The path to war: Rouben Azizian reflects on the developments that have led to open conflict in Ukraine.

• Author: Azizian, Rouben

What is unfolding today is a tragedy probably unprecedented in the last decade or so or more in Europe or in the world. Whatever our interpretation and whatever we call it--some call it a war, others call it invasion, others again are allowed only to call it a special military operation--I think we all agree that something needs to be done. We need to stop the war. We need to stop the human losses.

This event has triggered a number of conversations that are appropriate for the NZIIA, many of whose members are university scholars, students and others interested in international relations. The conflict has triggered many debates, and triggered new and various interpretations of what is going on. We are starting to hear realists like John Mearsheimer and Henry Kissinger remind us that hard power and military power are not redundant, that buffer states should still be considered as an option and that having nuclear weapons is the only way to defend peace in the world. But we are also hearing other voices, from Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman, and idealists and constructivists, that refer to the unprecedented solidarity that we are seeing and to businesses that are ending their business activities because of the pressure of public opinion. We are talking about the possibility of a confrontation between values at a level unseen before, of autocracy versus democracy.

We are seeing some historical parallels being made. Is Ukraine Russia's new Afghanistan? I remember that when Soviet troops entered Afghanistan it was called a limited contingent. Today it is called special military operation. We know what happened. The Soviet Union stayed for ten years in Afghanistan. Somebody referred to Ukraine as a new Iraq; the actors are different, but the substance is the same. Perhaps this is the new Srebrenica, something that will trigger major action and a humanitarian response to what is happening. Or are we dealing with a new divided Korea, where, at the end of the day after all the bloodshed, the two parties agree to the partition of Ukraine, something that we have seen in Korea to the relative satisfaction of external powers but eternal grievance of the Korean people? And, of course, we all read about implications of the crisis for the China-Taiwan situation and elsewhere.

There are many theories about what is going on. One that is particularly popular is about a crazy man sitting in the Kremlin, and if we can do something about that then we will be all fine. That reminds me of an old movie by Stanley Kubrick in the 1960s--Dr. Strangelove, which was about an unhinged air force pilot who was going to drop a nuclear bomb on the Soviet Union; except this time, we...