One of the basic reasons for the existence of the rule of law, one of its deepest and most foundative natural objectives, is to prevent the strongest always “reason” on the weakest. That is, it is to make it possible that those who are less strong, less rich, less fortunate, less introduced, are not obliged to succumb to the abuse of those who have and are more, for the sole reason for not being and not having. This is why, for example, there are, in terms of internal law, procedural guarantees; It is always for these reasons and with these objectives, trivializing and simplifying, that exists – or rather it would be to say: there was – international law, in all its joints. With these principles we grew up, and for these reasons we have learned that democracies are preferable to aristocracies. Of course, this has always been mainly theory: in practice injustices have always existed, and no state of law and no international law have made people and nations truly free and equal. Indeed, those who criticize radically, usually using Marxist criteria, liberaldemocratic constitutional principles and international law, tend to say that they are both – national and supranational laws – only a hypocritical cosmetics that makes the substance of the abuse more trangiable.

Trump’s sad charm

This is why a certain impression, in today’s time, to see that similar arguments run on the mouth not only of old tools of communism which was, but also of different (ex) liberal (mysteriously fascinated by the autocratic axis that unites Trump’s Washington with Putin’s fly. They are perhaps excess of self -criticism, however marginal episodes compared to the main photograph, which is already no longer that of the oval study in which Trump and his bobs vans brutalize Zelensky, but the one we have in front, all to be deciphered. To understand the future of “peace” between Russia and Ukraine, it is perhaps worth it, now that it is forced to close, to concern the frames of the war in line in line two years ago. One morning in February 2022, Putin decided to invade Ukraine by asserting the need to “denote” the nearby territories. That in Ukraine there were ultra -annualist, even violent, and markedly anti -rough pushes, is true; It was equally true that pieces of Ukrainian territory, with strong demographic components of Russian minorities, had already been illegally occupied in previous years by Russia without the international community was activated, apart from the imposition of sanctions – these yes – certainly cosmetic, so as not to be weakened Russia nor to discourage the idea of ​​a large -scale invasion, to which only the US secret services believed, and which is then punctually occurred.

Putinian propaganda

The denial of Ukraine was obviously a lie of Putinian propaganda. The goal was a control over a wider piece of Ukrainian territory, and make Europeans and Americans feel that with Russia, militarily, there was no joke. There are those who imagined and still make it the attack on Ukraine was prodromal and further Russian expansionist aims on pieces of Eastern Europe or on Baltic countries. It is possible, but nobody can be sure: moreover, the precarious balance on the Ukrainian fault has rectum for a while, before jumping rapidly, in a few years. He founded, fundamentally, until, after the years in which Putin was fond of and pampered by many western and European leaders, not only the more picturesque ones, a Modus Vivendi had found himself who found his pivot in Angela Merkel, in his strategy of procrastination and in the energy dependence of his country. After that, finished – seemed forever – the era of Trump and his explicit isolationism, Putin attacked. Different voices, certainly not all Putinian, suggested that – without prejudice to the obvious injustice of the Russian intervention – it was wise to seek rapid appeasement, giving something about the land and principles, but avoiding the enchantedness of a war, its human and economic consequences. This was reasonably the goal with which – it was June 2022, for many reasons it seems the last century – Draghi, Macron and Scholz go to Kiev to meet Zelensky. No right peace can be done without it being well to those who have been attacked, Giorgia Meloni reiterated it a few weeks ago. And three leaders of the founding countries of Europe had probably gone to offer the availability and support for the European future of a mutilated Ukraine but – it was hoped – without more blood, and in any case sovereign. British and Americans – those who have the true military support capacity – promised unlimited support, “until victory”, and so it was that the war continued to date, without any more, never questioned the trajectory of the story, but not even the basic principles. That is, military support until victory, as if it really had been possible and realistic, to a country that has been unjustly attacked.

Trump’s arrival

This foundation of the action and support was quickly flacked and subverted with the arrival of Donald Trump. That, certainly tired of spending money for the distant Ukrainian, completely indifferent to functions of geopolitical influence, not hostile to Putin and its any skunies that will reasonably not concern the US, to make life easier has also reversed the sign of the story, in fact by adhering founding, substantially embracing the Russian narrative of Ukrainian aggression-European to be contained. The blatant humiliation of the other day is only the final penalty of a substantial process that was already clear and which brings us back, after all, to the questions that they asked us precisely three years ago. In a moment in which the most powerful man in the world seems to say, looking at every latitude, that the strongest is always right, and that with him the generosity affected Made in the USA inaugurated during the Second World War and continued with the Marshall plan will be archived forever; In a moment in which on the nature of the invasion of Ukraine it is voted to the UN, and together with Russia it votes Israel, while the US more can refrain, the question – before the ancient “What to do?” – It concerns what we want to be and risk.

A different future for Europe

Before the institutions, after all, it concerns each conscious citizen who must know that greater expenditure and investment in weapons means more taxes or cuts to something else, first of all. But then, also, that imagining a Europe that can be used with lenses of global power, means imagining a whole place different from what imagined the noble fathers and of which we enjoyed, children, were also ignoble. And going back, to go on, it also means finding a public discourse in which it is said that compromise and politics, real European weapons, deserve to be treated with respect and care, even when our hands and consciousness dirty. To understand each other: imagine for a moment that Draghi Scholz and Macron had returned with a yes by Zelensky in the pocket, that the pact holds up, that the fire came first and then to some compromise of peace, however unjust. Of course, Putin would not have been defeated. But he couldn’t even find himself in the position of the real winner, just three years later.