by Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
Historically, there has been a never ending line of tyrants possessing tunnel vision mingled with unhealthy temperament, who have displayed an endless capacity for self-deception, which as a rule, has led to inevitable self-destruction. Prematurely celebrating his ephemeral and in reality nonexistent victory in the Ukrainian Donbas, President Vladimir Putin has proven to his subjects and the rest of the world that he is neither a statesman nor a military strategist, but simply an incompetent butcher and political gambler – a savage being with no underlying intelligence to desist from swinging from one extreme to the other without logical explanation or any rational motive. These personality as well as mental disorders have left him a lying, conniving, warped and even evil tyrant, who closed his mind to the ideas of others or twisted them to gain completely opposite meanings.
Moreover, his grandiose plan of “Russian World” (Russkyy Mir), a corrupted version of Manifest Destiny, gradually has been destroying the European continent’s balance of power and its peace since the turn of the 21st century. As a result, Russia and its long-suffering subjects are again in a worse condition domestically as well as internationally than they were prior to his accession to the presidency. Finally, the constantly recurring territorial expansions have devastated Russia and, in the end, they surely shall lead to the repeated destruction of the fatally unreal mirage of the “Third Rome.”
The leaders of the member states of NATO and the European Union must understand that the stakes are even higher than they were in the second half of the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s. If the goal is not lasting peace but another questionable compromise, the European continent and the world at large would never truly become the place of political as well as economic stability. For that to happen, all must respect and accept the wishes of the Ukrainian nation to regain all of its territories illegally seized by Russia and, furthermore, to exercise its sovereignty to the fullest, including joining NATO and the European Union as an equal member state.
Only in this manner could the integrity of Ukrainian territories be guaranteed as it was constituted on August 24, 1991. And yet, despite all the barbaric expansionist transformations of Russia since 2000, French President Emmanuel Macron recently has come up with an unsolicited peace initiative, in which he opined that the West should offer unspecified “security guarantees” to Russia in exchange for ending the latter’s illegal and genocidal war in Ukraine.
Although reluctantly, the government spokesman for the Federal Republic of Germany declared that the French President was “right to state” the existence of “Russian interests” concerning the multitude of “security questions.” However, Steffen Heberstreit also added that “peace negotiations could only happen when Russia stops the war and returns the territories it presently occupies.” The same position was emphasized by the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in his telephone call with President Putin, in which the former urged the latter to immediately withdraw his troops from the occupied Ukrainian territories. Going even further, the spokesman of the German Socialist Democratic Party (SDP) in the Bundestag Nils Schmid pointed out that “the NATO-Russia Basic Act provides sufficient legal guarantees for the mutual framework of the security questions between the two sides.”
More practically, the spokeswoman of the Green Party (die Gruenen) in the Bundestag Sara Nanni disputed President Macron’s assertion that Russia’s illegal and genocidal war has been “a reaction of NATO’s aggression.” She concluded her remarks by saying that “the French President confuses reason with effect.” Finally, the foreign affairs spokesman of the German Free Democratic Party (FDP) in the Bundestag Ulrich Lechte accused the French President of parroting the “narrative of the Kreml.”
Adding the insult of French wavering to Hungary’s and Turkey’s desire to blackmail the European Union and NATO for political and financial concessions in exchange for their tenuous support of Ukraine, will certainly become causes of greater disorder that call for strong leadership from the United States of America. To its credit, the Biden Administration has realized that the balance of power has been threatened in Europe by an expansionist state with nuclear weapons in its military arsenal. Since February 24, 2022, the situation in Eastern Europe has become intolerable for both the Kremlin and the dominating states of NATO and the European Union.
More significantly, its war in Ukraine has become more onerous, fraught with challenging complications and deadly for Russia. In reality, Russia’s expansions would weaken rather than strengthen it in the long run. Moreover, the White House has understood that the fundamental cause of the present chaos in Europe can be found in President Putin’s megalomaniac vision of restoring in its fullest the former Soviet Union and his tyrannical regime’s grand design of defeating NATO and the European Union as viable alternatives to Russia’s military rule over a reconstituted Europe. Yet, President Biden and his advisors have been guilty of oscillating between a bad peace to war, namely the old fashioned appeasement, and their limited support for Ukraine.
Their stated policy of only supplying defensive armaments to Ukraine will only freeze the conflict without empowering Ukraine to actually win the war. Yet, a frozen conflict in Eastern Europe means the indefinite prolongation of bickering among allies and a strong desire for disunity in pursuing narrow national interests. Finally, it will definitely drag out the sufferings of the Ukrainian people ad infinitum.
In closing, the West shall not fall once more into the trap of their repeated errors. Very recent threats by President Putin’s chief lieutenants against Bosnia Herzegovina, Georgia and Moldova prove that NATO and the European Union shall not be deceived by the mirage of Russian halcyon calls for peace negotiations. To wit, American and European leaders must keep in mind forever that President Putin’s aggression has been born by the historical corruption of Western political, intellectual and moral ideas of an ever changing tyranny with endless proclivity for ruthless violence as well as destructive immorality.
