An amoral solution to the Ukraine War

[Nat Quinn]

The only solution I can think of for the Ukrainian War is an amoral one. It might even be thought a bit sordid. It ignores moral rights and wrongs and simply aims to stop the war and bring peace. For those who might be a bit shocked at its cold-bloodedness, I point out that Winston Churchill did a much more sordid deal with a far worse tyrant than Putin, and by it he saved Europe for democracy.

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded the Ukraine, and has now killed thousands of people and destroyed a large part of the Ukrainian economy. Nothing that happened up to then can come close to justifying the invasion. It was an act of brute terror. It must be condemned outright. No country should be neutral about it. As might be expected, South Africa under the ANC, with its total disregard for international human rights, with its record of supporting brutal dictators such as Robert Mugabe, was neutral. So much is as clear as crystal. Everything else about the Ukrainian War is as clear as mud.

Of course, we should try to understand it but, more important, we should make every effort we can to end it and stop the killing and destruction. We need a solution, and here is mine. It might not be practical but it is the best I can think of. I have not heard better. Donald Trump says he has one but has not told us what it is.

Trump, launching his presidential re-election campaign, promised that he would solve the Ukrainian War ‘in 24 hours’. He hasn’t told us how he will do so. Trump, unlike the Democrats and the Neocons and the Republican handwringers, has been consistent since 2016 (when he began to run for the presidency) about opposing America’s wars against other countries and always favouring peace.

Perhaps the most controversial statement he ever made, and perhaps the reason he is always branded as a ‘right-winger’, was in the 2016 Republican primary elections when he condemned the USA invasion of Iran, saying that it had destabilised the Middle East and that the US government at the time (Republican) had been lying about ‘weapons of mass destruction’. (I agree with him.) In power from 2017 to 2020, he lived up to his word. Unlike his predecessors, Democrat and Republican, he didn’t start any new war. Of course, Trump is so erratic and unpredictable that you never know what he will do next (nor does he). Maybe he has got some solution for the war, and maybe Putin and Zelensky, the Ukrainian leader, might listen to him rather than anybody from the US establishment, whom they have reason not to trust. Maybe this would be a good reason for voting for him – but I should not and hope he does not become the Republican candidate.

End of communism

I don’t know why Putin invaded the Ukraine. In 1991 Mikhail Gorbachev ended communism in Russia and showed his sincerity and goodwill by liberating peacefully all the colonies that had suffered so horribly under socialism in the Soviet Empire. Then I think the West should have responded with their own act of goodwill by disbanding NATO and showing that they no longer regarded Russia as an enemy. After all, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had said, ‘I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together.’ This golden opportunity was missed. The West not only kept NATO but made it clear to the liberated Soviet colonies that they could join NATO if they wished – which obviously they did after their terrible experiences under Marxist-Leninism. So NATO moved eastward, upsetting Russia.

The Ukraine seemed to be in NATO’s sights. As I say, this is no excuse for the Russian invasion as some commentators, notably Oliver Stone, the filmmaker, and John Mearsheimer, the political scientist, have suggested. My guess is that Putin’s motives were revenge for wounded pride and resentment against the West’s growing strengths and Russia’s growing weaknesses. Putin, who denounces communism but regrets the fall of the Soviet Empire, seems to have Tzar-like ambitions and resents the autonomous, Russian-disliking Ukraine next to him. Anyway he invaded, with terrible consequences, and the war now seems to be without end.

They say truth is the first casualty of war, and the Ukraine War demonstrates this. Both sides lie all the time, so that all media reports on the state of the war and the morale of the people of Russia and the Ukraine can be disregarded. Is the current Ukrainian offensive going well or badly? I don’t know.

Would it be a good thing if the offensive were successful (forcing Putin to the negotiating table) or a bad thing (making him all the more determined to smash the Ukrainian economy)? I don’t know. Are the Russian people becoming demoralised by the war and wishing it would end? Or are they all cheering for Putin and united with him against the Ukraine? I don’t know.

Would it be a good thing if Putin were overthrown in a Kremlin coup (with a peace-lover replacing him) or would it be a bad thing (since his likely replacement would probably be even more bloodthirsty than him)? I don’t know.

Solution

Here is my solution. I don’t know if any of the concerned parties would accept it but here it is. The key fact is that most parts of the Ukraine want to be Ukrainian but considerable parts in the south-east (the Donbas and Crimea) want to be Russian. How about Putin and Zelensky sitting down and agreeing to internationally supervised referenda in the Donbas and Crimea to ask the people whether they want to be part of Russia or part of the Ukraine? Then parcel up the Ukraine according to the wishes of the people in the affected areas. In this way, both Putin and Zelensky could keep face.

Putin, after all, has concentrated most of his military aims in the Donbas, and Zelensky has experienced most of the resistance to his rule there. Everybody I have spoken to who knows anything about the region (not many people) agrees that the Donbas would mainly prefer to be part of Russia, and the Crimea overwhelmingly prefer so. The rest of the Ukraine would still constitute an enormous country with a big population, and it would be much more united.

Difficulties abound. What percentage of the votes would be a ‘yes’ for secession to Russia? 51%? 66.7% (two thirds)? How would you draw up the boundaries of the region in question? To include 66.7% of the people likely to vote Russian? Or to include the bigger area of 51% of the people likely to vote Russian? If the Ukraine became so separated, how would you deal with the multitude of connections of trade, transport, electricity and families on either side of the new boundaries?

Secession, either to become independent or to leave the existing country and join another, is a vexed question. I have little doubt that if a referendum were held in the Western Cape, the people would vote to leave South Africa and form their own country. Partly, this is because of the traditional hatred of Cape Town for rule by Pretoria. Under apartheid, bureaucrats in Pretoria who had never seen the sea ruled over shipping at Cape Town docks and the navy in Simon’s Town. ‘Pretoria Rules the Waves’ was the rueful comment at the time. Partly, this is to escape ANC rule, which has been an utter disaster. The Western Cape, ruled by the DA, offers a far better life for everyone than the other eight provinces ruled by the ANC (which is why people flee from the ANC-ruled Eastern Cape to the Western Cape). But mainly, I regret to say, the reason is racial.

In the Western Cape, unlike the other provinces, black Africans are in the minority with only about a quarter of the population, with whites about a fifth and the rest coloured and Asian. The coloureds vote overwhelmingly against black parties. This is especially true among the working classes where, as always around the world, racial and national differences are most keenly felt. A good reason for wanting to secede? Maybe not, but democrats should accept the vote whatever the motives of the voters.

Ireland has suffered for over 800 years from British occupation, which has been as inconsistent and negligent as it has been brutal. In the early 20^th Century, the island of Ireland split into two unequal parts, with the larger south (overwhelmingly Catholic) becoming the Republic of Ireland and the smaller north or Ulster (mainly Protestant) remaining part of Britain. Whenever Britain was accused of being a colonial power in Ulster, the Protestants would say, ‘Very well, then. Let the people decide.’ They would insist on a ‘border poll’, where the people of Ulster could choose. Over and over again, the people voted to remain part of Britain (to the horror of most English people and the relief of the Republic of Ireland). The voting was based entirely on religion, where Catholics and Protestants formed two tribes, with no difference at all between them except a mutual and artificial loathing of each other. Again, is this a good reason for deciding against secession to the Republic of Ireland? Again, maybe not but we should just accept the vote of the people.

In September 2022, the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline bringing gas from Russia to Germany was blown up. It is almost certain that the Ukrainians were responsible. This month, the large Nova Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled south Ukraine was blown up, flooding huge areas. It seems likely that Ukraine was to blame again. Of course there was the usual torrent of lies on both sides, with the media apportioning blame not where the evidence lay but according to which side they hate more. ‘Who benefits?’ pointed to the Ukraine although this is not always a reliable test. But great damage was done, as always in this dreadful war, and ordinary people suffered.

Distasteful

There is something distasteful with my solution since it rewards Putin for an act of terror. But Churchill made a far more distasteful deal with a far worse tyrant. Joseph Stalin succeeded Vladimir Lenin as leader of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). He continued faithfully to implement the programme of terror, death and oppression laid down by Lenin, but had more years to do so. To ‘achieve socialism’ in the Soviet Union, he starved about ten million people to death, especially in the Ukraine. In the 1930s he exterminated a large proportion of his military leaders and communist comrades.

In August 1939, Stalin concluded a pact with Hitler that allowed Hitler to start World War Two. In some ways the pact between the two socialist countries (the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and National Socialist Germany) was quite logical, like a deal between two Mafia mobs, who might fight each other one day and be friends the next. The deal freed Hitler of any war on his eastern front and allowed him to deploy the full Nazi military might on the western. He invaded Poland from one side while Stalin invaded it from the other. He attacked the low countries and France, conquering them all easily. Then he attacked Britain by air, killing about 40 000 civilians. Stalin supported Hitler all the way, giving him everything he needed to conquer and destroy. In June 1941 Hitler invaded Russia (as he had told the world he would). Immediately Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, gave his full support to Stalin and promised to give him all the help he could.

How outrageous! Churchill giving full British support to the man who had starved ten million Russian people to death, who had helped Hitler to kill tens of thousands of British people, who had conquered and pillaged most of Europe, and who had slaughtered Jews and other people he considered of lesser race! Well, yes, it was horribly distasteful but it was absolutely necessary and it saved Europe. Hitler might well have won the war against Russia without Western help. Britain and America not only provided Russia with weapons and vital equipment that she lacked but engaged a large part of the German forces on the Western front. I have spoken to Englishmen who were in the Royal Navy at the time, running the ghastly Russian convoy, taking British and American weapons and equipment north of Scandinavia and then down to Murmansk and Archangel on the north Russian coast. The casualty rate was dreadful as German dive bombers and submarines blew up the British merchantmen. And all this British heroism to aid the man who had started the war in the first place!

But Churchill did the right thing. If Hitler had conquered Russia, the Nazis would have ruled the whole of Europe, and democracy would have ended there. Churchill was right to reward Stalin’s treachery with British goodwill and material help.

And it might be right to reward Putin with the deal I suggest.

 

SOURCE:An amoral solution to the Ukraine War – Daily Friend

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