Re: <nettime> The German "Open Letter" on Ukraine

“A ceasefire as soon as possible, A compromise both sides can accept”

Brian and everyone,

The German open letter offers the simple solution to the Ukraine crisis of “A ceasefire as soon as possible, A compromise both sides can accept,” as if the road to this were somehow easy to see and likely to occur anytime soon. Though I consider myself a pacifist, I wonder what events in the recent histories of wars makes this goal seem even remotely realistic.

Wars end in the following conditions:

When one side clearly has won and the other sides is utterly depleted, as in (to mention only wars in the past century or so) World Wars I and II or the 1948 and 1967 Arab-Israeli wars or the Viet-Nam war (where the anti-draft and anti-war movement in the US helped produce the realization of effective depletion) or either the Soviets or Americans in Afghanistan or the Sinhalese defeat of Tamils in Sri Lanka;
When a fairly long-term stalemate has occurred, as in the Korean War, which was left pretty much in status quo ante, and in several long wars in Africa or the 50-year civil war in Colombia;
When the war has been pretty much a border skirmish and each side understands it is not in its own interest to allow the war to widen, as in various short conflicts between India and either China or Pakistan;
When dominant outside powers force the much weaker war participants to accept a peace, as in the 1956 Sinai War or the Bosnian war;
When real war could easily occur but the two sides realize clearly that it must be avoided, as in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Only in case 5 has diplomacy been effective in ending things; in the other cases actual belligerence or restraint or threats of stronger outside-power intervention, more than diplomacy of any sort, actually determined the outcome. Diplomacy has come to the fore after the wars, for instance in peace congresses organized among the victors, not during the wars and not even usually to end them.

The US and EU could decide to stop helping Ukraine, in which case it would probably eventually and painfully lose to Russia, but why should we believe that even that degree of pressure on Ukraine would enable it to make any kind of reasonable peace with Russia? It seems pretty clear to me that Ukrainians would and should feel horribly abandoned if that happens , but that they would still fight on a long time, even if hopelessly. That path would increase the likelihood of further war in Eastern Europe or elsewhere.

As for putting pressure on Russia, that’s what the US and EU are trying to do with sanctions and arming Ukraine, but unless Putin has a change of heart, we can’t expect that to lead to peace soon.

In neither case is diplomacy likely to help much since the history of Russia, probably for centuries, is of type 1 almost exclusively. There have been no peace talks that amounted to anything in Syria or in Chechnya, or in WWII. The surrender by Lenin to Germany and Austria in WWI was because the revolution couldn’t succeed while fighting on in what was anyway a losing cause.

Unless some new form of pressure for peace is invented, the only hope for any reasonable end to the fighting is if Russians somehow turn against Putin or if he can find some way to come out heroically while withdrawing. Otherwise he will continue what may be a losing battle while still inflicting great damage on Ukraine.

Calling for diplomacy is easy to do but, sadly, highly unrealistic.

Best,

Michael

On May 17, 2022, at 8:50 AM, Brian Holmes <bhcontinentaldrift@gmail.com> wrote:

Below is a machine translation of the “Open Letter” to Scholz, signed by over 200,000 German personalities including Alice Schwartzer, Alexander Kluge and Siegfried Zielinski. The source is here:

https://www.emma.de/artikel/offener-brief-bundeskanzler-scholz-339463