Ukraine War - Europe Destroyed by Vulgar Pacifism and Strategic Illiteracy among Western Elites

War of aggression! Criminal Putin! Heroic Zelensky! Barbaric Russians! Glorious Ukrainians! 

 

These designations and other absurdities have been regurgitated to dumb down the masses while the war raged for the past ten months. Despite the damage done, Western political elites are intensifying the propaganda in their desperate attempt to avoid losing face. They duplicate their pronounced security illiteracy, deepen the conflict, and reduce the chances of a negotiated peace. 

 

The false and vulgar pacifist attitude to designate the one who used violent military means first - no matter the reasons and overall context - still prevails in Western political and media quarters. It is totally left out of the picture that Mr. Putin had exhausted all peaceful means and was virtually thrust into violently resolving an existential threat to his nation's security. 

 

No war is an isolated act and should not and must not be regarded as such, as the armchair strategists and self-proclaimed security policy experts on TV have tried to make us believe. But I provided comprehensive political and philosophical analyses of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in previous blog entries and publications. Find details here and here.

 

Former radical pacifists of the European green and socialist parties keep pushing for further arms delivery to Ukraine and support of the war effort. Their hatred for Russia and subservience to a U.S. warmongering regime appear even to trump their long-held ideological convictions. And the public, by and large, still mirrors the pernicious bias of their political masters. 

 

According to polls, more than half of the population in Western European countries still prefer an unconditional victory of Ukraine over any deal that would respect Russia's interests. Even politicians and commentators who criticize sanctions want them lifted because they hurt Western nations' interests. They haven't figured or don't dare to mention that the sanctions are unjust and unethical in and by themselves. 

 

The lies - dictator Putin has launched a war of aggression out of pure lust for power to restore the borders of the Soviet Union - seem to persist successfully. The American president dared to declare that Putin started a war completely groundless and without provocation. A transparent falsehood, a convenient political lie in the face of all evidence and the truth of the matter.

War is always ugly but sometimes inevitable. Neither its justification nor condemnation should be decided from the gut!

Being against violence does not make for a beautiful soul (Aristotle)

If we consider war as a continuation of political activity by other means, it never arises out of nowhere. Every war has a history that led to it. The topic of war is complex and delicate, and assessing its justification or inevitability in specific instances is even more so.

The general public often views war as the worst of all evils. The prevailing opinion is that the side that starts a war is inherently wrong and evil, while the side that resists is right and good. But as history and rational reflection show us, this is not necessarily true. If it were so easy to distinguish between right and wrong in war, many instances would reveal the United States and its Western allies as the aggressors. If the question of war could be answered based purely on emotion, we would never need to discuss the "Just War" theory, which has occupied philosophers from Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to Michael Walzer and others, including myself. I devoted my doctoral thesis (and the book based on it) to the morality and immorality of violence (and non-violence) on both individual, collective, and politico-military levels.

The evaluation of war and its political-ethical implications can be approached from two essential perspectives. First, what triggered the war, and what prompted political leaders or governing bodies to go to war? What is the causa iusta—the just reason, as the primary consideration of the principle of ius ad bellum (right to war)—that justifies or seems to justify waging war?

The challenge in assessing this crucial aspect is that the justification for the use of force—no matter when it occurs—is always subjective, based on the intentions of political leaders or decision-making bodies. To assess this adequately, observers—whether individuals, political administrations, or international bodies—must rise to a meta-level of thought, striving to judge the events leading to the dispute as objectively and impartially as possible. Unfortunately, this rarely happens, as pacifist and political-ideological emotions often cloud judgment. The United Nations, which should ideally play this role, seldom succeeds in maintaining this objective and impartial perspective.

Two essential criteria of transcendental moral philosophy (independent of experience and comprehensible by reason alone) for ius ad bellum are necessity and inevitability. War must always be a last resort, necessary and inevitable as the only option for resolving a conflict. While this is relatively obvious in cases of clear defense, it becomes more complicated in cases of preemption or prevention. A pre-emptive war represents a proactive breach of the peace, aimed at addressing an imminent threat or gaining a strategic advantage before an inevitable armed conflict. Pre-emptive war may be justified if all alternatives to the use of force have been exhausted, or if immediate military intervention is needed to prevent a much larger threat. Examples of pre-emptive military strikes include Israel's Six-Day War in 1967 and the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. In the latter case, the assumption that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) was used as a justification for war, though this proved to be inaccurate.

The ius in bello (law in war) is the second aspect of warfare to be evaluated. Do the warring parties and their military forces abide by the laws of war, such as the Geneva Conventions? Do they wage wars based on universal human principles that must not be endangered or abandoned, even in armed conflict? Do the warring parties distinguish between combatants and non-combatants? Are military targets the focus, with efforts made to minimize collateral damage? Are prisoners of war and wounded enemy soldiers treated in accordance with the Geneva Protocols, and are war crimes avoided?

While both sides appear to violate the ius in bello in the ongoing Ukraine war, only alleged Russian war crimes are widely reported in the West. For example, there is no mention of Ukrainian troops using civilians as human shields, choosing defensive positions in residential areas, or arming non-combatants in violation of martial law, actions that organized crime exploits to wreak havoc, while the blame is shifted to Russian forces. Furthermore, there is no mention of the restraint Putin has imposed on his armed forces, with a focus on military objectives. The West misinterprets this as incompetence on the part of Russian troops.

To understand the causalities that led to the war and provide criteria for its potential resolution, we must focus on the question of ius ad bellum—the reasons and motives for starting a war that lie within the hands of political leaders.

The Responsibility for this War in Ukraine is on the West's Side

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Disclaimer: I am a friend of Europe and the US, but not necessarily of their ruling political class or policy decisions. None of my criticism is intended to be malicious or adversarial. It is only meant to enlighten the discourse, broaden perspectives, and improve political relations and decisions.

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Although Western political elites and their media unanimously condemn President Putin's decision to recognize the breakaway regions of Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) in eastern Ukraine as autonomous people's republics, Putin's strategic maneuver can be seen as one of last resort.

Donetsk and Lugansk separated from Kiev following the Western-backed Maidan coup of 2014. They did not tolerate the deposition of the incumbent President Yanukovych and the installation of Poroshenko, whom they perceived as a puppet of Washington and Berlin. Poroshenko’s policies opened Ukraine to the political, military, and economic influence of the US and the West. Since then, the Ukrainian leadership has rejected—disregarding the Minsk I and II agreements—meaningful discussions on the status of its eastern territories, even resorting to a civil war-like conflict in an attempt to forcibly reintegrate the republics.

In 2014, following the Maidan revolution, it became immediately clear that Putin would not passively accept Ukraine's potential NATO membership, which could result in the expulsion of Russia from its Black Sea ports in Crimea. For the first time, Putin was confronted with an anti-Russian regime in Kiev. This prompted the annexation of Crimea and support for the separatists in Donbass, who opposed Ukraine’s transformation into a NATO base. The predominantly Russian population in these areas also resisted the Ukrainian regime's efforts to eliminate Russian traditions, language, and culture.

The annexation of Crimea and support for the eastern territories should have been predictable had the US and Europe taken the time to consider Russia's legitimate strategic interests and conducted an overdue, intelligent evaluation of the region’s security dynamics. How would the United States react, for instance, if Mexico allied with Russia and Putin stationed massive troops along the southern border?

Western political elites have not made a single meaningful effort to address Russia's legitimate security concerns. Instead, they have pursued ruthless regional and global dominance, which has shaped international relations—and particularly relations with Russia—for over a quarter-century.

Resolving the crisis in Ukraine would have only required a reassessment of Washington, Brussels, and Berlin’s strategic miscalculations and a respect for Russia’s legitimate security interests. Unfortunately, the current political leadership in the US and Europe lacks the necessary restraint to peacefully resolve the conflict.

For example, neither the weeks-long Russian troop build-up on the Ukrainian border nor Russia’s security demands—outlined in a letter to Western leaders prior to the military action—led to any acknowledgment of Russia’s national security concerns by the US, EU, or NATO. They denied Putin any opportunity for diplomacy. The blame for the collapse of dialogue and the first step toward Russian aggression lies solely with the West.

While public and international discourse on this issue often focuses on the Kremlin and the White House, little attention is paid to Ukrainian President Zelensky’s role in the current crisis. Had he defined his country’s national security interests wisely and sensibly within the broader geopolitical context, particularly in relation to Russia, he might have avoided the conflict and preserved his country’s territorial integrity. Instead, driven by his Western backers and perhaps megalomaniacal ambitions, he pushed Ukraine toward NATO membership and the stationing of nuclear weapons—decisions that overstepped the reasonable limits of an adequate security strategy.