War and peace
The first, and clearly the most important, is the
question of peace. It's fine and commendable that Trump has said he wants to
end all existing wars and not start any new ones. In this connection, he
rightly boasts that in his previous term he was perhaps the first US President
not to launch an armed war against anyone. That is fine. That in itself would
be very nice, but he also expects his NATO partners to increase their defence
spending from 2% to 5%. That is an unbelievable amount. No doubt, if that were
to happen, a lot of that huge amount of money would go to America for American
weapons. And of course, it will come, it will stay, they will raise the
salaries of the troops, they will build, they will develop, they will research,
they will exercise without question.
As Chekhov says: If there's a rifle
hanging on the wall in the first act, it must go off in the last act. The world
is also a theatre. And if there are too many guns, they must go off, for the
sake of dramaturgy. So the road to peace does not necessarily lead through
armaments.
Trump's philosophy is relatively
simple: don't go to war, do business! I prefer "don't make war, make
love", but he prefers "make a deal". But peacebuilding requires
peacebuilders who know what peace means, who know what war means, who know what
people, societies and politics mean. It is an extremely complex, contradictory
world, you have to understand it and you have to want good things, you have to
want noble things, with a human, philosophical mind. This is a task that cannot
be left to Trump with a calm heart. It would require a worldwide, or at least a
sufficiently broad international coalition.
But: thank you, Mr. Trump, for
standing up for peace in this way. We will hold you to account for your
peacekeeping.
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