ars-et-saliva
david p. eiser
zeitraffer
UKRAINE
peace?..... what kind?
on Feb 19, 2023
When we in the west talk about peace, we mean peace-in-freedom. That is something
quite different from what Putin understands by peace. For him, peace is merely the
absence of war. Peace-in-freedom are two matters that for us - but not for Putin - are
an inseparable pair.
So when it comes to talking about peace in Ukraine, we must not lose sight of this com-
bination. Putin may be interested in peace, but not in the freedom that goes with it - for
us and for Ukraine. That is why all current efforts to end the war are doomed to failure,
because Putin's goal is to subjugate Ukraine so thoroughly that it can serve him as an
easily dominated large buffer zone against Western Europe. That would allow Putin to
be at peace.
The well-known arguments that Putin trumpets to the world in this context are the accom-
panying noise of war propaganda, i.e. a partial aspect of the spectrum of weapons used
and therefore cannot be answered with rational counter-arguments. They must be ad-
equately countered militarily because - at present - there is no argumentative approach
to Putin's personal views and concerns.
Asking Putin to talk peace will not work as long as he has the say. On the contrary, he
will be the one asking for a dance and mobilizing all the forces at his disposal. This will
force the West into an unpopular proactive military response. In this case, proactive
means no longer running after him because previous responses have been unsuccessful,
but creating a military challenge that signals to Putin that he must be ready to talk if he
wants to salvage any of his aggressive reputation. This means taking offensive action
against the aggressor on the ground in Ukraine by swiftly delivering effective offensive
weapons, sufficient ammunition and equipment and, of course, appropriate - time-con-
suming - training. If we continue to constantly lag behind the Kremlin's actions with
Ukraine, we will hardly reach a point where Putin will be willing to talk.
Peace-without-freedom is what Putin wants. And we have to decide whether we want
to live with it. The Ukrainians don't want this. That's their right. But Putin is afraid of free-
dom. He fears it like the devil fears holy water. That's why he has killed and destroyed
until there is no more resistance. And after what he has done in the last 20 years, we
have to reckon with the fact that he will continue to murder and plunder if we don't
chase him back together and restrict him to his country.
It would be naive to expect him to behave any differently towards Moldova/Trans-
nistria, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic states than he did in Ukraine.
All non-military responses to his behavior have so far failed to impress him, and at the
moment - after a year of war - there is no sign that this will change in the foreseeable
future. As a despotic ruler, he and his vassals have not suffered any negative conse-
quences. The people ultimately will pay the bill, the powerless, oppressed people who
have been accustomed for centuries to the cudgel, the poverty, the brute force and
have never been seriously asked whether they wanted to be free.
Asking a despot for peace talks has never been successful. Brute force cannot be suc-
cessfully countered with democratic means.
The price we will pay to end this war is already in the hundreds of billions of euros/
dollars and, if it does not end soon, will easily exceed a trillion. Thousands more sol-
diers and civilians will lose their lives or their health and integrity. And thousands of
square miles of land will be devastated, poisoned, rendered unusable for habitation
or cultivation.
That is the price of our peace-and-freedom package.
Or do we want to live like the russians?
From the www.ars-et-saliva.de website "zeitraffer"
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