The West is using the wrong analogy for Russia’s invasion—and worsening the outcome.
It often seems as if the hawkish elements of the U.S. establishment have only ever heard of one war: World War II in Europe. This is because whatever else they forget or get wrong about that war, they are right that it was planned and initiated by a deeply evil and megalomaniac force which posed a threat to the entire world, which had to be completely defeated, and with which no morally acceptable compromise was possible.
The perennial and exclusive
references to that war allow U.S. hawks to portray every conflict in which they wish to involve America as an
existential struggle against evil, which if not engaged in will lead to catastrophic consequences for America and the world. This has been true of their approach to Vietnam through Iraq to the present war in Ukraine, with disastrous results for America and the world.
This, however, is precisely what makes World War II so exceptional. The great majority of wars in modern history and indeed in American history have been far more morally complex in their origins and have ended not with the complete victory of one side but with some form of messy compromise. Most wars (and this includes World War II) also illustrate the law of unintended consequences. The end results are very often not those predicted or desired even by the ostensible “victors.”
From this point of view, World War I is a far better historical analogy than World War II for the present war in Ukraine.
…In World War II, aspects of German policy were uniquely evil, in line with the uniquely evil racist ideology set out in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. In World War I, things seem far less clear cut. The allied propaganda line of the war being a war of democracies against autocracies was rendered ludicrous by the fact that until it collapsed in 1917, the Russian Empire was a key ally against Germany. Nor of course were the British and French colonial empires democratic.
Today we can all agree that principal responsibility for the war in Ukraine lies with the Russian government, which invaded Ukraine. But will historians of the future attribute sole responsibility to Russia, and exonerate the U.S. and NATO member governments of all blame for trying to integrate Ukraine with the West, and thus threatening what both Russians and a long row of Western experts (including the present head of the CIA,
William Burns) warned were seen in Moscow as vital Russian interests?
…The Russian high command has at the very least displayed indifference towards civilian casualties in its air campaign against Ukraine. However, we should be very careful not to portray these crimes as in some way culturally special to Russians, or as “genocide,” if only for the very obvious reason that Western forces have themselves repeatedly carried out similar actions. To use the “genocide” label in this way would put American and British commanders and air crews in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and Syria on the same level as Hitler’s SS.
Under the laws of war, it is not a crime for Ukrainian forces to establish positions in populated areas, otherwise they could not defend their country at all. But nor is it a crime for Russian forces to bombard those positions. All of this is stated quite clearly in international treaties and conventions on the laws of war.
Above all, we should not let justified moral outrage become hypocritical moral hysteria—as during World War I—because this can very easily become an obstacle to seeking a peace settlement that may be in the best interests of ourselves and the victims of the war.
The same goes for negotiations over territory. If today it seems lunatic almost beyond belief that millions of German, French, and British soldiers should have died in a war that began over whether Austrians or Serbs should rule Sarajevo, let us consider the contemporary example of Sevastopol, the Russian naval base in Crimea. The present line of the U.S. administration and most of the U.S. establishment is that negotiations for peace are purely a matter for the Ukrainian government. And the Ukrainian government has repeatedly declared that its aim is to drive Russia from all the territory it has occupied in Ukraine, including Crimea.
Thirty years ago, the overwhelming majority of Americans would have simply assumed that Crimea was part of Russia, as indeed it was until the Soviet government transferred it by decree to Ukraine in 1954. Before the Russian conquest of 1783, the peninsula was ruled by Tatars, before that by Byzantines, before that by Scythians, and before that, well, whoever it was, it was certainly not Ukrainians.
Every officially connected Russian with whom I have spoken, and most ordinary Russians, have said that to defend Crimea, Russia should in the last resort use nuclear weapons, as the United States would to defend Hawaii and Pearl Harbor. This would very likely begin a ladder of escalation that would lead to the destruction of America, Russia, and civilization itself in a nuclear war.
We should not need to wait a century for historians (if there are any) to tell us that this is not an outcome that would serve the interests of any country, including Ukraine, and that the risks involved colossally outweigh any conceivable benefits to the United States.
…aim at total victory for Ukraine, looks like unwarranted hubris on the part of Washington. And we should also not need historians of the future, or the lessons of the World War I, to tell us that hubris invariably leads to nemesis.