Imperial dreams and the plains of Eastern Europe

With the Cold War scaling new heights (or sinking to new lows) in the mid-1980s, former singer of the British pop trio “The Police” attempted to capture the prevailing mood by penning a pop song entitled “Russians.” “In Europe and America, there is a growing feeling of hysteria,” Sting growled. Indeed, hysteria about the Russians seems to have reared its ugly head again. But in fairness, then and now, it is not a mere case of responding to “rhetorical speeches by the Soviets.” Russia has its own role to play in this sordid conflict, as indeed it did in the 1980s. When in February 2022, earlier intelligence reports turned out to be truthful and the amassing of Russian troops along the border with Ukraine emerged indeed to have been the preparatory steps for an invasion, Western politicians and media went into overdrive, alleging that Russia was guilty of carrying out the first major act of warfare in Europe since 1945 and clearly violating both the Budapest Agreements and the sovereignty of Ukraine in doing so. The legally dubious 1999 NATO aerial attacks on Serbia seemed to have safely dropped off into the foggy netherworlds of collective amnesia. No doubt the Russian military assault has evoked strong and often emotional responses across Europe and USA and the secondary effects of the war with respect to energy security, immigration, and the ramifications of the economic sanctions are enormous. Yet, as the cliche goes the first casualty of war is always truth and in an era of heavily politicized media coverage it should come as little surprise just how tendentious and often emotional reporting on the issue and political responses to it has been. In this short essay, I will provide a bit more context to the Ukrainian conflict and submit three major points. At one point, Sting was right. There really is no monopoly on common sense, on either side of the political fence. I will also briefly discuss a few points raised in Renate Hürtgen’s essay. I will submit three points. First, the Ukrainian conflict has to be understood in context and as a confrontation between the United States and Russia. It is neither an isolated intraSlavic feud nor a regional border dispute in eastern Europe, nor indeed a conflict of “values” between a cosmopolitan liberal western “community” and the much more conservative, if not to say reactionary self-appointed guardian of a deeply grounded and rooted traditional and religious Europe. In truth, the conflict should be seen as a clash between an America that has fallen under the influence, yet again, of