Articles by
Ralph Bosshard
For Europe, nothing learned will be expensive
In a dynamically changing environment, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be forced to take a position on the Trump administration's peace plan within the next few days, which leaves him little room for improvement. US President Donald Trump is leaving him with almost no choice but to “take it or leave it,” and Zelensky's European allies can offer him little support (1). Zelensky is essentially on his own.
Minsk Security Conference: Give the pragmatists a chance!
The International Conference on Eurasian Security in Minsk is not quite as prominent as the Munich Security Conference, nor does it enjoy the media attention of its rival event in Bavaria. However, it takes place in a location where history has already been made, namely in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, where the Minsk Agreements were signed, which were supposed to end the Ukraine conflict. The fact that this did not happen was certainly due in part to some of the participants at the Munich Security Conference...
Bad advice from the past
History teaches us that wars are rarely decided by individual battles, but rather by long-term, complex processes in which political, economic, and moral factors are just as decisive as military ones. However, the West continues to be strongly influenced by the dogma of the decisive battle, which dates back to the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz. In contrast, Russia tends to follow the principle of strategic patience and war of attrition. These different ways of thinking are leading to mutual misunderstandings and misjudgments in the current conflict in Ukraine.
Ukraine War - the Rhetoric of Frustration
In the eyes of the local public, the war in Ukraine has now primarily developed into a drone and missile war. Of course, this has more to do with media coverage than with the reality “on the ground.” Nevertheless—or perhaps precisely because of this—the rhetoric of Western European leaders is becoming increasingly bellicose. Recently, former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace set a new high in this regard. But Western Europe's support stops short of providing real help.