Crimea, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday, as Russia pursued its offensive to seize territory in eastern Ukraine. (WSJ). This of cause means further escalation, more heavy weapons and more direct involvement of the West in order to achieve Zelensky’s goal, and the passionate intensity in the West is encouraging Zelensky to demand more all the time, and scolding those who show less passion. Even President Macron have tried to cool the passionate conviction, arguing that the West is not at war with Russia: “Nous ne sommes pas en guerre contre la Russie. Nous œuvrons en Européens pour la préservation de la souveraineté et de l'intégrité territoriale de l'Ukraine. Pour le retour de la paix sur notre continent. Nous serons là pour reconstruire l’Ukraine, en Européens, toujours. (Emmanuel Macron May 9, 2022). Macron insists that Europe must learn from its past mistakes, and make sure no side is humiliated like the Germans were in the Versailles Treaty after the First World War. Macron has apparently even to tried to convince Zelensky that Ukraine must pay for peace by accepting to give up some Ukrainian territory. Not something an increasingly cocksure Zelensky would agree too, with the passionate West bolstering his confidence that everything is possible. He scolded Macron in an Italian interview: “To propose to us to give up something as far as our sovereignty is concerned to save President Putin’s face does not seem like a fair thing on the part of some leaders. (aa.com.tr) Perhaps Europe should cool its passion for Zelensky and for the mainly U.S. driven proxy war, and instead heed Macron’s advice. Less passion for war in the population A public opinion poll for The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) in 10 European Countries carried out in April/May indicate that the passionate support for the Ukraine war is not shared by the European population. Instead, we find marked split between those support the proxy war in Ukraine to punish Russia even if it means more “human suffering,” and those who looks for ways to end the war as soon as possible “even if it means Ukraine must make concessions.” The Peace camp consists of the 35 per cent of the respondents who agreed with statement: “The most important thing is to stop the war as soon as possible, even if it means Ukraine giving control of areas to Russia.” The Justice camp consists of the 22 per cent who agreed with statement: “The most important thing is to punish Russia for its aggression, even if it means that more Ukrainians are killed and displaced.” Swing Voters made up 20 per cent. “Members of this Swing group share the anti-Russian feelings of the Justice camp, but also worry about escalation – like the Peace camp.” The Rest 23 per cent are those who answered “Neither of these” and “Don’t know” to the statements. There are large differences between the respondents in the 10 countries as seen here:  Perhaps indicating at the very least that European leaders are out of tune with their population in the majority of the 10 countries. Only in Poland is the support for the Justice Camp larger than the support for the Peace Camp. Europe must look to Europe’s interest Restating the argument from an earlier blog post. We wonder why Europe is not making a much more independent diplomatic effort, instead of giving in to moral outrage and Zelensky’s and Biden’s totally overstated warnings about the threat to all of Europe. Europe is supporting the Ukraine with financial assistance, weapons, welcoming Ukrainian refugees, and seems inclined to engage in self-harming sanctions to reduce Russia’s ability for fighting a war. In all seriousness, will Europe really leave to Zelensky and a vengeful Biden to decide to escalate the proxy war against Russia and decide the conditions for making peace with Russia? Why do decisionmakers not leave moralistic outbursts aside and take a more realistic position that actually turn out to be more in line with their own self-proclaimed European values. This would mean efforts to promote a peace that might spare lives and avoid further destruction in Ukraine and perhaps help solve or at least alleviate some of the problems brought up by Russia as reasons for the invasion. Why does European leaders not demand something in return from Zelensky’s Ukraine, instead of just playing whipping boy to Zelensky’s critique? Realistically this would mean that Europe would have to put pressure on Zelensky to accept the Russian annexation of Crimea, and insist that the future of the Luhansk and Donetsk would have to be settled by mechanism involving for instance staged referendums from Russian border to the borders of Luhansk and Donetsk. Either accept this or accept that help would be reduced to humanitarian help. Likewise, Europe would have to initiate sincere and realistic diplomatic efforts in relation Russia, taking demands from the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine seriously, accepting the Russian possession of Crimea and proposing realistic solutions for Luhansk and Donetsk that would comply with what Europe ought to demand of Ukraine. Reading list: Blog essays on the Ukraine War
Biden, the most dangerous man for peace in Europe https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/biden-the-most-dangerous-man-for-peace-in-europe A cocksure West risking catastrophe https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/a-cocksure-west-risking-catastrophe US and UK goals in proxy war risk nuclear confrontation https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/us-and-uk-goals-in-proxy-war-risk-nuclear-confrontation Spellbound by The Pied Piper of Kyiv’s magic Newspeak? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/april-17th-2022 Sucked into a war for peace https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/sucked-into-a-war-for-peace Do sanctions deter? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/do-sanctions-deter? U.S. diplomacy failing in relation to Russia and China https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/us-diplomacy-failing-in-relation-to-russia-and-china Proxy war in Ukraine because Biden and Blinken bear a grudge? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/proxy-war-in-ukraine-because-biden-and-blinken-bear-a-grudge? Letting Ukraine bleed in a proxy war with Russia? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/letting-ukraine-bleed-in-a-proxy-war-with-russia? NATO eastward expansion a serious mistake? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/nato-eastward-expansion-a-serious-mistake? Foolish reactions to Russian demands and threats? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/foolish-reactions-to-russian-demands-and-threats Who defines US policy? https://wahrnehmungen.weebly.com/blog/biden-giving-in-to-putin |
