LEADERS at both local and international levels make mistakes that reverberate with dire consequences for themselves, their peoples, and other peoples all over the world. Mistakes that leaders make often lead to wars – be they at local or international level as well. Lives are lost, property is destroyed, and the world economy takes a beating which, sometimes, takes decades to ameliorate. Usually, things are never the same again as a result of the mistakes that leaders make. Recent examples are the Hamas/Israeli conflagration and the Russia/Ukraine war. The First and Second world wars profoundly reshaped and re-ordered the world such that hitherto world powers lost their place and new sheriffs emerged in town. So, when the US president, Donald Trump, accused the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that his belligerence could trigger a Third World War, he was warning that his own focus (as the reigning policeman of the world) is more important to him than the myopic demands of Zelenskiy to continue a war he does not appear ever able to win, even with the support of NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation).
At the advent of the First World war in 1914, the world powers were the Entente Powers led by France, Russia, the British Empire, Italy (from 1915) and the United States of America (from 1917) in opposition to the Central Powers led by the German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Ottoman (Turkey) empires. Russia pulled out of the war after its October 1917 Bolshevik revolution. The Central Powers lost the war and a crippling peace treaty – the Treaty of Versailles – was imposed on Germany. The League of Nations was established and the defeated powers lost their relevance and power in the new international or world order. In 1939, a resurgent Germany instigated the Second World War; the powers that fought that war were the Axis Powers made up of Germany, Italy and Japan on the one hand, and the Allied Powers made up of France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union (USSR), and, to a lesser extent, China. The war ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis Powers and the partition of Germany into east and west, with the east falling to communist USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republic). The League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations Organisation (UNO or, better still, UN) and the “big elephants in the room” became the United States, USSR, China, Great Britain, and France – the five permanent members of the UN’s Security Council, its highest decision-making organ with a veto power over every vital decisions made.
So, a Third World War cannot but also affect and reshape power configurations on the international scene. A new world order is bound to emerge, depending on the realignment of forces and the outcome of the war. Whatever you may think of him, Trump appears to be a student of history as well as a realist. He knows for sure that the world political order may not remain the same after another global conflagration. A weakened United States may not be in a position to dictate its own “peace” to the world as it did in 1945 when the idea of the UN was that of its president, Franklin D. Roosevelt (at his meeting with the Soviet leader, Josef Stalin, in Teheran, Iran, in November 1943). Little wonder, then, that the UN was headquartered in New York, USA; same with its economic arms (the IMF and World Bank), both with headquarters in Washington, D. C., USA. A new world order after a Third World War is not likely to leave the present arrangement in place; what with the period of a weakened United States coinciding with the stealthy but vigorous emergence on the world scene of China, the historic understanding between it and Russia, and the strident move by a growing number of countries that were hitherto strange bedfellows to divert the world economy away from the dominance of the US dollar. With a new world order, the pecking order of world powers as we have it today is bound to suffer a re-arrangement. Maybe such a moment is what China is waiting for to announce itself as the new sheriff in town and assert its hegemony!
Trump never stopped saying that Zelenskyy should never have allowed the war with Russia to happen. Whether he was goaded into it or he truly believed he could take on its more powerful neighbour, the Ukrainian leader failed to reckon with the historic mistake his predecessors made in 1994 when Ukraine agreed to give away its nuclear arsenal in exchange for economic compensation (like biblical Esau who gave away his birthright for a mess of pottage!). The Memorandum Of Understanding giving assurances from Russia, the US, and UK to respect the Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in its existing borders have been disrespected. That, perhaps, must partly have informed the frustration of Zelenskiy; the revisionism of Trump over Russia’s invasion and seizing of 20% of Ukraine’s territory must have been the last straw that broke his camel’s back. Before it was prodded to give it away, Ukraine reportedly had on its soil the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal (created, though, by the collapsed USSR). It is debatable whether Russia would have so whimsically invaded a nuclear-power Ukraine the way it did on 24 February, 2022.
For both Russia and Ukraine, the costs of the war in both human and material terms have been staggering. Hundreds of billions of dollars must have been committed to the war efforts on both sides. Hundreds of thousands of lives have also been lost by both combatants. Civilian casualties, including children, women, the aged, and the infirm, are also counted in tens of thousands. Millions have fled their homes while million others have become refugees in their own country, especially in the bombarded regions of Ukraine and Russia. Now, after more than three years of war, neither side is close to the outcome it desired. NATO that thought goading Ukraine would provide it the opportunity of massing its armament at Russia’s doormouth appears to have lost the belly for a fight, having counted the costs; thus leaving Ukraine in a quandary. The Russians themselves, quick to realise that a NATO-backed Ukraine would not be a pushover, have changed tactics, resorting to a scorched-earth policy that leaves the combatants bleeding. Stalemate!
Now is the time to count the costs for all parties. For Russia, the 20 percent of Ukrainian territory it now occupies may not sufficiently compensate for the war efforts, but that it has stopped NATO from expanding right up to its doorsteps is significant. For Ukraine: The lives lost, the billions committed to the war efforts, the massive destruction of vital infrastructure, and territories lost – all these are to what end and purpose? It has not won the war. It may not join NATO. Now, in addition to losing territory, it will also lose a chunk of its mineral resources as compensation to the US for supporting the war efforts!
The public spat between Zelenskyy and Trump over how to bring the Russia/Ukraine war to an end is a clear indication that Europe has not taken enough time to study and understand the shift in US policy with Trump in the saddle. While his schoolboy dress to the Oval Office was inappropriate, the accusation that Zelenskyy was setup to be embarrassed begs the issue. Similarly, the show of solidarity with Zelenskyy by a horde of European leaders appears inconsequential. If they mean business, let them quickly fill the void that the US has threatened to create by withholding further aid to the Ukranians!
There is a shift in the US foreign policy under Trump. This American president wants to withdraw resources from abroad and concentrate the same into development at home. In doing this, he wants its allies to carry a chunk of the burden that the US alone has borne for decades. That informs the poignant questions Trump asked Zelenskyy and the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. In response to Zelenskyy’s tantrums, Trump asked him: Without US support, would this war not have ended a long time ago? Of course, Zelenskyy knew the answer! Sarcastic Trump! After praising the UK for being a wonderful ally with a powerful military, he asked Starmer whether the UK could stand up to Russia alone! Starmer stammered! Of course, everyone knows the answer! Trump’s US is tired of frittering its resources policing the entire world while its legs wobble at home. But whether – or how -this policy will affect its commitments to Israel remains to be seen.
According to Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian military strategist and theorist, “war is the continuation of politics by other means”. In order words, when politics or diplomacy fails, war ensues. Ironically, leaders recourse to the same (failed) politics or diplomacy to end wars. The Treaty of Versailles ended the First World War, although Adolf HItler, leader of a resurgent Germany, on 17 May, 1933, in a speech to the German Reichstag or Parliament, denounced it as unjust and humiliating, thus setting the stage for the Second World War. Where war between nations ends without a treaty or agreement (as is the case between North and South Korea), the countries concerned are still regarded to be technically at war.
So, after having lost so much in their three-year-old war, Russia and Ukraine still have to sit together and sign an agreement to end the war. It is cobbling that agreement that caused the altercations between Zelenskiy and Trump. With the benefit of hindsight, would it not have been better if both Russia and Ukraine had sat down together to jaw-jaw, rather than war-war before eventually returning to jaw-jaw?
John George Stoessinger in “Why nations go to war”, posits that war is not some faceless entity that merely unfolds in some inexplicable way but that people go to war or precipitate war. In other words, personalities (most of the time leaders) acting on issues go to war. The failure of politics or diplomacy since 1948 when the State of Israel was created in portions of land said to belong to the Palestinians has necessitated wars and unending conflicts and conflagrations among Palestinians and Israel. Hamas invaded parts of Israel on 7 October, 2023; the unresolved, underlying issues remain those emanating from the creation of Israel in 1948. Israel’s ferocious response was the consequence. After wasting billions of dollars, losing thousands of lives, and almost bombing Gaza out of existence, neither Israel nor Hamas achieved its stated objectives. Hamas failed to destroy Israel while Israel failed in its search for the last Hamas. Both, in the end, returned to the negotiation table where US President Joe Biden managed to cobble a ceasefire agreement in his last days in office.
Leadership failure accounts for the Nigerian civil war of 1967 – 1970. It also accounts for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which is generally-acknowledged as the most credible in the country’s chequered history. At his recent book launch, former military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida, whose junta annulled the election, said he will act differently if given another opportunity. But there are some opportunities that, once lost, can never be regained; which must have informed the immortal words of Stephen Grellet (1773 – 1855): “I shall pass through this world but once; any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again”
What Nigeria would have been without the civil war and or the annulment will forever remain in the bowels of conjectures!
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