Antonio Navalón
Not since 1940 had the world experienced a situation as paradoxical as the one we are currently experiencing. In that year, Germany – which had already invaded Poland and had triggered the beginning of World War II – while redesigning its plans for the invasion of the European continent, moved into a stage that was called the Quiet War. Between September and December 1940, the world was in turmoil. In that period, general mobilization was decreed in both France and England. All available armaments were mobilized, and again – as happened during the First World War – a serious error of assessment was made as to the actual German military capability. Also, as proof of the escalation of tensions and the true intentions of the Germans, Adolf Hitler let the French concentrate their forces and armaments on the Maginot Line – which was a series of French fortifications erected in the aftermath of World War I to protect against attack or possible invasion by the Germans – and sit back and wait for the attack. Recalling the move of his admired Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hitler prepared to attack France from behind via Belgium and the occupation of the Netherlands. Moreover, many people had already been mobilized but who, after receiving primary military training, were able to return to their homes to wait for what would happen. This part of history became known as the Quiet War.
It was as if in the background – after the destruction of Warsaw, the German occupation of Poland, and the repartition of the country between Russians and Germans after the signing of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact – everything was an isolated phenomenon, that the situation could be contained and would not escalate. The world was wrong, especially the French. England was expectant and suspicious about how far Germany was trying to go; however, they could not prevent what happened later. In September 1940, the Germans carried out Operation Sea Lion, which aimed to invade Britain. Although this operation was not as successful as desired, the seventy-one German attacks on London and other English cities exposed the true intentions of Nazi Germany.
At the time, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles included a clause instructing the trial of Kaiser Wilhelm II as “guilty of a supreme offense to international morality and the sacred authority of treaties,” the first time anyone had ever been tried for war crimes. England opposed the trial, and the Kaiser was allowed to die in exile. However, history always repeats itself. When I look at the war in Ukraine, it is impossible for me not to relate what happened at the beginning of the 20th century to what we are currently experiencing.
The war continues. Russia is an enemy almost as fearsome as Hitler’s Germany. Vladimir Putin cannot play around with what he is doing as he has his neck on the line. If Russia cannot lose this war and Ukraine cannot win it, what are we playing at? What is truly going on with the world?
The world, led in this respect by the Russians, has started a strange form of tourism: bombing tourism. This type of tourism consists of policymakers from the so-called civilized or developed democratic world – that is, the one composed of leaders like Boris Johnson or the Speaker of the U.S. Congress, Nancy Pelosi, to give a few examples – traveling to Kyiv being aware of the high risk that at any moment a missile could escape that could end their lives; meet with Zelensky; promise to send him weapons; stroll through the squares of the Ukrainian capital; see the results of Russian missiles and bombardments, and then each one returns to the peace of their homes. They return, having poured more gasoline on the fire and having caused two phenomena to take place. On the one hand, the increase of weapons for defense by the Ukrainian army. On the other hand, the Russian army’s justification and proliferation of violence against the Ukrainian population. And what surprises me most about this war is that all those who do bombing tourism offer weapons and more weapons for the Ukrainian army to continue defending itself while the Russian military continues to attack and kill a more significant number of civilians.
As if that were not enough – and in that personal and Latin interpretation that the current holder of the throne of St. Peter has – Pope Francis made a statement that adds even more fuel to the fire. Last May 3, the Pope said that perhaps the “barking of NATO at Russia’s door” is partly responsible for this war. And he is right. An idea that I must confess I agree with, although, in my opinion, it was not the right thing to do for a leader who cannot have such clear-cut positions.
With an enormous and obvious disregard for Russia’s quasi-genetic conformation, NATO has been putting its tanks, missiles, and armies around the largest country on the planet. That, combined with the total leadership in Europe for one reason and in the United States for another, caused the new czar, Putin, the believer, to understand that it was time to take full political advantage of an unprecedented situation. For Putin, on the one hand, there was the sacrosanct right to defend Mother Russia, and, on the other hand, there was the lack of political tact on the part of his adversaries to place their armies at the gates of his territory without calculating the price that this would entail. And in between, there is the certainly unique attitude of a people who have spent too long under the boot – once Soviet and then Russian – called Ukraine.
There is no encouragement from anywhere – neither from the UN nor from NATO – to seek a peace that would avoid, at the very least, the mass annihilation of the Ukrainian people or avoid more severe consequences for the rest of humanity. Everything is reduced to offers of arms and war. It’s all threats from Russia. In the end, there is not even a peace strategy, and, what is worse, there is no desire to promote and establish peace.
In these cursed games of death, no one can ensure that an improper weapon – whether nuclear or bacteriological – will escape and unleash what Russian television is already calling a real and certain danger that will completely change the current configuration of the world. No one can guarantee that – intentionally or unintentionally – an ill-timed missile will escape and land in the capital of one of the NATO countries. We are all in danger. Tomorrow we may all be the casualties of a conflict that is incomprehensible from every point of view.
Does the West believe that it is possible – without killing the majority of the Ukrainian people – to continue to hinder the advance of the Russian army when it is providing more and more weapons to Ukraine and provoking the use of more lethal weapons by Russia? Does the world believe that a military situation of victory or defeat of any of the parties involved may be possible? To begin with, we need to define who is truly fighting. Because, as with the issue of drug trafficking in Mexico, the dead are provided by Mexico, but the business is for everyone. The business is for the traffickers, but it is also for the consumers and the intermediate steps that allow the passage of drugs and all their consequences until they reach the largest market in the universe, the United States of America. The drug trafficking business would be impossible without the active collaboration of the Americans, at least some of them. This situation is impossible without the active collaboration of those who produce and have the weapons that are continuously sent to Ukraine. While they provide the weapons and the statements and walk around the shelled Kiev, the Ukrainians provide the dead.
How do we get out of this situation? That is the big problem, and in that sense, beyond the extemporaneousness of the papal declaration, we need what does not exist. We need a policy for peace and negotiation. That corners the Russian bear, and it corners him because since the beginning of the Second World War – that is, since the failure of the invasion of Finland under Stalin’s leadership – Russia has never suffered a defeat. And this, even if they kill all Ukrainians and destroy Ukraine, is already a defeat for them. But that feeling of defeat is not good as it triggers even greater violence that will be impossible to encapsulate in Ukraine. And with every armament we send to Ukraine, Western countries are taking one more step to nobody knows where.
The reality is that Putin will not withdraw or leave a half-baked war. However, I do not understand the position of not initiating a negotiation that would save the Russian President’s face and, at the same time, remove the challenge, the danger or the feeling of war, and the possibility of invasion that Russia has. This is a very unique, very strange, and inevitable war. When I look at all this, I can’t help remembering the so-called Quiet War phase. A time when it seemed that Hitler – after having divided Poland with Stalin – was going to stop there. The world would be satisfied with having mobilized the troops in the Allied countries and that the situation would go no further.
In recounting this unique war, it is inevitable to speak of the extent of the economic measures. It is as if some European countries – coincidentally among them the most important of the European Union – were not absolutely dependent on Russian energy resources. The penalties and economic measures against Russia – which will undoubtedly be hurting – are not yet perceptible and are seen rather, according to the Russian propaganda apparatus, as another defeat for the West.
World War II was a spectacle of unprecedented barbarism in the history of the human condition that ended with the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the lives of thousands of Japanese. There is no utterly reliable statistic on how many dead there were in World War II, although figures are estimated that there were approximately fifty million dead. In the case of Ukraine and Russia, is this a new Quiet War? In the absence of a policy that promotes peace, World War III may be inevitable.
