« If you want peace, prepare for war. If you want peace, prepare for war. Attributed to the Romans, this old adage which horrifies pacifists has found its confirmation in certain episodes of human history.
The cold war of the years 1945-1989 between East and West was an apparent confirmation, at least provisional, of its validity. The “Balance of Terror” then provided Western Europe with four decades of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
With a key word: “deterrence”. Prevent the other from acting, convince him to hold back, by developing his own strength, by organizing it and by making it visible with transparency.
On a smaller scale, do we not see such a balance of deterrence emerging, in the shadow of the confrontation and the war of nerves that Vladimir Putin has been imposing for several months on Ukrainians, but also on Europeans and Americans , gradually massing more than 130,000 heavily armed troops on three of Ukraine’s four flanks?
The gamble being made these days, quite thunderously by US authorities (but not alone), is not based on old-fashioned, crude deterrence. It involves not only the display of forces deemed equivalent to those of the adversary—or (in the case of nuclear weapons) the fear of “mutually assured destruction.”
Even if the quantity of armaments and equipment supplied to Ukraine by the West since 2014 is not negligible (we are talking about a few billion dollars), it remains clear today that the West and NATO are not will not “die for Kiev”. And that the Ukrainian army, even reinforced for seven years, and deeply motivated in the face of a possible Russian attack, would probably not be up to it if there were, unfortunately, a massive invasion.
The 2022-style deterrence, to try to stop Putin’s army in Ukraine, has two other names: “preventive denunciation” and calculated alarmism.
Because it is a real strategy of “overplayed” alarmism that has been deployed by the United States in recent weeks.
“That’s it, they’re coming, they’re coming, they’ll do it… and even maybe tomorrow”: repeated warning, hammered out in all tones in Washington and London. We also heard it, whisperon the side of the Baltic countries, Poland… But much less, or not at all, in Paris, Berlin or Kiev, where these warnings could even cause irritation.
Thus, the British announced three weeks ago that Moscow already had its replacement for Volodymyr Zelensky in the Ukrainian presidency at hand… We even had his name (the former pro-Russian Ukrainian deputy Yevgeniï Muraïev).
We talked about the preparation of false anti-Russian attacks… “arranged” by the pro-Russian camp to justify a military response in the Donbass. In early February, the US State Department said it had information on a bogus video concocted by the Russian services, serving as an excuse for an invasion.
Often these statements were not substantiated. To the tune of “Our services have brought us that… and take our word for it, it’s true! On February 3, Ned Price of the State Department took umbrage at the skepticism of some journalists who were asking him for proof: “If you doubt the credibility of the American government, and want to find comfort in the information published by the Russians…”
Pure rhetoric, beside the point. This video, we have never seen it. Which does not mean that there is no Russian intox or possible dirty tricks in preparation (of the kind “false attack in the Gulf of Tonkin” – like the one which had justified, in 1964, the entry of the Americans in Vietnam)… of course it is possible!
The intox is not the monopoly of a single camp. Even if, in the case which occupies us, a camp undoubtedly handles it better and more often than the other. It must be said that, since the beginning of the 2010s, the Russians have been forerunners and world leaders in terms of “hybrid warfare”, computer sabotage, fake newstrolls and company…
All this to say that this alarmist drumbeat around an “apprehended” invasion of Ukraine, with great detail and continual repetition… may have had a deterrent effect, destabilizing the Russian leaders. They have been forced to deny and ridicule (in their usual fashion) these rumors and “fake news”… which may not necessarily be fake news.
They were served, in a way, their own medicine… but this time with an exercise in super-transparency!
History is not written. Tectonic plates move on a global scale. A game of tug of war, of mutual intimidation, involving Europe, the United States, Russia, China. The Europeans in their disunity, the Ukrainians in their frustrated Western aspirations, the inconsolable Russians of their lost empire: who will pay the price?
Nothing is played. But Putin can be dissuaded, and some are skilfully trying to do so.
François Brousseau is an international affairs columnist at Ici Radio-Canada. francobrousso@hotmail.com