Gabor Horvath: the West was doing «wishful thinking» about Russia
12.09.2024
Gabor Horvath
The unpreparedness of Western societies for brutal Russian military aggression in Europe can be explained by a mixture of wishful thinking and a lack of understanding of Russia’s historical approach to problem-solving.
As we saw, the global event of Russian aggression escalated unexpectedly. Why was Western society so unprepared for war with an aggressive alliance? Gabor Horvath, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the Hungarian newspaper Nepzsava has explained this to a Newssky correspondent.
In your opinion, what are Russia’s ambitions in today’s conflicts?
Historians have known long ago that the emergence of new empires often led to armed conflicts with the existing old ones. In our age, the “natural” conflict would break out between fast-growing China and the Western powers, but there are significant intervals: China and the West are entangled with trade and financial interests. Also, China is not yet there to challenge the United States and its allies militarily. Russia is a different case as it doesn’t show signs of increasing capabilities to influence worldwide trends, only the ambition to restore its past empire and, with it, its former leverage in international affairs. There is much talk about the alliance between China and Russia, but the two are traditional competitors and occasional enemies, so their current cooperation might not be as deep and strategic as it seems. Even if it were, it would hardly be a surprise: Henry Kissinger already 50 years ago saw the danger of pushing those two into each other’s embrace.
Why did the West sleep out on Russian aggression?
The unpreparedness of Western societies for brutal Russian military aggression in Europe can be explained by a mixture of wishful thinking and a lack of understanding of Russia’s historical approach to problem-solving. Naturally, people prefer to avoid “unnecessary” defense spending when enjoying protracted periods of peace. However, political strategists should have known better than to trust their ability to talk themselves out of trouble with Moscow.
What can we hope for in the context of the end of the Russo-Ukrainian War?
There is little doubt that the combined economic and military power of the West should be enough to keep Ukraine afloat and even ensure it prevails in this war of independence.
But there is a caveat: some in the West still hope for a negotiated retreat of Russian forces from some occupied Ukrainian territories, thus opening the road to peace talks with Putin. As far as military leaders and experts are concerned, support for Ukraine’s defense efforts is still strong, but some politicians are hesitant to go all in. They consider the costs to be too high and don’t buy the argument that even significant military and economic aid to Ukraine is a low price to be paid for their own countries’ security. But now, after two and a half years of heavy fighting, it is obvious that this is a long and costly war, leaving little room for idealistic pictures of a swift return to the good old times of cheap peace.
Maryna Kovalchuk, deputy editor-in-chief (Central Europe and Canada), and head of the V5 Media project, contributed.
