The word “escalation” is everywhere. One hears and reads it all the time, but it is no longer just associated with the insistence in Moscow on talking about nuclear strikes and a third world war.
In Europe as in the United States, a not negligible part of the press and political circles is now worried about what would be the parallel escalation which both Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin would engage in, the former by reinforcing his military support to Ukraine, the latter by letting his entourage talk about the imminence of the apocalypse.
Well, no! Nothing could be further from the truth than this equal treatment of the Russian and American presidents. Joe Biden is arming a country under attack, while Vladimir Putin is sowing death and desolation there. One defends freedom, the other would like to crush it. One is acting in accordance with international law, while the other is flouting it outrageously. The difference is fundamental, but there is something even more serious than this moral confusion.
Far from having no consequences, this idea of double escalation serves in fact the Russian president well. In Washington, it leads to contesting arms deliveries to Ukraine by making it clear that the United States should not let itself be dragged into a war that would only concern the European Union and the Ukrainians, who would have to defend themselves alone against Vladimir Putin.
This is obviously what the Russian president would like. That is why he is trying to spread fear with his spectre of a third world war and, in Europe, the double-escalation line has the opposite effect, but it is just as profitable for Mr Putin. It is turning this war into a US-Russian arm wrestling match in which Europe should remain neutral.
“Let’s not become auxiliaries of the United States”, says the murmur that will continue to rise as long as the war lasts and which must be refuted by the facts.
First of all, it was not the United States that was the first to come to Ukraine’s aid. It was the European Union, because its 27 member states immediately understood that if they allowed Vladimir Putin to seize Kyiv, he would then embark on fulfilling his dream of reconquering the Empire of the Tsars. The stability of the whole of Europe was threatened and that is why the 27 immediately armed the Ukrainians while Joe Biden insisted, on the other side of the Atlantic, that the United States would not commit men to the Ukrainian battlefield.
If anyone has dragged the other into this war, it is Europe and not the other way around, and the United States – the second truth to be re-established – is not alone in increasing its support for Ukraine today. Even Germany, which until a few days ago refused to deliver heavy weapons to Kyiv and which is now supplying it with tanks, all the Europeans, with the sole exception of Hungary, are now arming Ukraine with ever more powerful equipment.
The reason is not that Europeans and Americans would have decided to go to war with Russia by taking advantage of its weakening, but that Vladimir Putin is becoming increasingly dangerous. He lost his first offensive, the one he launched against Kyiv on 24 February. He is now struggling to secure control only of the Donbass. His failure and humiliation are becoming such that he may seek salvation in a flight forward and it is therefore imperative to help Ukraine inflict such a clear defeat on him that he has no choice but to negotiate a lasting compromise.
This will not be achieved overnight. This war is not over, but it will not be stopped by abandoning the Ukrainians, but by arming them, as quickly and as well as possible.
