Peace for Our Time

Among the signatories of the recent letter "Stop the War in Ukraine" are many people I know and deeply respect. Their voices rightly carry weight and credibility in public discourse. This time, however, I disagree with them. I believe their intentions are noble, and they sincerely want peace. But unfortunately, that is not enough. I worry that such letters, despite the best intentions, do not contribute to the prospects for a swift end to this bloody war.

In the first paragraph, the authors express "unconditional support for Ukraine's undeniable right to defend itself" and clearly state that Ukraine is "the victim of Russian aggression, which cannot be justified." However, in light of everything that follows, this reads merely as a disclaimer.

The rest of the letter is used to promote proposals and ideas that are clearly at odds with the noble principles stated in the introduction. Statesmen who support military aid to Ukraine are labelled as "sleepwalkers" who are "drifting towards a potential new world war."

Effective military aid, which Ukraine urgently needs to defend itself against "unjustifiable aggression," is deemed unacceptable by the signatories because it "further increases the danger of direct confrontation between Russia and the West." This seems a very minimalist interpretation of "unconditional" support for Ukraine's "undeniable right to defence." Logically, one would expect the "power and responsibility" for ending the war to lie primarily with the side that started it and could thus end it most swiftly and easily. But the letter makes no such demand. Russia, apart from the introduction, is not portrayed as an aggressor, but merely as a partner in peace efforts and in constructing a new security architecture that must consider its interests, however defined.

The sweeping claim near the end of the letter—"you have no mandate for war"—lumps everyone together with the aggressor. This is a relativization of responsibility for aggression. It is astonishing that the authors invite everyone except Ukraine to join the "alliance for a ceasefire, for halting further armament, and for launching negotiations." In a peace initiative intended to end "unjustifiable aggression," there is evidently room for the aggressor, but not for the victim. The idea that Russia needs a new "alliance" to end the war comes across as an attempt to frame the aggressor as a hapless actor who stumbled into a situation beyond its control and now needs help. This too is a relativization of responsibility for aggression.

Perhaps unintentionally, the letter echoes some key points of Kremlin propaganda. In the third paragraph, Ukraine is no longer the victim of Russian aggression, but the site of a "proxy war between Russia and the U.S." A few days after the letter's publication, Vladimir Putin himself claimed that Russia is merely defending itself in Ukraine against an American attack.

The call for arms reduction as a path to peace is wishful thinking when it excludes the Kremlin. If implemented, it would primarily weaken Ukraine. The authors appear to believe this would force Ukraine into negotiations, but they provide no reason why Putin would then be willing to negotiate. Because of our public letters and petitions? In reality, reducing aid to Ukraine would only distance us further from peace.

Putin will only negotiate when he calculates that he can gain more at the table than on the battlefield. In other words, the less military aid Ukraine receives, the less unity there is within the EU, and the more infighting there is over support for the victim of aggression, the less willing Russia will be to negotiate, and the longer this bloody war will last.

In the debate sparked by this public appeal, any critic risks being labelled a warmonger. I reject that label. No one has a monopoly on moral high ground or reason in the pursuit of peace and an end to bloodshed. While I disagree with the letter's content, I believe its authors and signatories acted in good faith and sincerely want the war to end. At the same time, I expect them to accept and respect that those of us who understand "unconditional support for the undeniable right to self-defence against aggression" differently also want peace and an end to the war.

I do not fault the authors for their romantic nostalgia for the good old days, but I do not believe this can be a foundation for lasting security and stability in today's Europe or the world. The "this or that" Russia mentioned by the letter's authors is very different from the Soviet Union known to Willy Brandt.

There will be no peace as long as we naively project traits onto Putin that he does not possess and in fact scorns, and as long as we look for the causes of war everywhere except in his fascistoid imperialism. Putin's political path has always been grounded in violence. To gain power, he organized terrorist attacks against his own citizens and launched a second war in Chechnya. To stay in power, he invaded Georgia, seized Crimea, and now has attacked all of Ukraine. Along the way, he has murdered journalists and political opponents, bombed hospitals and civilians in Syria with cluster munitions, and dispatched Wagner mercenaries to Africa. Let us not forget the Russian mercenaries who plotted a coup in Montenegro—and today are active in Moldova and Serbia.

Pax Kremliana is war, violence, and chaos. That is Putin's "this or that" Russia and those are its interests, which we are told must be respected in a new security architecture. Putin has established a regime that continuously generates conflicts because it would collapse without them. In his political paradigm, war is a defence against the threat posed by peace.

Any security architecture that does not account for this fact is not worth the paper it is written on.

It is telling that the authors of the letter chose World War I as their historical reference point. Perhaps this is because comparisons with World War II would be more awkward and uncomfortable—not only due to the ideological and psychological similarities between the protagonists of both periods of bloody lebensraum imperialism, but also because there were, even then, European statesmen who refused to sleepwalk into war, instead resolutely championing peace—at least for themselves and their own people, even at the cost of others' freedom and survival. We know how that bargain ended. Churchill described such statesmen as men who feed the crocodile in the hope that it will eat them last.

No offense, but that won't do. Because I agree with you: this is about the lives of our children and their descendants in a world without fear, a world that can sustain humanity. Ukraine is not only fighting for its own survival, but for us and our security too. It would be wise and just to help them as best we can, not to trip them up in their national liberation struggle against a foreign occupier—even if done with the best of intentions.