War, especially an unprovoked war of aggression, inspires support for the people putting their lives at risk in the name of ideals unifying their brutally victimized society
The belated response of Western governments to the war led by Russia in Ukraine is undoubtedly supportive, but even if the restraint in the first days has given way to much broader sanctions on Russian interests, the ambivalence has not gone away
Embarrassment in the face of the Ukrainian defense of democratic ideals, which have originally founded Western societies, has been tipping the scale...but the temptation to somehow arrange a soothing compromise and protect mutual economic interests has not faded entirely...
...nor should the necessity of compromise be condemned under clouds of righteous indignation
Appeasement, left to its own devices, clings to the forlorn hope that a very dangerous problem just will go away
Garnering broad popular support, appeasement will usually gain credibility by appealing to common sense, when there is so much at stake
When engaged on the spur of the moment, decidedly not as strategy, appeasement is likely to be misinterpreted as a sign of weakness, which will encourage the 'provocateur' to stack the boardgame even more for his own benefit
Peace in our time....
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s politics of appeasement were widely supported by cheering crowds
At the ill-fated Munich conference (1938), Mr. Chamberlain and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier agreed German annexation of German-speaking Sudetenland (southern Czechoslovakia) on the strength of Adolf Hitler’s promise that the integrity of remaining Czechoslovakia would be respected
It was not to be. So much for promises made by strong men
While appeasement is often a salve, an improvised medication eagerly received by public opinion, it only matters in the long run as part and parcel of a strategy
Deep down, strategic options are framed by trust, hope and shared national identities
Strategy is a global setting where the world's largest nations seek to balance their interests against the backdrop of a popular groundswell of free will
This is also why 'strategy' is difficult to work out, and fraught with unexpected turns of fate
The terms of such compromise can hardly be predicted but, challenged by the lively Ukrainian expression of national identity, 1938 appeasement looks dated...
The 1848 'Springtime of Nations' and the slow dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire may have more relevance, when Hungary's new national identity emerged, starting to gain its independence over the following 20 years (up to the 1867 Compromise framing relations with Austria)...
Russia with its numerous ethnic minorities might turn out to be the contemporary Empire at risk of being dissolved, compounding strategic complexity on the European theater ...
Peace at any Price…
If the words resonate to this day in condemnation of appeasement, they were in fact famously used by Theodore Roosevelt, U.S. President from 1901 to 1909, already well out of office by the time the U.S. Congress voted to declare war on Germany (April 6, 1917)
Roosevelt’s words, coming out in support of U.S. engagement in World War I, have kept their pointed brilliance and they are also strangely relevant on this day
[excerpted from a letter, dated January 10, 1917, to Roosevelt's friend S. Stanwood Mencken, as quoted in Political Dictionary]
Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood—the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
…all things to which America as well as European countries have committed themselves with abandon
On the chessboard of geopolitics, who will have the most to lose besides Ukraine itself is not as clear as the shock of the Russian invasion could imply
Loss in a geopolitical framework might be graded in terms of alertness and over distinct time horizons
Prepared ?
Russia has been preparing aggression for months and its action was widely advertised
Uncertainty only resided in the degree of leverage sought by Mr. Putin and its potential cost, as we sought to highlight in ‘Russia - a Sense of Possibility’
The Western powers, most committed to all the things so roundly condemned by Theodore Roosevelt - the love of soft living, safety, prosperity and 'get-rich-quickly', have remained constrained … but hardly ignorant of Russian intent
It should perhaps not come as a surprise that the steely resolve of the Ukrainian society to fend off foreign encrochments has become the most obvious, and most unexpected, driver of the conflict
Diplomatic concessions - even with the deeply flawed regimes - are nothing but an inevitable necessity...
Popular protest of a people up in arms is different altogether, leaving no room for painstaking compromise between chancelleries
This is how it came to be...
None of the sides involved in this protracted tragedy was prepared - Mr. Putin certainly was not, nor were the Western powers faced with the assertion of an age-old national identity....
For the same reason, and then some in terms of global politics...,the country least prepared and most embarrassed by Mr. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is China
Disconcerted China
Priding itself on its strategic vision, China, caught flat footed, has fled to the sidelines, insisting its diplomacy does not support…anything, not coming out in support of Russia, blaming the U.S. and NATO in a fairly contorted manner of instigating the crisis, but then stopping short of approving Russia’s action, all in the name of each country’s sovereignty
Some 8 000 Chinese citizens are hamstrung in the cross-fire, with no evacuation plans on offer, causing additional embarrassment
The Russian initiative is terrible news because the Chinese balance act is left in tatters and because the cost is likely to shoot up in a void…
The balance, which China has favored since its emergence as global power, could be best described as buying time, under the premise that Chinese power on the world scene is only growing, and relying on economic strength to leverage political influence
What never entered the balance has been barefaced miliary aggression, and China’s reasoning is sensible
- Military adventure only leaves losers in the field
- Aggression is a sign of weakness, in an – probably vain – attempt to rule by fear
- Foreign occupation inflicted on an unwilling population is costly, and beyond a short horizon, impractical
Witness the country’s long history, China has much preferred to draw neighboring countries in a tributary relationship, recognizing the Chinese Emperor’s predominance, guaranteeing security and trade while respecting a large autonomy buttressed by a shared view of the world order
With his military adventurism, Mr. Putin is checking all the boxes, on the wrong side of the Chinese ledger and, to make matters much worse still, he unleashed unwittingly the popular uprising feared by every autocracy
China may pay lip-service to Russian friendship but little more to bridge the fault line with its ally in name only...
The fight over Ukraine is not a matter to be resolved in a matter of days by the sheer dominance of the Russian armies if, as seems possible, resistance builds in the name of freedom and self-determination
Compelling every nation to take sides, the Ukrainian spirit reopens sensitivities buried deep and best ignored during the 20th century
No longer...