The lessons of a dirty war

“The world has changed since February 24”, the date of the Russian invasion, said Monday the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada, Mélanie Joly, passing through Montreal. She is completely right. This dirty war will soon have been going on for a month and it is important to learn some lessons from this conflict, even if it is far from over. Here are four.

1. Liberal democracies are under siege

The return of great power nationalism, the contestation of the domination of democracies and the liberal international order, the rise of authoritarianism and populism… All this is not new. But it is only now that we are truly aware of the magnitude of the threat facing liberal democracies around the world. Starting with Ukraine.

“The last few weeks have reminded us in a rather brutal way that democracy is not guaranteed and that it can never be taken for granted,” said Mélanie Joly. She’s right. Vladimir Putin has reminded us how perilous it is to tolerate the ongoing democratic regression any longer.

What is at stake in Ukraine is “the direction that the history of humanity will take”, even argued the famous historian Yuval Noah Harari recently. For him, it is “a moment of truth to determine if the period of prosperity and peace that we have known for several decades can last”.

2. Democracy has not said its last word

Did Vladimir Putin bet that the democracies would not be able to agree to respond with one voice to his aggression? He was greatly mistaken.

While it is frustrating not to respond to fire with fire, so far the strategy of Western democracies seems to be working. Unlike that of Moscow.

The Russian imperialist aims are coming up against the resistance of the Ukrainian people and the unity shown by the allies of Ukraine who, for once, are not fighting in dispersed order.

If the Russian tyrant persists in wanting to annex this country, it will cost him dearly. The awakening of democracies is also reflected in a desire to rearm. Seeing Germany decide to increase its military spending to more than 2% of its GDP shows us how much the world has changed. Other democracies now realize that if they want peace, they must prepare for war.

3. Canada finds its voice

For too long, Canada has been looking for a voice, a role on the international scene. He may be finding her.

“Canada played a leadership role in putting maximum pressure on the Russians in multilateral forums,” explained Minister Mélanie Joly. The country notably quickly pleaded for the exclusion of Russia from the SWIFT banking system. Several Russian banks have since been affected.

Remember that Canada also supported Ukraine before the invasion. He has trained thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in the field since 2015. We now realize the usefulness of such a mission. As we also realize the importance of our participation in NATO’s Operation REASSURANCE in Central and Eastern Europe, which seeks to dissuade Moscow from attacking nations like Latvia.

A problem remains, and it is serious: it is that we do not have the military means of our ambitions. We hope that we will begin to remedy this as of the next federal budget.

4. Vladimir Putin is a war criminal

It was US President Joe Biden who used this expression first and no one thought to dispute it. The International Criminal Court has given the green light to an investigation into possible war crimes committed by the Russian regime.

The atrocities committed in Ukraine on a daily basis are heinous. But they should, alas, not surprise us. This has been Vladimir Putin’s trademark for a long time. We saw this recently in Syria, where a barbaric war was waged by Bashar al-Assad’s regime, hand in hand with Russia.

On the other hand, the invasion of Ukraine also proves to us that the Russian army is not as powerful as we thought. And that is certainly not what Vladimir Putin wanted us to remember from the first month of this dirty war.