The circular anniversary of the 50th anniversary of the signing on 1 August 1975 in Helsinki by the leaders of 35 European countries, including the US and Canada, of the Final Act of the Conference on safety and Cooperation in Europe (KBWE) passed unnoticed and unreflexed.
This brings to head the request to realize the deep devaluation of peace that occurred during the last half century. In the first half of the 1970s, an epochal "codification" paper was negotiated on the principles of peaceful coexistence between countries with different social and ideological systems. Based on the standards of global law, many standards have been established in general awareness, which have contributed to the designation of the post-war position quo. Poland was the beneficiary of many of them, but most most likely the principles of territorial integrity and inviolability of borders, which removed its temporaryity from the public wokanda and gave the assets of the unchangeable state.
The legitimacy of the post-war order, confirmed in the Helsinki process, was based until the early 1990s on a compromise of the powers victorious in planet War II, in which they dictated the conditions of peace. Since the USSR belonged to a camp of winners deciding about the destiny of the world, in the West its position was counted and treated not only as a rival in the Cold War confrontation, but besides as a war ally and then an equal partner in various forms of dialog and cooperation. It was a circumstantial dialect of "war and peace", to which the celebrated book referred to French political philosopher Raymond Aron ("Paix et Guerre entre les Nations", 1962; Polish edition: "Peace and War between Nations", 1995). specified readings are inactive commendable due to the fact that modern politicians have lost their sense of work for the destiny of the planet due to ignorance and moral misery.
States, and especially leadership powers, facing each another in a block Cold War confrontation then learned to respect each other's rations and respect the limits of tenacity. Through intensive dialogue, they were able to make pragmatic rules of restraint and prudence that allowed for the improvement of mechanisms of common control and balance, even a wide scope of means of building trust and security. It is simply a pity that all these "inventions" of the relaxation era in East-West relations have been forgotten.
The pan-European process led to the creation of an Organisation for safety and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which in the 1990s favoured a peaceful transformation of the European safety strategy after the east bloc and the disappearance of the USSR. The fresh rules included in the 1999 Istanbul European safety Charter the rule of indivisibility, which was to be the foundation of the Euro-Atlantic coexistence at the time of unpolarisation of the global system.
West buried Helsinki
Soon, however, in the early decades of the fresh century, it turned out that the United States with its Atlantic allies, feeling winners in the “cold war”, began to treat the Helsinki Agreements, as did the post-war Yalta and the PPA Agreements, as a forced compromise with a false ally, or fundamentally an enemy of the values and principles promoted by the West. Founded in the disarmament dialog with the USSR and Russia, the "modus vivendi" was considered harmful to the western side. Thus, all major disarmament agreements on arms control and reduction, especially in the atomic sphere, were sent back to the lame. Indeed, this has led to a challenge to the credibility of deterrence utilizing this weapon. There is simply a time of strategical uncertainty and a increasing hazard of global conflict.
In this way, the OSCE/OSCE acquis has been undermined and its universal message considered irrelevant. To top it all, the Western states began to interpret the Helsinki principles in their own right, leading to relativisation of global law and the application of alleged double standards, for example, in non-interference in the interior affairs of another countries or a ban on force or threat of its use. Action at its own discretion, with the exception of the consensus that accompanied the principles of the Helsinki Decalogue, has contributed to undermining the function of global law and diplomacy as crucial means of regulating global relations. A rich instrument of peaceful settlement of disputes has been pushed aside for strength solutions.
There are presently no initiatives to redefine the limits of what is possible and what is unacceptable to the top adversaries in global relations. It is not possible to mechanically reconstruct the climate from the times of the Helsinki process, nor is there any thought of how to rebuild the universal awareness of the primacy of peace over all another values of interest to the global community. Above all, there is simply a deficiency of political will to launch a systematic dialog (plurilog), allowing for closer positions on vital issues for each party. It is about the reconstruction of the rudimentary feature of communication between people: the ability to talk specified a thing so that the another can hear and realize us and the ability to perceive so as to realize the other.
The culture of peace and safety requires social courage to argue the military and pro-war slogan imposed by the rulers. It should be replaced not by "building peace by war", but by the belief that there are no specified problems in relations between powers and large groups of states that could not be resolved with the goodwill of the parties, in the form of dialog and negotiations. The art of governance is not about mobilizing war but about building a climate of agreements that will never bring about real war. And it's not naive pacifism, it's humanistic, due to the fact that putting all human life first, a endurance strategy.
The top paradox of disassembling pan-European governance is that its perpetrators are the strongest countries, who themselves participated in creating and perpetuating the Helsinki rules of the game and were beneficiaries erstwhile it was convenient for them. Since the CIBEC Final Act was not a treaty and was a declaration of political will, it is hard to interpret its omission by applying the fundamental change of circumstances ("rebus sic stantibus") known in the Treaty law. In fact, however, we are dealing with a situation where Western countries have benefited from the political and legal regulations of Helsinki, but erstwhile the chance arises, they have freed themselves from their obligations. It is not essential to prove that this is contrary to all the rules of global coexistence. It is an expression of extraordinary cynicism and hypocrisy.
The pan-European process was peculiarly valuable to build on both sides the conviction that neither side of the confrontation can accomplish everything it wants. A compromise was to build even minimal trust and show respect for the enemy. Looking at the attitudes between the countries of the Euro-Atlantic Space and Russia, not to mention Ukraine as a victim of aggression, we see how far the participants in the geopolitical dispute have moved distant from those models.
The dictatorship of Western “moral superiority”...
made what erstwhile was the basis for peaceful settlement of states not only devastating, but in the eyes of implacable and relentless politicians towards Russia it became impossible to reproduce. The peculiarity of present is the irrational warfare of Western European leaders, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, not to mention the smaller ones, specified as Italy and Finland, which were the largest beneficiaries of relaxation in relations with the USSR and raw-energy cooperation with Russia.
The peaceful legitimacy of global governance is not supported by the current government of forces in which the United States' hegemony is maintained with the aid of an extended weapons device and supporting armed conflicts to weaken real and possible opponents. The clash of 2 imperialisms – Western and Russian – in Ukraine is the best proof of this. The restoration of peaceful regulations is besides not conducive to the dogmatisation of war as the main motive for abroad and defence policy. In many geopolitical interpretations, the war as the eventual (ultima ratio) policy tool has been converted into a goal, ensuring not only the position but also, as with the leaders of Ukraine and Israel, Volodymyr Zelenski and Benjamin Netanyahu – the justification for their individual existence in power.
The continuation of the utmost situation of force and fear, specified as the war in Ukraine or Israel's peculiar military operation against Hamas in Gaza, is not only in the interest of local soldiers, i.e. military groups and various groups of pressure. The origin is besides in cathartic, sectarian, and oligarchical procedures, interior and external, to postpone the return to peaceful normality due to the hazard of bringing local leaders to justice for apparent abuse of power, shameful corrupt practices, or criminal decisions against the innocent population of occupied territories.
Looking retrospectively at the last 3 decades of the liberal order, it is clear that post-war peace was regarded as a function of a fresh hand of position, function and power position and camouflage for West-centric force policy. The question of the importance of global institutions, including the UN and the OSCE, was considered a manifestation of natural evolution towards monocentric management of global affairs. The ongoing wars in the periphery of the global strategy – in Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, Syria or yet Ukraine and the Gaza Strip – were to legitimise the legitimacy of efforts to advance democracy, the regulation of law, civilian society and the marketplace economy. Unfortunately, in many places, alternatively of changing towards these values, there has been a regression and strengthening of the practices of authoritarian governments.
Apotheosis of War
In fresh years, they have revived with large strength the tendency to relativize and disregard peace, expressed even in the unreflexive and insistent recalling of the Old Roman slogan: "si vis pacem, para bellum" (if you want peace, prepare for war). Transnational, globalistic capital has sniffed an extraordinary chance to advance a fresh and costly arms race, resulting in a push to face between different centres of force. The stakes are to keep the hegemony of the West and the primacy of the United States in the global system.
Currently erstwhile administration Donald Trump He tries to exert an effective influence on the end of the Ukrainian conflict, inactive influential instigators of war call for a "fair" peace, bearing in head first and foremost his point of view. However, there have never been uniform criteria for assessing what is "fair" in a complex global environment. Most frequently justice is simply a priority, i.e. it corresponds to the interests of the strongest. From this standpoint, there are neither wars of the righteous nor of the righteous peace. Wars are always a correlation of strength and rivalry, but the state of peace is the consequence of the will to cooperate and agree with the parties, regardless of their perfect prowess or the nature of governments. All who advocate “fair” peace usually claim the right to “better” moral attitudes. In fact, without even realizing it, they advocate 1 or another ideological option, or the axiologically saturated imagination of reality that remains in conflict with another narratives.
With these traps, all compromise will be associated with someone's dominance, unsymmetrical concessions, and actual losses of the weaker party. It is for these reasons that many Western governments, including the Polish government, are taking the initiative of a gathering between Trump and Putin. The media of the "liberal" current do not explicitly admit that Putin should be named president according to his position, while just a minute ago the president of Russia was simply, to say the most delicately, "cremlovian autocrat" or "common criminal".
In the case of Ukraine and its allies in the ongoing peace process, there is simply a complex issue of authorisation negotiated by Americans with Russians. The emphasis placed on the “worthy” and “righteous” peace is nothing like the “peace of the winner”. This is how the Russian postulates on the position of Ukraine as a ‘neutralised’ and truncated country that belonged to it before 2022 are drawn up. It is, of course, regrettable that the place of the "liberal order" is occupied by the "authoritary order", but these are only convenient translations of their own infirmities, as demonstrated by European countries, by being drawn into the "trap" of the Ukrainian War. Ultimately, in all peace-building process, the decisive origin is strength.
According to the belief of the current US President, the wars in Ukraine could be avoided. But if it had already happened, there were real opportunities and opportunities to finish it quickly. There is simply a reason why Istanbul negotiations from the spring of 2022 are recalled. However, the alleged collective West pushed for the beginning of a wide war front. He wanted to take advantage of the chance to destruct or at least weaken Russia, lead to its interior degradation. In time the conflict took on unimaginable sizes and got out of control of Ukrainian protectors. It was not without importance in this process that the "liberal internationalism" collapsed after the election defeat of American democrats. Donald Trump, despite many inconsistency, is, however, an effective "broker" of peace. It is not known what the prospects for its implementation will be. It is essential to consider various barriers and counter-peace strategies, including provocations, intrigues, sabotages, quarreling on each side, attempts at retaliation and rematch.
Long way to stabilisation
It is likely that the peaceful stabilisation of global governance, in which the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention between states will be restored, peaceful ways of settling disputes and common control and balance, will be long to await. The ideological crusades will never end, but Western governments made up of abnegats and political amateurs must realize that there is simply a geopolitical strategy of forces at the heart of peace, not any dream of universal democracy or centralization of power in global relations.
New regulations are needed on atomic non-proliferation and respect for various disarmament regimes, including the restoration of neutrality and demilitarisation. In a multipolar world, they should advance regional stableness and make the function of intermediaries and buffers between the disputed parties.
New regulations are needed in connection with claims due to historical harm (the issue of compensation for colonial exploitation) or the urgent redistribution of social wealth on a global scale, even due to the large migration (the fresh North-South dialogue). States should guarantee the legal protection of their global position and subjectivity, and so formally adopt as the most crucial post-employment position and supply themselves with constitutional guarantees of opposition to transnational and globalist trends.
The boundaries of interior competence of the states must be re-designed so that in the polyarchical global environment they hold full mastery attributes (internal mastery, self-determination and global responsibility). In this context, it should be stressed that the political systems of the states and the nature of their governments cannot be undermined by any external body, and global organisations, peculiarly those of a transnational nature, cannot exercise the right to supervision or control sovereign states. Any bureaucratic apparatus of an organization that does not have democratic legitimacy by states, large corporations and various lobbyist corporations cannot have authority over national governments. akin regulation requires limits on the functioning of natural and harmful global lobbying.
The request for “new Helsinki” is due to the request to recognise the coexistence of alternate ways to peace, which means respecting local forces and the resulting hierarchical work for maintaining peace and security. It means respecting leadership roles at various levels of the global system, returning to multilateralism and conference diplomacy ("multidication"). This is besides the reason for the Polish diplomacy to return to pragmatism and realism, and the abroad minister alternatively of the ardent disinvolvement began to take care of the image of Poland as a serious state.
Prof. Stanisław Bielen
Photo: Wikipedia
Think Poland, No. 33-34 (17-24.08.2025)
