As Russia escalates its assault on Ukraine and its troops advance on Kiev, peace negotiations between the two parties were supposed to resume today for a fourth time. However, they have been postponed until tomorrow. Unfortunately, some opportunities for a peace agreement have already been squandered, so it’s hard to be optimistic about when the war will end. It doesn’t matter when or how it ends, however, its impact is already felt throughout the international security systems, as the rearmament Europe shows. The urgent fight against climate change is also complicated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the war has a devastating impact on Ukraine and the environment, it also gives the fossil fuel sector extra leverage among governments.
The interview below is with Noam Chomsky, a world-renowned scholar and dissident who shares his thoughts about the prospects of peace in Ukraine and how it may impact our efforts against global warming.
Noam Chomsky, who is internationally recognized as one of the most important intellectuals alive, is the author of some 150 books and the recipient of scores of highly prestigious awards, including the Sydney Peace Prize and the Kyoto Prize (Japan’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize), and of dozens of honorary doctorate degrees from the world’s most renowned universities. Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus of MIT and currently Laureate professor at the University of Arizona.
C. J. Polychroniou. Noam, although a fourth round is scheduled for today between Russian and Ukrainian representatives it has been pushed back to tomorrow and it still seems unlikely there will be peace in Ukraine anytime soon. Ukrainians don’t appear likely to surrender, and Putin seems determined to continue his invasion. In that context, what do you think of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s response to Vladimir Putin’s four core demands, which were (a) cease military action, (b) acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory, (c) amend the Ukrainian constitution to enshrine neutrality, and (d) recognize the separatist republics in eastern Ukraine?
Noam ChomskyBefore I respond, let me stress the crucial issue. We must find a way for this war to be ended before it escalates into utter destruction of Ukraine and unimaginable disaster beyond. Only a negotiated solution is possible. Regardless of whether it is a negotiated settlement, it must provide some sort of escape hatch for Putin or the worst will happen. Not victory, but an escape hatch. These concerns must be at the forefront of our minds.
I don’t think that Zelensky should have simply accepted Putin’s demands. His public response on March 7It was appropriate and judicious.
These are Zelensky’s remarks recognized that joining NATO is not an option for Ukraine. He also argued, and rightly, for the opinion of the Donbas people to be a key factor in determining any form of settlement. He is, in short, reiterating what would very likely have been a path for preventing this tragedy – though we cannot know, because the U.S. refused to try.
It has been well known that Ukraine joining NATO would be similar to Mexico joining a China military alliance, hosting joint maneuvers and maintaining weapons aimed towards Washington. To insist on Mexico’s sovereign right to do so would surpass idiocy (and, fortunately, no one brings this up). Washington’s insistence on Ukraine’s sovereign right to join NATO is even worse, since it sets up an insurmountable barrier to a peaceful resolution of a crisis that is already a shocking crime and will soon become much worse unless resolved – by the negotiations that Washington refuses to join.
That’s quite apart from the comical spectacle of the posturing about sovereignty by the world’s leader in brazen contempt for the doctrine, ridiculed all over the Global South though the U.S. and the West in general maintain their impressive discipline and take the posturing seriously, or at least pretend to do so.
Zelensky’s proposals considerably narrow the gap with Putin’s demands and provide an opportunity to carry forward the diplomatic initiatives that have been undertaken by France and Germany, with limited Chinese support. Negotiations could succeed or fail. You can only find out by trying. Of course, negotiations will get nowhere if the U.S. persists in its adamant refusal to join, backed by the virtually united commissariat, and if the press continues to insist that the public remain in the dark by refusing even to report Zelensky’s proposals.
Fairness be damned, I should also add that March 13th saw the New York Times did publish a call for diplomacy that would carry forward the “virtual summit” of France-Germany-China, while offering Putin an “offramp,” distasteful as that is. Wang Huiyao, president a Beijing nongovernmental think-tank, wrote the article.
It seems to me that peace in Ukraine is not a top priority in some quarters. There are many voices, both in the U.S., and in the U.K., urging Ukraine not to stop fighting (even though the western governments have ruled it out sending troops to protect Ukraine), in the hope that the continuation of war, along with economic sanctions, will lead to regime changes in Moscow. Yet, isn’t it the case that even if Putin actually falls from power, it would still be necessary to negotiate a peace treaty with whatever Russia government comes next, and that compromises would have to be made for the withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine?
We don’t know the reason for U.S. and U.K. total focus on punitive and warlike measures and refusal to take part in the only sensible way to end the tragedy. It could be based on hope for regime changes. It is both criminal as well as foolish if it is. It perpetuates the vicious war and ends any hope of ending it. It is foolish because it is very likely that someone worse will be elected to power if Putin is removed. Since many years, this has been a consistent pattern of elimination of leaders in criminal organizations. discussed very convincingly by Andrew Cockburn.
It would at best leave the problem for settlement where it is.
Another possibility is Washington may be satisfied with the current conflict. As we have discussed, in his criminal foolishness, Putin provided Washington with an enormous gift: firmly establishing the U.S.-run Atlanticist framework for Europe and cutting off the option of an independent “European common home,” a long-standing issue in world affairs as far back as the origin of the Cold War. I personally am reluctant to go as far as the highly knowledgeable sources we discussed earlier who conclude that Washington planned this outcome, but it’s clear enough that it has eventuated. Washington planners may not see any reason to alter what is already underway.
It is important to note that the vast majority of the world is not paying attention to the horrors unfolding in Europe. Sanctions are a good example. John Whitbeck, a political analyst, has created a map showing the sanctions against Russia: the U.S., Europe, and some parts of East Asia. The Global South is not amused by Europe’s return to mutual slaughter, but it continues to pursue its vocation of destroying all that is within its reach, including Yemen, Palestine, and many others. Voices in the Global South condemn Putin’s brutal crime, but do not conceal the supreme hypocrisy of western posturing about crimes that are a bare fraction of their own regular practices, right to the present.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may very well change the global order, especially with the likely emergence of the militarization of the European Union. What does the change in Germany’s Russia strategy – i.e., its rearmament and the apparent end of Ostpolitik – mean for Europe and global diplomacy?
The major effect, I suspect, will be what I mentioned: more firm imposition of the U.S.-run, NATO-based Atlanticist model and curtailing once again the repeated efforts to create a European system independent of the U.S., a “third force” in world affairs, as it was sometimes called. Since the end of World War II, this has been a major issue. Putin has now settled the matter by giving Washington its sweetest wish: an Europe so subservient, that an Italian university tried banning a series on Dostoyevsky. This is just one of many examples of how Europeans are making fools out of themselves.
Meanwhile, it seems likely that Russia will drift further into China’s orbit, becoming even more of a declining kleptocratic raw materials producer than it is now. China is likely to persist in its programs of incorporating more and more of the world into the development-and-investment system based on the Belt-and-Road initiative, the “maritime silk road” that passes through the UAE into the Middle East, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The U.S. seems determined to respond with its comparative advantage, force. Right now, that includes Biden’s programs of “encirclement” of China by military bases and alliances, while perhaps even seeking to improve the US economy as long as it is framed as competing with China. This is exactly what we are seeing right now.
There is a short window of opportunity for course corrections. It may soon end as U.S. democracy (as it is still) continues its self-destructive path.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may also have dealt a severe blow to our hopes of tackling the climate crisis, at least in this decade. Are you able to comment on this rather grim observation?
My limited literary skills can be outmatched by appropriate comments. This blow is not only devastating, but may also be fatal for organized human life on Earth, as well as for the many other species we are destroying with abandon.
In the midst Ukraine’s crisis, the IPCC issued its 2022 report. This was the most serious warning it has ever issued. It was clear in the report that we must immediately take decisive measures to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and move to renewable energy. These warnings were not widely received and our strange species continued to destroy the environment and increase its poisoning of air and water, while preventing efforts to rescue it from its suicide path.
The new opportunities that the invasion has presented to accelerate the destruction of all life on Earth have made the fossil fuel industry ecstatic. In the U.S., the denialist party, which has successfully blocked Biden’s limited efforts to deal with the existential crisis, is likely to be back in power soon so that it can resume the dedication of the Trump administration to destroy everything as quickly and effectively as possible.
These words might seem harsh. These words are not harsh enough.
The game isn’t over. There is still time to make radical course corrections. The means are clear. If you have the will to act, you can avoid catastrophe and move on to a better future. These prospects have suffered a serious blow from the invasion of Ukraine. We will have to decide if it is a fatal blow.
