By Alexander Kostyuk
The most successful form of warfare is to strike at the enemy’s strategy. This is the main thesis of the famous treatise “The Art of War.” It should be added here that the most successful weapon in this case is wisdom.
History teaches us that the formula for ending a war almost always has one important component: promoting peace, as a method to deliver wisdom for the conflict resolution in a direct or indirect ways. History shows that promoting peace, even bordering on coercion, has been used successfully by large and experienced countries. Let us recall the Korean War with reference to Dr. Carter Malkasian and his book “The Korean War 1950-1953.” Already at the end of the negotiations, the United States felt resistance from the South Korean population to end the war, because the South Koreans did not want Korea to be divided into two parts – North and South, and were also against the deployment of the Chinese army in North Korea. There were protests in South Korea, but the United States and its partners resorted to peace enforcement by offering South Korea good postwar security guarantees, assistance in the development of the Korean army, and leaving their 8th Army, which had participated in the war, in South Korea. The coercion to peace worked – the war ended in two months and has never resumed.
What is happening now in the world and in Ukraine looks like coercion to peace. The postponement of aid because of the debate in the US Congress, the postponement of aid from the EU, the reduction of arms and ammunition supplies starting in late summer, the decision of the European Council to start negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU, but subject to certain conditions until March of this year – all of this, to one degree or another, is evidence of coercion to peace in Ukraine by partner countries. It is likely that the delayed US and EU assistance is intended to fill in for post-war security guarantees for Ukraine, or the West’s first contribution to Ukraine’s post-war security, and the EU wants to start accession talks with Ukraine, where the war has already ended, because the negotiation process looks more predictable to Europeans, as does the result: Ukraine’s accession to the EU. NATO’s perspective is realistic, because without Ukraine in NATO, there will be no security in Europe, and Russia will be constantly swayed from the........