Moral obligation and history

The spectacle of Putin, Xi and Kim Jong Un all chummy in Beijing fills me with revulsion and dread. 'Might is right' has triumphed. The boot stomping down on the human face.

My post-war generation grew up believing that the arc of history tends invariably upward – the 'Whig view of history', the notion that today is better than yesterday, and therefore tomorrow will be better than today. The inhumanity, the barbarism of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, had both been crushed; steamrollered flat by the Allies. But then both were helped to rebuild and invited into the circle of decent nations; within 30 years of the war's end, West Germany and Japan had overtaken the US and the UK in living standards.

But the seeds of the resurgence of old-style might-is-right can be traced back to the original sin which was treating Stalin's Soviet Union as another democracy. The founding charter of the United Nations from 80 years ago mandated its member states, including the USSR, "to maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve higher standards of living for their citizens, address economic, social, health, and related problems, and promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." 

If only those words carried some weight. Allowing the USSR in as a founding party, as well as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, was clearly a mistake; the original sin. 

As deeply flawed as the Western democracies have shown themselves to have been, at least they are not led by leaders who consider putting human beings to death on an industrial scale as policy. 

Saying to Putin "I want this war to end, so you get to keep what you've stolen; you will not be punished and we can get back to working together" is exactly what the Prisoners' Dilemma tells you not to do. This game-theory thought experiment, played out millions of times, clearly shows that if the other guy defects on you, you hit him and do so repeatedly until he relents. Only then, and instantly, you return to the strategy of cooperation. And do so until the next time he defects. To cooperate with an aggressor is to invite future aggression from him. It is that simple. Look at history.

In 416 BC, the Athenians invaded the island of Melos and demanded that its people surrender and pay tribute to Athens or be annihilation. The Melians refused, so the Athenians laid siege to their city. Melos surrendered; the Athenians then executed its men and enslaved its women and children. In the Melian Dialogue, Thucydides' dramatised negotiations between the Athenians and the Melians, the Athenians offer no moral justification for their invasion. Instead they tell the Melians that Athens wants Melos for itself and that the only thing Melians would gain by submitting was not being slaughtered. The Melian Dialogue is still taught as a case study in political realism; the world is brutal, states are selfish, and that the only rational approach is based on power and advantage. The quote "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" is taken as founding statement of political realism.

So another 'life-in-balance' slider can be between utopianism and realism. Is it utopian to want Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine to end with the full withdrawal of Russian forces behind Russia's 2014 borders, and to see Russia punished for the murder and destruction it has wreaked upon Ukraine? Is it realistic to expect Ukraine to give up territory and its ambitions to join NATO and the EU in exchange for a ceasefire? 

Utopians have unrealistic expectations. Politically, they are naive and foolish. (That's utopians of the left and the right, by the way; Brexit was built upon utopian expectations.) Realists, on the other hand, are too ready to accept grubby compromises, to accept corruption, injustice and barbarism.

In my mind, there is an optimal path; it is guided by the solution to the Prisoners' Dilemma: always get on with your fellow (or nation), until they do the dirty on you. Retaliate immediately. Fight back with ruthless determination, until they return to the path of righteousness. As soon as they cease their egregious behaviour – flip back to cooperation and continue cooperating (until their next defection). The problem will then be how to define 'defection', and selecting the appropriate level of counter-strike.

Trump is not clever, he is weak; a pathological narcissist with ADHD. He will fall. But will America be able to pick itself back up? Europe has to take up the slack; I'm delighted that Poland at least is pulling its weight in terms of defence spending. That is a moral obligation.

This time last year:
Sunset's Trip Revisited

This time two years ago:
The Unbearable Pleasance of Flashedback Familiarity

This time three years ago:
The imperceptible end of summer

This time four years ago:

Another new bus stop for ul. Karczunkowska

This time five years ago:
Energy, focus and state of mind

This time six years ago:

50 years on – Gunnersbury Grammar school reunion

This time eight years ago:
All things visible and invisible

This time 10 years ago:
Work starts on Warsaw-Radom rail modernisation

This time 11 years ago:
Won't be long 'til summertime is through

This time 13 years ago:
It was a good year for the apples

This time 15 years ago:
Early-September moan about the commuting