№ 788. Lessons From World War II to Avoid World War III

The meaning of commemoration is to draw necessary lessons and to prevent mistakes from happening again. The lessons from World War II — we have five of them to share — are critical for understanding how to restore and maintain long-lasting and just peace and security in Europe today, when they are again at risk.

1. Appeasing the aggressor leads to more aggression, not peace. 

Concessions on unlawful territorial claims are a disastrous mistake. The partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938 only fueled Nazi Germany’s appetite and resulted in a global war. Learning from this lesson, Ukraine will never accept the legitimization of Russia’s occupation and annexation of any part of Ukraine’s territory. Respect for territorial integrity is a fundamental principle of international law. There will be no sustainable peace and security at the cost of Ukraine’s people, independence, sovereignty or territorial integrity.

2. Spheres of influence never bring peace and stability. 

They bring oppression. World War II began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and secret protocols to it between the Soviet Union and the Third Reich, agreeing to partition Poland, the Baltic States and the rest of Europe. Similarly, the victors sought to establish and consolidate their spheres of influence at a meeting in the Crimean city of Yalta in 1945. The cessation of fire in Europe on May 8, 1945, did not bring freedom to many European nations. They remained under Soviet occupation and control and suffered decades of international crimes, oppression and lack of freedom. For many of our states and our people, this nightmare ended only five decades later, with the re-establishment of our sovereignty and independence from 1989 to 1991.

Today Mr. Putin fantasizes about another Yalta, where he can draw borders on Europe’s map, once again undermining international law and the right of nations in Russia’s neighborhood to make their own choices and decisions. We must never allow this. Our principled position is that no third country has veto power over the choice of unions and alliances of Ukraine or any other nation. Ukraine has already made its choice — the choice of the European Union and NATO — and it is not for the Kremlin to scrutinize this.

3. A lack of accountability breeds future atrocities. 

Nazi crimes were widely exposed, condemned, investigated and prosecuted, unlike Soviet ones. It’s very important that both totalitarian ideologies — Nazism and Soviet — receive proper evaluation in Europe. More light must be shed on crimes by the Soviet regime, including the deportations and executions of political prisoners in our countries, the destruction of Kyiv’s city center and the Dnipro Hydroelectric Station dam during the Soviet retreat in 1941, the mass-scale deportations of our people to Siberia, the violent repression of the members of anti-Soviet movements and the genocide of Crimean Tatars through deportation from their native land in 1944, to name a few. Hundreds of thousands of people were forcibly removed from their homes, many packed into cattle cars, and sent to remote regions of Siberia from the Baltics states alone. The crime of the Holodomor genocide, in particular, in which millions of Ukrainians starved to death, should have a more prominent place in the European historical understanding.

Soviet crimes must be properly condemned, including those committed during the Soviet occupation of Europe after World War II. Russia’s failure to properly condemn Stalinism and to compensate for the occupational damage and its overall feeling of impunity led to revanchism and aggression against Georgia and Ukraine. This case highlights the importance of accountability for Russia’s current crimes, including after the future fall of Mr. Putin’s regime.

4. Historical manipulation must be corrected. 

As Russia continues its war against Ukraine and intensifies its hostile actions toward democratic European countries, the need to promote shared European remembrance narratives across the continent and beyond is more pressing than ever. A truthful assessment and profound understanding of history form the foundation of a society’s democratic resilience. We all stand ready to counter Russian disinformation activities and Russia’s attempts to rewrite European history.

Russia has no right to monopolize the victory over Nazism, which was accomplished by multiple nations and peoples. Even the Red Army was multinational, with at least six million Ukrainians fighting in its ranks. Instead of commemorating World War II victims, Mr. Putin’s regime has crafted an ugly cult of victory, utilizing the collective victory over the Nazis to justify its current aggression and atrocities against Ukrainians. The upcoming May 9 parade, in which Russia annually marks the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany, is designed as the glorification of this cult. Mr. Putin will use it to rally more Russians to the front lines, solidify his regime and create an impression that his international isolation is fading. These plans must fail.

5. As President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has said, ‘Freedom must be armed better than tyranny.’ In the current severe security deficit, sufficient defense capabilities are a must. Si vis pacem, para bellum. (If you want peace, prepare for war.) Ukraine will never accept any restrictions on its armed forces, defense capabilities or defense assistance. Instead, Kyiv is working to expand defense-industrial output and achieve defense self-sufficiency.

Learning these simple but important lessons of World War II is critical both to prevent the outbreak of World War III and to reinvent a fair international system with real security guarantees for peaceful democratic states that offers accountability for aggressors and deterrence of them. We must avoid repeating the mistakes that led to World War II and the subsequent Yalta system. We are confident that with sufficient resolve, we can do better, defend our principles and secure a free, united and secure Europe. We will continue working together to achieve this. Never again. This is the common warning of countries affected by the Treaty of Munich, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the Yalta Agreement.

№ 628. NATO & Russia

 

“There is a widening consensus about supplying Ukraine howitzers and more complex weapons systems, and everyone is now doing that,” Mr. Heisbourg noted.

“But it’s another thing to pivot the war aim from Ukraine to Russia. I don’t believe there’s any consensus on that.” Weakening Russia’s military capacity “is a good thing to do,” Mr. Heisbourg said, “but it’s a means to an end, not an end in itself.”

There are other factors that risk broadening the conflict. Within weeks, Sweden and Finland are expected to seek entry into NATO — expanding the alliance in reaction to Mr. Putin’s efforts to break it up. But the process could take months because each NATO country would have to ratify the move, and that could open a period of vulnerability. Russia could threaten both countries before they are formally accepted into the alliance and are covered by the NATO treaty that stipulates an attack on one member is an attack on all.

But there is less and less doubt that Sweden and Finland will become the 31st and 32nd members of the alliance. Mr. Niblett said a new expansion of NATO — just what Mr. Putin has been objecting to for the last two decades — would “make explicit the new front lines of the standoff with Russia.”

Not surprisingly, both sides are playing on the fear that the war could spread, in propaganda campaigns that parallel the ongoing war on the ground. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine frequently raises the possibility in his evening radio addresses; two weeks ago, imploring NATO allies for more arms, he argued that “we can either stop Russia or lose the whole of Eastern Europe.”

Russia has its own handbook, episodically arguing that its goals go beyond “denazification” of Ukraine to the removal of NATO forces and weapons from allied countries that did not host either before 1997. Moscow’s frequent references to the growing risk of nuclear war seem intended to drive home the point that the West should not push too far.

That message resonates in Germany, which has long sought to avoid provoking Mr. Putin, said Ulrich Speck, a German analyst. To say that “Russia must not win,” he said, is different from saying “Russia must lose.”

There is a concern in Berlin that “we shouldn’t push Putin too hard against the wall,” Mr. Speck said, “so that he may become desperate and do something truly irresponsible.”

BENTO BOX

Article 5


The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.



Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security .