Rethinking pacifism

It seems like most of the anti-war types in West end up becoming cheerleaders for dictators and war criminals. Screaming about the evils of the United States while befriending Assad, Putin, and the like is a morally bankrupt position.

But I do think there’s room for a more informed peace movement that can reduce the number of conflicts.

Despite a steady stream of wars and atrocities since independence, Russian elites have had no real trouble feeling at home in the West. They launder money through London real estate, dock their yachts in Europe, go on weekend shopping trips in Italy, and send their kids to school in America. Not holding them accountable for their crimes is a large reason why Russia is waging war today.

It’s hard to think of a non-Russian as culpable for today’s war as Angela Merkel. Despite the war in the Donbas and annexation of Crimea, she never failed to champion the Kremlin’s agenda in Europe. Had the response to Russia in 2014, or the 2008 war in Georgia, for that matter, been real sanctions, and Russian officials facing arrest when traveling abroad, there would be no war in Ukraine today. Thousands of lives would have been saved, including the hapless Russian recruits sent on “meat-grinder” raids in Bakhmut.

What’s got me thinking about this is a thread from Toomas Ilves:

The missile attacks on civilians, the assassination threats, the promise to ethnically cleanse Ukraine, all on my twitter feed this AM:

Russians say these things because they believe in impunity, that they will never be held responsible, that Russia will never give them up.

The problem is, they don’t know that they had better hope for trials. The legal system ultimately is to prevent the беспредел of vigilante-ism.

When you don’t have rule of law, even internationally, and justice is denied and people will take it in their own hands.

Russians should fear this. Vigiliante-ism will hit Russians everywhere, indiscriminately. HUR will take care of the worst perpetrators of war crimes – the torturers, the rapists, the missile firers, and not with jail terms.

The rest of “русский мир” will be despised, spat upon, ostracized. What saved Germans from that fate after WW2, Russians don’t realize was Nürnberg. Imperfect as it was, it more or less satisfied the need for justice. And Israel got Eichmann anyway.

But without justice, Russians will be pariahs, kept out, unwanted.

Cry “Russophobia! Russophobia!” all you want. What Russia has done in Ukraine has rendered “Russophobia” a quaint and risible term. It bothers no one.

So pray, Russia, that justice be done. Or be prepared for generations of “Russophobia”, shunned by the civilized world. End.

It’s a fair point. Germans don’t face much animosity in Poland or other countries brutally occupied by Germany during WWII. Even before the Ukrainian War, Russians were reviled in Poland, and the Baltics. The lack of any historical justice makes it hard to move on.

And to go back to my original point, the lack of consequences for serious violations of international law has led Russia to even more egregious actions. The same is true of China, which faces no real repercussions for the continuing genocide of Uyghurs, saber rattling in Taiwan, and attempts to claim territory in international waters.

My position is not that the US or NATO should be the world’s police force, nor that preemptive strikes are justified for a nebulous greater good. Instead, I’m arguing that diplomacy should have real teeth: there’s should be no red carpet for war criminals in Western Democracies.

But this isn’t the position of groups like Amnesty International and the anti-war crowd.

And despite everything that’s happening, this is an ominous thread about Wagner in the Central African Republic.