The Left’s rejection of the principles of freedom and opportunity as established by America’s founders is endangering freedom and peace around the globe. Likewise, treating totalitarian regimes as legitimate and equal to nations that recognize the unalienable rights of the world’s peoples only endangers human dignity and peace.
By Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
Historically, the overwhelming majority of absolute monarchs, tyrants, autocrats, dictators and even elected politicians understood that their chief responsibility has been to act in furtherance of their private or public agendas. However, to the tragic detriment of their subjects or peoples, they mostly forgot to think before they embarked on their consequential journeys toward their transitory endeavors. Indeed, very few of their attempts at lasting domestic as well as international peace and prosperity endured for a protracted period of time without having ended in new instabilities or even destructive upheavals, revolutions and wars. These vicious circles of insanity were interrupted in 1776, in Philadelphia, when the Second Continental Congress declared the independence of the thirteen colonies as the “United States” and thus unleashed the most consequential political experiment of modern human history. Turning the overriding principle of popular sovereignty into the qualitative authority of free elections, the founding fathers of the new Republic institutionalized the rule of the majority, tempered by the right of opposition, to lay the foundation for an enduring democratic order.
Yet, presently, a small and basically inconsequential minority have launched a violently destructive quasi revolution in order to grab political power illegally from the overwhelming majority. Through faux historical narratives, blatant lies and ubiquitous election fraud, they aim at creating institutional and systemic political, economic, financial as well as cultural rot within the constitutional order of the United States of America. Their underlying claims of “White Supremacy”, “Institutionalized and Systematic Racism” and pseudo-righteous cum ugly counter-racism, wrapped in bitter anti-Americanism, are threatening to create the tyranny of the minority with all the abhorrent ideological elements of a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist state. Thus, in its current condition, the American Republic is a contributing cause of the present disorder in the European continent and beyond.
Regrettably, some NATO and European Union member states only accept the basic principles of democracy as the source of legitimate authority in theory, yet in their political, economic, financial and cultural policies they quell the right of opposition and thus behave like a one-person tyranny. States thus constituted exist in the rhetorical swamp of their lies domestically as well as internationally. More importantly, these tyrannies within both organizations not just lie to others but also to themselves. Finally, these so-called allied states are incapable of existing in peace either within their alliance or with outside states.
Today, when the illegal aggression of the sovereign state of Ukraine by Russia threatens world stability, the restoration and subsequent preservation of peace require unconditional unity and not irrationally trivial dissension. Instead of realizing that Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has been from its inception an evil imperialistic adventure, Messrs. Erdogan and Orban have embraced Putin’s lies about NATO’s tenacious aggression against the post-1990s Russia and as the righteous cleansing of the Ukrainian government from the purported Nazi and anti-Democracy politicians. To add insult to injury, Mr. Orban has thrown into the mix of these false narratives the time tested revanchist complaint concerning the ill treatment of the ethnic Hungarians in the Transcarpathian region. The “Blame America” and the ‘Blame the European Union” battle cries of Turkey and Hungary, coupled with their childish refusal to admit Finland and Sweden to NATO, are purely designed to prevent the alliance from checkmating Russia strategically. Because the possible dismemberment and even the forcible disappearance of sovereign Ukraine would trigger a global panic, such an outcome surely could start World War III.
The present stalemate is Putin’s ultimate strategic Cul-de-Sac and NATO’s huge opportunity to put paid to the former’s ambitious fantasy of restoring the pre-1991 status quo ante. Yet, NATO is walking on crutches, while it could make effective use of its overwhelming military, economic, financial and moral superiority. To make this superiority a reality, all states of the alliance must unite around the real reasons for their assistance to Ukraine and the nature of the war against which they are fighting. What is happening since February 24, 2022, in Europe has not occurred since the end of World War II, almost eight decades ago. Meantime, the United States of America, Western- Central-and Eastern Europe, with the exception of Russia, have been victorious, and Russia has gradually become more isolated and fearful, because of the traditional Russian despotism that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin has resurrected since 2000.
The centuries old rivalry between the developed West and the mostly underdeveloped and occasionally developing Russia has been from time to time subdued by the repeated collapse of subsequent Russian political and economic miseries, only to gain force by the constant hatred and jealousy of unbound Russian enmity. In spite of the illusion that Russia belongs to Europe and later that it is a “Euroasian” state, this military and territorial monster has never been in the true sense of the word “European”. Equally, Russia is not “Asian” either. In its many political metamorphoses, Russia has always stood alone in its miserable isolation and loneliness. To put it more bluntly, Russia ultimately has always been the enemy of the rest of the world. Durable agreements for lasting cooperation have never been mandatory tools of Russian diplomacy. This is the reason why wars with Russian participation have rarely resulted in lasting peace.
In closing, Russia will never become a constructive part of any world order, except the one that it can control totally by the use of overwhelming force. Hence, carrying on where the world has been before February 24, 2022, is a fool’s errand. What is needed is to remain decidedly powerful against a politically, militarily, economically and culturally absurd as well as self-destructive Russia.
