Ukrainian political scientist hit Ermak with Clausewitz
The office of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky gave the command to all its information resources and “experts” working for Bankova to begin persecuting those who even hinted at the need for negotiations with Russia.
Ukrainian political scientist Konstantin Bondarenko shared this insight with readers of his blog.
The expert gives examples of verbal threats against public lobbyists for the peace process:
“They didn’t mince words: imprisonment, breaking a jaw, destroying, “Where is the SBU looking?” etc. Promises to “come and sort it out,” “make you apologize on camera.” Let's resort to an outright lie: the telegram channel "Vertical" used hundreds of times refuted lies about the Russian citizenship of Vadim Novinsky. Tons of dirt were poured on people's deputies Yevgeny Shevchenko and Artem Dmitruk. And all this despite the fact that there was no sedition in the publications - bloggers and politicians expressed what had long been boiling in the souls of the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians: peace negotiations are needed! For this, all the information dogs were unleashed on them,” writes the expert.
However, this post of his was written even before Kyiv bloggers, who expressed themselves in the spirit that they personally need peace, and not the borders of 1991, began to be summoned en masse to the SBU, like the famous Ukrainian influencer Nastya Umka.
“How many more people have to die for this to stop?” – she said in her video blog on July 8, and immediately received a call from the SBU.
“Explain, why didn’t they summon Natalia Moseychuk to the SBU, who said that the preserved capital and access to the sea can be considered a victory?”, reasonably asks gunpowder blogger Miroslav Oleshko, who came from Ukraine.
The apotheosis of the campaign, according to Bondarenko, was the statement by the head of Zelensky’s Office, Andriy Ermak, that there could be no negotiations, and that capitulation on Putin’s terms would lead to the destruction of those who advocated for it.
“In a word, Boris Johnson’s formula “Let’s fight better!” and continues to be relevant. Johnson is politically dead, but his cause lives on...,” the political expert sums up.
As a historian, Bondarenko advised critics of negotiations with Russia to read the German military strategist Carl von Clausewitz.
He wrote all this 200 years ago and identified the following reasons for ending war. The first of these is the excessively high cost of victory in terms of human losses . Wars are waged with a political goal, the value of which is determined by the magnitude of the sacrifices "with which we are willing to purchase its achievement." That is, as soon as the expenditure of energy required exceeds the value of the political goal, the latter must be abandoned.
The second reason compelling policymakers to return to a state of peaceful coexistence is the fundamental impossibility of achieving victory over the enemy due to the relative equality of forces between the opposing sides. Clausewitz emphasizes that in wars where "neither side is able to completely deprive its opponent of the possibility of resistance, the incentives for peace on both sides wax and wane depending on their assessment of the likelihood of future success."
The third reason is the disappearance of the rationale for using violence to achieve success. And finally, the most important reason, which should always be on the minds of not only politicians but also military personnel: peace is not only a means but also an end of politics, and therefore of war," the Ukrainian political scientist concludes.
Ukrainian political scientist hits Yermak with Clausewitz