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As far as Die Linke is concerned, war is not a valid political tool. Our vision for Germany is as a force for peace, one that does not avert its gaze from the violence and injustices of the world, but instead intervenes using tools of peace and stands shoulder to shoulder with those who are being attacked and oppressed. A country in which the primacy of civil authority is unquestioned, one that always tries to find peaceful solutions first and never thinks with its finger on the trigger. A country that is respected around the world for sending neither weapons nor soldiers to other countries, but rather peace workers, developmental aid, and fair trade agreements.
Jan van Aken is co-chair of Die Linke. He was previously a policy advisor for international conflict analysis at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and represented Die Linke in the German parliament from 2009 to 2017, during which time he served on the foreign affairs committee.
Safeguarding peace without resorting to war: that is the challenge we have set ourselves. Over the past few years, many truths once thought to be self-evident have crumbled. Since 2022, many have asked: how can Ukraine defend itself against this brutal aggression? How can peace be obtained without the use of weapons and without Russia taking over the country? There are no easy answers, and as such, many people find themselves at a loss.
Our comrade Raul Zelik summed things up well when he said that “all ‘pragmatic’ solutions are catastrophic. If Russia is able to conquer Ukraine through military force, it will serve as an invitation to all imperialist projects to subject their neighbours to the same. On the other hand, if NATO supplies modern weaponry in order to prevent the Ukrainian military from collapsing, then a war of attrition will be set in motion that will result in hundreds of thousands of deaths at best, and millions at worst.”
There are no simple answers to the situation we currently find ourselves in. Calling for the shipments of arms to Ukraine does not automatically make someone a warmonger. The reverse is also true: those — like myself — who argue against arms shipments are by no means in bed with Putin.
The Primacy of Civil Authority
Die Linke is not a party of radical pacifism. We are conscious of the fact that the Nazi terror claimed the lives of a great many Allied troops — with the Red Army suffering the greatest losses — and could only have been stopped by use of military force. For this reason, our pacifism is centred around the primacy of civil authority. When conflicts become violent, the search for non-military solutions must be prioritized above all else. Instead of quickly reaching for weapons, we must instead try to find smart political solutions that will bring an end to the violence.
The field of peace studies provides us with many examples in which even situations that have escalated can be resolved peacefully. Civil crisis prevention methods can often work more quickly and effectively than the use of weapons. Since World War II, there has seldom been a violent conflict or war comparable to the Nazi terror and to which a peaceful resolution of the conflict would not have been possible.
In my view, the fact that the German government has not systematically deployed any and all diplomatic and economic tools from the outset in an attempt to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war constitutes a central failure. I am convinced that there have been — and continue to be — moments in which a negotiated settlement was and still is possible. It is for this reason that I am opposed to the shipment of arms to Ukraine.
The question of how we can arrive at a peaceful solution as quickly as possible is one for which we must all find an answer, irrespective of whether we are for or against the sending of weapons. Unfortunately, it is a question that is rarely posed, let alone widely discussed. For over two years now, the debate in Germany has been almost exclusively focused on what sort of heavy weaponry should be sent to Ukraine. Those who raise the possibility of diplomacy and negotiations are the subject of ridicule and often attacked with crude insults and excluded from the discussion.
Mapping Out Negotiations in Concrete Terms
Simply shouting “diplomacy!” hardly constitutes an active peace policy. Anyone who seriously believes in solidarity and stands with the people of Ukraine also needs to make concrete suggestions as to how diplomacy can result in a just peace — rather than a dictated peace in which the stronger party gets their way and international law is consigned to the dustbin of history.
Negotiations do not spring up of their own accord — they must be prepared, both practically and politically. Previous wars have taught us that negotiations become more likely when they are publicly discussed by strong partner countries. Applied to the Russia-Ukraine war, this would mean convincing China to push Russia in the direction of peace negotiations.
We will not delude ourselves into thinking that China will stab Russia in the back. But Beijing also sees this war as a grave mistake, and one that endangers its own interests. China has repeatedly signalled its willingness to play a diplomatic role in resolving the war — an offer that the EU and the US are yet to engage with in a meaningful way. It should be clear to everyone that a swift pathway towards peace negotiations is essentially inconceivable without China’s involvement. If Xi Jinping were to issue the invitation to the negotiating table, however, Vladimir Putin would surely accept.
If we are able to learn from our mistakes and, as leftists, return to the principles of détente, then Europe has a chance at a more peaceful future.
And yes, Vladimir Putin will also have to be negotiated with. Peace negotiations always take place between the worst of enemies. There is no need to pursue détente with friends, but rather those who we take issue with or perhaps even condemn politically. Germany needs to decide: does it wish to stand firmly alongside the United States in the global power struggle, in conflict with China? Or is it willing to take the risk of publicly reappraising China, thereby opening a window of possibility for peace?
Our view is clear in this regard: for every tank that has been sent to Ukraine, Olaf Scholz would have been better off flying to Beijing. No one can guarantee that a peace process initiated by China would have already been successful by now. But we can say with absolute certainty that arms shipments have thus far failed to bring us even a millimetre closer to ending the war.
Cooperative Security
A peaceful solution for Ukraine has been made more complicated by the fact that the war has taken on the characteristics of a proxy war. Just two months ago, the US Secretary of Defense stated the goal of permanently weakening the Russian military — an objective that has nothing to do with showing solidarity or support for the people of Ukraine.
The current antagonism between Russia and NATO could also hinder future steps towards achieving a lasting peace. It is therefore important to consider what has happened leading up to the war — not in order to relativize or explain Russia’s war of aggression, but rather to learn from history and avoid repeating the mistakes of the past 30 years in the coming decades.
Long-lasting security will not come from the barrel of a gun — it is the result of long-term cooperation and trust building. Following the example of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) during the Cold War, what is needed again today is a system of cooperative security that spans the Eurasian continent. A security system that involves Russia, China, India, and all the other nations on the continent that would allow for conflicts of interests to be resolved cooperatively — a policy of détente pursued not only by two major powers but rather with the involvement of as many states in the region as possible.
Given Russia’s aggressive incursion into Ukraine, such a system seems unlikelier than ever, since the basis of cooperative security is trust. Re-establishing and developing such trust will be the most important peace-related task of the coming decades. The alternative is a permanent state of military confrontation in the heart of Europe that constantly threatens to escalate into a final major war.
If we are able to learn from our mistakes and, as leftists, return to the principles of détente, then Europe has a chance at a more peaceful future. Our vision of a peaceful Europe is an OSCE 2.0 rather than a Cold War 2.0.
For the majority of people, security is — understandably — a central need. To us, however, security not only means protection from terrorism or aggressive wars, but also protection from hunger, exploitation, poverty, and violence. The United Nations calls this “human security”.
An important step towards cooperative security is reorganizing the German army so that it is solely dedicated to national defence — meaning that it does not have the military capability to carry out a war of aggression or missions abroad. The concept of Nichtangriffsfähigkeit (inability to attack) is our guiding framework for this reorganization and a medium-term reduction of the German army.
Rebuilding International Cooperation
Global problems require global solutions. Epidemics, climate change, poverty, and hunger can only be solved through global cooperation. This requires that all states work together and, in turn, that we ensure a strong UN — one that is significantly more capable to act than it is at present. The undemocratic structure of the UN Security Council and the veto rights possessed by only a handful of states means that it is unfit to solve the world’s problems.
Increasing the number of Security Council members or expanding the right to veto will not change anything with respect to the organization’s fundamental problems. For this reason, we advocate that the United Nations be reformed so that important powers — above all decisions concerning the maintenance of world peace — are transferred from the Security Council to the UN General Assembly. This will ensure that double standards regarding the observance of human rights be kept in check. Human rights are indivisible, and must apply equally to everyone, everywhere, and at all times. As things currently stand, human rights violations are often ignored in the day-to-day affairs of the UN and sometimes even misused as a pretext for war when it serves the interests of those with veto rights.
Die Linke supports all efforts toward disarmament from below, whereby civil society works globally to curb the military madness wherever possible.
The UN’s multilateral character, which in theory means that all states should be able to develop solutions to problems on an equal footing, remains the ultimate goal. At present, however, we are sadly witnessing the development of a trend in the opposite direction — that of a standoff between two blocs, with Russia and China on one side and the NATO states on the other. This kind of bipolarity would best be avoided at all costs, as it is the most volatile possible constellation and represents a perpetual security risk for the global community. A multipolar world in which the EU also acts with greater strategic independence from the United States would therefore constitute a key intermediary step on the long road towards a truly multilateral world.
Chapter VII of the UN Charter allows for armed troops to be deployed as a last resort to safeguard world peace. This concept of “robust” UN missions has proven a complete failure, however, and we reject it. According to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, military missions entail the UN fighting on one side of a conflict and attempting to win a war militarily. “Robust” missions do not constitute a peaceful solution, but are instead a continuation of war with military means in order to force an outcome.
Many previous missions have shown that UN forces lack the strength to genuinely participate in a war and win it militarily. The UN would need to be able to command a very large military force of its own in order to be able to effectively take part in “robust” missions. I also wholeheartedly reject the idea of the UN as a military power that is capable of waging and winning wars against any other country on Earth as long as it is controlled by an undemocratic Security Council.
In contrast, I believe that conventional UN peacekeeping missions that are deployed impartially, with the agreement of all parties, and without the use of violence after a peace treaty has been signed — such as the one in Cyprus — can play an important role in preserving peace. I would hope that as a party we have the opportunity to have a fundamentally collective discussion of this — undoubtedly controversial — issue.
The party has already taken steps towards engaging in such a discussion on the issue of sanctions. I think that if used properly, economic or other sanctions against individual countries or individuals can be effective means of exerting pressure on those who threaten world peace, just as the UN Charter envisages. There is, however, vast potential for sanctions to be misused, and in some cases millions of innocent people have been impacted by them. Poorly designed sanctions simply do not work, and very poorly designed sanctions can cause a great deal of harm.
It is therefore crucial that we define clear goals for sanctions, as well as ensuring clarity in terms of what is required for them to be lifted, in order to ensure that they are not in service of national or ego-driven interests, and to direct them specifically so that they only affect the perpetrators and their power bases and keep undesired repercussions to an absolute minimum. I find smart sanctions of this kind worth considering on a case-by-case basis, so long as they constitute a UN-directed expression of international solidarity with the attacked, persecuted, and oppressed of the world.
Meaningful Disarmament
The architecture of disarmament from the Cold War era lies in ruins, and all signs point to a worldwide trend of military build-up, with the threat of a new arms race between the China/Russia bloc and NATO looming on the horizon. Within the United Nations, there is little to be seen in the way of efforts concerning disarmament.
For this reason, Die Linke supports all efforts toward disarmament from below, whereby civil society works globally to curb the military madness wherever possible. In the past few decades, a number of such initiatives have been successful, from the banning of landmines to the Arms Trade Treaty to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. We wish to build on these successes and support global initiatives in favour of disarmament and reducing military expenditure. At the same time, we must also break away from the logic of the Cold War, think globally, and above all involve China.
Our vision is for a country that does not simply stand by as war crimes and human rights violations are being committed, but rather exerts its influence and utilizes its experience to help resolve conflicts peacefully.
As a party and a peace movement, we should definitively support the “10 Percent for All” global initiative, which advocates for a simultaneous reduction of all military budgets. The basic idea is simple: if all countries were to reduce their military expenditure at the same time, each individual country’s relative security would remain the same. The balance of power would not change, and 244 billion US dollars would be saved every year — money that could be used to fight poverty and the impacts of climate change.
Building Peace Ourselves
Our vision is for a country that does not simply stand by as war crimes and human rights violations are being committed, but rather exerts its influence and utilizes its experience to help resolve conflicts peacefully. A country that does not conduct foreign policy using military force or by sending weapons. A country in which the health minister does not make hospitals fit for military use, but instead ensures they cater to the needs of the people. One in which the ministry of education does not suggest that schools start conducting civil defence drills, but instead introduces peace education classes. One in which the ministry of economic affairs regulates the arms industry in order to protect world peace rather than supporting its interests.
This kind of peace-oriented security policy — or secure peace policy — will not materialize on its own. We can only achieve it by working together. The vision of Germany as a force for peace is not a utopian dream — we can make it a reality in the here and now. We are ready.
Translated by Ryan Eyers and Louise Pain for Gegensatz Translation Collective.