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War in Ukraine: "After the clash of civilizations, the clash of illusions"

2023-01-10T16:01:25.912Z


FIGAROVOX / TRIBUNE - Samuel Huntington's thesis, which presents Russia as a "state-civilization", is not enough to understand the turn taken by the war in Ukraine, argues Marc Hecker. According to the Ifri researcher, Vladimir Putin's behavior is partly explained by a...


Marc Hecker is director of research and development at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).

Thirty years ago,

Foreign Affairs

published

Samuel Huntington

's Clash of Civilizations .

The latter thought that after the Cold War, the main driver of conflicts would no longer be ideological but civilizational.

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, this controversial thesis has mainly been read through the prism of a hypothetical confrontation between the West and the Islamic world, but Huntington's vision was much broader.

The Harvard professor identified 8 cultural areas, including the "Slavo-Orthodox" civilization.

He considered a war between Russians and Ukrainians, “two Slavic and mainly Orthodox peoples”

unlikely.

.

Huntington's theory, however, finds echoes in the rhetoric of the Kremlin which presents Russia as a "civilization-state" opposed to the decadent West.

Another shock, that of illusions, helps to explain the turn taken by the war in Ukraine.

Read alsoIn Ukraine, the mobilization to repair the broken faces of the war: the story of the special envoy of Figaro

The term "illusion" has three meanings.

The first designates a bad perception or an erroneous interpretation: we think we see what does not exist.

A classic of international relations,

Perception and Misperception in International Politics

by Robert Jervis highlights the importance of this factor in foreign policy.

The Russian invasion of February 24, 2022 confirmed this.

Vladimir Putin judged Ukraine, Europe and the United States more pusillanimous and divided than they really were.

This analytical error was fueled by timorous Western reactions after the Russian operation in Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but also by an overinterpretation of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Vladimir Putin thought he was stronger than he really was.

He was seized with a form of strategic emboldening.

Marc Hecker

The second meaning of the term "illusion" relates to the difference between desire and reality.

In the field of international relations, it is manifested in particular by the illusion of power.

Vladimir Putin thought he was stronger than he really was.

He was seized with a form of strategic emboldening, which we have seen gradually increase since his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2007 and which has resulted in a series of coups and outside intervention.

Russia has thus asserted itself as a power on the return, not only in its near abroad, but also in the Middle East or in Africa.

This emboldening led the Kremlin to believe it had the wherewithal to bring down kyiv in days.

The Russian army is

shock and awe

and the “special military operation” turned into a long war.

Read alsoMilitary objectives, negotiations, survival of Putin… The key questions of the war in Ukraine for 2023

The third meaning of the term "illusion" refers to the product of an artifice.

This illusion is fabricated and presupposes the existence of an illusionist.

In other words, it touches on the domain of propaganda, misinformation, intoxication, even psychological warfare.

Russia's propensity to act in this field – whether through TV stations, internet “troll farms” or influencers – has been the subject of numerous investigations and scholarly works. .

It is more difficult to study the way in which propaganda can turn against its transmitter and generate forms of auto-intoxication.

When Vladimir Putin presented the Ukrainian leaders as neo-Nazis enslaving a brotherly people,

Russia does not have a monopoly on illusions.

Many European leaders and experts – particularly in Paris, Berlin and Brussels – did not imagine that the Russian army would invade Ukraine and believed in dialogue to make Vladimir Putin listen to reason.

They did not sufficiently take into account the alerts coming from Washington and London, scalded by the political manipulation of intelligence before the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and carrying little credit for Boris Johnson, mired in the "Party Gate" when Russia was massing its troops on the borders of Ukraine.

No one knows today how or when the Ukrainian tragedy will end.

Faced with this uncertainty, it is more than ever necessary to guard against illusions.

Marc Hecker

Today, no one can ignore the nature of Vladimir Putin's regime, nor the Kremlin's desire to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

But not all politicians draw the same conclusions.

Some of them believe that it is necessary to support kyiv until the defeat of Russia;

others are more cautious and believe that negotiations with Moscow will be necessary to end hostilities.

They reproach each other for being deluded by illusions: that of being able to quickly and completely liberate Ukrainian territory on the one hand, that of maintaining a diplomatic channel with a Russia that would understand only force on the other.

No one knows today how or when the Ukrainian tragedy will end.

Faced with this uncertainty, it is more than ever necessary to guard against illusions, in all three senses of the term.

First, by strengthening field sensors and analysis capabilities.

Second, by being realistic about our means of action and the consequences of our growing involvement in the conflict.

Third, by intensifying the struggle in the field of perceptions, especially in countries where Russian propaganda resonates.

It is often said that the truth is the first casualty of war.

Without pretending to the truth, let us at least try to be lucid.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-01-10

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