Neutrality Studies. Weekly Recap #4

July 28 – August 4

Hola!

Last week I uploaded four videos that were all quite important to me for very different reasons. Let’s recap.

The real situation in Ukraine

First of all, I published something I usually don’t do often, which is a “journalistic” peace about the situation in Ukraine. Those of you who follow my youtube channel know that I’m much more about interviewing academics, diplomats, or sometimes politicians to provide us with analysis and interesting perspectives, most of that on an intellectual level. I am not much of a journalist to report about what is happening on the ground in places around the world. There are others who do a much better job than I ever can (I’m thinking of real journalists like Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté from the Greyzone, or Glenn Greenwald and even the good people from The Duran who are all quite gifted at covering current events with primary materials they get from the different online networks).

However, I was approached by a Ukrainian Journalist, Vasyl Muravytskyi, who told me about his ordeal in a Ukrainian prison and how horrible the human rights situation was in Ukraine in general. So I thought I really should cover this. Hence we scheduled a talk with him and his translator, Daria, with whose help we had an engaging discussion—despite some connectivity problems. This turned out to be a rather important interview because the problems that Vasyl reports are really scary. People get arrested even for private conversations. There is no tolerance—zero—in Ukraine when it comes to discussing the war. And here in the West, we hear about how Ukraine is “defending democracy.” Well, if the Ukrainian model is what these people have in mind for us, then help us god. I don’t want it.

Perpetual Peace

I was very fortunate to receive a video recording by Professor Jeffrey Sachs for publication on our multi-language channels. He recently wrote this wonderful essay about “10 Principles for Perpetual Peace”, which I think correctly enumerates what would be needed to get away from this constant state of war that we are caught in. Kant’s dream of Perpetual Peace is far from achieved but also far from over. We all know that’s what we want. If we had a global referendum tomorrow on “do you want peace forever” I’m certain 99,9% would vote “yes.” And isn’t that the real tragedy of humanity? That we all know we want peace, we all agree that it’s needed and necessary. But in the end, we fail because of so many reasons born out of the way the species and its components work. Philosophically, we are absolutely capable of understanding and framing the dream, but sociologically, we can’t capture it. Nevertheless, we shall not give up. One fine day, we might finally figure it out. Thank you, Professor Sachs, for keeping the dream alive!

Neutral Macau in the Second World War

Next up was a talk that I did a few months ago but I only got around to publish now. I talked to a colleague from Portugal, teaching and researching in the UK, Dr. Helena Lopes who wrote a really wonderful book on Macau during the Second World War and how that tiny peninsula managed to remain completely unoccupied thanks to neutrality! Of course, the story here is quite huge, since Macau was a Portuguese colony, so its neutrality harks back to that of the colonial master. However, the case itself is highly fascinating because it shows that in the dynamics of war—even a world war—small neutral places can survive. In a sense, this strengthens the argument for more neutrality, not less. In a very important sense, the WWI and WWII period was so devastating because these damn colonial states had much of the world under their control, hence once they landed in war they dragged the colonies with them. It’s very much akin to an alliance, just an unequal one in which one part is completely subdued by the other. Inversely, neutrality also extended to the colonies. Fascinating. I highly recommend getting Helena’s book and of course, watching the episode :)

What if…

Last but not least, I had another great talk with my colleague from Norway, Glenn Diesen, about the war in Ukraine. While watching a talk he did on The Duran with Alexander Mercouris and John Mearsheimer, it occurred to me that the battlefield situation in Ukraine is now so catastrophic that no strategist in their right mind—not even the neocons—can still believe in a “victory” for Ukraine. We have been explaining the unwillingness of the warmongers in Washington and Brussels to sit down and negotiate on the “delusions” of the West, that these people are basically believing their own lies. But what if that’s not true? What if they are on the same page and how would a neocon try to deal with this if he/she knows that the symmetric war on the battlefield is definitely lost? This is what we discuss to figure out (hypothetically) what the greatest strategic risks are for Russia and Ukraine in case Russian forces brake through and the Ukrainian army collapses. What if the neocons would try to come true on something Hillary Clinton pitched years ago, namely the “Afghanisation” of Ukraine? What if there are forces in Washington and Brussels who are already working on the next phase of the war, one in which it’s not army against army, but occupation forces against guerrillas? How would the Russians stop that… could they stop it? And if not, what does that leave us with in terms of getting to an end of the bloodshed?

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Pascal