[00:00:00] Hi, everybody. Welcome along to another episode of the Dispatchers podcast. My name is Brendan Malone. It is great to be back with you again and today's topic of conversation, why the war in Ukraine violates Christian just war teaching.
[00:00:16] Hi, my name is Brendan Malone and you're listening to the Dispatchers, the podcast that strives to cut through all the noise in order to challenge the popular narratives of the day with some good old fashioned contrarian thinking. You might not always agree, but at least you'll be taking a deeper look at the world around you.
[00:00:33] Now, before we go any further, and I really hate to have to do this, but basically what's happened around this whole conversation is a massive and very unhelpful false dichotomy has arisen. There is a lot of clamouring for people to sort of beat the drums of war. And so as a result, what's going on regularly now is that anybody who suggests that maybe there's another way we don't actually have to carry on with the war and we should try and secure peace in the Ukraine, they are automatically accused of being some sort of pro Russia Putin apologist or Putin stooge. That is absolutely not who I am and that is absolutely not the intention of what I'm about to explore in today's episode. Like I said, this is one giant false dichotomy and there's a lot of people who have whipped themselves up into a frenzy. And, and it's also clear to me that a lot of people are basing their views on this particular issue solely on very brief media reports they've seen and what they are seeing on social media. There's all sorts of politics tied up in it as well. And that's not really helping because the simple fact is this is a very complex situation. It is not a simple case of Putin decided that he was going to randomly invade a neighbouring country because he's some sort of Hitler 2.0. That is not who Putin is. And if you want some recommended reading, I can do that if you send me a message. I'm more than happy to give you some recommended reading to give you a bit of clarity on all of these issues. But this is a war that I have been following closely, using foreign sources of different varieties to try and get an accurate or as accurate a picture as I can. Because the reality is, the first casualty in every war is truth. And propaganda reigns supreme. And propaganda comes from all sides. The Russian side, the Ukrainian side, the Western side, Poland. There's been a whole ton of it. So the best you can do is try and read different sources and see where you know the truth might lie and also accept that you just don't know everything because the fog of war creates a great amount of confusion. But having followed this war closely, it's clear to me, as I said, that a lot of people are not really understanding the complexities of this. And secondly, it's also very clear to me, having followed this war for several years now, every time you speak up and try and suggest we should be trying to sue for peace, you are automatically hit with just a wall, a barrage of oftentimes actually abuse from people. And the accusations are, as I said, that you're pro Putin, that you are anti the Ukraine having sovereignty, all that kind of stuff. It's just not true. So let's just be clear about this up front. Putin absolutely is the aggressor here. He invaded a sovereign nation and it is not justifiable to invade a sovereign nation. However, as I said, there is a whole lot of complexity that led up to that event and we need to understand that if we are going to think well about this issue. Now, that is not the topic of today's podcast. Instead, I want to look at in this episode, how the war in Ukraine is now violating Christian just war teaching, which means that we can't actually, as Christians, throw our weight behind an ongoing war. And I think this is very, very important to understand because as I said, there are some very clear moral principles around just war teaching and there's not a huge amount of them. So it's pretty simple and straightforward to understand. And right now, the Ukraine war is absolutely violating just war war teaching. Before I get into that though, just a quick update. Don't forget, if you want to support the work of Left Foot Media and you want to get yourself a daily episode of the Dispatchers podcast, go to patreon.com leftfootmedia the link is in today's show notes and become a five dollar monthly patron. Plus, if you want to get access to our brand new weekly episode of scripture reflection and study called the Lamp, where we take a deep dive into a different passage of the Christian Scriptures each episode, all you have to do is contribute any amount at all. As little as $1 a month is all it takes and you will get access to that episode every single week. Last but not least, don't forget the new substack. I am producing regular written content. There is an article that's very relevant actually that I published just a couple of days ago about how these Very anemic and reductionist. Comparisons between the Ukraine war and World War II are actually not helpful at all. And we need to take a step back from using them. So if you're interested in that, you can find that on my substack, the dispatcher's substack. I will post a link for that in the show notes as well. Alrighty, so let's just jump into this topic of conversation then. What is the Christian just war teaching? For those who are not aware, it really is St. Augustine who formulates this in the first clear kind of way, and then it has developed over the centuries and others give input to, to Christian just war teaching as well. In a nutshell, you've got this interesting sort of conflict that goes on. And the interesting conflict is Jesus tells us, blessed are the peacemakers, we are to love our enemies, we are to actually work for peace and to be people of peace. However, what happens when you have an unjust aggressor in a society and in this case you have a nation that is acting as an unjust aggressor. But this principle would apply to simple things like personal self defence, it would apply to policing within the borders of a nation. So it's not just about war. How do you sort of reconcile the fact that Christ calls us to be peacemakers? This is a profoundly important part of our Christian tradition. But at the same time, there are moments where perhaps you might need to use force in order to secure and obtain or bring back order that has been lost, and so peace can actually be secured. So for Christ, for example, he has amongst his followers, amongst Christian followers, right from the very beginning, you have people who are centurions who serve as soldiers in the Roman army, and there is no command for them to come out of the Roman army, for example. So clearly there is sort of these two things need to be reconciled. And really just war teaching is effectively a reconciliation of these two important things, which perhaps a very superficial and surface reading of these things would cause people to come to the wrong conclusion, that we're all supposed to be pacifists all of the time. That is not the Christian tradition. And so just war teaching is effectively taking the principle, the moral principle of double effect, where if you are forced into a situation where no other options are available to you, you can actually have recourse in this case to the use of force in order to try and secure a greater and higher good. But there are some important caveats. We'll explore those criteria in just a second in a bit more detail. And we'll explore how Ukraine is violating those criteria. But basically, in a nutshell, what's being proposed here is that you can have recourse to the use of war. So warfare as a form of, probably more accurately should be called a just defence against an unjust aggressor. And that is morally acceptable as long as you contain yourself within certain moral boundaries. So let's look at the Catechism of the Catholic Church, articles 2307-2317, because it gives the perfect summation, I think, in a very succinct kind of way, of just war teaching and exactly what's involved. The Fifth Commandment forbids the intentional destruction of human life because of the evils and injustices that accompany all war. The Church insistently urges everyone to prayer and to action so that the divine goodness may free us from the ancient bondage of war. So up front it makes it very clear that war is evil. It is not a good thing. Even if there might be sorry moments where we have recourse to fight a just military defence, this is still not a good situation. And so our primary orientation should be not to say, well, we've got a baseline of war that we will tolerate, but instead our basic orientation should be that we should try and bring an end to war and that it only erupts in certain circumstances where it is a moral necessity and where the moral conditions are met. So straight away you can see this is a very narrow sort of framework that the Christian Church is calling us to all citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war. However, as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self defence. Once all peace efforts have failed, the strict conditions for legitimate defence by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. So in other words, this is not ever something that is entered into lightly and we should be very, very cautious. The reality is that war is evil, it is destructive, it creates carnage. It's not just the human victims who are killed in wars, but those who are maimed, those who are left behind. And the future of a population, like for example, in the Ukraine right now, the decimation of their demographics, particularly of their male population, is so serious that this war already is going to have disastrous long term effects for them as a nation for many decades to come. And so it's really, really important to treat this with absolute seriousness and treat it as A grave thing. Never be flippant about war. And here are the conditions that are required for a conflict to be a legitimate just war, to be a legitimate and moral defence that has recourse to the use of military and arms to defend a nation at one and the same time. So, in other words, all of these conditions must be met. The damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave and certain. I think it's absolutely fair to say that there is serious damage being inflicted by the aggressor, Russia, in this particular case. And so, absolutely, I think the Ukrainian people have a right to, to try and defend themselves. Now, I know some might debate whether this is lasting. It's certainly grave and it's absolutely certain that it's happening. Is it lasting? Well, that's an interesting question and I'm not sure anybody is competent to answer that question. No one really knows the mind of the Russian leadership. What are they actually going to do? Are they going to stop at the territory that they have? Do they want the whole of Ukraine? One thing that I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence is that Putin is not Hitler 2.0. He doesn't have plans to conquer the whole of Europe. People are making that claim. At the moment that claim is baseless, but at the end of the day, we sort of don't really know. And so it's fair to say that possibly it could be lasting, but absolutely it is grave and it is certain that this is going on. Second requirement, all other means of putting an end to the war must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. Now, on this point, I'm not convinced at this present moment whether or not this is actually the case. I don't think we have shown that diplomacy and a more robust and face to face diplomacy with Russia might not actually yield a positive result here and bring about peace for the Ukrainian people. There's a lot of people claiming that this is impractical, but the reality of the situation as it stands is we haven't really tried this. In fact, it's kind of worse than that because what we have had is, for example, that incident where Boris Johnson deliberately intervened to stop the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. And it seems that in doing that there was Western interests at play here and this is why this whole thing is an absolute mess. But I think that the just war requirement that all other means of putting it to an end must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective. I don't think this has been met under the current scenario that we are facing right now in Ukraine. Number three, there must be serious prospect of success. And this one here for the Ukraine, I don't think you can actually argue that there is a serious prospect of success here. The claim is that if we just pump more money and arms into the Ukraine, that will solve the problem. But that's not going to solve the problem. Clearly, Ukraine is running out of men to sacrifice in this war. So for those of us who have been following this war for some years now, you will be aware that the Ukraine elevated, increased the maximum ceiling for their conscription age. So they took, they put the conscription age, the maximum age at which a male, sorry. Could be conscripted into this fight to the front lines. They have increased that. And the reason they've increased that is because they are running out of men to fight in this war. So it's not just a matter of pumping more weapons into the region because Russia has a massive population and therefore has far more manpower to throw at this war. And there's also the way in which this war is being fought. A lot of people don't seem to realise that this is really a brand new type of warfare and it's kind of concerning what it actually portends for the future of the world. This is now a full scale drone based warfare. So what we are staring down the barrel now of is a future where nations will be able to inflict a whole lot of damage and the older former ways of fighting war are not actually effective when it comes to trying to defeat drone technology.
[00:15:11] So there's a whole mess that's been created here and Russia is churning out more drones than what the Ukrainians are. But even if you were to pump more drones into the Ukraine, that doesn't solve the manpower problem. Putting European troops on the ground escalates this into something far more serious. And why the heck would we be trying to escalate this into something far more serious and deadly, which potentially then has global ramifications. That is absolutely an immoral and absurd course of action to be taking. And even if all the bluster that's going on right now out of England and France, even if they commit troops to the ground, they just don't have enough troops still to actually match it. It's clear that, for example, Italy has sent signals and so has Germany, that they're not really interested in joining a hot war with Russia, this is kind of madness, actually. And this sort of bizarre beating of the drums that's going on right now to escalate this war, I think, is really, really concerning. This is why we should be actually pushing for peace, not for a continuation and certainly not for an escalation. The next moral requirement is the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition. And I think it's fair to say that the Ukraine war is violating this principle. The use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. Because the reality is, what would the alternative be? What happens if there is a peace arrangement and the war stops and there's concessions and Russia gets the territory it wants? Well, people would carry on living and they would carry on living under Russian rule. That's it. That's the extent of what the change would be. Now, yes, that would obviously have a big impact on people who might be quite accustomed to, or might prefer living under a more Western style of rule. But even then, that's not a particularly accurate way of describing the nature of Ukraine and Ukrainian governments either, because they are and have been continually rated as the most corrupt nation in the world. Second behind them is Russia. So this is a whole very different scenario to what we are used to in the west. But in saying that there would be a relative stability in those regions. And so I think you really are doing it quite difficult if you're trying to convince me that that would be far worse than the evils that are being wrought. All of the slaughtering and the maiming, the killing that's going on right now in the Ukraine is better than that option. I just don't think that that is a serious position to adopt. Now, here's what the catechism goes on to say. These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the Just War doctrine. The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgement of those who have responsibility for, for the common good. Public authorities, in this case, have the right and the duty to impose on citizens the obligations necessary for national defence. So a government can. They are well within their rights to actually create and to foster the situations necessary to defend a nation against an unjust aggressor, if they can meet the moral requirements. Those who are sworn to serve their country in the armed forces are servants of the security and freedom of nations. If they carry out their duty honourably, they truly contribute to the common good of the nation and the maintenance of peace. So, in other words, even if you have a Just war. You can't then go and do whatever you want to. You can't do immoral things and say, well, our cause is just, so anything goes. Sadly, that is what we saw in World War II. There are multiple examples across all sides, obviously, but I am thinking here predominantly of the Allies who were involved in a just war where they absolutely committed atrocities and grave evils that were never morally justified and no person of good conscience could ever support. But that doesn't change the fact that the war itself, the reason for actually mounting the war and the defence against Nazism, was actually a good one. And in saying that, that whole thing is complicated and messy as well, because we now have a lot more of the historical record available to us thanks to the fall of Communism, and we have a lot more documents now open to us that we didn't have previously. And it does seem pretty clear now that Stalin is actually the primary aggressor and the primary architect of World War II. And he deliberately. Well, we know he did because he spoke about this. He wanted to actually play off the Allies and the Germans against each other. He wanted to bleed them both dry so that that would provide advantage for him for the promotion of Soviet Communism all around the world. And he was very, very much of a mind that if he could get the Western powers to be weakened by war, then that would open up the way for the Communist revolution to really take hold around the globe. And so that whole thing is a mess. But there's no denying the fact that it was a just war to defend against the evils and the atrocities that were going on with Nazism. However, there were also evils that were committed by the Allies that would be in violation of this important principle. So even if you have a just war, it doesn't mean anything, anything goes. Public authority should make equitable provision for those who, for reasons of conscience, refuse to bear arms. These are nonetheless obliged to serve the human community in some other way. Now, this is really important, because right now this important principle is absolutely being violated in the Ukraine. They are forcing people who do not want to fight and kill in this war. They are literally dragging them off the streets and they are dragging them to the front lines. They are doing other things as well, like creating legal conditions where lawyers who previously would have been able to actually make legal defences for these people who don't want to fight in the war and they could go to court, for example, to secure an exemption. They have created legal circumstances where those lawyers can't defend those people. And so this whole Thing is geared towards getting as many eligible people onto the front lines, and they are forcing them on, literally grabbing people and putting them on the front line. So it is clear that this principle is absolutely being violated right now in this war. The church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties. And this is exactly what I was talking about earlier. Non combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely. Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. So you can't say, oh, I was just following orders. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide. Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation. A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons, especially atomic, biological or chemical weapons, to commit such crimes. The accumulation of arms strikes many as a paradoxically suitable way of deterring potential adversaries from war. They see it as the most effective means of ensuring peace among nations. So this is what is commonly referred as the nuclear deterrent. If they've got nuclear arms, you get nuclear arms and there's a deterrent. There's a mutual sort of deterrent that I don't want to be nuked. So I'm not going to nuke them because I know that they're going to nuke me back. This method of deterrence gives rise to strong moral reservations. The arms race does not ensure peace. Far from eliminating the causes of war, it risks aggravating them. And it's fair to say this is the very scenario that we are staring down the barrel of now with Russia and its massive nuclear arsenal. They have the biggest stockpile and they have the biggest strategically ready group of missiles of any nation. Spending enormous sums to produce ever new types of weapons impedes efforts to aid needy populations. It thwarts the development of peoples overarmament, multiplies reasons for conflict, and increases the danger of escalation. The production and the sale of arms affect the common good of nations and of the international community.
[00:24:49] Hence, public authorities have the right and the duty to regulate them. The Short term pursuit of private or collective interests cannot but legitimate undertakings that promote violence and conflict among nations and compromise the international juridical order. Now, I think it's fair to say that on this point there is a massive issue that no one is really talking about, and that is the way in which the arms industry absolutely benefits. The longer this war goes on and the more countries get involved. And so I think there's a massive issue here that no one is really talking about injustice, excessive economic or social inequalities, envy, distrust and pride raging among men. And nations constantly threaten peace and cause wars. Everything done to overcome these disorders contributes to building up peace and avoiding war. Insofar as men are sinners, the threat of war hangs over them and will so continue until Christ comes again. But insofar as they can vanquish sin by coming together in charity, violence itself will be vanquished and these words will be fulfilled. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. So, as I said earlier, it is clear when you look at those moral requirements for something to be a legitimate form of just war, the Ukraine war is violating several of them. And so there's a problem with supporting more war in the Ukraine. Here are some other considerations as well, though secondary or separate to the actual moral issues. Putin is absolutely a ruthless autocrat, but he is not the genocidal Hitler 2.0 that some people are now desperately trying to paint him as. And I think the reason why they're trying to paint him as the genocidal Hitler 2.0 is because it is a convenient narrative to justify, I think, at times, a very trite, flippant approach to this conflict. It is a way for some people to justify ongoing war and keeping the war alive. You can't actually justify war unless you create a fear amongst people of some dictatorial, genocidal evil that has to be stood against. And so World War II has become a powerful narrative in the Western world ever since the end of that war. But for a lot of people it's pretty clear. And I include myself in this for most of my adult life. I did not really appreciate the true complexities of World War II. I had a very simplistic idea in my mind, and I'm someone who watched documentaries and watched films and read books, but it was clear that I wasn't actually reading enough history. I was just reading a very narrow sliver. And often it would be things that tend to sort of confirm the bias about this war, the sort of reductionist approach. But the reality is that what's happening now is we're trying to paint Putin as Hitler 2.0, and that really isn't the case, and it's not helpful. If you want to read a good book, I would highly recommend Philip Short's magisterial biography called Putin. And it is a massive work. If you live local to me and you know me, then you can borrow my copy if you like. This is a book that was researched for 10 years by a team of researchers before Philip Short wrote a single word. And it is absolutely not pro Putin or a Putin apologetic. Absolutely not. But it is very clear and it lays out the history. And when you read that history, you realize, man, there's a whole lot of complexities going on here, and it's a mess. Basically, there's a global situation here. It's not simply Russia and Ukraine. The west is absolutely complicit in what's gone on here and what's led up to this. So I'd recommend that as a valuable read. Now, here's something else I think we need to keep in mind. More than one thing can be true at the same time. And whenever I see people treating nuance like it's verboten, you know something bad is happening. If people are trying to ride roughshod over, ignore, deny that there is actual complications and nuance involved in all of this, that's never a good sign. And so, yeah, more than one thing can be true. At the same time, Putin is the aggressor. Putin unjustly invaded a sovereign nation. However, it's also true that the west has not helped this situation. There are complications leading up to that military action on the part of Putin. There are problems within Ukraine itself. It's not just a simple matter. Some people seem to be talking like, well, if we just fight this war, then democracy and peace and lollipop land will return to the Ukraine. That is not what will be the result of that kind of course of action. And so there is nuance. There's complexity here. We need to consider all of it. Other people are suggesting that we can't really enter into agreements with dictators. Well, first of all, I think it's a much fairer and more accurate description to describe Putin as an authoritarian autocrat. He is actually still elected. And even if people in the west don't like that fact, he is elected. And that's just the reality of the situation. He has an autocratic style that the Russians like. But you are kidding yourself if you think that he is the most authoritarian leader that could possibly take control in Russia. He's not. In Russian terms, this guy is not the extreme authoritarian that some in the west imagine him to be. But here's the thing. Leaving that fact aside, this idea, this notion that we couldn't give concessions and enter into agreements with people who are dictators. I'm sorry, that's exactly what we've done throughout history, consistently. In fact, at the end of World War II, the Allies became fawning allies, so the British Allies and the Americans became fawning partners of Stalin. And Stalin was an actual genocidal dictator and mass murderer. He killed millions more people, tens of millions more people than Hitler ever did. And yet they gave concessions, they carved up Europe, allowed him to take big chunks of Europe, and to exert unjust and awfully tyrannical Soviet Communist rule upon those peoples. And that's what they did to end the war with Hitler. So this idea that suddenly we are no longer able to enter into agreements that are actually quite mild in comparison to what was handed over to Stalin, to me, this just is not consistent. The simple fact is that in order to secure peace, sometimes you actually have to bite the bullet. And as hard and as horrible as that might well be, especially for, like, national pride, I'd hate it, for example, if someone came here, I don't know, Australia invaded and decided that they wanted the north island for themselves, and they took it and put it under Australian control. It would be just awful. It would be hard, it would be a wound. But the reality is it would be far better to have stability and peace in your nation than to have decades of ongoing and very brief violent and brutal warfare that is slaughtering and maiming people all over the place. And I think the reason why we don't tend to think in the complexities of this is because we have been powerfully indoctrinated for the past 80 years with at oftentimes very simplistic and reductionist ideas about World War II. And this war, as I said, was actually a long and very complex war. But the problem is now, after 80 years and the very powerful propagandizing that we've experienced is that we have this thing called film and television. And it's a very emotive and a very powerful shaper of our views and our opinions and our feelings, because the cinematic arts really touch and speak to the person in a very deep and powerful kind of way. And so we've had a constant slew of films and television that have presented very narrow segments of the war. Now, there's nothing wrong with someone focusing on a particular issue during wartime, but the problem is, if we use that as our sole source of judgement and criteria for what World War II is, and that doesn't really include things where they've taken poetic licence or they have presented things in a less than accurate kind of way, and so none of this really helps. And so we've had this sort of indoctrination, a very powerful indoctrination that we have basically laboured under for the last 80 years. And I think now that causes us and really fuels us to treat World War II as an infallible sort of template, as the guide for how we should handle and discern all situations with bullish or even hostile nations. In actual fact, it's far more complex than that. The war itself was more complex than what we generally understand it to be through our sort of very reductionist lens of World War II. But also it sort of causes us to lose sight of moral truth and moral nuance. And that doesn't help. That doesn't help us to sort of grasp the full context and then make sound moral discernment about these issues when they do arise now. And so none of this is helpful. And it is a big problem, and it's part of the mix here. And basically what we are seeing here, again, is the sort of immediate default to England versus Germany, and that's the lens through which we filter all of our wars. And so, you know, Zelenskyy, therefore, he must be the Churchill figure, he's the Churchillian warrior. And of course, that must mean that Putin is Hitler. And none of this. You can see how this isn't helping. This is not contributing to a wise and prudent approach to this war. And as I said, it's a very dangerous trap. And we need to, I think, as Christians, return to the first principles of Christian moral philosophy. We need to go back to those. We need to break the shackles. And one thing that I think is kind of challenging in this moment is there is definitely. It sort of feels to me like there's a. Oh, man. There is a lot of hype and propagandistic hype around all of this and what's going on. It feels a lot like the madness of COVID where everyone was just swept along in this tidal wave and they stopped rowing their own boats. They just got dragged along and it feels like that tide of emotion, except this time, the stakes are far more serious. And I think part of the problem with our simplistic sort of view and allowing World War II to be our sole narrative is I think we've been conditioned to think of war as a simple thing that you sort of. You fight a war and then you move on from it. That tends to be how Hollywood presents war to us today, and war films, et cetera. Violence really is a low cost, kind of like a low impact action in most films today. And, you know, even sadly, even some films about real wars, but even like films more broadly, what tends to happen is it's almost cartoonish. The real true reality of what violence is and what it does in a society is absolutely downplayed by these cartoonish presentations of it. And the sort of idea that you can just fight a war or fight a battle and then you get a happy ending out of it. And the destructive nature of war is seriously downplayed. It is ongoing. It's horrific. I can absolutely attest, put my hand on my heart and say, I would definitely not want to be in any war zone. It's an evil. It's an absolute evil and we should work hard to avoid it because it is such an evil destroyer of peace and human flourishing, especially in the modern context, with modern and very advanced warfare. And I think what this means is we need to develop a more comprehensive and complete understanding of history, particularly World War II. Like I said in my Substack article earlier this week, some of the very same people who have spent the past few years. Actually, it's more like a decade now, isn't it? Invoking sort of anemic caricatures of World War II in that particular period of history. For their own political ends are now really proving in this moment that they don't truly comprehend and understand the real important lessons that World War II actually had to offer us. War is evil. And as I said, an imperfect and costly peace is always preferable to the slaughter and maiming that comes from cheap and easy militarism. You cannot convince me that it would be better to live under the current and truly barbaric slaughter fest that is going on in the Ukraine than it would be to have an uneasy relationship with neighbouring territories. I'm sorry, you just can't convince me that that is the case. And there is a very selective thing going on. Like I said, there's this sort of weird war mania that's sweeping people up, because think about the fact that Georgia was invaded in 2008 and they lost 20% of their territory. But I don't see anyone posting things on social media like, I stand with Georgia. Everyone has just accepted it and moved on. It is proof that you don't actually need to be in a never ending, brutal, barbaric cycle of war. The realities of this world are. They are imperfect. We cannot think that we can find a utopian solution to the issue of stronger nations exerting their will, and sometimes exerting their will in unjust ways. The best we can do is try and bring moral solutions to bear and moral incentives to try and prevent that from happening. And if we have the ability, we should obviously step in if we are legitimately ordained to do such things.
[00:38:57] However, the reality is that we don't live in a utopian world of perfection and these imperfections will plague us. And so we need to always go back to those fundamental moral goods that we are supposed to live and defend and proclaim as followers of Christ. And I think this is really, really important, particularly in this situation as this mania of Ukraine war is sort of sweeping itself all over the globe. People aren't talking about the war in Congo. There's all sorts of evils going on around the world. But people right now are caught in a cycle of very selective outrage and war mania. And that is very, very troubling. Here is my final point, and I think this is really, really important.
[00:39:48] The majority of Ukrainian people, according to polling that was done last year, at the end of last year, and this is polling that has been conducted every year throughout the Ukraine war on a regular basis. And for the first time ever since the start of this war, that poll found that the majority of Ukrainians want a negotiated peace. They want there to be a settled, just, stable civil order again. For the first time during the war, the majority of Ukrainian people say they want a negotiated peace. And that majority increases the closer those Ukrainians are to the actual regions where the fighting is going on. And so it seems, if you're the one who's actually paying the cost and understanding the seriousness, the gravity of the cost, you are more likely to say, we need to have an end to this war. And I think this is so fundamentally important because what we've got is outside of Ukraine, is a whole lot of people from the west on social media who have no intention of getting on a plane, which they can do. Ukraine will welcome you. And fighting and dying or sacrificing their own children or their own family members in this brutal, barbaric war machine, they have no intention of doing that themselves. And despite the fact that the majority of Ukrainians have said at the end of last year they want a negotiated peace. We have these Westerners who are armchair warmongering on social media and just allowing this mania to be whipped up into an absolute frenzy as they continue to demand more and more war. I don't see that there are any perfect solutions out the other side of this. Very rarely are there perfect solutions in this kind of scenario, and I don't see one here. But I tell you what, it would be far better if the violence ended, the war ended, and even an uneasy peace was secured, because that is absolutely the best outcome for the Ukrainian people and for the world. Matthew 5:9 says, Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Thanks for tuning in. Don't forget, live by goodness, truth and beauty, not by lies. And I'll see you next time on the Dispatches.
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