Tom Kando
I just listened to a fascinating interview of Yuval Noah Harari. He is the Israeli historian who wrote the brilliant Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, among others.
The professor’s first and obvious point is that this war should stop ASAP. The longer it goes on, the more EVERYONE will suffer, not just the Ukrainians, even if there is no global conflagration. The longer the war lasts, the worse the situation becomes. The more hatred is created among the Ukrainians. And no one wants this war, not the Russian people, not the Russian oligarchs.
Unfortunately, it’s been over a month since this interview took place, and things are going in the wrong direction. I see no imminent peace on the horizon.
The interview occurred when the Russian peaceniks were still marching in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. By now, Putin’s brainwashing machine has done a superb job in rallying a majority of Russians to supporting the war enthusiastically. Dictatorships are often very efficient at creating Orwellian group think within their borders. In Hitler’s Germany, Tojo’s Japan and elsewhere, large majorities continued to happily kill and die for their governments to the bitter end.
Harari explains that Putin’s attack on Ukraine is not based on a coherent ideology, as for example the Soviet Union was. Instead, it is based on Putin’s own fantasy, not on facts. It is based on Putin’s single-minded desire to re-establish the Russian empire. It is based on the erroneous belief that the Ukrainians are Russians, that they want to be part of Russia. They do not. Ukraine has a thousand-year old history of national identity. Kyiv was a major cultural metropolis long before Moscow. President Zelensky’s and the Ukrainian people’s heroic resistance can be an inspiration to the world.
No war since 1945 has been as much of a threat to the entire world as the current conflict in Ukraine. For the past seventy-seven years, the world has been largely at peace. Authors such as Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature) (https://stevenpinker.com/publications/better-angels-our-nature) have documented the decline of war. Since 1945, there have been no wars aimed at obliterating entire countries from the map. By and large, borders have been sacred (or at least the product of negotiations). Countries have ceased ANNEXING each other. No superpower has gone to war in order to aggrandize its empire.
This is not due to some evolutionary necessity or the inexorable progress of civilization. The world has enjoyed nearly a century of relative peace because we created the structure and institutions to avoid global war. However, the institutions which we have created can perish.
The peace dividend has been enormous: Today, the world spends 2.4% of GDP or 6% of total government spending
on the military. The US spends 3.7% of its GDP or 8% of its federal budget on the military. Germany spends 1.4% of its GDP or 2.8% of its governmental budget on the military. The numbers for other European Union members are similar to Germany’s.
In the past, things were quite different. Throughout history, kings, emperors, sultans and other dictators spent 50%, 80% or the near totality of their assets on war.
But this era of peace is now in jeopardy. In response to the Russian threat, Germany is now planning to double its military budget from $53 billion to over $100 billion, or 5.5% of its governmental budget. The rest of NATO and Europe is following Germany’s example.
This can become a “race to the bottom,” each country spending more and more on tanks and bombers, and less on health care, education, infrastructure, climate change and all the other essential services for which governments exist. Everyone will suffer the consequences of the new arms race, be they in Australia, Brazil, California or elsewhere. If wars of conquest resume, there will be no end to it. It will be like past history was.
Add to this the nuclear threat. Harari argues that for seventy-seven years, MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) was actually one of the safeguards against global nuclear war. Had it not been for nuclear weapons, World War Three between the US and the Soviet Union would probably have broken out by the 1960s.
Now, Harari is frightened. He simply hopes that we will not commit mass suicide. The nuclear nightmare has returned with a vengeance. We have neglected the institutions and mechanisms that foster cooperation, communication and consultation between the great powers. The world is at great risk. We need to rebuild the house in which we all live together. If the house breaks down, we all die.
Harari also addresses China’s role: He hopes that it will be a responsible adult. It has a lot to gain from peace and a smooth global economy.
I am not so optimistic. Harari expressed this hope over a month ago. Since then, China’s President Xi Jinping has made some worrisome pronouncements. He has accused the United States of being the principal instigator and responsible party behind the Ukraine war. This bald-faced and infuriating lie can only exacerbate the conflict and move the world closer to global war.
However, Putin’s war has helped to unite the Western world. The culture war between the Right and the Left has pitted nationalism against liberalism. Harari argues that these core values need not be antithetical. Both sides can come together in support of FREEDOM. Nationalism doesn’t need to mean xenophobia and racism. It can mean love for your compatriots (as currently exemplified by the Ukrainians).
* * * * * * *
There seems to be one major contradiction in Harari’s reasoning, but it is one which we all must confront:
On the one hand, the historian strongly approves of the large increase in military spending by countries such as Germany, in response to Putin’s aggression. This wake-up call has so far produced great NATO unity and the willingness of NATO members to steeply increase military spending.
The newfound NATO unity and the fact that Europe is no longer going to neglect its military defense is understandable and desirable. Harari and most of us can agree with this. Harari says that Germany has to stop worrying that it will relapse into Nazism, the moment it increases its military capabilities. To the Germans, we have to say: “We know that you are not Nazis!”
On the other hand, this can become the beginning of the race to the bottom noted above, a new arms race all over the world, the terribly wasteful rechanneling of resources from essential government services to military expenditures.
The longer this atrocious conflict lasts, the greater the likelihood of such an arms race becomes, along with the possibility of escalation to the nuclear level. Nothing makes the need to stop this war more imperative.
© Tom Kando 2022;All Rights Reserved
