Karl Kraus, the famous and prolific Austrian journalist and satirist, once wrote: “There is only one thing worse than the shame of war: the shame of people who no longer want to know about it.”
As so often, Kraus (1874-1936), who documented the glory days and fall of the Habsburg Empire like no other, hit the nail on the head: if you do not remember what war is, you will not be able anymore to recognise it and see it coming. Nor can you avert it.
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Every week, Europe’s national governments find new issues to prioritise over Ukraine
The Habsburgs made that mistake in 1914 by hubristically declaring war on Serbia, a war that proved fatal to the empire. Today, many Europeans are making a similar mistake by doing the opposite: turning away from the Ukraine war because “this is not our war”.
But, unfortunately, this is Europe’s war. Running away from it will only bring it closer.
Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine because he thinks it belongs to Russia. High officials repeat this every other day.
Putin intends to rebuild the tsarist empire that collapsed in 1917, was then relaunched by the communists and finally gave up the ghost in the early 1990s. Putin sees the end of the Soviet Union as a “disaster” and is outspoken about reconstructing the empire. It includes Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the Baltic countries, which are now deeply embedded in the European Union and Nato.
Putin has been gradually retaking bits of neighbouring countries, including from Ukraine, for years now. He never went all-out militarily until his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 because, analysts say, he never felt the Russian army was strong enough to do so earlier.
The war is not going very well for him. His army currently holds 18.5 percent of Ukraine; in March 2022 it was 26 percent.
Ukraine is struggling, too. It depends on the West for money and weapons. Since the US and several European countries want to avoid getting drawn into this war, former Nato commander James Jones said, they are causing Ukrainians “to fight with one hand tied behind their backs”.
This deadlock benefits Russia. President Putin can keep the war going indefinitely. He can recruit millions of Russians who, as Novosibirsk historian Sergei Chernychevsky outlined in a bitter piece in Le Monde in December, have no issue with this war.
Mercenaries, vodka, and prostitutes
In the street where Chernychevsky’s parents live, a former petty criminal who fought for the Wagner militia for some time now owns a brand new car for the first time in his life. He took his parents to a seaside resort last summer. Like other drunkards and misfits who managed to return from Ukraine in one piece, he has money to spend on “real life” — vodka and prostitutes.
The loss of Russia’s international reputation, the effect of Western sanctions, a weak rouble — most ordinary Russians simply do not care about this because in the past, when it was still there, they did not enjoy it anyway.
On the contrary, today, they feel part of something grand and useful, like their grandparents who fought fascism. Ordinary Russians, Chernychevsky notes, “like to fight against gays, Jews, the West, Freemasons, everyone. (…) The Russian people is probably experiencing the best moment of their lives.”
Ukraine cannot sustain the war indefinitely.
Unlike Russia, it does not have millions of men to call up and throw in the meat-grinder. The promised financial and military aid package from Washington is stuck in a row between Republicans and Democrats over security at the border with Mexico. Europeans have been sending so little ammunition in recent months that soldiers in the trenches in Donbas must make do with 2,000 rounds a day instead of the required 5,000.
European leaders keep repeating they stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes, and probably even mean it, but none of them has experience with factoring in long-term military planning in the affairs of state. As a result, Europe is caught between a gaping hole in the German federal budget, election slogans like “Dutch People Come First Again” and a Hungarian mini-dictator extorting Brussels on a regular basis.
Every week, Europe’s national governments find new issues to prioritise over Ukraine.
Many do not seem to realise a Ukrainian loss on the battlefield could explode in their own faces. President Putin sees Western countries as enemies because they won’t allow him to reconstruct his empire by conquering the neighbours. If he wins the war in Ukraine, he will see this as a victory over the West.
What is more, Western weakness would give him appetite for more. After all, the US and Europe hardly lifted a finger when he invaded Georgia in 2008 and occupied Donbas and Crimea in 2014. Who will be next? The Baltic countries? Poland? Ukraine’s security is crucial to Europe’s security. That is what is at stake.
This is what French president Emmanuel Macron tried to made clear last week when he said he would not rule out sending troops to Ukraine. Many took issue with that remark, including German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who explicitly did rule it out several times.
If ever there was an indicator that Europeans have no idea anymore what war is, it is these terrified reactions. Any good general uses strategic ambiguity, like Macron, to keep the enemy guessing and putting him on the wrong foot. As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War: “The whole secret lies in confusing the enemy, so he cannot fathom our real intent.”
Like the Habsburgs, who also got rich and spoilt by “making trade not war” for decades, many modern Europeans are so used to peace that they no longer recognise war. They have no Russia strategy, no defence policy, not even a remote sense of political urgency.
This is the real danger for Europe. Unfortunately, president Putin knows it.
Of course, Karl Kraus had an aphorism about this, too. Here it is: “He who does not dig a pit for others, falls into it himself.”