Around 2010 there was a debate among the Western intellectuals about whether the level of violence had decreased or would decrease in the 21st century taking into consideration both wars between states and internal civil clashes. There were optimists such as the American Steven Pinker and the Israeli Yuval Noah Harari, who, in particular, argued that the large states no longer need to attack each other, and everything has shifted to economic and technological competition. (It was a little strange to hear that from Harari, considering the region that the historian is from).
Those who claimed that the level of violence neither had decreased nor will decrease and no “age of peace” has started, turned out right. Nassim Taleb, the Lebanese-American writer, and financier, was among them. His most famous book, “The Black Swan”, is a symbol of unexpected and unpredictable disaster.
For us, the catastrophe came in 2020, and at that moment it seemed to many people in the world that it was a military conflict of “local significance”. A large-scale war broke out in Europe in 2022, which has already been lasting for 75 days, and its end is not yet visible. Joining the pessimist, I will assume that everything won’t finish in Ukraine.
Of course, there is a big temptation to pretend that everything in the world was perfect, all nations were living in harmony, and suddenly a lunatic named Putin appeared who fouled up in the world. But it is too simple, I would even say primitivism that distorts reality. Suffice to recall the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the recognition of Kosovo’s independence in 2008, on the other hand, the fact that the oligarchs close to Putin have been making future doing business outside of Russia and making investments, there were cooperating with German, British and partly with American businessmen. And the high authorities of those countries represent the interests of those businessmen. So, there is no need to idealize one side and demonize the other.
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We should not compare Putin with Stalin either. The problem is not only in the scale of the repressions. Stalin had an ideology, Putin doesn’t. The ideology of Russia’s leader, as well as his current Western opponents, is money. And this is where I see the source of the new wars which threaten the world. In short, the problem is not the madness of leaders, but their infinite “pragmatism”.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
