Deeper insights from an unexpected war
Written by Josef Kraus for Preußische Allgemeine Zeitung.
For the Europeans, the war in the East is not only a wake-up call in terms of security policy, but also a reminder to reflect on their own foundations.
Wars are the terrible landmarks of history. In them, old kingdoms perish and new rulers emerge. They shake traditional certainties and promote revolutionary insights. Wars are almost always accelerators of progress, at least the technical one. Whether, despite all the suffering for those affected, they also bring about social progress depends on the respective circumstances. In any case, wars are always teachers of history.
This also applies to the conflict currently raging in Ukraine. In addition to the fundamental realization that armed struggles are by no means only possible in more backward regions of the world, but also in Europe, which for a long time thought it had been removed from history, the Russian-Ukrainian war brought to the fore attitudes that were characterized by materialism, hedonism and Western world shaped by individualism had long been considered a thing of the past.
On the one hand, there are the motives of Russian President Vladimir Putin. While there has been much speculation in Western Europe and North America recently as to whether nations and borders are still up to date in the one world of our day, Putin has written various essays on his understanding of recent European history, including an essay on World War II in 2020 and an essay "On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians" last year. That a European ruler in the 21st century would wage a war of aggression for historical reasons in order to conquer another country was unthinkable in Western society, which was oriented towards materialistic interests.
Dying for the fatherland?
The attitude of the Ukrainians in the West is no longer a matter of course either. When news of the Russian attack spread around the world on February 24, the majority of commentators in Berlin and Paris, Brussels and Washington immediately said that Ukraine could do little to counter it and would be lost within a short time. It never even occurred to many supposed experts that a nation could bravely organize its resistance despite a seemingly hopeless situation, that men first bring their wives and children to safety in order to then defend their country against an external invader. In the last few days, reports from Kyiv, Irpin, Kharkiv and elsewhere have repeatedly heard Ukrainians declaring that if necessary they would die for their fatherland. When was the last time we had this?
The Russian-Ukrainian war has already taught us that ideal motives and attitudes that go far beyond material interests are by no means just folklore, but have a direct influence on the actions of political actors. For the West it follows that it urgently needs to reassure itself of its own roots. Far too often in recent years, freedom and prosperity, democracy and the rule of law have been taken for granted - the foundations for this, one's own history and culture, Christianity and the legacy of the Enlightenment, have been criminally neglected.
In this respect, the war in the East is not only a wake-up call for Europeans in the West in terms of security policy, but also a fundamental reminder to think more about the foundations of their own society, their prosperity and their security. Should that call go unheeded, they will stand bare as the storms of time descend on them too.
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