Why progressives hate peace

How the anti-war Left became war mongers

The best way to upset a progressive Western politician is to advance the cause of peace in Ukraine. Since the start of the latest stage in the Ukraine conflict with Russia’s invasion in February 2022 any attempts to discuss peace have been met with a furious backlash. It is now accepted that Russia and Ukraine had largely reached an agreement on ending the conflict in March/April 2022 under the Istanbul process¹. The Ukrainian side was reportedly told to abandon those talks by Boris Johnson and others. It seems grotesque that foreign politicians want to keep a war going and increase both the death toll and the amount of money spent on war when the protagonists are ready to cease hostilities.

In many conflicts there always seems to be a party of war embodied by the likes of Senator Lindsey Graham in the United States who can be relied upon to always call for war and escalation. The real mystery in the Ukraine conflict is how the generally anti-war Left has become one of the loudest cheerleaders for war. I don’t agree with the Leftist position on many topics, but on wars the traditional British Left had a reasonable view that the working-class soldiery was required to make the ultimate sacrifice for wars started by the political class often in cahoots with financial interests. John Pilger wrote an excellent analysis of the first round of the Ukraine conflict all the way back in 2014.

So what happened?

The progressive narrative is that independent and sovereign Ukraine has been subject to an unprovoked invasion by imperialist Russia because Ukraine chose to align itself with liberal Europe and to become part of the European Union. Some of this narrative is partially true, but it ignores the elephants in the room which are the role of the U.S. Deep State in Ukraine’s internal affairs and the impact of the eastern expansion of NATO.

Progressive politicians have fed the people a diet of lies, starting with the narrative that supporting Ukraine was about “defending European values” when Ukraine was officially acknowledged to be mired in corruption and violence². This story morphed into “protecting the international order” and then moved on to protecting Europe against possible invasion. Talking heads have finally started saying the quite part out loud and acknowledging that this is a proxy war against Russia which should be fought to last Ukrainian.

Ian Dunt is a progressive talking head who writes a Substack column called Striking 13 where he had this to say about the Russia-Ukraine war “And there is a reason for that. It is a physical conflict between liberalism and populism. it is the physical battle in what is usually a war of words. It is the freezer in which our ideological struggles play out.”³

I suspect that many Leftists actually believe that the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a physical manifestation of a struggle between “liberalism” and populism. Like an immersive computer game, Ian Dunt and his progressive friends can sit 1,500 miles away and lobby for a prolongation of a war which they have no intention of fighting in. It is reasonably certain that these people have not been to and probably never will go to the areas of Eastern Ukraine where this conflict is taking place.

In order to buy-into the one-dimensional good prince Zelenskyy versus evil wizard Putin narrative you have to ignore an awful lot of reality. One important reality is that the U.S. Deep State has worked with Ukrainian nationalists on and off since the end of the Second World War primarily to create a problem for the Soviet Union.⁴ In 2019, U.S. Deep State RAND Corporation even produced a strategy paper called “Overextending and unbalancing Russia” which included a specific option for the U.S. to arm Ukraine noting that “any increase in U.S. military arms and advice to Ukraine would need to be carefully calibrated to increase the costs to Russia of sustaining its existing commitment without provoking a much wider conflict in which Russia, by reason of proximity, would have significant advantages.” So not only did RAND understand that this U.S. move was provocative, but that the consequences for Ukraine of a wider conflict would likely be devasting.

Professor Mearsheimer covers this exact point in his definitive 2015 analysis which has now been viewed 30 million times. He makes clear that the United States foreign policy apparatus encouraged Ukraine to play hardball with Russia and that the only outcome to that dynamic would be the eventual destruction of Ukraine. This is exactly what happened seven years after his warning.

As well as ignoring the U.S. Deep State’s role in the conflict, and the U.S. State Department’s role in the 2014 Maidan coup, the progressive political class also needs to ignore Nato Defence College’s own assessment of Russia’s military preparations. Their May 2022 analysis showed that that Russia had invested in a defensive rather than an offensive military capability⁵.

So it seems very unlikely that Russia was intending to recreate the Soviet Union given that they did not make any preparations to do this and given that President Putin has rejected the idea of recreating the Soviet Union. There is no evidence to support the assertion that Russia intends to march on Warsaw.

Concluding comments

Unlike the Western progressive political class, I have a dog in this particular fight and have spent many years in Russia. I also have second-hand knowledge of people who have been killed and badly injured by this conflict on both sides, I would therefore support any peace proposal, whether it comes from President Trump or anyone else. I strongly suspect that the majority of people actually involved in this conflict would like to see it end and would be willing to compromise over whether some parts of Eastern Ukraine are run by Kiev or Moscow. In the case of Crimea, nobody seriously doubts that a significant majority of the people living there wish to be part of Russia⁶.

Modern Leftists can generally be relied upon to support damaging policies which leave the U.K. poorer. This was on display during the insane government response to COVID, which Ian Dunt and fellow Leftists enthusiastically supported. The situation with Russia is little different, I suspect that the progressives are simply angry that Russian leaders have rejected progressive nonsense. There are many ways in which one can legitimately criticize Russia’s government, but in this instance, it seems to be the intolerant West that has been the more important aggressor.

There have been multiple opportunities to completely avoid this conflict and to stop it once started, several Russian proposals about Ukrainian neutrality have appeared reasonable. The U.S. Deep State has chosen instead to use Ukraine as a battering ram to harass a perceived geopolitical opponent. The progressive political class has decided to become the “useful idiots” for the neo-con war mongers by supporting further escalation and prolongation. Young Russians and Ukrainians pay with their lives to fight out the fantasy liberal Ukraine versus populist Russia narrative and taxpayers are left with staggering bills. The Kiel Institute estimates that a total of EUR 380 billion has been provided to Ukraine by way of government aid and loans (EUR 27 billion by the United Kingdom).

Only wilfully ignorant armchair generals could possibly want to extend the war.

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Alex Kriel is by training a physicist and was one of the first people to highlight the flawed nature of the Imperial COVID model, he is a founder of the Thinking Coalition which comprises a group of citizens who are concerned about Government overreach (www.thinkingcoalition.com)

1. https://www.indiatoday.in/global/story/understanding-the-importance-of-the-istanbul-agreement-in-the-russia-ukraine-peace-process-2577844-2024-08-06

2. https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/ukraine/

3. US election: God help us all

4. https://archive.org/details/ColdWarAlliesCIAsRelationsWUkrainianNationalists

5. https://www.ndc.nato.int/news/news.php?icode=1696

6. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26606097