The game of “war” – Vedomosti

This week it became known that Germany will provide Ukraine with 14 Leopard 2 battle tanks for use in the war against Russia. Moreover, Berlin will allow all countries that have these tanks in their arsenal to supply them to Ukraine (there are more than 2,500 of them in service. – Vedomosti). Reading the statements of representatives of the German government, as well as the conservative opposition, I am simultaneously horrified and amazed by the boundless enthusiasm for the war, on the one hand, and incompetence, on the other.

On the same day, January 24, German Foreign Minister Annalena Berbock of the Green Party declared: “We are at war against Russia, not against each other.” She made this statement at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Could it be that this phrase, tantamount to an official declaration of war, accidentally escaped from her lips during an emotional speech not filled with the already familiar repetitions about the need to supply weapons?

The representative of Burbork then explained that she was not entirely understood: the main thing in her speech was allegedly not the war against Russia, but the emphasis on the need to unite and stop disputes over whether tanks should be supplied to Ukraine. In other words, the declaration of war is just a reservation that stands behind the general reasoning about the obligatory support of Kyiv.

One would hope so, but Burbock has been Europe’s number one hawk for nearly a year now. In her opinion, Kyiv needs more supplies: “We need to do even more to protect Ukraine. Yes, we need to do even more, including the supply of tanks.” Then the next “tranche” should include fighters. And what the population of Germany, that is, its electorate, thinks about this is absolutely not important here.

At the same time, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg keeps repeating that NATO is not in a state of direct conflict with Russia (“I am sure that we will avoid this,” he said about the possibility of war in December 2022 – Vedomosti) . The supply of new weapons will not affect this status either.

However, to understand the disturbing context, one can recall other statements of the main European supporter of the war. Back in October last year, Minister Burbock spoke about her vision of tank battles, which, in her opinion, took place already in the 19th century.

Although, of course, in the Russian winter, hundreds of thousands of horses died along with his entire army. Napoleon returned to Paris on his legendary white stallion Marengo. It was to this period in history that Leo Tolstoy dedicated his most famous novel, War and Peace, which, due to its undying relevance, made a deep impression on me when I read it in its original Russian language.

Napoleon, suffering from megalomania, like Adolf Hitler after him, did not officially declare war. When the Russian ambassador, Prince Alexander Kurakin, demanded in Paris that he be given passports to leave the country, Bonaparte regarded this gesture as a break in diplomatic relations. Napoleon donned the tunic of a Polish lancer and entered the Second Polish War, calling on the army to “put an end to the pernicious influence that Russia has exerted for fifty years on the affairs of Europe.”

Germany began World War II by attacking Poland on September 1, 1939, after reports that its army was returning fire. Shortly before this, the Germans staged a skirmish on the German-Polish border as an excuse, as Hitler announced on the same day in the Reichstag.

The exception was another major conflict that affected all of Europe: in the summer of 1914, official dispatches between European capitals contained impossible ultimatums and announced the start of war.

Then diplomacy did not help. Czar Nicholas II proposed to his elder cousin, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, that he set up a commission to resolve the Austro-Serbian conflict instead of taking to the battlefield. He never received an answer to this. And the Great War, as contemporaries called it, was officially declared and officially ended four years later.

Since then, declarations of war in conflicts of any size have become rare. And international law turns a blind eye to this. In the 20th century, the boundaries between war and peace practically dissolved. As someone living in Lebanon, a country where de facto military conflicts have been going on for decades, I am aware of this dilemma.

What was still possible in 1648 thanks to the Peace of Westphalia or in 1814-1815. at the Congress of Vienna, namely respectful relations between the warring parties, has since been lost in many parts of the world. This is shown by the calls of European supporters of the war for the destruction of Russia, which in 2023 again became publicly acceptable.

What is now decisive for the development of affairs in Europe is how adults will be able to cope with the current situation. How does the rest of the world view modern Germany? Burbock is one of the many “older teenagers” in Europe who act emotionally rather than rationally. And arrange, if you like, a modern version of the children’s “war”.