by Glauco D’Agostino
It is called the heterogony of ends. The democratic West has placed regime change at the heart of its foreign policy. The aim of destabilising countries and overthrowing unwelcome governments has been the key strategy of its expansion. For example, it has done so by wars of invasion in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya; coups d’état in Egypt, Sudan and Mali; unleashing civil wars in Yemen and the former Yugoslavia. It invoked it in vain for the Āyatollāhs’ Islamic Republic of Iran, Syria under Asad, North Korea, Venezuela under Maduro, even for Lebanon. And also for Yanukovič’s Ukraine in 2014. This methodology of settling disputes has gained a following, deemed possible and legitimate by everyone, the so-called international community, academics and experts in political science and international law. Fine.
Putin’s Russia is implementing this legitimate methodology to grow its area of military, economic and commercial influence. Of course, we must show solidarity with all the Ukrainian people (both ethnic and speaking Ukrainian and Russian), vulnerable to civil war. This tragedy will likely stop by a regime change. We repeat that is by a methodology that everyone has deemed possible and legitimate, the so-called international community, academics and experts of political science and international law.
So, what’s the problem? This time the problem is at the doorstep. The West did not worry when it theorised or implemented situations of worldwide instability from its doctrinal chairs. After all, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Mali, Yemen, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Lebanon were far away, and their suffering did not interfere with the “fiesta” mood the West handles suchlike a civil right. The war in the former Yugoslavia had already been at the doorstep, but the international community had solved it by bombing Belgrade and resorting to the International Criminal Court. Who knows if Putin has masters based in Washington and Brussels rather than in Moscow or Pyongyang.
The real problem is not to line up today for Kyiv or Moscow with stadium cheer. Here a reflection must concern behaviours making every Western military operation in the world legitimate, democratically-inspired any land and sea deployment of NATO deadly nuclear weapons, legitimate and undoubtedly opportune military alliances in the Mediterranean, Sahel, Middle East, Indian Ocean and Pacific under the White House aegis. Whether Moscow today behaves the same, I do not think anyone has the right to protest on objective grounds of legitimacy and opportunity or even put forward caveats on an ethical since, in the past decades, geopolitical needs overwhelmed ethics so heavily. There is no doubt Putin has today geopolitical reasons in Ukraine as he had yesterday in Georgia.
The war? Sure, it is scary. But international analysts could cynically repeat that even in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria, war was (or still is) a nightmare but a necessary road to peace. Today, “peace-keeping” or “peace-enforcement” operations are preparing peace even in Ukraine, as the regime-change will reconcile the domestic factions, and the new government will ask Putin for military assistance. Everything is correct according to the dossier of the modern diplomatic world. All according to a NATO scheme. Except that this time, the kingmaker is sitting at the Kremlin. What do we want to do with it!
