War makes us aware of the most important questions of values, which shape the cultural and historical lessons imprinted on a nation’s consciousness. In the past few days, it seems that Putin’s blatant aggression is causing the leadership and elites of western democracies to reconsider a defining element of their worldview, one that has to do with use of force.
These elites in Europe, and more recently in the US, have made a loathing of force and the delusion that freedom is possible without it the main tenet of their outlook. This view is reflected in a longing for passivity and helplessness. Since World War II and the collapse of the Soviet Union, these have moved from certain fringe circles to the mainstream. The war in the heart of Europe is challenging this worldview among those who are willing to deal with reality.
The sharpest turn took place in Germany, under a chancellor from a socialist party. In contrast to the absurd decision before the war broke out to send Ukraine 5,000 helmets, Germany is now sending them anti-aircraft rockets and anti-tank weapons. In a dramatic, historic step, Germany also decided to double its defense budget. The European Union has broken the taboo on supplying weapons and Finland, for the first time, is sending weapons to a war zone. European countries have withdrawn their objection to limiting Russia’s use of the SWIFT payments system, and closed their skies to Russian aircraft.
What the western elites have forgotten over the course of three generations without war in the heart of Europe, and thanks to democracies’ dizzying success in upholding liberty and unprecedented quality of life, is the fact that all these rest on a prerequisite – the “good guys” need to be stronger in order to prevent the “bad guys” from using force or forceful deterrence to threaten freedom and sully their quality of life. We aren’t talking about angels vs. devils, but rather democratic, open, pluralistic societies vs. oppressive, violent, and aggressive regimes.
These elites denied the existence of “bad guys,” claiming that they were “invented” by powers in the West to play down the utopian victory parade of those who seek peace and brotherhood. Ukraine is now forcing anyone realistic to return to the basic understanding of human society: “If you want peace, prepare for war.”
This rule, which appeared in Plato’s writings, was quoted by Roman writer Vegetius, with the explanation that no one dares attack or threaten a power whose military superiority is known. “Military superiority” is not limited to the size of an army, its quality, or its leadership. When a nation becomes addicted, like Europe has, to an ideology of weakness and wretchedness, avoids investing in defense and adopts a fairy tale about the role of the “international community” in promoting peace, the “bad guys” can ignore countries on the continent. When the American military is stronger than any other, but has no public backing for its use and the US administration takes up the European inefficacy and forgoes even the use of forceful deterrence, Putin can carry out his unfettered aggression in Crimea and in Kyiv. Putin recently watched the Americans and their allies cave to a weak, vulnerable Iran, allowing it to dictate the nuclear talks.
Weakness like this among the “good guys” is the original sin, the one that has allowed the bad guys to take over. This is more than just a political or strategic flaw. It is a moral abomination. When the good guys are strong, actually or potentially, they have a moral obligation, a noblesse oblige, to use force to defend liberty against the bad guys who are trying to take it away through Putinesque aggression. This isn’t an altruistic mission – this is how they defend what gives their lives meaning, their liberty, and the way of life they have chosen. Decadent and perverse elites have managed to portray the use of force as violating human freedom, whereas it is freedom’s only defense against those that would attack it.
The weakness of the good guys has brought the Ukraine war down upon us. The longing for weakness is deeply rooted, mostly in western Europe, but now at least there is a chance that the trauma will allow countries to build their military force and enlist public willingness to use it as a last result, in a manner that could make fighting actual wars unnecessary.
{Reposted from IsraelHayom}
