To be honest with the reader, I’ll try to anticipate the summary of this article, the son of all “open” source reading and some conversation. Unlike the director of the reformist whom I thank for allowing me to express my disagreements I am not a pacifist, just a peaceful man. I always found it amusing what the American President said Teddy RooseveltUncle of the most famous Franklin, who summed up his position on the question of peace and war with these words: “Smile, speak softly, but always hold a gnarled stick.”
For some time now everyone has been raising their voices and waving sticks, but this is done according to a logic that I will try to explain so that it can be useful. My simplest analysis tool, accessible to everyone and who doesn’t miss a thing, is the person from putin, who published all his encounters with all sorts of Russian and foreign characters on YouTube, with English subtitles (I started to learn Russian in a hurry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do it in time). Putin has an advantage that Italians hardly appreciate: he thinks what he says and does what he thinks. Just listen to it. And read it. He is a smart man and also knows how to deal with two intertwined geopolitical tools such as history and memory. Speaking of World War II for example, Putin you can see it on the internet explained what the official version would be from now on, and it was this: Stalin he ordered theRed Army to enter Poland a few weeks after the Nazi invasion “to protect ethnic minorities after the legitimate Warsaw government fled”.
It is a long and delicate matter, on which I am writing a fuller text than the existing ones, but it is not about what he did stalin, as much as he just did Putin three years ago: a law that orders what is the historical truth according to its plan that has been developing since 2008 and that we do not recapitulate here today so as not to take up too much space. Putin said and wrote that theThe Soviet Union is a planetary power (which is not true except for some armor) with the historical right to claim all territories that have belonged to Mother Russia over the centuries, and hence theformer Grand Duchy of Warsaw. And the Baltic republics with the German enclave of Kaliningrad Koenigsberg Of Immanuel Kant where the Critique of Pure Reason was written. It should be noted that Putin certainly has a European cultural depth that allows him to present himself to them Bundestag Of Berlin and delivered an applauded speech in solid, literary German, recalling the importance of Kant Goethe and from Schiller. A chapter entitled “Why Putin changed his mind about European identity should be included here, which I can’t write.
So let’s postpone and go back to today. And exactly a month before the invasion ofUkraine when Putin He set up his puppet on Belarusian territory Lukashenko, a real “showroom” of all his military jewels. And here we are at the point. Westerners have been shown brand new satellite technology, launch vehicles, weapon systems in areas where the West has been lagging behind for years and by West we mean primarily those United StatesAlthough the United Kingdom made great strides myself. And that brings us to the new Russian weapons that were only shown and those that were actually used Ukraine on the battlefield. The most important is the hypersonic missile Few examples were used, since the production of these weapons is still in the initial stages and, according to the Americans, they would be prototypes. I don’t understand, but the point is that these weapons don’t have an equivalent yet West: They fly at a speed that eludes any antiaircraft system, they can hit any location on planet Earth, and they can be loaded with explosives, or with a nuclear warhead, or with a charge that steals oxygen within a kilometer radius, causing the death of all living things bit like the desired Bomb “N” Americans who then do not. This deployment of the hypersonic missile shocked Western military commanders for two reasons: First, British and French Americans do not have such fast carriers, although sooner or later they will recover.
Second, Putin He showed his intention to use them on the field and used them. In the field of weapons there is a kind of etiquette: when you show a weapon that others do not have, you provoke an immediate reaction to get the same weapon or one suitable to neutralize them. That is the job of intelligence. In the case of Putin, the weapons were displayed in the public square of the vast Belarusian territory just before the unfortunate and temporary bankruptcy invasion of Ukraine, for educational purposes and to collect results. But with new weapons, of which thewest has not, the Russian President has decided to demonstrate his intention to take an irreversible step: the weapons used are vectors for a large number of socalled nuclear weapons “Tactics” no less ruinous than that of Hiroshima. The military philosophy of the Russian President as he formulated it and is visible to all is: For decades the West has been terrorizing us with nuclear terror. Nuclear weapons are weapons like any other, so it is obvious that in the event of war we would be ready to use them.
As he said this, he faced a number of reporters, real or disguised as somewhat disheveled reporters, one of whom said. “But if you say you’re going to use nuclear weapons, even the enemies will be discouraged.” Russia they will do the same ». The Russian President’s response was unforgettable. He smiled crookedly, spread his arms and said. “What can I tell you? We’re all going to go to heaven.” The message was: we will no longer respond to the logic of mutual destruction that has paralyzed us until now. After all, the Russian President has shown macabre realism in leveling Grozny in chechnya, or Aleppo in Syria then Mariupol. The recent massacres arguably just mean that Russian commanders aren’t instructed to hold back the force’s outbursts of violence against civilians. This disregard for the basic rules, also in warfare, was one of the weapons used by Stalin to anticipate the terror of arrivalRed Army in Germany. The Germans used it too. And also the Italians in the Wars of Africa.
The British and Americans (and the French of the major colonies) held back because of the impossibility of completely gagging the press and communications, which Russia has been successful for centuries. Media control is geopolitical. Terror is geopolitical (theorized by Robespierre, Lenin and Stalin for which a single death was a major tragedy, a million deaths a statistical event). Therefore, all acts of terrorism are geopolitical, the decisions countries make to respond to acts of terrorism are geopolitical. The heroism of it all Ukrainian people it is geopolitical like the desperate separation of lovers and families to meet aggression: everything is geopolitical and each piece is carefully examined and calculated for its wartime value at this stage of the war. But the people don’t know this and are kidnapped in several processions. And here we come to the main point: what kind of war is the one in which the side that decided to start, the Russia, carefully calculated possible benefits and possible risks for some time and finally decided to take all the risks, including the end of the world?
It is the same party that has already questioned the use of banned weapons (not only hypersonic missiles but also cluster bombs) by using them for the time being with materials that are not yet coveredABC (atomically bacteriological and chemical), but shows both the intention and the ability to do so. L’west he is therefore initially under a military pressure to which he was not accustomed because he is in check. But the Russian president, perhaps for precisely that benefit, thought it was now or never to come to a showdown, which he is doing. Such a project runs the risk of using strategic nuclear weapons out of control United States is calculated who knows how in the face of catastrophesRussian secret service in Ukraine and that’s why we also know that all the negotiations, the retreats, the repositioning, the meetings started and interrupted, the substitutions of people and material are mostly smoke in the eyes. The Russians want thatUkraine. It is almost certain that they will get it at any cost and price, even if they plunge into war with nuclear weapons. This will not be the point of no return, but the moment of choice: existential. live or die
Regardless of this point, the possible responses of the West can only be two. The first thing to say is: darling putin, Do what you want in your country, we don’t care, but don’t interfere with your territorial expansions. The second is that of Boris Johnson that you hear Winston Churchill: We will not sell our honor for peace, otherwise we will have both shame and war. What should I do? It depends on the existential decisions. Dying for principles? That’s the least we can do. Letting go hoping not to be overwhelmed? It is the undeniable hope: What have we to do with this war? Basically it’s the same as that 1938: Dying for Gdansk? I conclude: this war is already here third world war. You don’t have to hatch another egg to see which chick it is it’s a familiar demon. What should I do? Everyone can and must make their choice. Provided it is done knowingly without propaganda fire of any kind. Facts are facts and peace comes at a very high price. Never so much as that of war.
Journalist and politician, he was deputy director of Il Giornale. A member of the ItalyUSA Foundation, he was a Senator in the 14th and 15th legislature for Forza Italia and an MP in the 16th for Il Popolo della Libertà.
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Paolo Guzzanti