Propaganda works at advanced speeds and brings us into war-torn psychosis. Many Polish politicians, as well as any abroad politicians, argue about Russia's alleged threat.
Current wisdom says that if Ukraine loses the war, Poland will be next. It's being picked up by the media, asking erstwhile the war with Russia and spreading fear. Why shouldn't war be, and why shouldn't we be afraid?
Contrary to the popular opinion that knowing abroad policy is available to all, global relations are 1 of the most hard technological disciplines. It takes many years of survey to master it, but even their completion does not warrant that a postgraduate will become a professional diplomat. The situation is not facilitated by the fact that we are mostly dealing with limited access to sources of information, which is replaced by propaganda and there is difficulty in distinguishing fact from misinformation. Within this discipline, a fresh branch of global relations explanation has developed in fresh years to survey "securitisation", i.e. processes and methods by which social perception of safety is constructed. Securitisation is that a securitisation actor (most frequently a politician) encodes an entity (state or group) as an existential threat and creates an atmosphere of fear in society.
Fear is 1 of the most primitive human feelings
While the mark of civilization is security, fear resulting from its deficiency degrades people civilizationally. It liberates the worst of them: hostility and hatred. Fear management, generating hostility and hatred, towards another groups and societies, are sociotechnical strategies. They are utilized in political communication as a tool for achieving political objectives by building public support for authorities or for their circumstantial policies. 1 feature of fear management is the discrepancy between the social sense of safety and the real threat. specified discrepancies can be referred to in the fresh pandemic, when, according to many critics, the COVID coronavirus hazard has been overstated and disproportionately advanced measures have been taken to combat it, and now erstwhile Russia's threat is overstated and demonised.
People who practice the current propaganda of fear: politicians, journalists, generals frequently have no cognition of how to talk professionally.. Being a general, and even more a politician, does not mean that individual has a cognition of the explanation of global relations, that he knows what realism, rationalism, constructivism and another theories let to realize the complexities of abroad policy, and can practically apply them. Without their cognition and skills of their mention to diplomatic practice, statements, whether or not a general, whether a marshal on Russia and a war threat will be purely amateur. How not to mention to the frozen blood in the veins of the minister of the Sejm, Simona Holowna"We in Poland know well that if the planet does not pay the money Ukraine refused to win with Putin today, Poles will pay with the blood of their children" (9.02.2024). How do you know that Russia will attack Poland erstwhile Ukraine loses? On what grounds is this conclusion based? What would Russia's interest in attacking Poland be?
In general deficiency of cognition about global relations theory, abroad policy is frequently confused with religion or morality in Poland. While in religion and ethics 1 can talk of good, it sounds ludicrous in abroad policy, where the basic concept is business. Therefore, in global relations, we should never anticipate charity, gratitude, or another purely moral acts, but only games of the interests of different states. They should be decently recognized, due to the fact that due to our subjective feelings and deficiency of reliable information, it is so easy to make a mistake in reading the intentions of another country. We may misinterpret the situation and respect a possible friend as an enemy or vice versa. due to a thought error, in the name of freedom and another values given to us in war propaganda, we can engage in an unnecessary and tragic war in which good people on both sides, everyone convinced of the rightness of their cause, will hatred and kill each another – as in most wars.
Most often, the interests of countries are not the same, but they are different. An effective abroad policy must be based on good diplomacy, and this is about seeking common interests and values with another countries in situations where they differ. The denial of professional diplomacy is the rejection of all that we have in common and the stimulation of hostility. During the Cold War, erstwhile the differences in the interests of the parties were enormous, strategical realism advocated that we find at least 1 common point, and that was the pursuit of safety and peace. We owe this thought to the fact that then there was no confrontation between superpowers and this reasoning is worth reminding today. The war, as our large anthropologist, Bronisław Malinowski wrote, is the top catastrophe in human relations. It corrupts people and degrades them mentally, expanding hostility and hatred. The war situation is millions of human lives lost. Let us appreciate the value of peace. Is it possible? Can Wars Be Avoided?
Avoiding war is always possible due to the fact that it depends solely on our decisions. Political realism stands in a position which it simply expressed Carl von Clausewitz: "War is simply a continuation of politics by another means". This means that wars are not waged for honor, for praise from allies, or for any another reason another than the political reason of national interest. If the State cannot accomplish its interests by peaceful means, i.e. safe itself in the face of a threat or a suitable position on the global stage, it can yet hotel to war. In spite of their attempts to legalize them, wars cannot actually be legalized, as the realists believe they will always accompany human history. However, in view of the destruction, death, demoralization and suffering it carries out, as well as the large risks associated with it, the war in the modern planet can only be the last hotel erstwhile peaceful means, and in peculiar diplomatic possibilities and warnings directed towards another states (the alleged "red line") are exhausted and will not produce results.
What kind of business would Poland have erstwhile it went to war with Russia?
Do we want our lands back in the East, taken from us as a consequence of our captivity? That's what no politician is talking about. Then why the war? In order for any war to be waged, it must be preceded by an accurate, rational calculation of the forces from which the anticipation of triumph results. The intent of war is victory, not any, even an honorable, loss. erstwhile war does not hope to win, it should be interrupted due to human costs and the demolition of the country. It is best to halt the war at a minute that gives the weaker possible best conditions for peace negotiations. Continuing a war without the anticipation of winning, as now in Ukraine, is an irrational and suicidal act for which moral work falls on both aggressors and defenders. A single individual may choose to die in defence of his honor or his ideals. However, no country whose task is to proceed and to guarantee the safety and improvement of citizens can afford to die.
In the past of Poland, there are many examples that our armies were besides numerical and had no chiefs who could effectively win. We were able to win in single battles, but that's not adequate to tip the scales of past with weapons. This was before the partitions and later during the uprisings.
The last large triumph was the Vienna Relief of 1683, but in no way did it affect the strengthening of the Polish statehood. Subsequent generations saw only the deepening incapacity of the state until its collapse and the inability to fight. It was only in 1920 that our triumph over the Bolshevik Russia defended our independency and our own statehood, but tragically overturned by a defeat in 1939. 1 of its causes was the explanation of the 2 enemies and the associated national megalomania – a policy of large power inadequate to actual strength. How tragic this policy was, we know from history, due to the fact that no country was as painfully experienced as Poland during the Second War. Thanks to our large efforts, we have regained our statehood and should appreciate it. Peace should be our crown value. Meanwhile, megalomania besides does not leave our politicians today, as expressed in fresh statements Donald Tusk and Simon Holowniawho are willing to lecture the United States on helping Ukraine and push us to war against Moscow.
What would be the goal of this?
The thesis that we must defend ourselves, due to the fact that Russia's triumph in Ukraine, only pushes the Russians into further conquests, is false, as is Russia's threat to Poland and the full free world. It should be full understood that the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is due to circumstantial submarines. The amendment of the Language Act in Ukraine in 2014 causing discrimination against the Russian number and the utmost right behind this change, supporting the traditions of UPA and the CNS and the long-term war in Donbas's territory are equally crucial to explain the causes of the current armed conflict, as well as the strategical considerations related to the distribution of forces in the region and the expansion of NATO, against which Russia has warned for many years. In view of political realism, the erstwhile annexation of Crimea and the current war can so be interpreted as attempts by Russia to correct the regional arrangement of forces in the face of its perceived threat. According to a prominent realist Professor John Mearsheimer: "the extension of NATO to Ukraine represents an existential threat to Russia and has triggered its reaction". However, before the war took place, Russia repeatedly warned that Ukraine's membership of NATO would cross the "red line" and lead to armed conflict.
There are certain unchanging laws in abroad policy. 1 of them is expressed by the Athenians before their war with the Supported: “What is ethically right has never stopped anyone from gaining momentum if specified an chance arises” (V c. B.E.). This law states that strength plays a key function in relations between the states, and their momentum for dominance comes from their strength. In order to weaken Germany's strength after planet War II, East Prussia and another areas known present as Recovered Lands were taken from them. So it was not charity or historical rations that guided the policy of the USSR that gave us the German territory and the border in Oder and Nysa, but the business to weaken Germany so that they would not be a threat to the future.
However, in 1989-1990, democratic changes took place in the countries of Central and east Europe and the threat of rebuilding Germany's power, through their unification, arose. At the time of the Unification Treaty, signed on 12 September 1990 in Moscow by abroad Ministers 2+4 (ZSSR, USA, United Kingdom, France, GDR, NRF), many minutes of talks included securing the Soviets. Its expression was a celebrated promise that NATO would not go “either inch to the east”, which earlier, on February 9, 1990, was expressed by Secretary of State James Baker in an interview with the then russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev. However, we know that it has happened differently and NATO has expanded.
We cannot be surprised, therefore, that Russia, increasingly surrounded by Natovian states, felt the anticipation of extending NATO to Ukraine as an existential threat and this, coupled with the infiltration of interior policy Ukraine through far-right groups, caused her aggression. However, Russia is militarily besides weak to make further conquests. The border of Poland is simply a NATO border whose military budget is 10 times greater than Russia. If the Russian army were truly strong, as we are frequently told, then after 2 years of Russian-Ukrainian conflict it would have been a long time ago under Lviv, while it did not cross the comparatively narrow area of the Donbas region and east Ukraine. Secondly, as the Minister mentioned in the interview Radosław Sikorski, "As NATO we are 20 times more economically powerful and at the minute the Western defence manufacture is yet expanding production, so Russia would lose specified a confrontation". In the long run, Russia has no chance of winning the arms race. Thirdly, Russia has had a demographic problem for years. Her population is steadily falling. According to the 2021 census, 147 million people live in it, while the population of European Union countries is 448.4 million. How, with specified a low population, would Russia endanger the “free world”?
In short, Russia has no interest in further conquests and in war, as specified a war against NATO would lose harshly. He can only defend himself effectively. The Russians are motivated primarily by the desire for their own safety and defence, so it is not expected to further extend the armed conflict outside Ukraine, as long as we do not aid and provoke them. However, if specified a war were to happen, Poland, through which the main theatre of war would run, would be the most deprived, so we should care about it as small as possible. Rather, we should exercise large restraint than call for and support war. Furthermore, it is not known how Germany would behave in this war if the German State were strengthened. Would it not be an chance for them to ask for lost territories in the east? There are many another dilemmas that may arise in the event of a collapse of the current governance in Europe. It is so crucial to search the end of the war in Ukraine, even if peace involves a compromise and the failure to Russia of the part of east Ukraine, and at the same time to think of our interests in the East, not strangers.
W. Julian Korab-Karpowicz
Julian Korab-Karpowicz is simply a prof. at the Anglo-American University of Prague. He taught at many universities in Poland and abroad. He specializes in the doctrine of politics and theories of global relations. He developed 2 peace projects: for Korea and Israel. He is the author of the frequently cited article Political Realism in global Relations (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and “Social Harmony” and another books translated into respective languages.
photo of cremlin.ru
Think Poland, No. 9-10 (25.02-3.03.2024)
