When the Masters of the Earth Are Blinded by the Gods

Europe is, ultimately, aligned with the U.S. concerning the imposition of new sanctions which will directly affect the Russian economy. Russia, in turn, is also preparing for countermeasures. The vicious cycle of economic war between the two sides, the confrontation of which dominated the international arena in the second half of the last century, is assuming dangerous proportions, and it is far from evident what and who will break it. The hotheads across the dividing line argue that the vicious cycle will break with the other side’s retreat.

The latest developments in Ukraine constitute one more delayed consequence of the collapse of a multi-ethnic empire — the Soviet Union. The cycle has not yet closed. Europeans and Americans should have known that not only Ukraine’s history and geography, but also its internal structure, dictate compromise solutions for the country’s internal and external orientation.

Any other solution would be extremely dangerous for peace inside and outside its borders. A lot of people pretend they do not realize it. Some, in fact, mainly from the other side of the Atlantic, flirt with a new Cold War with impressive carelessness. Meanwhile, in Putin’s Russia, the hothead counterparts don’t seem to realize the great risks implied by street militias being militarily equipped with heavy weaponry, militias who are taking on the responsibility of war on behalf of somebody else. The situation in eastern Ukraine is in danger of getting out of control.

In Gaza, we have a new massacre. History is tragically repeating itself with merciless frequency. The Israelis seem to believe that propagating terror among the civilian population, razing whole communities to the ground, and blowing up their rival’s tunnels in the air will ensure their own protection from rocket attacks against their cities by Hamas. The equation, which the rest of the world seems to be used to living with, is that one life lost in Israel equals 50 — or probably more — dead Palestinians.

As so often in the past, the Americans are trying — or they are just pretending — to play the role of the neutral mediator, fairly allocating responsibilities to the conflicting parties, while the Europeans are watching the developments, uneasily and helplessly. What kind of scale can balance the responsibilities of both sides, when on the one side there is an occupation army, while on the other, there are armies of desperate people with a lot of sectarians? On the one hand, there is one of the most modern and best-equipped armies in the world, while on the other hand, there are suicide squads. How can the peace negotiations, which are dragging on forever, be taken seriously while every day the regional balance is changing due to Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory? In the eyes of a third-party observer, all these seem to be working to the detriment of Israel’s long-term interests; nevertheless, excessive power leads to arrogance, and tolerance demonstrated by a great protecting power does not mitigate it.

The Arab Spring, on which all sorts of well-intentioned parties pinned great hopes to establish more democracy, human rights, and favorable conditions for economic development, has come to a bitter end in most countries, leading to anarchy and the enforcement of new dictatorships. Meanwhile, in many parts of the Arab world, it has already turned into a holy war. Extremism is coming to fill the void left by years of gagging civil society, as well as economic and intellectual backwardness. How can a historian apportion responsibility for the crime committed among the local kleptocrats, the dictators, and the foreign great powers who are assuming the role of protector? And then the Iraq War opened Pandora’s Box. The balance of the past is crumbling, and with it, some of the borders that former colonial masters left behind.

The drums of war are sounding in the wider European neighborhood, while victims are washed onto our shores. The wave of immigrants constitutes collateral damage for the European countries. How can you stop the human wave, which is caused by despair or just the lack of prospects in their country? And all this is happening in a time when the tectonic plates of the international system are shifting east. We are living in a time of great change and turmoil. In times of pessimism, you wonder if it is the modern gods who are blinding the masters of this world, leading us to disaster.

Lukas Tsoukalis is professor at the University of Athens and president of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy.