By Clement J. Rohee
WITH the looming first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, analysts and historians will long debate whether Russia’s security was indeed severely compromised and its invasion of Ukraine in defence of its national security had any basis in international law and whether the United States and its allies were over-ambitious in expanding the European Union and NATO to the borders of Russia.

A big debate will also likely continue as to whether President Biden and other Western leaders could have done more to persuade President Putin not to invade Ukraine and avoid a war that now looks as though no end is in sight.

Professor Alan Bulharofsky, a scholar of ‘Russia and Public Opinion’ at Tufts University, was quoted as saying: “No State can or should ensure its own security separately from the security of the rest of the world and at the expense of the security of other States.”

Bulharofsky then rhetorically asked, “When the U.S. drove five waves of NATO expansion eastward all the way to Russia’s doorstep and deployed advanced offensive strategic weapons in breach of its assurances to Russia, did it ever think about the consequences of pushing a big country to the wall?”

Historical data shows that diversionary wars fought beyond a country’s borders and aimed at concealing social and economic problems at home have usually boomeranged.

Though a diversionary war might not be the casus beli in Russia’s case, the bigger picture that potentially could have impacted Russia’s internal and external stability should not be discounted. Note for example, Alexie Navalny’s trial and imprisonment that occurred just about one month before the invasion of Ukraine; the January mass protests in Kazakhstan against the government and former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who led Kazakhstan for three decades as well as the mass demonstrations and protests against the Belarusian government and President Alexander Lukashenko, both allies of President Putin.

History tells us that military aggression over time decreases the aggressor’s capacity to win. We only have to look back in history to find that beginning with the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, followed by the defeat of imperial Germany in 1918; Hitlerite fascism in 1945; the defeat of first the French in 1954, and then the USA in 1975 in Vietnam; the invasion of Cuba by mercenaries at the Bay of Pigs in 1961; France’s defeat in Algeria in 1962, and the Portuguese in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau in 1974.

In all the above cases, the aggressor ran out of time and military options. The big question therefore is, will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prove to be an exception given the historical antecedents?

The Russia-Ukraine war is not just a war between the two countries, nor is it just a European war. To adopt that position would be to do so from a rather narrow perspective. All 30 NATO countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada are involved, one way or another in a war that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described recently as “a comprehensive hybrid war.”

Observers have described the war as having all the features of a proxy war. The principal aims being to punish, and if possible, defeat Russia militarily, weaken it financially and destroy it economically.

Clearly neither side is winning; there is an apparent deadlock. Reports indicate that to break the deadlock, Russia, apart from mobilising as many as 500,000 conscripts last month, in addition to the 300,000 it called up in October last year, is amassing fighter jets on the border with Ukraine.

And in response, President Zelenskyy has appealed for modern fighter jets, but NATO’s focus is on the ground. The allies are pouring in artillery, armour and air- defence systems to help Ukrainian forces fend off an impending Russian offensive.

The US will send longer-range rocket artillery; Germany will send 112 of the older versions of its Leopard One tanks, while South Korea has been asked to provide weapons. An escalation of the war is in the air. The stark objectives of Russia’s enemies aside, the fundamental question is, what would this world look like at the end of the war? Will the losses on both sides be accepted by the next generation of Russians and Ukrainians as the legacy of a different time? About this, we can only speculate, since to be clairvoyant presupposes supernatural implications.

Will the outcome see another fallacious ‘end of history’ or, to put it more mildly, the end of an era for Russia and the beginning of another for Ukraine or vice versa? Or will we see the emergence of a new global human order where the extant world order is replaced by a more humane one with greater emphasis on and more concrete efforts to bring an end to global poverty, hunger and underdevelopment, resulting in the ushering in of prosperity for all and not just a few.

Many have called for an end to the war and for a return to diplomatic efforts to bring about a political/diplomatic solution to the conflict.

But what will be the nature of this ‘end’ that many are calling for? Will there ever be a diplomatic solution many so fervently seek? The answers to these questions are not clear — at least not yet.

Reflecting on the question of wars, Thomas Aquinas, Italian priest and philosopher asked, “When is a war just?” Answering his own question, he said: “For a war to be just, three conditions are necessary. There needs to be a right authority to declare war, a just cause, and a right intention on the part of the belligerents i.e.; achieving some good or avoiding some evil.”

Placed in the context of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, these are searching questions that continue to stir debates in diplomatic, academic and political circles worldwide.

Meanwhile, Pope Francis for his part, in his 2022 Christmas Day message called for an immediate end to the “senseless” war in Ukraine.

As humanity marks the first anniversary of the conflict, small states such as Guyana with a border controversy and dispute to its East and West respectively, cannot stand by pondering as it were, what position it should adopt in the face of the ongoing war in Europe as if it is of no relevance to us. We are affected in many ways as in the supply chain, food security, global inflation and international transportation.

It is for these reasons we must continue to advocate in favour of the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace and for world peace and international security. How to advance these goals and to avoid war is debatable.

In the meantime, we must exert every effort to link these questions to our own geo-strategic and national interests. According to Indian political scientist, Noor Ahmed Baba, “After all, countries balance principles with real politicking and diplomacy.”

Efforts must be made to encourage others in mass organisations as well as Guyanese personalities belonging to religious bodies, academia, trade unions, environmentalists, journalists, artists and retired diplomats to join in the advocacy.