March 21, 2024 (EIRNS)—In an interview yesterday with the Swiss Weltwoche TV, German Col. Ralph Thiele (ret.) noted that in Germany, the debate about the Ukraine war is upside down: If you talk about peace, you’re denounced as “warmonger,” if you talk about war, you’re allegedly working for peace. An English paraphrase of his comments follows:
The hard core of the faction for sending Taurus missiles into Ukraine wants to carry the war into Russian territory, which is escalating and radicalizing the military confrontation without really changing it. A potential Russian response to a Taurus arrival in Ukraine is maybe a vastly escalated air war against Kiev. The net effect of all that will not bring any advantage for the Ukrainians, the more so, as diplomatic initiatives to have a ceasefire are totally absent.
The Ukraine debate is highly emotionalized in Germany, the main trigger for that being the Bucha incident, and politicians use the emotional factor to instrumentalize the population. Chancellor Scholz is kind of a brake against that, but parts of his own government coalition and the opposition that are behind the heated Taurus debate, are determined to politically damage Scholz.
Politicians in Germany don’t do their actual job, namely to work on solutions, instead of rejecting to think in that way. Politics in Germany is largely decoupled from the thinking of the population, but the refusal to begin talking with Putin is at least not shared in the United States, which does talk with Russia behind the scenes.
The net effect of the Western strategy against Russia is the danger that the harvest of the peace dividend after 1990 is lost, a dividend expected at that time to also come from cooperation with Russia. One should talk to Putin to see whether his offers are serious, but if you always denounce him as a liar, you’ll not find out.
Thiele worked as a staff officer, years ago, under the NATO Supreme commander. He is known for his expertise, which looks beyond the immediate doorstep.
