A moral reflection on the war in Ukraine
What stage is the war in Ukraine at? This would have been a question rather than from January 5, 2024 from 30 or 31 December 2023: when the last financial statements of the year are drawn. But this did not happen and instead the tireless Ernesto Galli of the Loggia wrote a short, very bitter article in the Corriere of 2 January. He is not exactly a summary of the war, but rather a moral reflection – which becomes a lament and an invective – on a final balance that is left almost implicit.
READ ALSO: Iran, Isis claims responsibility for the attack on the cemetery. Tehran “can react to the attack”
It's almost one condemnation hurled at the “West”, that is, essentially, to its readers. Ernesto expresses his disgust for those (certainly not the numerous hard-working journalists of his newspaper) who do not hide, or are unable to conceal from an astute interpreter like Ernesto, their satisfaction that “the strongest has won”. That is, one might assume, the enemy of the “West”; that is, Russia: as the “maramaldis” had foreseen, something which Ernesto now complains that they uncleanly enjoy.
As for Ernesto, who had not foreseen anything, he now says that it could easily be foreseen that the moral fiber of the Western countries that are members of NATO would quickly give way. This discussion leaves at least three questions open, an answer to which would constitute an outline of the desired final balance.
The first is whether it is true that the “West”, i.e. NATO, i.e. the United States, have abandoned Ukraine. But the US will certainly continue to supply Ukraine with money and weapons. Biden in his recent speeches even threatened the Senate that if he doesn't release what he requests, he might be forced to do something he never wanted to do, send American troops to fight against the Russians in Ukraine. He openly acknowledged that USA have been at war with Russia through Ukraine, and suggested that the eventual depletion of the Ukrainian military might not end the war. What matters is Biden's moral fiber, not ours. And Biden's is very strong! And the NATO countries follow suit, even if they complain about shortages of weapons and ammunition and delays in newly manufactured ones. And Italy, governed by Mrs. Meloni, to deny that vague sense of perplexity expressed in the famous conversation with the Russian comedians, will be second to none for rearmament zeal even in 2024. Against the opinion of the brave Ernesto, we can be proud of we.
The second is whether it is true that Russia is “the strongest”. Stronger than Ukraine? Even this was doubted in the first year of the war. But stronger than Ukraine's allies, stronger than the USA, which from the beginning, or rather even before the beginning, had taken political and military leadership? How can we fail to remember the prediction of the good Beppe Severgnini, another Corriere della Sera writer, that Russia would not be able to resist the alliance of the “40 democracies” assembled by the USA? In the first months of the invasion the Russian army and the Russian navy gave a rather painful performance: a ragged Brancaleone army. On the other hand, only on the assumption of a clear Russian military inferiority, which would have entailed the rapid repulsion of the Russian army within its borders, did the US policy enunciated at Ramstein of refusing negotiations, imposed several times by the US on the government, make sense Ukrainian.
But in 2023, things have changed. The war has become a war of position, not dissimilar to the First World War, but also an industrial and technological challenge between the USA and NATO on the one hand, and Russia on the other. The idea of bringing Russia to its knees with economic sanctions, of which Prime Minister Draghi was one of the most eloquent and convinced proponents, did not prove effective. Not only Draghi but other economists were proven wrong. We may remember Paul De Grauwe, a talented Belgian economist who teaches at the London School of Economics, who believed that to predict the outcome of the war it was enough to note that the Russian GDP was smaller than the sum of the Belgian and Dutch GDPs! And how could an economic nano like Russia ever fight the USA, De Grauwe asked his students and the world.
We can also do a step forward, and ask ourselves what this war, strongly supported by the USA, was for. The goals stated by the US at Ramstein, such as not only the defeat of the Russian army on the field, but also the destabilization of Putin, a change of regime in Russia, the disarmament of Russia and perhaps even its dismemberment, are no closer realization. In my opinion the subsidiary goal of measuring Russia militarily is the only one that has been achieved. Russia as a military power did not exist before the war. Biden, like Aladdin, rubbed the lamp, and a fearsome Genie emerged, the new Russia. It will hardly fulfill three of Biden's wishes.
The third issue is the causal link between the outcome of the war and the virtues of loyalty to the USA and perseverance in the economic sacrifices of the other NATO countries that Galli della Loggia seems to suggest exists. He doesn't say it explicitly, but why lash out against our cowardice if he didn't presuppose it? According to Ernesto, it is at least one of the causes of the failure of the famous Ukrainian counter-offensive of 2023. The reality is that this is a war between Russia and the USA, as Biden now openly says in his speeches. Economic sacrifices are certainly required of the allies, which the European peoples have shown no sign of wanting to avoid, but for the rest their acquiescence is sufficient. Which is total. Just read the Corriere della Sera. And weapons manufacturers will also do business in Europe.
#war #Ukraine #moral #weakness
