1 week Ago By Atle Hetland
In our time, indeed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine well over 3 years ago, the West gives more attention to defence and military investment than before, when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union was dissolved. That time, at the end of the Cold War, we were more optimistic about peaceful East-West cooperation in military, trade and other fields. The West and Russia held talks and signed agreements about the reduction of nuclear weapons, too.
The peace movements in the West, and to some extent in the East, played a role in the debate, in describing the situation and setting the agenda for similar aspirations for a more peaceful future. In the years leading up to the end of the Soviet Union in 1989-91, there were important debates and many hopes. Alas, negligence happened in the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin was the first president in the new Russia from 1991-1999, and then Presidents Putin and Medvedev came in, and they are still there and likely to remain for a good while to come.
If the West, indeed Europe and Russia had defined more realistically the policies for economic, political and military cooperation, the world would have looked different today. Certainly, the Russia-Ukraine conflicts from 2008-09, including the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, and the full war and invasion of Ukraine from 2024, would hardly have happened. Main causes for the current war lies in the almost casual ways that Russia and Ukraine negotiated and agreed on Ukraine’s separation from the Soviet Union and Russia in August 1991.
Shots Fired When Ukraine became independent, an important part of Russia, with about 50 million inhabitants, out of a total of about 200 million, was ‘lost’. Ukraine kept the major part of the access to the Black Sea, and certainly its agricultural land with a mild climate, and advanced industry, including military industry, too. If Ukraine had not given up its nuclear arsenals (probably advised to do so by the West, too, in a time of peaceful, but maybe naive, optimism), the current Russia-Ukraine war wouldn’t have developed – well, it could have been an even greater disaster than what it is if nuclear weapons would have been used, hopefully unlikely, but impossible to know now.
There was a massive neglect by Russia, European countries, USA, NATO, EU, European Council, the UN, and other multi- and bilateral organisations at the time of the Soviet Union ending, for which we suffer the consequences today – and problems will stay with us for decades and generations, with tremendous losses of material and immaterial resources and development, including hundreds of thousands of fatalities, injured people and displacements in the Russia-Ukraine war. Heatwave Incoming All this we know, but we don’t seem to know, not even discuss why the neglect happened and how we can prepare for avoiding similar situations in future, and how to correct, if not fully then to some degree, the wrongs that were done. We also don’t know if there were some plans and intentions behind what happened, or if it was only what I call the neglect.
We can think and ponder on it, and political historians will give us more theories and thoughts in future. Somehow, we may suspect that there must have been some plans behind it all, and we may find it difficult to believe that such advanced countries and organisations as those I mentioned above, would not have been able to prevent the Russia-Ukraine conflicts and war – and the wider East-West hostility and lack of positive cooperation we experience today when we actually believe that Russia, the CIS countries, the European countries, and the West and beyond, would have benefitted from it. Sadly, there is now already a new Cold War with enormous waste of material and immaterial resources, in nobody’s interest, one would think.
It is particularly inexplicable that NATO, with Russia, didn’t do better than it did, including in the months leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 14 February, 2022, and the immediate months and longer thereafter. Political Theatre I am also questioning the lack of action by the peace organisations, NGOs, political parties, research organisations, universities, and more in the West. Let us hope they get much more active in future and that idealism will again take more space in our public debate and actions.
It seems we focus less on important issues than people did in the 1960s, and we recall with pride the civil rights movement in the USA, the anti-apartheid movement related to South Africa, the efforts to reduce the North-South disparities, and so on. The pacifist and other active peace movements were more important that time than now, not only in concrete ways but in inspiring debate – yes, even the hippie-movement and the dreams of flower-power had important messages. At the current time, I am particularly disappointed that the European countries quite blindly seem to accept major increases in military expenses, up to two percent of GDP, even three percent, not even protesting vigorously when President Trump suggests that European NATO members should go up to five percent.
The most serious and astonishing is that we seem to accept such figures without discussing what the money will actually go to, and why, accept for that Russia is painted as the great enemy. There may be some good reasons for the developments and situation, but then we have also let it develop without taking it seriously. We have not discussed seriously, with theories and action plans, how peace-creation and cooperation between competing or hostile countries should happen, how to go from hostility to cooperation.
We have focused on rearmament and old-fashioned and outdated military and war investments, not on the foundations for peace. Cartoon Last Sunday I spoke with an old Pakistani friends and I said to him that I couldn’t make much sense of the current military build-up, indeed not from a more pacifist standpoint. He said that from all angles, it is difficult to justify increases in military investments, at the current time and all times.
In Europe, it is even more illogical because they agree on increases without having discussed the actual purposes of the investments. Some countries, such as Sweden, borrow money to reach the increased targets of investing up to three percent, or more, of GDP in defence. True, Sweden is also has a large military industry so they would have an interest in selling to the military at home and in other countries.
It remains inexplicable that the West so blindly goes for increases in military expenses, and again, not considering peaceful investments and develop new values in children and youth. There is still opportunity and time to invest more wisely. In Europe, they should know that in the short and long run, the only logical way ahead is to find ways for dialogue and cooperation – and we will soon realize that the Russian people want the same, and their leaders, too.
This is the time to question the terrible military build-up that Europe is now into, and the one-sided rearmament mindset. Increases in defence budgets should go for active peace education in schools, the media, organisation and society at large. We can learn to live in peace, can’t we? Indian Waqf Takeover Atle Hetland The writer is a senior Norwegian social scientist with experience from university, diplomacy and development aid.
He can be reached at [email protected] Tags: learn live peace.
