Published online as html 18th May 2022.
By Helen Gavaghan
COMMENT.
War between Russia and Ukraine is dwarfing that humanity faces an existential threat. A threat we cannot solve without peace between Russia and Ukraine. The
World, which does not have unity in its response to Russia's actions, is in danger of washing down the drain 30 years of research into human-caused climate change. Carried
with the loss of that effort will be the future humanity has been making for itself, as well as the good which people could, if they chose, do for the rest of biology. For
that reason this magazine thinks the UN's suspension of Russia from the UN's Human Rights' Council was right.
Russia has also broken, as far as anyone in the general public can tell, with the essence of the UN, and when there is no overwhelming justification. Russia has crossed
a border under arms, in anger, and against the wishes of the invaded country. Yet such an attack does not give "The West" the right to ramp up spending on arms, and bring into
sharp focus all the global tensions possible if non-Nato and non-European countries see the West's beefed up arms spending as a threat. Now is the time for restraint in all matters
of arming nations, and it is the time to move nuclear arms from nation states into control of a body responsible to the UN General Assembly, not to the UN Security Council. Nuclear
weapons need taking off the table.
Each nation within the UN has a right to conduct its own affairs as it sees fit, as long as it does not damage or threaten a neighbour. Within the concept of threat lies the
basis of War. Nations tend to see their actions according to their own benefit and thus can miss what another nation sees as a threat. Each nation has a right within the UN
to have its borders respected by other nations. Only if Ukraine had weapons of mass destruction threatening Russia, or was seeking to control Russia's nuclear infrastructure
could Russia have a case to take to the UN. If such a case exists, why did it not take that case to the UN?
If not weapons of mass destruction, what possible threat could Ukraine have posed to Russia? If the Russian Government is keeping anything back - be it cyber attack (Ukraine
has significant IT competence) or manipulation of power distribution infrastructure - it is shameful. Though there can be a whiff sometimes of undeserved sanctimony about
we living in and supporting liberal democracies, we have not yet invaded North Korea. We did invade Iraq, on the grounds of over-interpreted intelligence, even as Russia opposed
that War. Is Russia now making the same mistake, but not telling the World? Perhaps for fear of revealing intelligence sources? Russia needs the courage to tell the world its
thinking in full. Because if what we have heard so far is Russia's full justification, we are looking at an unjust War.
Russia is a sophisticated political union with brilliant scientists, artists, dancers, musicians, and poets. From Tsars to Stalin, the Russian people do not have a history of
accepting tyrants lightly. It is a country which has set itself on a path from dictatorship to democray. In the UK, we know the road to universal suffrage and fair elections
can take centuries. If President Putin is still in power, it is because that is what the people of the Russian Federation accept. There are too many ways in the 21st Century to
circumvent State-control of communication, so we cannot wholly blame censorship, and propaganda, and elections that could have paid more attention to freedom of debate.
For the Russian people to act, they, as much as the rest of the World, need to know in full why their elected politicians have allowed their country to become villains in the
eyes of the Western world. The relationship between Ukraine and Russia was obviously troubled, but it is hard to see where Ukraine assaulted Russia's Sovereignty, or threatened
its existence. Did something happen the night before Russia sent troops into Crimea additional to those there already by agreement? What are we missing? Or, what in the structures
of our World has failed peace? We need to know now — in 2022, not in history books -- why this War has happened. Quite apart from internally displaced Ukrainians, and refugees, and
bankers become soldiers, and the dead, this is a time when the human race cannot afford the distraction, or for budgets to be diverted to an arms race. I find it hard to believe
the cause of this War is the situation in Eastern Ukraine, despite Putin having written in Modern Diplomacy in August 2021 (2) that Ukraine did not need Donbas.
We need to break free from World War II rhetoric and comparisons. That was when balance-of-power geopolitics swept away The League of Nations. We need to break away from Cold
War thrillers. That stage of history is gone.
The long road to disarmament and multilateralism began in 1899 with The First Hague Peace Conference. That was a Russian initiative. WWII diverted the path. But for 120 years we
have gradually acquired international legal infrastructure. If we can start respecting and using that infrastructure more, we might find some of the hidden causes of War. The point
of the UN is that all UN Member States, liberal democracy or not, may turn to the Courts.
We need also to get behind the headlines. As a journalist my news job is the "what, who, when and where" of an event. Why is harder. If the person I approach for comment is not of
the right level of competence, power and knowledge, or does not have the full picture, the reason they give for "why" an event has occurred might as well have been plucked at random
from an automated word generator. War lives in the "why" of events. Russians are not fools. President Putin is well educated. For an operation in the East of Ukraine in a region with
a common border with Russia, the Federation's army entered Ukraine via a third country. Why? What in the geography of Eastern Ukraine made Russian troops entry there militarily
unfavourable? The North of Ukraine is bordered by a country friendly to Russia. By crossing from Belarus into Ukraine, Russia made it unambiguously clear it was declaring war on
Ukraine, not shoring up ---- against the charter of the UN ---- a self-declared regime. That means Russia might have a full mobilisation in mind, though recent NATO transfers of military
equipment to Ukraine might make Russia think twice.
In 1899 the Russian State knew that defence spending and arms races drain the life blood of nations. Today the same country has fired a starting gun which could set NATO, and thus
China, Pakistan, India and the whole world on a terrifying arms race. Which makes it a shame there is weakness in the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) Treaty. The ABM Treaty is an
occasion when Putin might have been on the right side of history. Of all the States in the UN, Russia, as instigator of the First Hague Peace Conference, should be the one nation
globally clamouring loudest for a diplomatic exit from the current tragedy, but without the full facts, diplomacy does not stand a chance. I do not accept Putin can really sees NATO
as a threat, though if not properly armed, NATO could be a temptation for a strong hostile State.
The Russian Federation's action has wrecked knowingly two economies. The hubris of that act is hard to comprehend. It has wrecked the economic wellbeing of two great peoples, and
the security of those who trade with them. The whole world is waiting for the economic wave to wash up on its shores. What the impact will be is, as yet, unknown. What could possibly
be so big a threat to Russia that its President and his advisors would knowingly embark on the actions it has undertaken? Until we know, suspension from the UN Human Rights' Council
makes sense at a lot of levels. Suspension from Climate Change agreements and other treaties to which the Russian Federation is a party would not. Might climate change and energy
supply be the place where Ukraine and The Russian Federation find common ground that enables peace talks? Joint defence of energy infrastructure could become a microcosm - like the
International Space Station - where the two nations work together.
What the World does not need is the geopolitics of a Slavonic Flodden Fields, though the Russian military strategy (a strategy of a Country at War) does seem to be aware of that
danger, if one thinks of Russia as England, and of Ukraine as France. Is it possible Russia has accomplished its real war aim already?
1. UN Climate Change on Paris.
https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement
2. The Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians. Date line 15.9.2021.
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/08/15/the-historical-unity-of-russians-and-ukrainians/