: Europe’s Illusion of Peace Has Been Irrevocably Shattered #WorldNEWS War truly is the father of all and king of all, as Heraclitus said. A little over a week ago Europeans were still debating COVID-19

Europe’s Illusion of Peace Has Been Irrevocably Shattered #WorldNEWS
War truly is the father of all and king of all, as Heraclitus said. A little over a week ago Europeans were still debating COVID-19 and hoping for an end to the pandemic. In Brussels conversations turned to the latest ideas for the regulation of digital platforms or to the Green Deal. Then the world changed, seemingly overnight. In reality, it was not that fast. On Monday President Vladimir Putin discussed the recognition of the occupied provinces in Eastern Ukraine. In the early hours of Thursday, the first bombs fell on the capital and many other Ukrainian cities. War had returned to Europe and everything else must now take second place.
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Many pointed out that the wars in former Yugoslavia happened less than three decades ago. And in Ukraine a war in the east has been raging since 2014. Still, this time it feels different. The large-scale invasion of Ukraine, coupled with the nuclear threats issued by Putin, have created a dramatic situation where Europe as a whole appears in the role of contestant and no one is sufficiently removed to prevent events from steering out of control.
The speed with which the war took over European life was breathtaking. I never felt I understood the Europeans of 1914 or 1939 so well. The same European Union that liked to choose the most diplomatic terms in its public statements suddenly offered to provide war intelligence to Ukraine from its satellite communications centre in Madrid. A top foreign policy official went to far as to suggest Ukraine could be offered fighter jets in order to better resist the Russian aggression. In a historic speech, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called February 24 a “watershed in the history of our continent. ” He added that the issue is whether brute power is allowed to prevail “or whether we have it in us to keep warmongers like Putin in check. That requires strength of our own. ” His speech promised Germany will develop the capabilities needed for a new and dangerous world. In a break with the past, Germany will invest more than two percent of its gross domestic product on defense.
At this point, a question looms. Did Europe fail? The political order in Europe after 1945 was built to exorcise the ghosts of the past once and for all. Never again was the refrain. And yet here we are, impotent to stop a war of genocide. In all his public pronouncements Putin has repeated that the Ukrainian people do not have a right to exist. His war has one main goal. As one editorial in a Russian news outlet this week put it, the Ukrainian question must be solved once and for all.
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