All wars are acts of organized violence and this war is an invasion caused by one party. In World War I, Austria-Hungary tried to invade Serbia, while Germany invaded Belgium. But World War II also began with the German invasion of Poland.
As is the case today in Ukraine, military resistance with naughty forces was the answer when Germany invaded Russia in 1941. As now, the invaders resorted to violence against civilians.
The peace of the last decades did not concern the whole world, but only Europe, with the exception of the Balkans. Today we see that war is not something that just happens elsewhere, it is always here, and it can affect this side of the world. There has been an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s excuses for de-Naziization and drug regime in Kyiv are paranoid.
That said, I do not think we will see major wars in the future, such as a conflict between China and the United States. But we will see more frequent use of high-precision weapons, such as those used by Russia against civilians in Syria, Georgia or Chechnya.
I consider this to be a “Putin war”, even if the Russian President is himself a product of his society. He, and no one else, makes the most important decisions and will continue to do so. The main reason is that it considers Ukraine an illegal state, but of course there are economic incentives, Ukraine is a rich country.
Putin was a young member of the KGB in Germany when the Wall fell, calling it the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. For him, the EU is an enemy. And Ukraine does not tolerate looking to the West instead of the East. As for Russian public opinion, its stance is unknown. Suicides among recruits are many. The people who have lived through World War II and are moved by the comparisons of today’s war with it are fewer and fewer.
Putin’s other enemy is NATO. Ukraine is a country much more open than Russia and this has been perceived as a threat. But what the Russians claim about NATO, that they were promised that the Atlantic Alliance would not expand eastward, is not true. Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were keen to join NATO because they felt very vulnerable to Russia.
As with many authoritarian leaders, Putin fell into the trap of believing those who told him that the Ukrainians would accept the invasion. The soldiers believed that they would be greeted with applause and that the war would last a while. So one wonders about the level of Russian counterintelligence: did they not know that the Ukrainians were being trained and prepared for an attack?
The Russian President played a key role in the prestige of the war in Ukraine and this ridiculous idea of restoring the empire. However, he was humiliated by the Ukrainian resistance, as well as by the sinking of “Moscow”. The coming weeks will be very critical, there will be great disasters.
By Margaret McMillan. She is a Canadian historian, Emeritus Professor at the Universities of Toronto and Oxford
Source: AMPE, Repubblica
Source: Capital
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