“Lost Opportunity for Peace”
Green Minister contemplates Russia and the West

30/7/2022, 16:16

This should be a contribution to the debate. In his thesis paper, Baden-Württemberg’s Minister of Transport, Hermann, reflects on the war in Ukraine. This is a massive critique of Western politics, an accumulation of generalizations and, to some extent, a relativization of the Russian approach.

Baden-Württemberg’s Transport Minister, Winfried Hermann, warned of a unilateral view on the role of Russia and the West. “Military conflicts and participation in wars over the past 30 years do not justify the image that only Russia, ‘war’ and ‘evil’, has repeatedly asserted its interests by military force,” the Green politician wrote in one report. paper about war. “In particular, US intervention brought much more destruction than peace and democracy.”

Since the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has waged brutal and illegal wars with proven war crimes in Russia’s zones of interest, such as Chechnya, Georgia and Syria, Hermann continued. However, the US – backed by NATO countries such as France, Great Britain and Germany – has “acted twice in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, etc. with concentrated military power and also partially violated international law in the same period” . intervention.

At the same time, Hermann criticized the “lost opportunities for peace” since the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact. Opportunities for a “new security architecture with arms control and disarmament, which also take into account the interests of ex-Soviet states and Russia” were wasted in favor of NATO’s eastward expansion.

Hermann is a pacifist and belongs to the left spectrum of the Green Party. Politics, especially foreign and security policies, should not be primarily guided by emotion, the minister warned. He questioned whether shipments of western arms would actually end the war or prolong violent conflict. He also questioned the meaning of the sanctions. “Ultimately, a peace treaty must also be concluded with Russia’s wartime opponents, whatever war crimes have been committed,” he stressed. “That is the bitter and inescapable truth.”

To get there, “the concept of de-escalation must be developed by the international community, even if it (yet) seems feasible: from a ceasefire to a ceasefire and a peace treaty.” The United Nations in particular, but also China and India as well as smaller neutral states are strongly challenged. “Germany and NATO can initiate such a process, but as a party to the Ukrainian side, they cannot moderate the process.”