The danger in Europe today is two-fold. On the one hand, it is the inability or reluctance of President Vladimir Putin to call an end to the war he launched against Ukraine in February last year.
On the other, it is the doggedness with which the United States and the European Union have been arming Ukraine which has added to the woes of not just Ukrainians but, on a bigger scale, the rest of the world.
That the voices against war are finally making themselves heard comes through the peace demonstrations organised by anti-war activists in London and Berlin last week.
The demonstrators spoke for millions around the world when they demanded that the West stop sending arms to Ukraine and that diplomacy should take over at this point.
Obviously, building up Volodymir Zelensky as a heroic figure has had a cost for his people and for the world as a whole.
Those who run the show in Washington and Brussels have, in these past twelve months, suffered from the mistaken belief that Ukraine can beat back the Russian onslaught, that the move to stand beside and behind Kyiv will ensure the overall security of Europe and western democracy.
That belief has been hollow, given that before launching his war, President Putin repeatedly warned the West to desist from taking NATO to Russia's doorsteps. It was security, Russian security, the Russian leader was worried about.
Neither Washington nor Europe took Russia's worries into account. Ironically, the war that is being waged, indeed has been waged over the last twelve months, has been presented as one aimed at guaranteeing European security from Russian aggression in the future.
Meanwhile, it is the people of Ukraine who suffer. Add to that the human rights violations which both sides, Kyiv and Moscow, have inflicted on people in Ukraine and in the areas occupied by Ukrainian separatists. The ramifications of the war have led to conditions where a point of no-return appears to have been reached.
And that is the worry. In all these twelve months, diplomacy has been resolutely ignored. No overture has been made toward having Moscow and Kyiv come to the negotiating table and work out a solution to the crisis. In the western media, a systematic demonization of the Russian leader has gone on.
Such media outlets as RT, Moscow's global television network, have been put under a ban. Similar has been the situation with China's CGTN. The result has been deplorable, with audiences in the West unable to get to have the other point of view. So much for freedom of the media.
That said, it will now be for the West to reassess conditions, indeed to go into introspection about the state of Europe as it stands today. To argue, as Ursula von der Leyen and Jens Stoltenberg have argued for a year, that aggression needs to be defeated has only caused a worsening of conditions.
While it is perfectly reasonable for Putin's assault on Ukraine to be condemned --- and it has been roundly condemned --- it makes sense to put it to Europe's leaders that arming Ukraine with the newest weapons in the armoury to battle Russian forces does not help the process of peace any.
The demonstrations in London and Berlin are, in large measure, a dawning of common sense among those whose exasperation at the expansion of the conflict in Ukraine is turning increasingly vocal. Besides, a clear dichotomy in global leadership has lately become apparent over the Ukraine question.
China's President Xi Jinping would like a ceasefire to take hold in Ukraine, but at the same time he is not ready to embrace the western view of the war in Europe. The meeting between President Putin and the leading Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Moscow last week was a potent sign of the Russians expanding their diplomatic outreach in the war.
For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron has made known his plans to visit Beijing in April as a way of persuading President Xi to convince President Putin to end the conflict in Ukraine. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has also been in contact with the Chinese leadership.
The Indian authorities have over the months made it clear that Delhi has its own independent position on the issue, that it does not agree with the European contention that Europe's problems are the world's problems. Iran has little reason to agree with the western position on Ukraine.
In effect, the war in Ukraine has of late been leading governments into adopting positions that do not necessarily fall within the parameters set by the West. That should give western leaders pause.
The tendency on the part of the West to ignore the need for a diplomatic solution to the crisis --- by walking back to conditions where Russian security concerns will be seriously addressed and Ukraine will not be provoked into seeking membership of the EU and NATO, where further supplies of ammunition to Kyiv by western nations will be suspended --- now has the world with its back to the wall.
For the West, therefore, the options are limited. It can either go on prosecuting a war the Ukrainians cannot win by supplying the Zelensky government with the latest armaments. Or it can huddle, in Brussels or Washington, take stock of conditions as they are, adopt a realistic approach to the war and send out peace feelers for a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
It will be hard for the West to turn to diplomacy, in light of such moves as welcoming Zelensky to the many councils of Europe, sending an entire European Union team to Ukraine and having President Joe Biden make a clandestine visit to Kyiv.
President Putin has not lost the war. And President Zelensky will not win it. Ukraine's supporters in the West have, through their belligerence, closed off all avenues to a negotiated settlement of the conflict. The onus is therefore now on the West, indeed on Washington and the EU, to sound out nations like China and India on an opening of doors to Moscow.
Building up Zelensky will not bring peace to Ukraine. Ignoring Putin's concerns about a guarantee of Russian security from an expanding NATO will be detrimental to global order.
It is time for the West to stand back and let Moscow and Kyiv work out a solution to the conflict.
Emissaries from nations that have stayed away from the crisis and yet have been worried gravely about its ramifications should be approached.
They should be entrusted with the task of injecting diplomacy into the situation and help bring the war to a quick and purposeful end.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
