Imagine war coming and no one stopping it.
That is exactly what happened on Thursday morning of this week, February 24, 2022.
For months, diplomats tried to reach an agreement with Russia to prevent the feared invasion of Ukraine.
Now it is slowly becoming clear: Nobody could have prevented it.
Because – as it now looks like – Russia's President Vladimir Putin was never seriously interested in a diplomatic solution.
But solely on a reorganization of the global power structure in his favour.
And the West, the EU, the USA, NATO, basically everyone who believes in the indispensability of democratic structures, must now deal with the fact that Putin wants to enforce the law of the strongest with all the military capabilities of his armed forces.
"This is a war that represents a turning point," says Mathieu von Rohr, head of the SPIEGEL foreign office, "it is a return to a darker time of great power politics, where one's own sphere of influence was used with the pure, brutal, simple means of war is won.«
This turning point hits the West hard and in some cases very unprepared.
But it's not just about Putin.
"We don't just see Russia pursuing aggressive great power politics, we see China, which is also becoming increasingly aggressive," analyzes Mathieu, "in a different way than Russia, but possibly much more dangerous for us in the long term because China operates a successful economic model that may threaten us more than the Russian military."
What mistakes have the EU, USA and NATO made towards the aggressor?
How can one counter Putin's renaissance of the rule of thumb?
And what is left of the democratic world order to which we have become accustomed since 1990?
Listen to the current episode here:
What is Germany waiting for?
Has the West been too naive towards Putin?
And how should Germany's role in particular be assessed in recent years?
In our podcast "Stimmenfang" host Marius Mestermann discusses exactly these questions with the head of SPIEGEL's Berlin office, Martin Knobbe.
Related Links:
The current SPIEGEL cover story "Putin's War"
Putin's declaration of war during the UN session "The Powerlessness of the World"
Session of the UN Security Council, during which the attack on Ukraine becomes known (video from timecode 1:09:25)