There is a demonstration going on at the Brandenburg Gate as I write, led by journalist Alice Schwarzer and leftist politician Sahra Wagenknecht, two prominent opinion makers in Germany. "Military experts admit that the war in Ukraine can't be won," they say, and from this they conclude that the only suitable response is to stop sending weapons to Ukraine for use in their defense against Putin's attack. It only prolongs the war and brings us closer to a possible nuclear engagement. The demonstration follows an anti-war manifesto Schwarzer and Wagenknecht have put out which has already gathered over half a million signatures.
On the other side, those defending the continued military support of Ukraine argue that such a unilateral shut-down would not lead to the desired ends. It would not lead to negotiations because Putin has had in mind from the beginning the complete destruction of Ukraine as a state separate from and outside of Moscow's control. On the contrary, this so-called armistice would play right into his hands, and give him time to get his forces together for a newer, even bigger assault on his neighbor. Which even a casual look at his past behavior indicates would be his course of action, and no evidence indicates he would be inclined to behave otherwise.
We sit here, on the other side of the world. The Germans are a whole lot closer, obviously, and they are highly conflicted over whether this is their fight to defend democracy in Europe. But while virtually the entire world not under Putin's control are inclined to come to Ukraine's defense, there is a raging battle over the next step to take. Do we throw our weight into one side of this campaign or the other? Do we treat Ukraine as a heroic victim fighting for democracy, and thus for us all, or as a hothead who needs to be forced to cut their losses? If we leave it to the Ukrainians to decide, they have made clear which way they will go: they want to defend their territory and their national identity. But what do we do?
Those arguing for continued military defense of Ukraine also argue that negotiations are the short-term goal and peace the obvious long-term goal. It's just, they say, that you have to negotiate from strength, not from weakness. Get Russia to back down. It's the obvious aggressor; everybody agrees about that. And the way to do that is to up the cost to them of maintaining the war, not handing them an "all is forgiven" card. "Keep your wins, Russia. Keep the huge chunks of our country you have managed to pull under your control already and we'll do the noble thing and stop the shooting?" Really. Put that thought into words and let it rattle around in your head for a while.
The Schwarzer-Wagenknechts of the world dangle the fact that hundreds of lives continue to be lost every day the fighting continues. Their argument sounds reasonable.
But where is the evidence that Putin would accept the offer to take his wins and go back home and pop some champagne corks? Where has he stated, or even hinted, that his lifetime goals of restoring Russian hegemony in Eastern Europe can be compromised? Where has he done anything but bomb homes, water supplies, schools and hospitals, police and firemen? When has he shown any inclination to avoid a total war of all-out destruction, to wipe out, with total ruthlessness any and all resistence to his war of aggression? Where have his attacks been anything but brutal? Where is the evidence that this armistice could possibly calm the beast he has unleashed?
One of the great ironies of history is that modern-day Germans, long viewed, by my generation at least, as a bunch of folk inclined to march first and ask questions later, have demonstrated for a couple generations already a willingness to swing the pendulum in the other direction. Half of them are ready to lay down arms rather than fight - at precisely a moment where self-defense is called for. The definition is all. Is this a call for peace? Or is it throwing their Ukrainian neighbors under the bus and mislabeling it peace?
As historian Karl Schlögel points out in a German TV interview today, at the heart of the hesitation to send tanks and other munitions into the war to help Ukraine comes from German guilt over the memory of German tanks rolling across the Soviet Union during World War II. But Germans are missing the irony. Much of the war was fought in Ukraine. Today's resistance to fighting "Russia" is actually leading to preventing the Ukrainians from resisting Russian aggression. It takes a minute to get your mind around that.
Standing up to bullies is something we all face at some point in our lives. We are faced with avoiding further blows at all costs or standing up and fighting back. The glaring question is when has giving in to a bully ever been the best long-term course of action? Violence is, along with deceit, one of the two complete evils in the world. Avoiding violence has its own undeniable justification.
We have to decide, at each step along the way, whether the instinct to lay down our arms is one we need to listen to. Or whether it is a mask, only a prelude to more violence.
If the word peace does not have the word lasting in front of it, it is not peace. It is illusion.
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