For more than three years now.
Who would have thought that even after three long years, there would still be no end in sight to the war in Ukraine? There have been several signs that a peaceful settlement is approaching, but these have been nothing more than false hopes. There have been a number of initiatives, including some bizarre theories and solutions. The simplest, penned by our former president, is to simply stop fighting and the war will be over. However, the recipe does not describe the likely consequences of such an approach. Another clearly incorrect, naive, and probably stupid idea is to trade everything possible with the aggressor, simply bring them to their knees, and then pressure them to stop attacking. All this without any guarantee of success. The plan involves a "let's hope it works" tactic, and if it doesn't, well, at least we tried. It is as if history did not exist and did not offer dozens, even hundreds, of examples where this scenario did not work. Often, behind such ideas and statements lies a simple contradiction between what is moral, ethical, and just, and what voters want to hear. Incidentally, this is why there is not much clamor for peace talks involving all relevant players. The interests are too diverse, not only commercial ones, but also strategic regional, local political, personal, and even comically personal ones, such as the desire to go down in history, to measure up to some historical role model, and so on. The fates of war-torn people are rather at the very bottom of the list of priorities for most of the statesmen involved. Likewise, fatigue from more than a thousand days of fighting, despite tens of thousands of lives lost, brings a certain numbness and with it growing impatience. As if that were not enough, there are increasingly insightful analyses available that loudly point out the folly with which we believed that we were not threatened by war and that we could cut a significant amount from military spending and calmly squander it on unnecessary luxuries. But that was the narrative of the time, which had social support and therefore appealed to voters. Was it irresponsible? Probably yes, just like many other decisions that we look back on with the comfortable distance of time. Well, whenever a pathological dictator appears who does not respect any rules and takes what does not belong to him, it is only possible to confront him by closing ranks and acting in unison. And by changing established practices. We will always make mistakes, but we need to notice them and try to correct them.