War/Peace, Echoes of the Debate – “The affirmation of peace is the greatest battle” Jean Jaurès
Posted by PCF on 02/11/2022
The danger of war and the spread of war on the continent of Europe is rising again, with all the risks of conflagration, their marches of suffering and destruction, and at the same time their all kinds of scavengers, arms dealers, speculators and war profiteers, and already affecting our concrete daily life.
On October 7th, a debate took place in Beauvais with former director of Humanity and ex-European Communist MEP Patrick Le Hyaric to discuss the causes of the war in Ukraine (must read!). For “global human security”. Let’s take a look at the 3-hour conferences, followed by interesting debates.
Patrick Le Hyaric immediately made it clear: “There can be no justification, no mitigating circumstances for Putin’s belligerent aggression against Ukraine and his infernal brutality mechanism. Emphasizing that since NATO was rehabilitated and hitherto neutral countries like Sweden and Finland wanted to join, this war also had the opposite effect of what he claimed; As for Denmark, it is rejoining the “common European defense policy” it abandoned 30 years ago after rejecting the Maastricht Treaty! The communist leader also touched on the matter: “Putin’s Russia, which is under the rule of the oligarchs, has nothing to do with the USSR, but it clearly wants to rebuild the empire of the tsars.” »
However, with no relief for Russian power, it is necessary to try to understand what sequence led to this very serious situation and in what global context this conflict, which has already led to a new arms race, took place.
P. le Hyaric then went back to the last 30 years and showed with clear facts to support how US leaders deliberately broke their commitment to Gorbachev during the German “reunification” process. not to extend NATO to the East; and how, despite numerous warnings from all parties, they pursued their desire to expand this armed wing of the United States to the point of wanting to integrate Ukraine in violation of the 1994 treaty that constituted its “nuclearization military.”
This all-out military rush by the US and NATO is part of the logic of economic and territorial domination in the framework of the deep crisis of globalized capitalism: the great wealth of Ukrainian lands and underground resources is in the first place, moreover, the desire of the US to European countries with the so-called “Nord Stream” gas pipeline Applying shale gas purchases from across the Atlantic (mysteriously little sabotaged there…) rather than gas shipped in from Russia.
The former European Parliament (former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on July 16, 2022: “We are nearing the end of the political and economic dominance of the West”) has called for action against the upheavals occurring in the world. the rise of the new “emerging” powers: BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) will represent 50% of the world’s produced wealth in 2050, while the G7 will represent only 20%! China will surpass the United States by 2030.
All US policy seeks to prevent it from losing its power in three ways: dollar financial dominance gives the US the incredible privilege of financing its spending from the rest of the world; legal supremacy with the scandalous extraterritoriality of US laws that allow us to intervene in the internal politics of states and dictate their decisions to companies in accordance with US interests; and apparent military dominance in the desire to involve European nations in this adventure, at the cost of a maddened resumption of the arms race (costs now reaching $2.113 billion!!!), with insane risks, including planetary and nuclear weapons. wasting money on death jobs when there is not so much money to solve social and environmental problems.
Two disturbing facts, among others, illustrate this well: NATO’s military budget is now 20 times that of Russia, and the change in France’s military strategy has shifted from “peace-crisis-peace” to “competition-competition-confrontation” with an apparently militant logic. illustrated, for example, by the French command of NATO bases in Romania and Estonia.
Inspired by the spirit of Jaures, P. Le Hyaric called for the conditions to “win the peace” rather than the bloody illusion of “winning the war” for a long time: by promoting all diplomatic initiatives of the UN, China and India. de-escalation, ceasefire and negotiations; and working on the prospect of a new Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe with the participation of all European countries, including Russia. For this, urgent action is needed to develop a broad movement of citizens and peoples for peace, to counterbalance the ideological warfare and poisons of nationalism by warmongers, and to introduce a new power relationship favorable to the forces of peace. With the goal of a Global Compact for global human security.
Thierry Aury
PCF department secretary Oise
Member of the PCF National Council
