Eurasia Press & News
Europe was at the center of the two world wars and suffered enormously. Since then the weapons of war have become much more destructive. There are over 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and the actual use of less than 10% of this is enough to destroy the entire world by its direct and indirect impacts. Hence preventing the third world war and a nuclear war should be the topmost priority of the world.
Europe can play and should play the most important role in preventing the third world war. One reason is that as it was at the center of causing the first two world wars, so it can be on the right side of history by preventing the third one which has all the possibilities of being the most destructive. Secondly, it is in the self-interest of Europe to prevent the third world war as, apart from the fact that the entire world will suffer from this, Europe is vulnerable to suffering the most. Thirdly, Europe has the intellectual and the diplomatic resources to contribute in a very important way for peace. Fourthly, Europe is well placed, on leadership to leadership basis but perhaps even more in terms of people to people basis and institution to institution basis, to taking the USA in a less aggressive and more peaceful direction.
Thus while Europe can play a very important role in preventing the Third World War, unfortunately its actual actions in recent times have been more in the direction of increasing the possibilities of the Third World War, not reducing them.
The highest risks of WW3 have been most widely discussed in the context of escalation of Ukraine conflict into one involving more and more direct confrontation between Russia and USA/NATO, and more recently even more in the context of long-range weapons supplied by the USA/NATO to Ukraine, along with the technical expertise for this, being used to attack mainland Russia. In this escalation, one European country UK has played a big role, while the President of France had also played an escalatory role earlier along with some others, forgetting that in case a much bigger war becomes a reality, then densely populated cities will face very high risk and the smaller countries will be the first to face an existential crisis. The USA is in a much better position to recover from a limited nuclear war compared to several smaller European countries.
It is extremely surprising that despite their high vulnerability several European governments have not been acting in ways that are protective for their people. The world expects something different from Europe—the people of world want Europe to take better care of the protection of its people but in addition be more protective also towards the rest of the world, as Europe has the intellectual resources to play such a role but these are not used properly for this purpose. Whatever be the compulsions of Europe’s closeness to the USA or submission to USA, these should not be allowed to become dominant to the extent that the most important protective role is also given up or surrendered.
If we follow the USA/NATO role in Ukraine, then clearly this has not been in conformity with the needs of world peace. NATO membership of Ukraine was promoted aggressively despite only about 20% of Ukraine’s people supporting this, while at the same time all possible efforts were made to increase hostility towards Russia and even towards Russian speaking citizens of Ukraine. Some of the most renowned statesman, diplomats and academics of the west were warning all along that this will prove very disruptive for peace, but their warnings were ignored. The names of about 100 such experts can be mentioned.
So far European authorities (whether of European institutions or of some leading countries) have made the serious mistake of going along with the USA for creating entirely avoidable tensions and conflicts in very sensitive areas within Europe, and when this led to a war, again they are found to be becoming parties to decision which are almost certain to lead to a bigger and wider war.
Meanwhile in the other most serious conflict zone of the middle-east with the risks of escalating into a bigger war, again some leading European countries notably Germany have been complicit in the ongoing genocidal aggression in Gaza by Israel in the form of supplying weapons and extending diplomatic support (although some have stayed away from this and have even supported the Palestinian cause in a limited way). This region being close to Europe if there is a bigger war then there is the possibility of many more refugees trying to come to Europe. However here also Europe has not been able to play any important, effective role in contributing to peace and de-escalation.
This failure of Europe to become an important and effective force of peace is deeply disappointing at a time when the world certainly needs such a role. Europe needs to become a much more assertive and effective force of peace at world level in these difficult times, and its leaders should really get together to re-assess and change their present day misdirected, weak and confusing ideas regarding their role in a deeply troubled world at a very difficult and important time of history.
