The essay "War in Eurasia" by Layne Hartsell, PhD, and Alexander Krabbe, MD, is published in a series with three installments. The first story is presented in today's post.
Moving on and up
1. Part One: War in Eurasia: History, Tragedy, and the Path to Peace
2. Part Two: NATO's Role in Eurasia: Power, Conflict, and Security
3. Part Three: Examining the Precipice of World War III
Introduction
By Layne Hartsell, Ph.D., and Alexander Krabbe, M.D.
The cover of military historian John Keegan’s famous The First World War is a scene of coldness, murder…ecocide. The sky is winter white. Soldiers are there walking in line in mud. The trees no longer have tops; not a single one. It is a haunting photo. This was a time that did not have air forces and bombs and cruise missiles. The trees were decapitated and millions of people and uncountable animals were killed with what we could call ‘small arms.’ Italian artist of war, Chevalier Fortunino Matania painted his Goodbye Old Man of a British soldier cradling his dear horse’s head as it lay dying from its wounds. Millions of horses were killed in the war. The excerpt to the book says that WWI was the war to end all wars and was considered to be the real beginning of modernity, bringing together all of the strands going back to the 17th Century up into the 20th. It was a war of “unprecedented ferocity…unleashing…mechanized warfare and mass death,” of imperialism, of civilization, “shattering the faith in rationalism and liberalism that had prevailed…since the Enlightenment.” Aside from neo-imperialism, World Wars in the 20th century brought the desolation of modernism into the world we inhabit after that century of industrial-scale war, nuclear armaments, militarism and a grotesque war of civilization on nature now termed “the Anthropocene.” An author, any author, even famous ones that have millions of readers, writing about war today might feel helpless when faced with such a system as if “What’s the use?”A feeling of sadness is certainly a reasonable expression of human exasperation. So, why write anything? The best answer we have is – for the sake of sanity. Here we try again with our third article on war. 1: The Specter is Back 2: The Specter Emerged
Ukraine, Eurasia
Ukraine has a long record concerning human organization going back at least to the first humans in the bioregion and Kiev forming between 25,000-15,000 B.C. At 7,000-6,000 years ago, the nested village model of the Trypillia Chalcolithic megasites of the North Pontic forest-steppe had been created such as at Nebelivka and VeselyKut. Rich in land, chernozems, or some of the richest soil in Europe, with forests and other resources, we can only imagine the abundance. Artistic endeavors from early humans indicate an intellectual life, as do the larger structures at these megasites apparently used for meeting places and depository systems of specific kinds of houses in a far more egalitarian system than what we know today. What we would call agroforestry and bioregion, the North Pontic forest-steppe has been known for millennia to be a place of natural wealth.
The Russian state formed far later in 882 AD. In a recent interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin argued similarly on chronology, but for the Russian state and its sovereignty, and territorial dominance, thereby making a modernist argument within a Russian traditionalist perspective or sovereignty: we conquered it; it’s ours. At the same time, within the complexity and confusion over the region, the human story can be further elaborated upon, and at the same time cynically used, that the Russian people have endured centuries of attack, death, and destruction at the hands of Europeans as modernity came about. Ukraine is the usual invasion route and coveted landbase of European powers– rich soils, biodiversity, timber, and mines. The rattatattat of “guns” and thunder of the kettle drums in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture is the orchestral epic of the successful Russian defense against France. At the Prinsengracht concert in Amsterdam in 2013, soldiers dressed from the 19th century marched out on the stage and added to the realism of the symphonic war with actual gun blasts providing vicarious shock for the audience. Germany, Britain, the US, Japan and Poland have all invaded Russia (or the later Soviet Union) in the past two centuries. The Nazis wanted living space or “lebensraum”, which required the reduction of the region from tens of millions of people down by perhaps 50% of the original so that German “stock” could resettle there. This plan was one of the grandest acts of the planned aggression of settler-state colonialism in history, matching that of the steppes of the American model across the breadbasket of Turtle Island on which the Nazi leadership developed their own plans. George Friedrich Hegel, the Prussian philosopher, in his Philosophy of History wrote that nativeAmerican culture such as in Mexico, “must expire as soon as Spirit approached it [civilization]” and George Washington wanted the US to spread out as a nascent empire into the hemisphere with its characteristic extermination and scorched earth policies. The model is not new. What is new is the rapid regression of the expansion of industrial-level warfare with greater dexterity in engineering and technology directed towards destruction at each point in history and with massive hypocrisy and self-deception. Apologists call it “progress” and “necessary” while some others triumph in delight in hate and mass slaughter, and plunder.
The Russians are well aware of the history of Eurasia and the current security situation, though the West seems largely oblivious while we live in a time that sees nuclear-armed states in near direct confrontation. This is the path towards thermonuclear war. Such an escalation could come about with a series of miscalculations and misinterpretations of real and imagined threat when under the extreme pressures of conventional, industrial-scale war. During the last century there were a number of near misses of thermonuclear war, detoured by luck and human intervention within minutes, in a long string of failures. At some point, it is thought, and expected by analysts, that we may not be so lucky. Their projected scenarios look a lot like the reality of today. We appeal to sanity and suggest that we not rely on luck but on mass democratic movements that can mold governmental systems towards better integration and even eliminate nuclear weapons overall. In this way there will be a moral equivalent of war that directs the mandate to the diplomatic system that can end the current war in Eurasia.
That Eurasia has not been a protected bioregion by the world community is a puzzle of diplomacy that ought to have recognized the long history that has now led to the great tragedy of militarism and acquisition that has come about in the last two centuries and is unfolding in front of us in near real-time, viewed through social media as a reported minimum of 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have perished along with perhaps a similar number of Russians. Official figures show 500,000 casualties, however, this number is directly war-related and doesn't include other casualties such as millions displaced and then general and ongoing psychological terror. We suspect from some other reports that the direct war casualties are upwards of 1 million and with escalation on the way, these numbers will increase each having families and friends and previous lives now extinguished by drones dropping grenades, or by bullets, or tanks firing shells, or missiles landing in cities, or landmines spread across the land in trench battle out on the steppes of time immemorial. In February of 2022, when Ukraine people and Russians had only two months earlier uploaded snowy pictures of Christmas cheer onto social media, we began to see a blizzard of horrors such as at Bucha. One man in Ukraine walked into another room of his house when a Russian missile hit. The room he left was obliterated and his wife was mangled beyond recognition in a pit of rubble. In a place where there could be people and families and communities almost effortlessly thriving, there is war and death and ecocide. Once again we witness uncounted numbers of wildlife, trees, and poisoned land stretching out across the steppes as mechanical death “progresses.”What could have been prevented without serious consequences to all sides, there is now a situation of escalation into nuclear drills threatening almost all of life.
It was easily foreseeable that a clash of great proportions could occur in Eurasia as the great powers in the West in Europe and the US meet the growing powers of the East with Russia, China, and India. War was also foreseeable, given the sheer value of ecosystemic integrity in biodiversity and natural wealth. The entire bioregion should have been a neutral zone such as a bioregional-wide Austrian or Swiss model and a durable conservation fund for the land such as the Norwegian sovereignty fund. There is Minsk II, a viable agreement though much less than we suggest. The Minsk Agreements were never really considered, cynically dismissed by Europe and the US and blamed on the Russians, while during this time Ukraine was militarizing, including with neo-fascist groups in the east of the country. Fascists have been useful for the expansion of “unrestricted laissez-faire…free markets and the unhampered exercise of the right of private property” in the past and "It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history” though should only be seen as “makeshift” to bring “salvation for the moment” wrote Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973). Mises only forgot an obvious problem that fascists do not tend to abdicate power and go home after their butchery. Other similar examples are the U.S.-supported Pinochet Regime in Chile on September 11th, 1973 and the neo-fascists in Brazil and Argentina leading to uncountable deaths, disappearances, and suffering; suffering still going on to this day.
Leading up to the current war in Eurasia, it looks apparent that the Russians were acting in good faith and any Russian cynicism and imperialism could have been tested by incremental agreements within Minsk II, a model that came out of Western diplomacy. The Minsk II agreement was supposed to create a neutral zone in the east of Ukraine and with a coalition of UN security forces from the region that includes Russia. Such a plan is not an innovation; it is one long known in international affairs through the UN and preceding it going far back into history. When pragmatism lines up with morality and survival, we think the opportunity should be seized.
Asia
Already well aware of history and European aggression, the Chinese growing even more concerned, sensibly offered a 12-Point Plan to end the war in February 2023, something that might still be helpful in resolution and reconciliation. The core of the Chinese position, as is that of the UN, is “Nuclear war cannot be fought and won,” and is directed at the US, Europe, and Russia. The Chinese cite the United Nations and international law and condemn, a “Cold War Mentality” referring to military alliances such as NATO. In one of the 12 points, the Chinese state that the nuclear power plants must be protected. Then, they also call for a ceasefire, protection of the global economy, and make a statement on post-war rebuilding in Ukraine. The Chinese have added to sanity and have the diplomacy and resources to help the sides out of military confrontation and into diplomacy in favor of better relations in the region. At the time, the Christian Science Monitor rebutted, “President Xi Jinping’s government is reiterating China’s claim to being neutral, despite blocking efforts at the United Nations to condemn the invasion. The document echoes Russian claims that Western governments are to blame for the Feb. 24, 2022 invasion and criticizes sanctions on Russia.” Also, not much seems to be said in the media about the Chinese Communist Party’s desire for the biodiversity and minerals of the region, nevertheless, either Minsk II, the Chinese model, or some other similar combination could be possible, and definitely much more reasonable and sane than the continued loss of lives on all sides and escalation including the stated threat of nuclear war from the US and Russia. We think it would be wise to include Asia in the preparation for the end of the war and subsequent outcomes of better integration such that humanity can move on to address climate and a reduction of nuclear weapons.
About the Authors
Layne Hartsell, Ph.D. USA (雷恩∙哈特塞尔 - 마이클 레인 핫셀) - 3E: Energy, Economy, Environment – is a research fellow at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society, Department of Philosophy, Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, and Research Professor at the Asia Institute, Tokyo/Berlin. Past affiliations: assistant professor, convergence studies, Sookmyung Women's University and Research Institute for Asian Women - Asia-Pacific Women's Information Network Center in Seoul. Research professor, Sungkyunkwan University and the Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology, Seoul/Suwon. Lecturer at Mahidol University, Siriraj Medical Center, Department of Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics, Bangkok. Researcher at the University of Virginia College of Medicine, Charlottesville.
Alexander Krabbe, M.D., Germany, is a pulmonary specialist and physician for internal medicine and peace activist in Berlin. He was a citizen journalist at OhmyNews International in Seoul from 2004 to 2009 and is currently a research fellow at the Asia Institute in Berlin/Seoul.
