"The main lesson of history is that peoples and governments have never learned anything from it!" Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) "Peoples and governments only embark on the path of rational action when they have exhausted all other possibilities!" WF Hegel

"Those who forget the past are condemned to relive it!" Georg Santayana The Last Man? Francis Fukuyama (1952-), the famous philosopher and economist's controversial work: The End of History and the Last Man.
(Hungarian: Európa Kiadó, 1994.) In it, he talks about how the Cold War ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991, and a very boring era begins, because history ends.
Beyond this, humanity lives in a beautiful new world without wars and conflicts ( Aldous Huxley - Rich L), thanks to the worldwide victory of liberal democracy.

Actually, Fukuyama envisioned the great ultra-liberal globalization, maybe he had an influence on György Soros

Samuel P. Huntington 's work The Clash of Civilizations and the Emergence of the New World Order
was published, as if resonating with this, although not alluding to it In it, he explains that the East-West opposition is being replaced by the struggle between cultural circles, mainly the increasing conflict between Islam, which is becoming more and more aggressive, and the world outside of it, but he also refers to the rise of China. As for the serious dangers of the aggressive expansion of Islam, Oriana Fallaci and Claude Cahen drew attention to this long
before September 11, 2001!
Fallaci warned: “There is no Islamic extremism! Islam itself is extremism!” C. Cahen and Islam c. in his work (Gondolat Kiadó, 1989) explains that in 19 of the 20 war conflicts that broke out in the twenty years between 1965-1985, at least one party was Muslim.

Could the end of Fukuyama's book title, "the last man", be some kind of vatis intuition of the global "brave new world" predicted in his book?
Something is emerging from this conjecture today, but not in the way Fukuyama predicted: the Russian-Ukrainian war could mean a completely different end for humanity!

The West's missed opportunity.

Mikhail Gorbachev once said that he wanted to prevent the disintegration of the Soviet Union, because it would have been good for the whole world if the huge Eurasian empire had succeeded in democratizing it as a whole. However, he added, he did not receive any help from the West for this! Let's see what happened! In the European territory of the former Soviet Union alone, nine new states were created, among which serious ethnic-territorial conflicts were often coded from the beginning. Just think of the Azeri-Armenian-Georgian triple hotbed in the Caucasus! But I could also mention the tragic disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s: wouldn't there have been a more meaningful and humane solution by keeping this Balkan state together and democratizing it? The disintegration of Czechoslovakia took place in a peaceful manner, but what did those two peoples gain? Nothing good!

In addition, in the post-Soviet region, repulsive dictatorships emerged very quickly, such oligarchic states, often through the transfer of power from the former party nomenclature. Something like this happened in Russia! However, the Western political elite also bears a huge responsibility for all of this!!! Just as they handled the processes taking place in the Arab world ("Arab Spring" instead of "Arab Spring" or "Arab Chaos"!) or the crisis in Afghanistan, which has been going on since 1979, they reacted incorrectly to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Unfortunately, this already had the ideological background, which prepared the scenario that went tragically wrong!

The Brzezinski Doctrine

Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017), Jimmy Carter's (1977-1981) chief national security advisor, published his thesis that the main interest of the United States of America in the new world situation is to prevent Russia and Europe (especially Germany) from meeting each other , because the alliance of these two huge economic-political-military giants would represent serious competition for America, breaking its world political-strategic hegemony.
Napoleon said: " Old generals always prepare for the wars of the past!" And we can continue his train of thought: mentally old, incapable of development, dogmatic politicians and political scientists always want to prepare for the political conflicts of the past!

Well, the Brzezinski doctrine has come true, we can safely say that, and human history has taken a tragic turn! It would have been in the interest of the West, and indeed of all humanity, if Europe, Russia, and the USA found each other and joined forces to jointly solve the world's major problems! Among these global problems, I would highlight two focal points here:

1. The democratization and thus integration of China,
2. Stopping the spread of Islam and even forcefully suppressing it.

Leopards again against T-tanks?

In January 1943, Friedrich Paulus ' 6th German Army was in full swing in the snowfields around Stalingrad. (I'm just interjecting: the destruction of the 2nd Hungarian Army, the most serious disaster in Hungarian military history, was a tragic sideline to this!) At that time, there were Panthers (= Leopards) facing Soviet T-34 tanks. Did anyone think then that in 80 years, German Leopards will face Russian T-tanks again? I believe that this fact, like a drop of the sea, reflects and concentrates the essence of the absurdity of our days!

What Fukuyama didn't count on: human stupidity! If István Ráth-Végh were alive today, he could rewrite The Story of Human Stupidity, he would have plenty of ammunition! Arnold Toynbee , the famous historian, formulated the theory of cultural circles.
According to him , 22 great civilizational culture circles have emerged in history, each of them went through the evolutionary phases of birth-childhood-mature adulthood-aging-destruction.
Question: so now The Twilight of the West follows, to use the title of an Oswald Spengler work as a paraphrase?
Think about China and other emerging nations in Asia! (I will add that many people misunderstand it, because they are not familiar with Spengler's book published in 1919! By the West, he meant the civilization that existed west of Germany, especially its defining Anglo-Saxon character, which was soon to be replaced by the emerging East Germanic cultural circle. Of course, the Nazis liked the died abandoned, outcast, poor

Western civilization is on the path of self-destruction at an astonishing rate, almost justifying Toynbee! I see this self-destruction in three major areas today:

1. Ultra-liberal migration policy, and mainly within this the systematic organization and promotion of the mass influx of Muslims. It is historical experience that Muslims cannot be integrated en masse into any other culture! Either they transform the given society in their own image (today the most populous Muslim country is Indonesia!), even by force, or they live in constant conflict within the host society, creating inclusions. See the no-go zones of Europe's big cities!

2. Magnifying the importance of the LGBTQ issue to an unrealistic level, increasing it to the point of absurdity. This has nothing to do with exclusion, homophobia and the like! This otherwise really existing and important issue should only be dealt with in its proper place: giving the people concerned the right to a free, human life. But that's not what we're talking about here today. Mass reassignment surgery on children, chanting of the slogan "let men be born too", etc.

3. The third area is the most dangerous today: the short-sighted Russophobic policy of the West. And here we have to ignore Russia's political system and the personality traits of its current leader!

Ukraine Russia's soft underbelly!

In 1943, Churchill wanted to dissuade Roosevelt from establishing a second front on the Atlantic coast, fearing heavy losses. Instead, he suggested Italy and the Balkans for landing, saying that this region is the "soft underbelly of Europe". In the end, the Italian campaign materialized, but the Balkan invasion did not. Today, Russia's "soft underbelly" is Ukraine. This should finally be understood, realized! At the same time, Western politicians often forget that Russia is also a nuclear superpower! Not one of the nine countries possessing nuclear weapons (Russia, USA, China, France, Great Britain, Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea), but one of the two superpowers! Today, 98% of all nuclear destructive power is concentrated in two countries: Russia and the USA. Liz Truss , the British Prime Minister who spent only 45 days in office and then failed miserably, said that if necessary, she would press that certain button.
Mrs. Liz is obviously not aware of the ratios: Great Britain's nuclear destructive power is 5 megatons today, Russia's 13 thousand megatons. A nuclear superpower cannot be defeated militarily !
Of course, far away, on the periphery, yes, as I could mention Vietnam and Afghanistan (in the latter, Russia and the USA also failed), but that is a different case. It could only have happened because it was not worth taking such a big risk for these areas.
We could see that the SS-4 Russian nuclear missiles installed in Cuba had already angered the United States, and Khrushchev had to withdraw them in the end. Of course, in return, the Americans withdrew the 15 Jupiter missiles from Turkey, but no one talked about this at the time.

On December 16, 1944, Hitler launched his western campaign in the Ardennes by recapturing Antwerp, the huge port.
"Antwerp is a dagger to the heart of England!" he told his generals. Well, today Kiev is nothing more than a dagger in the heart of Russia! The Russian bear may have already been wounded, but it will not tolerate NATO installing nuclear missiles in its rear!

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russia once again experienced the feeling of being surrounded, of being threatened again from the West, and the irresponsible Russophobic policy of the West was the culprit. Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999), it would have been possible to democratize Russia
and integrate it into NATO, the European Union, and otherwise together with Ukraine. Let's imagine such an alliance! Would anyone dare to oppose this, pull a finger with such force? China, North Korea, and the entire Islamic world would pull together! Instead came the Brzezinski Doctrine, an effort to isolate Russia by force. NATO expanded to Russia's borders in an unfaithful way, and in 2013, with the "Majdan Square coup d'état", the Russians' sister nation, Ukraine, managed to separate from it. That alone is a perfect casus belli! On the other hand, all of this obviously played a role in the development of Russian domestic politics, in the consolidation of Putin's dictatorship, as it reinforced the desire for a "strong hand" in the Russian masses!

But let's make it clear: no Russian leadership, be it the democratically elected president and government, or the current dictatorship led by Putin, can allow a hostile force, such as NATO, to gain a foothold in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin strongly warned against this, indicating that this is the red line, so far and no further! Joe Biden's amazingly stupid answer to this: "Ukraine is a free country, enter wherever you want!" What would have happened if President Eisenhower to Nikita Khrushchev in the fall of 1956? Nuclear war would have broken out even then! The short-sightedness of Western politicians is amazing!

If they no longer sought to integrate Russia into NATO and the European Union, then at least the undoubted security interests of Russia should have been taken into account.
For example, Finland, the post-Soviet Baltic states, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria could have formed a neutral buffer zone! (I note: this would have been possible already in 1945, even the Stalinist leadership had such ideas! It's just that Churchill's Fulton speech in March 1946 came "too early"! Nobody talks about it today!)

Meanwhile, in the 1990s, the whole of Europe could have built fruitful economic-technological-cultural relations with this huge giant with immeasurable resources spread over two continents. Instead, they made him an enemy, pushed him into the arms of China, Iran, North Korea! Joseph Fouché , Napoleon's former police minister, would say to this

The West bears a tremendous responsibility for the current Russian-Ukrainian war, for the immeasurable suffering of the Ukrainian people! After the Majdan Square coup, through some experimentation, they found the worst possible solution in the person of an ordinary clown, a rascal! The West was guiltily silent amid the strengthening of Ukrainian nationalism-chauvinism and the intensification of the harsh oppression of minorities. Of course, Putin mentions fascism, more precisely, Nazism in the case of Ukraine, not entirely without reason! Today, this state has nothing to do with democracy, with the traditional values ​​of Western civilization! This country today is a repulsive, corrupt dictatorship to the core, but even that is more of a lousy farce! The Russian minority of seven million finally satisfied all this, took their fate into their own hands!

At the same time, Western politicians have no idea about the history of this region, for example, about the last two hundred years of the Crimean peninsula! Because if there were, they would not demand back to Ukraine what never belonged to Ukraine, at least on paper, as a special "gift" from Khrushchev from February 1954! As for the two counties of Donbass, has anyone in the West spoken out against the anti-Russian atrocities that unfolded there, and then against the war of mass murder going on in the two counties after the referendum there? Which had 15,000 civilian dead in eight years! Did any of the Western politicians say that the Ukrainians and the Russians should sit down to negotiate and settle these issues? Even before the referendum organized in Crimea, in 2014, the Ukrainian leadership should have sat down and discussed with the Russians living there: what did you want, what should we fulfill in order for you to stay? The same applies to the two counties of Donbass. This war could have been avoided, it should have been avoided!

Why didn't the West assist in this, why did it try to increase the tension? John McCain , doing on Majdan Square among the protesters ? Why was Joe Biden, the prodigal son of the American vice president at the time, installed on the board of directors of a Ukrainian oil company?

We are approaching nuclear war! Jens Stoltenberg, the Secretary General of NATO, declares that they will continue to help the country militarily until Ukraine wins. Boris Johnson , former British Prime Minister, encouraged the Ukrainians in Kiev to "kick the Russians out of their territories"! Ursula von der Leyen reflected that if Ukraine loses, then Ukraine will cease to exist (which is simply not true, this is not the goal of the war on the Russian side!), but if Russia loses, then she will have to give up at most territories, but she has them anyway enough.
This is also a terrible mistake, a very dangerous mistake! Because if Russia loses, the Federation may even disintegrate, as myopic Western politicians are already envisioning this, wringing their hands. But I beg you: Russia is a thermonuclear superpower!!!!

On the other hand, a Russian defeat would also be the defeat of Vladimir Putin, and of course the defeat of his court, which they will not watch with folded hands! That is why we are much closer to a nuclear war today than we were in October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis! Then both parties knew that he and the other were bluffing, and everyone knew in advance what the solution would be. No bluffing today, everything is bloody serious today!

On the battlefields of Ukraine, a psychopathic dictator is facing a sleazy clown, and the latter is supported by a set of completely stupid, stupid Western political leaders! This is the worst possible combination!

I fear that Vladimir Putin will not wait much longer: he will use tactical nuclear weapons as a form of discipline.
It is also predictable where, as his spokesman has already indicated: "We will cover the German and American tanks in flames!" With what? Only with nuclear weapons! It is clear that the Abrams and Leopards will not attack scattered (these are not defensive weapons!), but in a unified formation, as the Nazis once did during the blitzkrieg. And this is how you can destroy them in one block with a tactical nuclear weapon. Not with anyone else!

Believe me, dear reader: my best hope is that this is just an empty phantasmagoria, I see only horrors, I cry wolf like the shepherd boy once! But before February 24, 2022, I myself laughed at the fact that the Americans announced the date of the Russian attack every day, and then it never happened. At least for a while…

Dixi et salvavi animam meam! (I told and saved my soul - more simply: I told, now my conscience is clear.)

Source: tollésigaság.odalunk.hu

Author: Dr. László Gazdag, retired university associate professor

(Header image: MTI/EPA )