Despite my deference to the learned words of Louis Balthazar (The duty1er March 2022), I would rather side with Jean-François Caron (The dutyFebruary 25, 2022) and I will try to draw some lessons from contemporary history, which could be useful in this case.
To be honest, I find Balthazar’s reasoning a little short when he writes: “Perhaps it is time that we stop considering the countries of the world as mere pawns on the chessboard of the architecture of global security . People want to have their say. »
Normally, this is obvious. It is even a right guaranteed by the Charter of the United Nations. But for two weeks, it is no longer enough to proclaim Ukraine’s right to “say its word” at a time when these barbarians are even challenging its right to exist. We must first and urgently put an end to the aggression.
When peace returns, and if Ukraine comes out of it alive, we can begin to celebrate the right of peoples “to have their say” in the concert of nations, while keeping an eye on, with vigilance and firmness increased, the powers that this right disturbs.
Brute force or diplomacy
To put an end to this aggression, there is brute force or diplomacy. Civilized nations do not have the right to choose war, as today’s technologies flirt with the apocalypse. For now, the problem is that our sword of Damocles is in the hands of a madman who is no more afraid of the apocalypse than Hitler was. So we have to look elsewhere.
Among the themes appearing in Putin’s eructations, in particular appears the reference to the lost greatness of Russia. However, on this specific point, the allies of Ukraine could draw a first lesson from an important dimension of the 1939-1945 war. History teaches us that by skilfully playing the humiliation card, Hitler succeeded in galvanizing all the forces of a country which was nevertheless well equipped to fight against tyranny by being highly educated and by bringing to the humanity a remarkable contribution to culture, science and philosophy. He wanted to restore Germany’s pride bruised by the disproportionate demands of the Treaty of Versailles on the economic, political and military levels. This treaty marked the end of the war. He singled out Germany as solely responsible for this cataclysm. She had to pay.
Humiliation and reconquest
The Allies were slow to recognize that they had, as we say in Quebec, “taken the butter by the handful”. It was only when Hitler raised the banner of humiliation, a sort of ” Make Deutschland Great Again ‘, which the Allies admitted they had exaggerated.
But it was too late, the damage was done, and Hitler’s vociferations on this subject had become a watchword. The Allies had given “handles” to the arguments of a demagogue, which it must be admitted that he had used them with a certain talent.
In some ways this seems to me to be the case mutatis mutandis the current situation in Ukraine and its context. Among the arguments used by Putin are the themes of humiliation and the reconquest of Russia’s greatness and power. A kind of ” Make Russia Great Again “.
For now, the problem is that our sword of Damocles is in the hands of a madman who is no more afraid of the apocalypse than Hitler was. So we have to look elsewhere.
Humiliation became an easily exploitable theme because of the break-up of the Soviet Bloc and especially the voracity of the NATO countries to take disproportionate advantage of the situation. After interminable changes, the former USSR, which had fifteen members, was reduced to nine within a Confederation of Independent States (CIS) which never had a recognized legal personality. Of the six defector countries, the three Baltic countries that had become independent, namely Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, joined NATO. The other three, Turkmenistan, Georgia and Ukraine (yes, Ukraine), simply became independent. This reduced by the same amount the population, the available resources as well as the zones of influence and security of the former Soviet Russia.
With all due respect to historian Stephen Kotkin, who claims that the expansion of NATO to the East after the dismemberment of the Warsaw Pact had nothing to do with the despotic and bloodthirsty attitude of Putin, I continue to believe that the opportunistic recovery by NATO of eight former members of the Pact, several of them on the very borders of Russia, gave rise to the totalitarian disinformation of the tyrant concerning the zone of influence and security of his country.
A careful examination of NATO’s current geopolitical map convinces us that the United States, NATO’s hegemonic member, would never have tolerated a quarter of the encroachments suffered by the former USSR so close of its borders. Historical proof of this is the Cuban crisis (1962).
We have no right to forget that the planet then came within a hair’s breadth of a nuclear apocalypse. And that it took, on the part of the Kennedy brothers, a judicious blend of firmness and a historical sense of compromise for us to get off lightly this time and to come to a peaceful settlement. Both sides had to compromise without losing face.
Taking the example of this moment in history, NATO, recognizing its share of responsibility in the confinement of an already weakened former USSR, could agree to modify the status of its members who are too close to the Russian borders and eventually give up integrating Ukraine into its ranks.
In return for which Russia would withdraw from Ukraine and undertake by treaty to respect its sovereignty. It would also contribute to rebuilding Ukraine for its share of responsibility.