In an interview with EMMA published Jan. 12., the leading feminist political journal of Germany, former German national security advisor Gen. Erich Vad (ret.) warns against a continuation of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, while there is an absence of diplomacy. Sending more battle tanks to Ukraine will only lead to a higher human toll on both sides, including civilians, but it will not bring the territories in Donbass and Crimea back to Kiev; instead, the war will be a “bloodbath like Verdun in World War I.” There is no solution on the battlefield, as Gen. Mike Milley, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has stated. There must be diplomacy, and that can only work if Washington and Moscow talk directly—after all, it is a proxy war of the U.S. against Russia.
Asked what he would have told Chancellor Olaf Scholz, had he been Scholz’s national security advisor in February 2022 (Vad served former Chancellor Angela Merkel over 2006-2013), Vad replies he would have urged Scholz to convince the U.S. to enter talks with Russia. If the war drags on, with no diplomatic effort emerging, if—as some believe was possible—Russia’s positions should become untenable under the buildup of Western weapons in Ukraine, the danger of sliding into a nuclear strike, a Third World War, would become imminent, Vad warns. As far as the Green Party, which is part of the government, is concerned, Vad said he is shocked by the fact that a single party has been able to pull all of Germany into a war.