Ukraine – escalation will not bring peace

In view of the Ukrainian-Swiss conference on 15 and 16 June, former Swiss ambassador Jean-Daniel Ruch said that the West could “define its position [on the progress of the war in Ukraine] at the Bürgenstock”.¹ Ruch spoke of two paths that the West could take: Path one is escalation, path two is de-escalation. The current Secretary General of NATO, the governments of the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and other Western states² are in favour of path one – but not all NATO and EU states: Different voices can be heard from Italy, Hungary and Slovakia. Path two would build on the efforts of China, Brazil and some African countries – a path that the vast majority of people in all states of the world, including those in the West, would still follow.
  No one can say for sure today where further escalation will lead. It is unrealistic to think that an escalation would end the war faster. All escalations in the numerous US wars since 1945 have shown this: from Korea to Afghanistan. And Russia has once again clearly signalled that – if forced to do so – it can and will follow the path of escalation and has enormous potential for escalation itself.

What is driving the
Western advocates of escalation?

This raises the question of what the Western governments that are pushing for further escalation hope to gain from it – beyond their unbearable propagandistic rhetoric.
  There are the ideologues, for example the US and European neo-conservatives, who fanatically hate Russia. They cling to the idea to defeat Russia militarily, economically and politically and to bring the country to its knees for good or even completely tear it apart. Although this is an outright delusion, it has found great favour with several politically powerful people in Western countries – and is also reflected in most Western – also Swiss – mainstream media.
  Other parts of the government in the USA – and not only there – have the US elections in November in view. They fear that a capitulation by Ukraine before November would significantly damage the incumbent government’s election chances. They may also be aware of this: A military victory against Russia is not realistic. But they want to force the end of the war until after the elections and, until then, fool voters into thinking that with more Western ‘help’, the tide in Ukraine could still be turned ‘for the better’ (i. e., in favour of Western policy). The fact that this will lead to an escalation of the war and will certainly result in the deaths of tens of thousands more people (Ukrainians and Russians, but also more and more soldiers from the European NATO states – not to mention the consequences of possible Russian counterattacks on the escalating states themselves) is being ignored. Or it is downplayed.

Profiteers of war

For the military-industrial complex, an escalation of war is still profitable – if it is not hit itself. If you look at the stock prices of Western defence companies, you will find sufficient evidence of this. The US oil and gas industry is also one of the profiteers of an ongoing war – at Europe’s expense. Likewise, the financial industry which always profits from wars when the state must incur more and more debt and the stock market is booming.

What’s wrong with Europe?

The European allies of the USA should know that an escalation of the war will backfire on them. The last two years have shown that. Nevertheless, they have also decided in favour of escalation. France, for example, quite openly – probably also because it believes it is in direct competition with Russia’s growing importance in West Africa. The German government is doing it in an encoded way. In public – as in the election campaign for seats in the European Parliament – it presents itself as a force for ‘peace’. In reality, it is helping to turn the escalation screw – and engaged in daring verbal acrobatics for every further German escalation step. They always want to be the ‘good guy’. Read the German government’s press release of 31 May “On the use of weapons supplied to Ukraine”.³ The fact that Germany is the country paying the highest price for the escalation among Western countries has been suppressed for more than two years. And yet many citizens are asking themselves why their government is following the Anglo-Saxon war course like a vassal state.
  This list of motives is not exhaustive. But wherever you look among Western advocates of escalation, there is still no thinking from the end.⁴

Legitimate Russian concerns

Such ‘thinking from the end’ would require rational action, serious consideration of Russia’s position and an end to the propagandistic demonisation of the country and its politicians. Then it would emerge that Russia has legitimate concerns:

• A security interest that has been and continues to be massively compromised by NATO’s advance to the Russian border – not only because this has broken numerous Western commitments, but above all because NATO has remained hostile to Russia and has become an aggressive offensive alliance in the service of Western, above all US, hegemonic interests;

• a responsibility to protect the ethnic Russian populations in the east and south of Ukraine, which have close ties to Russia – populations that were not only massively discriminated against by the new, illegitimate central government in Kiev after the coup d’état in February 2014, but were also subjected to a war starting spring 2014: with a clear escalation in the weeks and days before the invasion of Russian troops in February 2022;

• a striving for respect for the equality and equal rights of all peoples and states, for compliance with international law as formulated in the United Nations Charter, and for an end to Western hegemonic claims.

Western insight
is not yet to be expected

The government representatives of the Western states meeting on the Bürgenstock would be well advised to take Russia’s concerns seriously – in order, and this will be the only way, to reach negotiations on an equal footing. But there is still no evidence that the ‘major’ Western powers are seriously considering the second path mentioned by Jean-Daniel Ruch and the conditions for it. To this day, clinging to power and profits, arrogance and denial of reality prevail. Even if their own interests are being ignored in the process. For example: What will happen if further escalation turns our own countries into theatres of war? What if, in the end, there should even be a coded or explicit unconditional Western surrender? European states experienced this in 1918 and 1945. Does it have to come to that again – or even worse?
  Looking at all the known facts, I conclude: without a ‘hard blow’ (Bashar al-Assad)⁵, those meeting on the Bürgenstock will probably not initiate a change of course any time soon. We cannot (yet) expect any insights from these people. Wouldn’t it be better if many more people than before decided in favour of a ‘popular revolt against war’ (Karl Jaspers)⁶?  •

¹ “Selbständig bleiben” (Stay independent) Interview with Jean-Daniel Ruch; in: Weltwoche No. 22.24
² Some time ago, the governments of the UK, France and other NATO states and, at the end of May 2024, the governments of the USA and Germany publicly declared that they would allow Ukraine to use the supplied weapons systems in future – with certain restrictions – for direct attacks on the Russian homeland. In fact, such attacks using NATO weapons have been taking place for some time, and almost certainly not only with the ‘permission’ of the NATO states, but also with their substantial control. This is certainly perceived as such in Russia (cf. https://anti-spiegel.ru/2024/russisches-fernsehen-die-nato-nicht-kiew-beschiesst-ziele-in-russland/ of 3 June 2024).
³ https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/suche/zum-einsatz-gelieferter-waffen-an-die-ukraine-2289868
⁴ This has been pointed out already in spring 2022 by the journal Wirtschaftsdienst: https://www.wirtschaftsdienst.eu/inhalt/jahr/2022/heft/5/beitrag/ukrainekrieg-alles-vom-ende-her-denken.html
⁵ cf.Current Concerns No. 10 of 21 May 2024
⁶ cf. also: “Where is the Federal Republic heading?”; in: Current Concerns No. 11 of 4 June 2024