Ukraine war outraged historians: If Putin's plan fails, "terrible war of destruction" threatens
Created: 03/09/2022 10:23 am
By: Tom Offinger
The horrors of the Ukraine war are causing horror around the world.
The historian Herfried Münkler casts a gloomy outlook into the future and looks at the new world order.
Munich - February 24, 2022 marks a turning point on the European continent.
With the Russian attack, the Ukraine conflict finally escalated and at the same time casts a dark shadow over the future of Europe.
In Germany, Vladimir Putin's war of aggression triggers a radical 180-degree turnaround in foreign policy, the federal government decides to supply weapons to the Ukrainian defenders and wants to massively upgrade the Bundeswehr.
One can only speculate about the end of the bloody conflict at the moment - the prospects are bleak.
War in Ukraine: historian fears "terrible war of destruction"
The motives for the Russian war of aggression on the neighboring country could hardly be clearer: For years, Putin has been disrupting Ukraine's democratic and, above all, western orientation.
In 2014, protests on Kiev's Maidan Square led to the peaceful overthrow of a pro-Russian government, followed by the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of pro-Russian areas in Donbass.
With the current war, the rest of Ukraine is to follow.
In an interview with Die
Welt
, the historian Herfried Münkler looks back with shock on the events of the past few days and weeks.
Europe can no longer offer Putin anything to defuse the conflict, instead he is expecting the worst.
"If his plan to quickly subjugate Ukraine fails, he will wage a terrible war of destruction and end up triumphant on a heap of rubble."
Ukraine war: Putin's actions favored by imperial thinking
According to the historian, the Russian President also contradicts himself with his reasoning and the justification for the invasion, the historical-political narrative of the Ukrainian brother nation does not fit with the procedure: “You don’t crush a brother nation with grapes.
That's not how you treat brothers.” In particular, Russia's national pride and imperial self-confidence have made a major contribution to today's escalation, Münkler continued.
"For me, the decisive factor is not so much the dramatic internal deficits as the imperial phantom pain of the political elite in Russia."
Either way, the war has already changed the world order in a lasting way.
“The previous world order was rule-based and value-oriented.
It was designed to have a guardian: the USA,” says Münkler.
The fact that the United States has shed this role in recent years and, at the same time, China has assumed an increasingly important role, also played into the cards of this process.
“So we are witnessing an emerging world order in which the major players have their own spheres of influence.
The idea of universalizing values is over.”
Russia's isolation in the Ukraine war: China as the new best friend?
A rethinking of Putin does not seem to be an option for the historian, and a change of power in the Kremlin itself currently seems like a fiction.
“Putin's fall can only come from Russia itself, possibly from the ranks of the oligarchs, some of whom have been expropriated by Western sanctions.
Or from the security apparatus and the military.” The generals in particular should actually be able to see through the lies of the propaganda, after all they were familiar with the details of the attack.
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At least the sanctions would have an effect and at the same time promote an interesting development: "The exclusion of Russia from the economic and financial circuits of the globalized world will lead to Putin being driven into the arms of the Chinese," Münkler is certain.
"Xi Jinping (President of China; editor's
note
) has already opened his arms, not to give Putin a friendly hug, but to bring him under control.
Russia will depend on the Chinese for better or for worse, because it no longer has any alternative."
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