WHAT'S HAPPENING IN EUROPE? - THE WAR IN UKRAINE

By Gerrit Jan Bouwhuis

My four previous articles addressed, in this order, the post-war changes in Europe (immigration and the development of European cooperation), the difficult discussion about immigration, and the current culture battle around “woke”. In this contribution, the war in Ukraine, its historic background and its causes will be discussed. In my view the policy of the USA is the dominant cause of this war.   

The Current War

The current war started on February 24, 2022. Russia invaded Ukraine. The Russian “military operation” quickly stalled. Just like in WWI, trench warfare arose. This now has lasted more than two years. According to Zelensky, the President of the Ukraine, 20% of Ukraine is occupied by Russia (including Crimea). The USA and EU-Europe have supported Ukraine militarily and financially: until February last, EU-Europe with an amount of € 90 billion (of which 42 billion military aid) and the USA with an amount of € 67 billion, of which 43 billion military aid (the Kiel Institute for the World Economy). The US has now decided on an additional package of € 60 billion. In addition, sanctions are in force against Russia and 2,000 individual Russian citizens: import and export of goods and energy; visa restrictions; restriction of financial transactions; transport (no flights to Russia), et cetera. In part, the sanctions had already started in 2014, after the secession of Crimea and the Donbas. The sanctions were intended to weaken Russia economically, but that did not work. Mainly Europe itself suffered from this, with temporarily very high energy prices. Another EU measure was the blocking of 14 Russian TV channels, an odd measure in democracies. Meanwhile, the bloodshed continues. There are no reliable figures, but an estimate of half a million deaths so far is not an illogical estimate.  Every death means a family in grief.  In addition, there are the injured, the material damage and the extensive investment in mutual hatred. And all this between two “brother peoples”. An immense tragedy.

Why?

Media and politicians in the West point to Russia and Putin as the culprits: the great threat from the East. That explanation is incorrect. The two explanatory variables are: the role of the US and the misunderstood psyche of Russia after 1991. For a full evaluation first something about the history.

The History, 862 – 1991

The history of Russia and Ukraine started in 862 when the Viking Rurik was asked to rule the Slavs. The result became the Kiev-“Rus” state with golden ages until 1240. From 988 onwards Church Slavonic was introduced as a language. This gave rise to Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian. In 1240 Kiev was destroyed by the Mongols. Then things went wrong for Kiev. The secular and ecclesiastical heads of power went to Moscow. Some current Ukrainians have the opinion that Russia has stolen the name “Rus”. The area first became part of Lithuania and then from 1385 to 1795 part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Many Jews found refuge in this Commonwealth. A flourishing Jewish culture emerged, which was destroyed in the Holocaust (3 million Jews from that region). Around 1650 the Ukrainians revolted against the Poles. The rebels were called Cossacks. They were runaway serfs and they were helped by Russia. In the Treaty of Perejaslav 1654, the Ukrainians were given their own state. That Cossack state existed for about 100 years but was under the influence of Russia and Poland. For the Ukrainians, 1654 is considered the beginning of their first independence. The opinion of the Russians is that after 400 years Ukraine came back home in the Russian family. 1654 is important in Ukrainian consciousness.

In 1795, the last remnants of Poland were divided between Russia and the German states of Prussia and Austria (Habsburg). Of today's Ukraine, 88% became part of Russia and later the Soviet Union. 12% joined the Habsburg Empire. This part only came to the Soviet Union in 1945. In the Russian part of what is now Ukraine, Russia colonized the “wild South”, an area largely uninhabited, but under the influence of the Crimean, Muslim Tatars. The East became the heart of Russian heavy industry (the Donbas). In both parts of “Ukraine” in the 19th century there were nationalist movements. In 1954, the Ukrainian leader of Russia, Khrushchev, gave Crimea as a gift to the Ukrainian republic on the occasion of Pereyaslav's 300th anniversary. That had little meaning at the time. Everything was Soviet Union. But then the Soviet Union collapsed.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union (15 republics) was a chaotic process. Gorbachev tried to implement three transitions (dictatorship-democracy; commanded economy-market economy; centralized-decentralized) gradually. In March 1991 he held a referendum aimed at creating a modernized Union. Six countries boycotted that referendum and seceded: the three Baltic states, Moldova, Armenia and Georgia. The remaining 9 republics agreed to the proposal by percentages ranging from 71 to 95%. But Gorbachev was not allowed to implement that plan. In the summer of 1991, Yeltsin came to power in Russia. When communists committed a coup in August, Yeltsin was the man who foiled the coup (the famous scene on the tank). He then seized power and pushed Gorbachev aside. After that things went quickly. Six more Republics seceded. On December 8, 1991, the presidents of the last three republics, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, dissolved the Soviet Union and the republics became fully independent countries. This happened in a hunting lodge in Belarus while drinking a lot of alcohol. The question of logical boundaries was not addressed…. This event can be regarded as a tragic political accident. It also shows how great the influence of individuals on history can be. If Gorbachev had been given a chance for his gradual transition, history could have turned out differently. Yeltsin blocked that opportunity.

In summary, Ukraine's history is complex; a Ukrainian national consciousness is already old; Russia and Ukraine are historically intensively intertwined; the Ukraine that emerged in 1991 had a very diverse background and relatively arbitrary borders. It included populations with different loyalties, from nationalist Ukrainian to completely Russian.

The Role of the United States.

And then the last 30 years started. The two factors mentioned before determined developments: the role of the USA and the misunderstood psyche of Russia.  

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the geopolitical goal of the USA became to remain the sole world power (Wolfowitz doctrine). As far as Russia and Europe are concerned, this meant keeping Russia small; keeping Europe divided/Russia and Germany not friends! (Brzezinski doctrine); Ukraine in the sphere of influence of the USA. NATO was the vehicle. Despite promises to Gorbachev and objections from Russia, NATO was expanded. Many warned against this, including Georges Kennan (Russia expert, architect of the so-called “containment” policy) in 1998, then 94 years old: “that is completely unnecessary; no one threatens anyone; that will trigger a response from Russia; and then people will say: see, that's what those Russians are like; then that will be completely incorrect.” The USA didn't care. The all-time low was Bucharest 2008, when the US wanted to include Ukraine in NATO.  Germany/Merkel prevented that. The NATO spokesman said: “we will annoy Russia to the utmost”. It is also important that Russia was not involved in any of the ongoing conflicts, not in the Balkans/Serbia, not in Syria, not in the fight against terrorism. Russia was kept small, ignored, humiliated.

What did Russia want then? That's very simple. Two things: economic cooperation and geopolitical participation. That's what all three leaders wanted: Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Putin. Economic cooperation is a vital necessity for Russia; Western Europe (including Germany) and Russia are natural partners: technology in exchange for raw materials. The fall of the Soviet Union was a tragedy for Russia, economically but also psychologically. And that brings us to the second element: the “psyche” of Russia.

The “aura of power” was gone (Vladimir Pozner, a Russian-American, 2015). That did a lot to the self-esteem of Russia and the Russians. When Putin took office in 2000, his goal was to “help Russia get back on its feet” and “give it back self-respect.” Therefore: economics and a role on the world stage. That was not granted to him. The economic cooperation remained one-sided: the US mainly wanted markets and the EU thought Russia was too big for a partnership. And there was no geopolitical role at all, not when allies were involved (Serbia, Syria), and not even in the case with Ukraine, part of Russia's historic heartland, intensely related. In Ukraine the USA went their own way: blocked a Referendum on NATO in the 2000s (expected support at the time was approximately 20%), orchestrated a coup in 2014 and installed a pro-US government. When Crimea and the Donbas subsequently seceded, the Americans spread the story that Putin and Russia were striving to restore the old Soviet Union. The American professor, John J. Maersheimer, states that that story did not exist before 2014! The Americans illicitly reclassified the aspiration for the restoration of self-respect into an aspiration for the restoration of the Soviet Union, an evil and dangerous imperialism, a threat also to us. The story spread by the Americans, implicating a threat to Western democracy and European countries, was a pure lie. This war is solely about the sphere of influence in Ukraine, not about our freedom. But now everyone believes this. It's paranoia. Russia's intervention in Georgia in 2008 is also cited as proof of Russian imperialism. Also, that’s a lie. Georgia started the war. The OSCE has confirmed this. The reason for Russia's intervention was Georgia's genocidal actions against its minorities (Abkhazians and South Ossetians).

In both cases, American propaganda is very effective. And that’s extremely sad. It is reminiscent of the words of Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, in Nuremberg in 1945 after his death sentence and before his suicide in an interview with a journalist: “Of course ordinary people do not want war, not in England, not in Russia, not in Germany. But political leaders determine what happens. And it is always a simple matter to drag people along, whether in a fascist dictatorship, or in a democracy, or in a communist dictatorship, voice or no voice, people can always be brought onto the wavelength of the leaders. That's easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are under attack, and you have to declare those who criticize and want peace as traitors, accomplices of the enemy, bad patriots, who are a danger to the country. It works the same in every country.” Exactly that is happening again, in Russia, but also in the West, politicians, journalists, generals. They say: you are threatened; prepare for war. I can’t see this any other way than warmongering.

It is also sad that communication with Russia is being blocked. In a conflict the first law is:  keep open the channels for communication with the enemy. The West doesn’t do that. That started before February 2022, when tensions rose. A proposed visit by Merkel and Macron on behalf of the EU to Putin was blocked by the Balts and Poles.

The situation is very similar to the situation before and during WWI. There is Christopher Clark's beautiful book about the run-up to WWI: Sleepwalkers. In all capitals there were doves and hawks. The hawks, the warmongers, won. Currently we see the same. You might even say that the Americans wanted this war: to settle scores with Russia. In any case, they could have prevented the war. They had no business in Ukraine, but they want to be “chief of the world”: striving for power and missionary status. And they don't understand anything about Russia, neither do they wish to understand anything about it. Just as they did not want to understand anything about the Middle East and therefore caused destruction there. History? They call it “old spiderweb” (Hiltermann, a Dutch political analyst, 1961). Creating democracy; how do you do that? The Americans think you can do that with the push on a button and a stroke of the sword. Completely unreal.

With this opinion and explanation, do I declare Russia sacred? No, of course not. Russia is a very complicated country. Very different from Western Europe. A strong national feeling and a completely different way of thinking (the church schism from 1054 still has an effect). Establishing a true democracy would have taken generations. Such processes are in the heads and in the fibers. With a completely different culture you have to deal realistically, understanding sensitivities, ways of thinking and interests. The US did not wish to do so.  And the European countries are behaving like the lapdogs of the US. Therefore, they are partly to blame. And of course, the Ukrainian leaders are not going free in this. Ukraine was a very divided country, that required balancing of interests.  But the Western-oriented government installed in 2014, stopped doing that. The Russian language was even banned…          

Don't people see all this in the West? There are critical voices in several countries. In   Germany for instance, Gabriële Krone-Schmalz, Sahra Wagenknecht, and Klaus von Donanyi; in the USA: John J. Maersheimer, and Jeffrey Sachs. However, critics are mainly ignored or dismissed as “Putin-verstehers”. A normal discussion is hardly possible.

Conclusion

We have to wait and see how the war develops further. There are sounds that Ukraine is becoming exhausted. Analysts say that Ukraine cannot win this war. But they have dug in thoroughly and are receiving a lot of support. If Russia were to win, the threat of a Third World War is still there. If the war were to last another year and Trump comes back to power in the US, that could give hope. He is probably more realistic and less dangerous than Biden.

How should it be done? For me that’s clear: stop immediately the delivering of weapons: no more fuel for war; make a truce. Then open negotiations on an integral, balanced, future-oriented package with the following elements: realistic border changes; guaranteeing minority rights in both countries; agreements about construction, investment in reconciliation, combating distrust; and intensive cooperation on the continent. Back to the realization of Gorbachev's dream: the “House of Europe”. And: no humiliations, no revenges. And the Americans need to make off out of our continent!  NATO must be abolished.

Is this going to happen?

No. Einstein also applies today:

“two things are infinite: space and human stupidity; I'm not sure about the first yet.” 

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About the author: Gerrit Jan Bouwhuis (1948) was advisor to the Minister of Finance in the Netherlands. After his retirement he made study trips to Africa and Eastern Europe. Since 2018, he has worked as an international election observer in Ukraine, Iraq, and Turkey.